(The following is an excerpt from a recent article appearing in InvestmentNews.) Investors are assuming too much risk in their portfolios, according to a Vanguard analysis of data from Morningstar. The questions are: Who is responsible, and what can be done about it? As reported in last week's InvestmentNews, the proportion of individual investor assets [...]
What's your life philosophy? Slow and steady wins the race or be the shiniest star in the sky? Richard Bernstein has some ideas.
Bo Diddley asked us, “Who do you love?” In life it’s our friends, family and companion animals. How do we choose our friends or which family to marry into? It’s typically because of fit – liking the same food or music, sharing the same outlook on life, etc. We gravitate towards people most like us [...]
If your formative years were the 1980s and/or your insomnia has you watching movie reruns at 3:00am then you’ve undoubtedly suffered through WarGames. (EDITOR’S NOTE: The movie is like a car accident – so horrifying that while you know you shouldn’t watch you can’t bear to look away.) One of the movie’s iconic moments comes [...]
According to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance the average year-over-year price increase (using a healthy, 55 year old single male as the baseline) was 8.6%. The culprit is twofold: In the short-term insurers’ bond portfolios continue to earn paltry returns diminishing their ability to fund benefits. Over the long-term insurers’ poor product rollout [...]
Promotions abound for enrolling in Medicare but did you know you can opt out of Medicare? WHEN CAN I DO IT? The Medicare Advantage Disenrollment Period (“MADP”) runs from January 1st through February 14th. AM I ELIGIBLE? You must have a private Medicare plan (often referred to as Medicare Part C or a Medicare Advantage [...]
Morningstar has just released the winners of the U.S. Fund Manager of the Year awards. Apollo congratulates the teams at Dodge & Cox and PRIMECAP in particular - two of our longtime favorite shops. Proof positive that a logical, sustainable and repeatable process yields long-term, risk-adjusted success despite what short-sighted, ROR-focused index comparisons might suggest.
In Tuesday’s State of the Union the Orator in Chief proposed cutting back on the tax break afforded to §529 college savings plans. His reasoning? §529s are used primarily by the ‘wealthy.’ We’ll get to that in a moment. By way of review §529s were established in 1996 as a means for people to save [...]
A little tongue in cheek thought to get this dreary Wed morning (at least in suburban Philly) off to a fun start: It’s been said we should be nice to people who handle our food. We never know what they might do to it. What about the people who provide us with financial advice? Here’s [...]
They buy us with what they sell. That’s right. The financial services industry tells us investing is easy and we should all “beat the market.” Big Media reinforces this “truth” by highlighting random acts of stupidity that somehow prove “successful.” Sadly most accounts are pure weapons grade BS. Making matters worse is our fear of [...]