Ask the Spud: Do Aggressive Portfolios Pay Off?
Q: I noticed that over the long term (10 to 20 years) the average returns of your model portfolios are quite similar regardless of the asset allocation, but the maximum losses vary dramatically. Would...
View ArticleHow Bad Data Leads to Poor Investment Decisions
Making smart investment decisions is difficult enough when you have reliable information. If you’re working with inaccurate or misleading data, good decisions become almost impossible. The most popular...
View ArticleRaining on the All Seasons Portfolio
Investors are hungry for success stories, especially tales that include high returns with low risk. And the investment industry is always happy to stoke that appetite. One of the most popular stories...
View ArticleHow Contributions Affect Your Rate of Return
Whenever I update the returns of my model portfolios, readers ask how the performance would have been different had they added money to the portfolios money each month. This question gets to the heart...
View ArticleIs Beating the Market Harder Than Ever?
Is beating the market harder than it’s ever been? Larry Swedroe thinks so, and he lays out his case in his newest book, The Incredible Shrinking Alpha. PWL Capital has just published a custom edition...
View ArticleIt’s Better With Beta
The title of Larry Swedroe’s latest book, The Incredible Shrinking Alpha, raises a question: what happened to the idea that skilled managers can consistently beat the market? In a recent interview with...
View ArticleHow Long Will You Wait for Smart Beta to Work?
In my last post I shared some insights from Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense, which argues that investors are generally better off keeping their portfolios simple and straightforward. This idea...
View ArticleWhat (Returns) to Expect When You’re Expecting
Investing decisions should always be made in the context of your overall financial plan. And although we know short-term forecasts are futile, a retirement plan needs to include some assumptions about...
View ArticleCan ETFs Make the Market Go Up in Smoke?
[Note: This was an April Fool’s joke!] Does the growing popularity of indexing and ETFs pose a real danger to the markets? As I discussed on a recent podcast, some market experts are concerned that the...
View ArticleAsk the Spud: Should I Use Dollar-Cost Averaging?
In my latest podcast, I addressed a common question from both readers and clients: “If I have a large sum of cash to invest, is it better to put it into the market all at once, or invest it gradually...
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