Most of what we end up doing in our lives is determined not by what we decide to do, but by what we decide NOT to do. In the course [ … ]

One of the more common investing myths is the idea that indexing is necessarily “average”.¹ It makes sense at first. If you bought all of the stocks in the market [ … ]

Bonds have always struck me as fairly simple instruments. In general, you know what a (high quality) bond’s return will be and you know what its time horizon is. That [ … ]

Here are a few things we know about the financial markets: Beating the market or obtaining “alpha” (excess return) is extremely difficult as evidenced by the annual SPIVA Scorecards. Alpha [ … ]

Should we pursue appropriate portfolios or optimal portfolios?

If I had to pinpoint the biggest problem for most asset allocators I would probably say short-termism.  Short-termism is the tendency to judge financial markets in periods that are so short [ … ]

Here’s Josh Brown with a good piece on dividends. He asks, “are we too obsessed with dividend income?” Tricky question, but I would tend to answer by saying that, when we [ … ]

My newest research paper, Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction, is available on SSRN.  This paper is the culmination of years of work and I consider it to be the most important [ … ]

Vanguard has a timely reminder for investors – “cost is the new performance”.¹  We’ve entered a new era in the asset management business.  The era of low fees.  We now [ … ]