My previous post addressed the issue, “Is the stock market overgrazed?” It raised questions about the forward-looking expectations for the beta, size and value premiums that have existed historically. Researcher Claude Erb showed that each of these premiums has been declining over time, leading to at least the suspicion that they have been “overgrazed.” *Erb noted…
Here’s an argument hedge fund marketers make to tout hedge funds’ superiority over mutual funds. They point out that unlike mutual fund managers, who are paid solely based on assets under management, hedge fund managers also receive incentive compensation. The typical hedge fund compensation scheme is 2/20, or 2 percent of assets under management plus…
An overwhelming body of evidence shows that actively managed mutual funds underperform their appropriate risk-adjusted benchmarks. In addition, little to no evidence points to persistence of performance beyond the randomly expected, which means past performance isn’t prologue. That’s the reason for one of the great puzzles in finance: Why do investors continue with such great…
Most investors are well aware of the SEC’s warning that past performance isn’t an indicator of future performance. That warning often leads to questions like: “If past performance isn’t predictive, why do you believe that the past outperformance of value stocks over growth stocks and small stocks over large stocks is predictive?” The answer lies…
Today begins a two-part series exploring premiums, starting with the size premium. With the dramatic outperformance of U.S. small-cap stocks over the past several years, we’ve had many stories in the financial media warning investors about their future performance. Since valuations are the best predictors of future returns that we have, we can examine the…
Articles such as the recent post on Seeking Alpha that referred to Cohen & Steers as the “King of REITs” stir my interest – though, perhaps, not in a typical way. The article noted that “Cohen & Steers has been around since 1986 and is the first investment company to specialize in investing in listed real estate…
Compared with risk factors in investing—such as the market, value or size—momentum has offered investors the highest Sharpe ratio. However, momentum does have a dark side, as it has had some of the worst crashes. The large gains associated with the momentum factor come at the expense of a very high excess kurtosis (fat tail)…
The financial media are full of conjecture about which strategies might effectively hedge inflation risk or not. Here we explore which asset classes, if any, have been effective at protecting against inflation risk. First, it is helpful to address some common logical and analytical misconceptions about hedging inflation risk. Focus on Correlation, Not Volatility When…
Paul Lem, a medical doctor, scientist and entrepreneur wrote an extraordinary book, “Master Life Faster: How To Be Happy, Healthy, Wealthy, Smart and Social” in 2008. I met Dr. Lem during a recent speaking tour for my own book in Ottawa, Ontario, where he gave me a copy of his book. I confess to having a bias…
There’s an ongoing battle in the financial realm pitting the Roth IRA against its older cousin, the Traditional IRA. Most of the debate, however, is rendered irrelevant because it doesn’t consider the Traditional IRA’s fatal flaw. Tale of the Tape: The IRA debate is almost entirely about taxes. As long as you meet certain income requirements,…
Stability itself is destabilizing. This is one of the defining ideas of the economist Hyman Minsky. And it matters because when we have periods of relative stability or happy results in the stock market (like now), we start to tell ourselves little stories. For example, we might believe that the stock market will behave like…
By Jared Kizer The financial media are full of conjecture about which strategies might effectively hedge inflation risk or not. Here we explore which asset classes, if any, have been effective at protecting against inflation risk. First, it is helpful to address some common logical and analytical misconceptions about hedging inflation risk. Focus on Correlation,…
An overwhelming body of evidence shows that actively managed mutual funds underperform their appropriate risk-adjusted benchmarks. In addition, little to no evidence points to persistence of performance beyond the randomly expected, which means past performance isn’t prologue. That’s the reason for one of the great puzzles in finance: Why do investors continue with such great…
Carl Richards, director of investor education for the BAM ALLIANCE, explains in his book The Behavior Gap on the difference between financial planning and life planning: “I spend a lot of time talking and writing about worst-case scenarios: investors behaving badly, people losing their retirement, and so on. But let’s not forget why we’re so…
A recent Northwest Mutual study shows a connection between being a disciplined financial planner and being happy in retirement. The study shows that highly disciplined planners — those who know their goals, have detailed plans to meet them and don’t deviate from those plans — are more likely than non-planners to say they are “happy…