Economics Nobel Goes To Efficient Market Champion
“Stock prices reflect all available information.” This simple, yet profound concept spawned in the 1960s continued to evolve into more sophisticated asset pricing theories and has won Eugene F. Fama, “Father of Modern Finance,” the 2013 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in … Continue reading
Estate Planning: Are Credit Shelter Trusts Obsolete?
One of the more interesting debates in estate planning circles these days surrounds so-called credit shelter trusts – also known as A-B Trusts or marital and bypass trusts, respectively. These are trusts set up as a way to preserve the … Continue reading
Tax-Efficient Retirement Planning
Why would anybody pay taxes when they really don’t have to? This is a question that financial advisors are hearing from their retired clients, who are taking their living expenses out of taxable and tax-deferred accounts like IRAs. The whole … Continue reading
The Myth of the Rational Market
Current Harvard Business Review editorial director and former Fortune writer Justin Fox wrote an article in 2003 titled, “Is the Market Rational?” Much of the article focused on the intellectual rivalry between two Chicago professors—Eugene Fama and Richard Thaler—and Fox … Continue reading
First-Half Report Card: Net Gains and Diversification Blues
The recent turmoil in the investment markets might cause one to think that people have lost money this year in U.S. stocks. But in fact, most of the U.S. indices are sitting on double-digit gains, and the second quarter actually added … Continue reading
The Recent Market Roller Coaster
There are two kinds of investors in this world. One type pays close attention to the daily (and sometimes hourly) flood of information, looking for a reason (any reason) to jump in or out of the markets. The other kind … Continue reading
The Savvy Investor’s Chi
In many areas of life, intense activity and constant monitoring of results represent the path to success. In investment, that approach gets turned on its head. The Chinese philosophy of Taoism has a word for it: “wuwei.” It literally means … Continue reading
The Most Difficult Part of Financial Planning
In this age of ever-expanding technology, the data-gathering process for a financial plan has gradually become less complicated and intrusive. However, a great deal of hard work still falls on the shoulders of financial planning clients. People still have to … Continue reading
Deceptive Advisor Marketing: Manipulated Investment Performance
Deceptive Advisor Marketing: Manipulated Investment Performance Investment advisors have pioneered clever ways to make themselves look far better than they actually are. Some of these practices were recently exposed in “Debunking Deceptive Sales Pitches” published the Journal of Financial Planning. … Continue reading
Even The Best Have Difficulty Timing The Market
The investment community lost one of its more colorful characters earlier this year with the passing of Martin F. Zweig, a Cleveland native and prominent market pundit, author, and chairman of Zweig-DiMenna Associates LLC, a New York investment firm. His … Continue reading
