At the start of each year, I put together a list of predictions made by gurus (and often repeated by investors, who hear about these forecasts through the financial media). It’s sort of a consensus of things “sure” to happen in the upcoming year. We keep track of these “sure things” with a review at…
As the director of research for The BAM Alliance, I frequently receive questions related to the advisability of purchasing payout annuities (as opposed to variable annuities, which I generally categorize as products meant to be sold, not bought). Combine the relatively poor performance of equities since 2000 (the S&P 500 returned just a little more…
There’s very strong historical evidence to support the existence of a value premium in equity markets. While there’s no dispute over the existence of the value premium (value stocks have provided an annual average return 5% higher than growth stocks over the long term), there is much debate over the cause of the difference in…
Because of the magnitude, persistence, pervasiveness and robustness of their related premiums, several factors have dominated the academic literature. Among them are market beta, size, value, momentum and profitability. However, despite their persistence, each factor has undergone even fairly long periods during which it produced negative returns. Said another way, while investors can raise expected…
I love finding financial wisdom in unlikely places, like in art and music. These opportunities are more abundant than you might expect. For instance, the punk-Americana outfit, The Avett Brothers, dedicated an entire tune, aptly titled “Ill With Want,” to the scourge of greed and Mumford & Sons taught us that “where you invest your…
We all like to act as if we’re immune to the vitriol of haters. It’s almost cool to pretend that it doesn’t affect us, like we’re all bulletproof and have some kind of armor against it. And while that might be a helpful coping mechanism, it’s not really true for most of us. The truth…
Actively managed funds tout their ability to successfully rotate across styles (such as large-caps versus small-caps and value versus growth) or sectors (industries) and thus outperform passive strategies (such as index funds). It is certainly true that investment styles do move in and out of favor, presenting actively managed funds with an opportunity for asset…
With the broader markets retracting much of their declines from early 2016, many investors find themselves letting out a sigh of relief and stepping back from the closer look they would have taken at their holdings had things continued heading south. The wise investor, however, will do the reverse. Today, when markets appear relatively stable,…
There’s a lot of talk in the media about “low-information” voters. Ted Cruz may be responsible for coining the term. He referred to supporters of Donald Trump as those “who have relatively low information, who are not that engaged and who are angry.” He observed that other candidates are beating Trump “when voters get more…
A large body of evidence demonstrates the persistence of numerous anomalies in stock prices, which suggests they can depart from fundamentals for periods of time. The anomalies include: Failure Probability: Stocks with a high probability of failure have lower future returns. O-score: Stocks with higher O-scores (a higher probability of bankruptcy) have lower future returns…
Investors choose mutual funds based on their investment objectives. In pursuit of said objectives, they can choose from among the broader asset classes (such as stocks and bonds) with additional, more specialized options available within each class. These decisions are important because they determine the amount of exposure an investor has to specific types of…
Recently there has been a lot of research on the question of whether higher moments of return other than volatility (specifically, the skewness of returns) helps to explain equity returns. (I’ve included a brief definition of skewness and a demonstrative example of it below.) For instance, the role of idiosyncratic skewness has been put forward…
There’s very strong historical evidence to support the existence of a value premium in equity markets. While there’s no dispute over the existence of the value premium (value stocks have provided an annual average return 5% higher than growth stocks over the long term), there is much debate over the cause of the difference in…
Earlier this week, we examined a recent study contributing to the literature that supports a behavioral-based argument for the value premium, in particular that investors persistently overvalue the earnings prospects of growth (“glamour”) stocks. The study—“Glamour, Value and Anchoring on the Changing P/E”—posits that the differing experiences of glamour and value investors could be explained…
There are several keys to having a successful investment experience. The first is to create a well-thought-out financial plan. This plan should begin with identifying your ability, willingness and need to take risk, as well as what it is you want your money to do for you. Having identified all the appropriate risks and objectives,…
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