We all know that guy. Heck, we might be that guy. You know who we're talking about. He’s the guy who solves one problem by creating three even worse problems. Well, that guy is at it again. In an attempt to get around the $10,000 cap on state and local income and property tax deductions [...]
Let’s travel back in time to 2016. The Department of Labor rolls out the fiduciary rule. Firms providing retirement advice must act in the best interests of clients. Wall St firms scramble. The days of pushing products and soaking clients with commissions are over. Merrill Lynch rushes to act. They ban commissions on IRAs. Their [...]
We often strive for what's good, better and best. Why stay at a 3-star hotel when we can stay at a 5-star hotel? Many of us invest in the same way. Why buy a 3-star fund when we can invest in a 5-star fund? Because investors misunderstand and misuse star ratings and the PR departments [...]
One of the (many) downsides of the on-demand world in which we live is we often forget to think before we act. We wouldn’t drive our own cars without insurance. Do we ever think about whether we’re insured when we’re a passenger in a ride-share from Uber/Lyft? Ride-hailing companies typically provide liability insurance for U.S. [...]
Kudos to Barry Ritholtz for yet another pragmatic and useful article. The list is in reverse order so #1 has the least impact relative to #7 which has the most.
Channeling his inner Benjamin Graham (in the ST markets are a voting machine tallying popularity - in the LT markets are a weighing machine assessing substance) Josh Brown wrote this fantastic piece about why stock prices are a proxy about our beliefs about the future. By definition hope/faith (belief in the absence of evidence) is [...]
Freddie Mac will launch HomeOne on July 29th. Program features/qualifications include: 3% down payment first-time homebuyer (defined as anyone who has not owned a home in the past 3 yrs) if 2+ buyers only one needs to be a first-time buyer no income or geographic restrictions no ARMs (fixed-rate only) no jumbos (must meet conforming [...]
Frequent readers of the Apollo blog know of our, um, “love” for Big Media and the content-for-the-sake-of-content weapons-grade BS it spews. Given the importance of being fair we’ll give credit where due. Here’s an article actually worth reading: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-probably-have-less-money-invested-in-stocks-than-you-should-2018-05-23 For every Paleo diet, juice cleanse and the like there’s one tried and true way to [...]
Yesterday in a press release the IRS commented on efforts by NY and follow-on efforts by NJ to avoid the new cap on state and local tax (“SALT”) deductions. "Taxpayers should be mindful that federal law controls the proper characterization of payments for federal income tax purposes." Tax reform created a cap of $10,000 for [...]
Oh how times have changed. Vanguard, the 800-pound gorilla of the mutual fund industry, is rapidly approaching its 50th birthday. We thought it would be interesting to see how the firm has grown through the years: At the beginning Vanguard managed $1.5 billion in assets. Today that number has ballooned to $4.5 trillion. That's 3x [...]