I have a high regard for accountants. They have an extremely difficult job. In order to maximize tax savings for their clients, they need to understand and interpret an incredibly complicated Internal Revenue Code. Former U.S. congressman John Hostettler once said, “The Internal Revenue Code and regulations add up to 1 million words and is nearly seven…
Exchange-traded funds are open-ended funds that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange. You can think of them as a hybrid version of both stocks and index funds. You buy them using a broker, just like you would to purchase a stock. They consist of a portfolio of securities that are designed to…
The Supreme Court of the United States has indicated an interest in deciding an important 401(k) case, Tibble v. Edison International. If the Supreme Court decides to hear the Tibble case, and if it decides it in a manner that will benefit investors, the impact could be profound. Before discussing the issues at play in…
Many great discoveries come about by accident, like the discovery of the anti-malarial drug quinine, the smallpox vaccination, X-rays and insulin. Here’s a discovery that relates to retirement: the unexpected importance of marshmallows in explaining the difficulty of delaying gratification. A famous Stanford study by Walter Mischel, which took place in the late 60s and…
Approximately 51 million Americans have invested an estimated $3.5 trillion in 401(k) plans, according to the Investment Company Institute. If you’re one of them, you’re probably being ripped off, big time. How? Your plan likely includes a dizzying array of investment choices. These options are dominated by funds that have high management fees and are actively managed,…
Common misconceptions Dividend-paying stocks may look awfully appealing, but you should be able to separate the truth from fiction before you jump into these investments. Here are seven common myths about dividend-paying stocks. Myth No. 1: Dividends hold up in bad markets. There is a perception that dividend-paying stocks will hold up better when the market…
It used to be that once Americans neared retirement, they had whittled down (or eliminated) their debt. Freed from monthly principal and interest payments, these fortunate individuals were prepared to retirewith dignity. Times have changed. Read the rest of the article on US News.
The most common misconception among investors may be the value of investing in dividend-paying stocks. Almost every week, someone contacts me to extol the virtues of investing in what they call “high quality, dividend-yielding securities.” Often, their interest is spurred by the recent high performance of these stocks. According to one paper by Gregg S. Fisher, published…
The recent sharp market decline has brought out the worst in the securities industry and the financial media. Some brokers and pundits who were “riding the bull” have undergone a remarkable transformation and now advise “fleeing to safety.”
As a proponent of passive or evidence-based investing, I am heartened by the growing number of people investing in index funds. According to a Morningstar article, “A Bull Market in Passive Investing,” only 12 percent of U.S. open-end mutual fund and exchange-traded fund assets were invested in passively managed funds as of Nov. 1, 2003. That percentage has risen to 27 percent, and it continues to grow.
If you invested dispassionately, using an objective analysis of the historical data, you would invest in a globally diversified portfolio of index funds with low management fees. It’s not that you can’t beat the market by investing in actively managed funds. Every year, some mutual funds outperform their benchmark. However, their probability of doing so over the…