Many investors have been operating under the assumption that we’re due for a market crash simply because stock returns have been so high over the past five years or so. The two large crashes we’ve experienced in this century alone have turned some forecasters into the financial prognosticator equivalent of Pavlov’s dogs.

Long-term government bonds have been on an absolute tear this year. The 20+ Year Treaury ETF (TLT) is up almost 20% on the year as interest rates have continued to drop.

“Building a plan around the phrase ‘sometimes you get lucky’ is not a plan.” – Cliff Asness Bloomberg aired a great sit-down interview with John Bogle and Cliff Asness last week. They covered a wide range of topics, but the one I thought was the most important for investors was that both agreed we will…

“Beware of geeks bearing formulas.” – Warren Buffett Research Affiliates puts out some of the most interesting and thought-provoking research in the investment industry. Founder Rob Arnott’s work on fundamental indexing is especially innovative. The firm’s latest piece looks at smart beta and a host of factor investing data. One factor they looked into was the…

Following my post this week on the worst 10 year 50/50 stock/bond portfolio returns I received a number of requests from people asking what these performance numbers would look like on a real (inflation-adjusted) basis.  Here are annualized the results: The deflationary period of the 1930s actually improves the performance of those 10-year cycles.  A…

Here’s an interesting chart from the Wall Street Journal: I’ve seen variations of this one before, but it makes sense to re-visit this type of data so you can prepare yourself for possible future bond returns. It’s pretty telling how closely future 10 year returns track the bond yield. It’s not perfect, but definitely a…

“This year I invested in pumpkins. They’ve been going up the whole month of October and I got a feeling they’re going to peak right around January. Then bang! That’s when I’ll cash in.” – Homer Simpson

Yesterday I posted my investment lessons in the 2013 Year in Review (Part 1). Part 2 is some other odds and ends from the year that was. Enjoy.

“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” – Walter Elliott These are my investment lessons and takeaways from an interesting year in 2013.

“If you understand that the role of fixed income is to be the boring part of your portfolio, then you’re buying short- to intermediate-term bonds and you’re holding on to them. That’s always been the role of fixed income and that’ll always be the role of fixed income.” – Carl Richards Bond investors have had…