A couple weeks ago I looked at John Maynard Keynes’s investment performance and philosophy when he ran the endowment fund at King’s College. Keynes ran a focused portfolio made up of a small number of stocks. One of the results of holding a small numbers of holdings was that his performance numbers were very volatile, something…

Every time I write about commodities being a poor investment option over the long-term, I get a few comments such as this one: Yeah, but what about the 1970s? The 1970s were probably one of the most difficult decades for investors in the traditional asset classes. Stocks and bonds posted positive returns, but those returns…

“I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand even though it may mean forgoing large, and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don’t fully understand, have not practiced successfully and which, possibly, could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital.” – Warren Buffett One of the questions I’m often…

Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs is arguably the greatest power forward in NBA history. Unfortunately, success puts a target on your back when it comes to financial advice. It was recently discovered that Duncan has joined the long list of rich people that have been taken advantage of through lousy investments or shady…

A reader asks: Now that factor funds keep getting launched, do you think that will ultimately spell doom for any potential future out-performance? This is a great question. Investing in factors, tilts, anomalies or whatever you want to call them is definitely becoming more mainstream because the academic research is now well-known. ETFs and mutual…

In a piece for Slate last week, Helaine Olen took the financial industry to task for their continued push to make financial literacy a priority. She pulled no punches:

“I’m intimidated by my financial adviser, he knows how little I know.” – Daniel Kahneman The Wall Street Journal recently shared an interesting piece of news about Bill Gross’s new fund with Janus Capital. Investors poured $1.1 billion, an important threshold for attracting institutional clients, into his brand new unconstrained bond fund. That’s a pretty…

Tren Griffin writes one of my favorite blogs at 25iq.com. His ongoing series of a dozen things he’s learned from various investors, business leaders, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs and is an amazing collection of quotes and insights. I always look forward to these posts because I every time I learn something new.

A recent Fidelity poll of financial advisors found that their biggest worry right now is rising interest rates over all else. It’s ironic that so many people are worried about rising rates when all rates continue to do is fall. These advisors are not alone as many investors are worried about the future prospects for…

Early in my career I was given a great piece of advice — if you want to learn, just keep asking questions. Some people are nervous that they’ll sound unintelligent by asking too many questions but I’ve always found that asking questions is a true form of intelligence. It shows that you care about the…