If you really want to find a scapegoat for volatility or losses in your portfolio, you don’t have to look very far. The financial media and investors who lack self-awareness are very quick to point a finger after seeing their holdings fall for a number of reasons — high frequency trading, the Fed, risk parity,…

Third Avenue Management, a giant in the distressed sector of fixed income, told investors in one of their mutual funds this past week that they would be blocking redemptions from the fund. Basically, the fund offered daily liquidity but was holding securities that were illiquid and hard to trade. And as a kicker, it’s a…

“If you’re not confused [on the economy], you don’t understand things very well.” – Charlie Munger

There was a great interview this week between Quartz’s Matt Phillips and The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Zweig. Phillips asked Zweig about risk in the stock market and the need for higher returns by many investors. His response about one of the biggest lies on Wall Street was really important for investors — and savers —…

“You need to build a machine that delivers something that’s consistent with what you promised the customers you would do.” – Ken Fisher I had the pleasure of attending the IMN Global Indexing and ETFs Conference this week in beautiful Scottsdale, AZ. The main focus of this conference was on the tremendous growth in ETFs and…

It may not seem like it to some, but stocks — as measured by the S&P 500 — are up six years in a row. They’re slightly positive through the end of last week too, so if those meager gains hold through the rest of calendar year 2015, that would mark seven consecutive years of…

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Seminole Capital Management, a hedge fund with an enviable long-term track record, would be returning $400 million of its $3 billion under management back to outside investors. Here were some of the reasons given: In an unusually frank letter to investors reviewed by The Wall Street Journal,…

Millennials get a bad rap from the media and the older generations. They’re selfish. They’re not motivated. They live in their parent’s basement. They take too many selfies. They don’t have all of the same dreams and aspirations of prior generations.

Morningstar’s Jeffrey Ptak posted some insightful data on Twitter over the long holiday weekend. Take a look at these 10 year performance numbers for actively managed mutual funds once you account for the effects of taxes on investment returns:

It’s become a weekly occurrence to read about America’s retirement crisis. Pensions are underfunded. Americans aren’t saving enough and face a huge shortfall. Social security and medicare are both overextended and face demographic headwinds. I have yet to see a large group of retirees waiting in a bread line, so I don’t think we can…