Stocks here and abroad soared over the past year. Meantime, U.S. interest rates wavered but ultimately ended lower over the past twelve months, boosting fixed income gains. Aided by a strong decline in the U.S. Dollar over the quarter versus major world currencies, international developed stock markets outperformed U.S. stocks, while fresh stimulus in China […]

Investing naturally presumes expectations for a future result. Certain types of investing can just about guarantee a specific future result. Futures markets can provide such certainty, in that futures contracts are a legal agreement to transact a specific asset on a specific date. Investors can utilize futures markets to manage risk (i.e., by “locking in […]

In this podcast, I lament the quick-draw narratives that seem to drive short-term market volatility.

It’s sometimes (often lately?) a challenge to support the idea that history suggests investors should be more interested in owning a wide swath of companies about which barely anyone knows anything. These companies, generally smaller and definitionally less glamorous than their higher-notoriety cousins, are real companies with real businesses that have inherent values. Investors have […]

Investment hypotheticals are imaginary scenarios of portfolio returns. They are summaries of theoretical past or future circumstances that can serve as powerful tools for instruction. We think they can be particularly effective when the goal is as much to convey how investment math works as it is to convey the results of that math. We […]

The are many questions regarding market expectations that we tend to find sufficiently addressed using historical data. “What’s your outlook for returns over the next x years?” generally gets a, “Well, historical x-year returns show a range of y% to z%, so likely something within that range.” The answer may not be satisfying, but it […]