Ben Carlson

Lessons for the Wealthy From Tim Duncan

Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs is arguably the greatest power forward in NBA history. Unfortunately, success puts a target on your back when it comes to financial advice. It was recently discovered that Duncan has joined the long list of rich people that have been taken advantage of through lousy investments or shady…

What Happens When the Umbrella Shop Gets Too Crowded?

A reader asks: Now that factor funds keep getting launched, do you think that will ultimately spell doom for any potential future out-performance? This is a great question. Investing in factors, tilts, anomalies or whatever you want to call them is definitely becoming more mainstream because the academic research is now well-known. ETFs and mutual…

Why Does Bill Gross Have a Financial Advisor?

“I’m intimidated by my financial adviser, he knows how little I know.” – Daniel Kahneman The Wall Street Journal recently shared an interesting piece of news about Bill Gross’s new fund with Janus Capital. Investors poured $1.1 billion, an important threshold for attracting institutional clients, into his brand new unconstrained bond fund. That’s a pretty…

A Dozen Things I’ve Learned From Tren Griffin

Tren Griffin writes one of my favorite blogs at 25iq.com. His ongoing series of a dozen things he’s learned from various investors, business leaders, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs and is an amazing collection of quotes and insights. I always look forward to these posts because I every time I learn something new.

The Real Risk to a 60/40 Portfolio

A recent Fidelity poll of financial advisors found that their biggest worry right now is rising interest rates over all else. It’s ironic that so many people are worried about rising rates when all rates continue to do is fall. These advisors are not alone as many investors are worried about the future prospects for…

Questions Most Investors Don’t Ask

Early in my career I was given a great piece of advice — if you want to learn, just keep asking questions. Some people are nervous that they’ll sound unintelligent by asking too many questions but I’ve always found that asking questions is a true form of intelligence. It shows that you care about the…

Would Keynes Have Been Fired as a Money Manager Today?

“Investing is intolerably boring and over-exacting to anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll.” – John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes gets plenty of attention in the world of economics based on his macroeconomic theories, but many don’t realize that…

The Robo-Advisor Challenge

Robo-advisors make up a tiny fraction of the financial advisory business. Registered investment advisors oversee roughly $5 trillion in AUM, while robo-advisors currently have less than $15 billion in total. But because of their rapid growth in AUM over the past few years, robo-advisors are increasingly coming under scrutiny from traditional advisors.

The Difference Between Good & Bad Markets

Michael Batnick had a great post this past week about the “lost decade” for the S&P 500 in the 2000s (see What Lost Decade?). It’s a nice reminder of the benefits of global and style diversification in a portfolio after the a select group of stocks in the U.S. have performed so well over the…