If you’re a member at a gym and go on a regular basis you’re probably familiar with the January effect. Without fail, after the 1st of the year, gyms across the country fill up with people who made New Year’s resolutions to get in shape. It’s by far the busiest time of the year (for…

Neil Irwin had a really great write-up at The Upshot this week about the history of interest rates. He made the case that low interest rates may be here to stay if history is any guide. Take a look at the graph he used in the story:

Remember when the Fed was never going to raise interest rates?

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,…