With all the discussion of the current economic situation in the US, jobs, deficits, etc.. it constantly amazes me how short term oriented and myopic investors can sometimes be. In this regard I think we could gain some insight by looking at what’s happened in Japan since 1990. Barry Ritholz Read more
Earlier this week my wife and I were discussing the stock market events that were taking place in front of us; markets gripped by political intrigue, both domestic and overseas, violent swings in volatility, slowing economic growth, and lots of uncertainty. I then started telling her about what my plan Read more
In my latest post on investment fees I compared the impact the average fees of active mutual funds vs have on total investment returns. I also compared the active mutual fund fees to those of index funds and to those of individual stock investments. That exercise was a bit theoretical Read more
Wow! That was truly a crazy last week of the month. A great week for stocks and a not so great week for bonds. This is when zooming out and looking at market changes over a monthly period helps to add some perspective. Having said that lets jump right in Read more
Investment fees are such a detriment to future wealth that literally investors should flee from them like their lives depended on it. I’ve touched on the topic of investment fees before using hypothetical fees and looked at their long term impact. It’s awful. But it looks even worse when fees Read more
I am a contrarian investor by nature. When there is too much fanfare around an investment, be it a stock or whole asset class, I usually find myself wanting to run for the exits. The hair on the back of my neck literally stands on edge sometimes. Most value investors Read more
There looks to be a correction developing in the MLP sector that may bring up a significant opportunity that income investors should begin to have a plan for. Lets look at the drop in prices recently, potential reasons for the drop, and what it means for the sector and more Read more
Kinder Morgan (KMP, KMR, KMI) reported Q1 2011 results last night after market close. Here is the summary from the press release. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners Increases Quarterly Distribution to $1.14 Per Unit Distribution 7% Higher Than First Quarter 2010 HOUSTON, Apr 20, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Kinder Morgan Energy Read more
Investing and weight lifting? I must have lost it. No, not quite yet. Bear with me. My latest post on cash as the ultimate diversification tool got me thinking about a very underused investment strategy, barbell investing. The term and strategy come from the bond world of investing. It is Read more
Cash is the best asset class for diversifying your portfolio. This goes against a lot of the traditional investment advice which most of the time recommends bonds as the diversifying asset class. This is particularly true for retirement portfolios. In this post I want to take a look at bonds Read more
**Image by Carl Richards, Buck’s Blog at the NYT. Check out the blog for more simple yet powerful investment messages. Behavior dominates investor under performance. As the simple yet powerful chart above so nicely illustrates investor returns are lower than the very investment classes they are invested in regardless of Read more