Long-term government bonds have been on an absolute tear this year. The 20+ Year Treaury ETF (TLT) is up almost 20% on the year as interest rates have continued to drop.

“The way we traditionally conceive of ignorance—as an absence of knowledge—leads us to think of education as its natural antidote. But education can produce illusory confidence.” – David Dunning I have to imagine that having a behavioral bias named after your work is one of the highlights of the psychology profession (the Nobel prize isn’t…

The best thing I read this week comes from Bob Maynard, CIO of the $14.2 billion Idaho Public Pension Plan. Maynard’s entire approach is based on the premise that increased complexity is failing professional investors. Instead of fighting complex markets with complex strategies, Maynard favors a simpler approach, as he states in a write-up for…

Forbes has an excellent profile out on DoubleLine’s Jeffrey Gundlach. The entire piece is worth a read since Gundlach is not only one of the most respected investors out there today but he’s also very outspoken and entertaining. There was one part of the interview that I thought was interesting as it relates to the…

Last week I looked at some of the options available to bond investors in a low rate world. I showed that subsequent returns over the next decade tend to track the current interest rate level very closely. Here’s that graph again from the Wall Street Journal:

“We’ll begin with the obvious: about 80% of all mutual funds could shut their doors today and not be missed.” – David Snowball

“It [precious metals stocks] has bone-crushing volatility.” – William Bernstein If there’s been a worse place to be as an investor over the past few years than precious metals stocks then I haven’t found it. This year a diversified basket of these metals and mining companies is down around 16% but over the past three…

Asset allocation is the most important investing decision that rarely gets much discussion. Sure, investors are constantly talking about going all-in or all-out between stocks and cash, but that’s not really asset allocation, that’s portfolio suicide.

Research Affiliates has a useful new online tool that allows investors to play around with expected risk and return statistics for a number of different markets. You can sort by asset class, country or region. Here’s one that shows the 10 year real expected returns for a handful of asset classes: You should notice an…

“Financial advisors frame themselves as investment managers, providers of “beat-the-market” pills, when, in truth, they are mostly managers of investors.” – Meir Statman In my opinion, managing your emotions is by far the most important aspect of managing money. For a number of reasons – time, lack of expertise or lack of willpower – it…