“Despite the theory and publicized long-term success of indexed investment strategies, criticisms and misconceptions remain.” – Vanguard

“We can’t change the world. The only thing we can change is ourselves, by trying to get a better understanding of our own messed-up wiring.” – Guy Spier In last week’s Intelligent Investor column for the Wall Street Journal, Jason Zweig discussed value investor Guy Spier’s journey to reinvent himself as both a thinker and…

A lot has been made about the potential for a bond bubble with interest rates near historic lows and not much room to fall any further. Even though rates are down this year, investors have been worried for some time about what happens when rates do eventually rise. As a quick refresher, bond prices and…

“To succeed at any activity involving the pursuit of gain, we have to be able to withstand the possibility of loss.” – Howard Marks

“Over the years, I’ve become convinced that fluctuations in investor attitudes towards risk contribute more to major market movements than anything else. I don’t expect this to ever change.” – Howard Marks Small caps have been on everybody’s radar this year because the Russell 2000 experienced a 10% drop.  This is more commonplace than you…

“In the case of equities or real estate or farms or whatever, other very important variables are almost always at work, and that means the effect of interest rate changes is usually obscured. Nonetheless, the effect–like the invisible pull of gravity–is constantly there.” – Warren Buffett

As Warren Buffett was closing in on age 60 in 1989, his net worth was $3.8 billion according to the Forbes List. This year, as Buffett approaches his mid-80s, he’s worth $58.5 billion. That means nearly 94% of Buffett’s current net worth was created after his 60th birthday. I’ll come back to these facts again…

Michael Batnick shared a great stat on the Russell 2000 small cap index in a recent post on his blog, The Irrelevant Investor:

“At any given moment, what the market is doing reflects how we’re feeling right NOW. Not how we’ll feel tomorrow and most likely not how we’ll feel in a month, let alone a year. Short-term market behavior is rarely about anything other than an interpretation of what we THINK is happening or will happen as…

“Believe there are bubbles, but don’t go around looking for them and betting the ranch on them.” – Cliff Asness Jeremy Grantham is a legend among investing circles. His quarterly letters are on my must-read list. I’ve seen him speak before and he has the uncanny ability to make complex investing topics easy to understand, which I…