The Worst ETFs You Can Own

Bloomberg’s resident ETF expert, Eric Balchunas, shared some interesting stats today on the habits of millennial investors. Their use of ETFs has exploded in recent years, up nearly 60% over the last year. Also, a greater percentage of millennials use ETFs than older generations: Millennials: 41% Gen X: 25% Baby Boomers: 17% While millennials seem…

Good CEO Hunting

The Harvard Management Corp., which oversees the management of the school’s endowment fund, recently lost yet another CEO. The list of ex-Harvard endowment CEOs is growing longer by the year: Harvard’s current interim chief marks the sixth person to lead the endowment since Jack Meyer left in the mid-2000s, good enough for an average tenure of just…

Are We At Risk of an Inverted Yield Curve?

The old joke is that the stock market has predicted 9 out of the last 5 recessions. Finance pros also contend that the bond market is much smarter than the stock market. Case in point says the bond market elites is the shape of the yield curve. The indicator most industry observers pay close attention…

A Deep Dive on Contingency Plans

Until I read the book Shadow Divers: The True Story of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II I didn’t really know much about scuba diving. Sure, I tried it once in Mexico, but that was maybe 25-30 feet of water. The book tells an amazing story…

1929 vs. 2000

From the peak of the tech bubble in early 2000 the returns on the stock market have been underwhelming. In fact, if you line up the peak of the market in 2000 with the peak of the market in 1929 just before the stock market collapsed, the returns aren’t that far off:     Although…

Spot the Red Flags

There was a crazy story on Bloomberg this morning about an obscure hedge fund that is supposedly putting up some of the best performance numbers in the industry. I say supposedly because the numbers almost have to be false. You couldn’t read this story and come up with any other takeaway. In many ways, the…

What’s the Right Asset Allocation For Young Investors?

A reader asks: I have a 36-year-old friend whose IRA—her only retirement savings—has about a 5% allocation to bonds, and a 95% allocation to equities. I’ve suggested that at her age, it’s time to double her bond allocation to 10%. Her husband (29 years old) disagrees, saying she has a long-enough horizon to stay nearly…

The Strategy Tax

One of the more interesting finance stories to come out this week was the $1 billion buyout of the Dollar Shave Club by Unilever. Dollar Shave Club was founded in 2011 with some simple ideas — let’s sell low-cost razors to men by utilize some interesting marketing platforms and cut out all of the usual overhead that causes…

Good Question, Great Question

One of biggest lessons I learned early on in my career was the importance of asking questions. It took me a while, but I think being inquisitive is a great trait to have because the process of learning doesn’t have an end date. There is always more to learn. But I think you also have…