A number of media outlets have picked up on the five-year return estimates that Vanguard’s global head of investment strategy, Joe Davis, put out at last week’s Morningstar ETF Conference. Here’s what he had to say, via the latest Mutual Fund Observer: Given the fragility of the global economy, Vanguard does not see interest rates being…

Risk-adjusted return measures have been around for some time now, but following the financial crisis professional money managers and asset allocators zeroed in on these formulaic performance metrics like never before. One of the most well-known risk-adjusted return formulas, the Sharpe Ratio, is simple a measure of return per unit of risk. It takes the annual…

Isaac Presley wrote a nice market update recently on his Cordant Wealth Partners blog. He broke down stock and bond yields by comparing some real (after-inflation) and nominal indicators to show where they currently stand in relation to their historical averages and ranges.

Gold is one of those investments that attracts extreme viewpoints and ideological arguments that favor narratives over substance. I think the reason for this is because the U.S. was once on the gold standard, which was more or less replaced by the Federal Reserve as a form of monetary policy. Anytime politics and government is…

Forbes wrote a nice profile on financial planner and blogger Michael Kitces last week. In the piece, I thought Kitces made a very important point about how the need for financial planning can vary based on where you’re at in your life-cycle:

There are some compelling cases being made right now in both academic and investor circles that future U.S. stock market returns will be muted from current levels. Some are going a step further and claiming that real returns over the next decade or so will be zero or even negative. One of the most heavily…

Brett Arends from MarketWatch has an interesting piece out this week that looks at the historical returns on the U.S. stock market. He goes through some research that shows some damning evidence about the long-term returns in U.S. stocks: Since 1982, for example, the stock market has gone up by an average of 6.5% a…

Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio had everyone in the financial industry talking this week when he put out a client note on the potential risks from the Fed raising rates too quickly. Specifically, Dalio made reference to the 1937 scenario where the Fed acted prematurely in the aftermath of the Great Depression which sent the economy and…

From 1928 to 2014, stocks earned 4.6% per year more than 10 Year U.S. treasury bonds — 9.6% vs. 5.0%. In finance-speak, this is called the risk premium that stocks earn over bonds.

Long-term treasuries continue to be one of the most fascinating areas of the markets to me right now. After a blowout 2014 when long bonds were up nearly 30%, they’re up another 3% in the first week of the new year as interest rates continue to drop. It’s almost like long maturity bonds have become…