In the U.S., over $13 trillion of institutional capital relies on consultants for advice on which funds to invest in. Pensions, endowments, foundations and other large pools of money utilize consultants for a range of services, most notably picking different outside money managers to invest in on their behalf. Research shows that investment consultants as…

In a paper written for the Journal of Portfolio Management called The Myth of Risk Attitudes, psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains why human nature makes it so difficult to succeed as an investor: A central claim of prospect theory is that people are not consistently risk averse. Yes, they are much more sensitive to losses than to gains. But…

“I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong. I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.” – George Soros One of the best and worst things about the financial markets is that they’re never going to be perfect. There will always be something to worry about because even stability can breed instability. This is…

A couple of years ago, Tadas Viskanta of Abnormal Returns asked myself and a handful of other bloggers the following question in his finance blogger wisdom series: Uber just raised VC monies at a $17 billion valuation. Are the private markets the new public markets? Is the average investor missing out on his/her inability to…

I received a huge response about my post from earlier this week where I showed that a 60/40 Vanguard portfolio beat the majority of college endowment funds over the previous 5 and 10 year periods. I’m always willing to see the other side of an argument, so I wanted to dig a little deeper into…

Every year the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) puts out a study on the investment performance of college endowment funds. It’s a comprehensive report that goes through the asset allocations and performance numbers of funds ranging from a few million dollars to funds with many billions of dollars (in the latest…

I’ve always thought that the financial markets acted as something of a real world experiment on human nature. Markets are interactive, involve a wide range of individuals making decisions and provide a scorecard that’s available for people to track in real-time. Watching the 24/7 news coverage of the presidential primaries kick into overdrive makes me…

In The Martian, Mark Watney discusses his travails while making plans while stuck on Mars: They say no plan survives first contact with implementation. I’d have to agree. I’m constantly pushing investors on the virtues of creating a comprehensive investment plan because it’s the most important step in the investment process. Security selection, asset allocation, market…

In his book, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, Richard Thaler discusses a stock market experiment that says a lot about how people react to losses and their perception of risk: As in the previous experiment, the subjects had only two investment options, a riskier one with higher returns and a safer one with lower returns….

I just finished The Index Card by Harold Pollack and Helaine Olen. It’s a really good personal finance book for those who need to understand a handful of simple steps you need to take to get your finances in order. I love the idea of narrowing down your financial philosophy so that it fits on an index…