Our industry spends a great deal of time thinking about where a portfolio is invested and how those investments perform over time. Perhaps not enough time is spent discussing the force we think most impactful with regard to meeting long-term financial goals: savings. After all, without savings, there’s no portfolio. And no manner of fanciful […]

The first quarter of 2019 provided yet another example of why we think it generally is a good idea to be disciplined in our investment decisions through market tumult. Such discipline should include not only retaining investment exposures when the going gets rough. It, too, should include a thoughtful approach to portfolio rebalancing according to […]

We continue to believe that, based on our experience and that of the broader industry, a focus on individual stocks and the stories they present at best has a neutral effect on portfolio performance, relative to the market in general. Stock picking, in our view, may even lead to worse-than-optimal outcomes for investors. Far more […]

Never ceases to amaze us the ways financial market media will torture market data in order to come up with fresh content. Suppose that’s the beauty of data...always another way to look at them. We caution folks not to find too much meaning in all the slicing and dicing of near-term market moves. It’s meant […]

We generally seek to provide in-depth reviews of themes supporting our approach to investment management each month on these pages. We understand, though, that a brief overview sometimes can prove an effective refresher of the fundamental tenets of our work. This month, we will revisit a range of those themes in a “frequently asked questions” […]

For the first time in a decade, the S&P 500 Index posted a calendar year loss. Meantime, the domestic investment-grade fixed income market barely managed to turn positive for the year, the primary savior likely having been a flight to safety wrought by the equity market’s decline. The recent, rather sharp rebound in equities has […]