“Believe there are bubbles, but don’t go around looking for them and betting the ranch on them.” – Cliff Asness Jeremy Grantham is a legend among investing circles. His quarterly letters are on my must-read list. I’ve seen him speak before and he has the uncanny ability to make complex investing topics easy to understand, which I…

“Rule number one: most things will prove to be cyclical. Rule number two: some of the greatest opportunities for gain and loss come when people forget rule number one.” – Howard Mark Here’s a breakdown of the S&P 500 sector ETFs ranked from best to worst performance by year over the past decade along with…

“Avoid the twin impostors of short term out- and under-performance. It is important for us to remember what really matters is the long-term.” – Howard Marks At what point in the past are you judging your stock performance? The first few weeks of April? Didn’t look so great. The last year? Much better. 2008? Not…

“When clients pay attention to noise, we call it dumb. When advisors do it, we call it research.” – Carl Richards Business Insider ran the following graph with data from a recent Oxford University study on the jobs that are most at risk of being replaced by robots in the future: I’ve highlighted 8th occupation…

“Sixty/40 is anchored in a really important existential point—the benefit of diversification.  So, to say that 60/40 is dead is basically to say that diversification is dead—at least as far as it goes between stocks and bonds.” – Nicholas Colas The 60/40 stock/bond portfolio is often used as a simple benchmark for a balanced asset allocation….

“Successful investing can almost be easy: Avoid harmful “accidents” and do what will achieve your own most important long-term objectives. The very human irony is that learning this lesson can take so many years that by the time we “get it,” it may be too late to use the lesson because the powers of compounding…

“The goal of the advisor shouldn’t be to beat the market by picking stocks or winning funds. Advisors add value by providing the discipline required for successful investing. They add value in areas like tax efficiency, risk management, estate planning and retirement planning.” – John Bogle Investors on Wall Street are obsessed with beating the…

“Having a plan is important because it’s impossible to make rational decisions about investments without one.” – Larry Swedroe An investment policy statement (IPS) is something every investor needs to be able to achieve their long-term financial goals.  Without one you are basically a rudderless ship drifting across a vast ocean.  You’ll be lost. An…

“To make reliable decisions you must always weigh how right you think you are against how sorry you will be if you turn out to be mistaken.” – Jason Zweig One of the most difficult financial planning questions to answer is: How much do I need to retire? According to BlackRock’s Annual Retirement Survey, 50% of…

“Whether you take a risk depends not just on the probability that you are right but also on the consequences if you are wrong.” – Peter Bernstein Common sense reader mailbag: You write a lot about investing in index funds. Are these truly the best investment option or are there alternatives that I should be…