Ben Carlson

Why Value Investing Works

“This [value investing] is a pretty good thing to have as part of your portfolio but it does not always work, cause nothing does.” – Cliff Asness In his recent speech at the Morningstar Conference, Cliff Asness of AQR Capital Management shared his thoughts on the two main reasons that value investing works: (1) Cheap…

Available Doesn’t Mean Necessary

“We could spend the rest of our lives researching an ever-increasing number of choices and searching for perfect, but to what end? We have better things to do.” – Carl Richards

How Diversification Smooths Investment Cycles

“A great deal of data, and all my experience, tell me that the only thing we can predict about cycles is their inevitability.” – Howard Marks Howard Marks has the uncanny ability to take the complex topic of investing and translate the big picture ideas into simple terms. This is a rare trait in the…

Was the 1966-1982 Stock Market Really That Bad?

“Investment success accrues not so much to the brilliant as to the disciplined.” – William Bernstein In January of 1966 the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a level of 990. It would continue trading in a range of roughly 600 to 1,000 over the following 17 years. It once again reached 990 in December of 1982…

Warren Buffett’s Biggest Losses

“Unless you can watch your stock holding decline by 50% without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market.” – Warren Buffett A good starting point to gauge investment performance is to compare your results against a simple buy and hold portfolio. While there are certainly ways to improve the performance of buy and hold,…

How The Unemployment Rate Affects Stock Market Performance

“Fear has a greater grasp on human action than does the impressive weight of historical evidence.” – Jeremy Siegel If I had to narrow down the list of reasons that so many investors have missed out on one of the greatest bull markets in history it would be these two factors: The recency effect has…

Financial Lessons From Tupac

“Constantly movin while makin millions.” – Tupac, Me Against the World In my freshmen year high school english class our teacher asked us to name our favorite famous poet. Not being very well-versed in the field of poetry I answered rapper Tupac Shakur (I was only half kidding). Not only is Tupac one of my…