With the broader markets retracting much of their declines from early 2016, many investors find themselves letting out a sigh of relief and stepping back from the closer look they would have taken at their holdings had things continued heading south. The wise investor, however, will do the reverse. Today, when markets appear relatively stable, …Read More.
There’s a lot of talk in the media about “low-information” voters. Ted Cruz may be responsible for coining the term. He referred to supporters of Donald Trump as those “who have relatively low information, who are not that engaged and who are angry.” He observed that other candidates are beating Trump “when voters get more …Read More.
A large body of evidence demonstrates the persistence of numerous anomalies in stock prices, which suggests they can depart from fundamentals for periods of time. The anomalies include: Failure Probability: Stocks with a high probability of failure have lower future returns. O-score: Stocks with higher O-scores (a higher probability of bankruptcy) have lower future returns …Read More.
Investors choose mutual funds based on their investment objectives. In pursuit of said objectives, they can choose from among the broader asset classes (such as stocks and bonds) with additional, more specialized options available within each class. These decisions are important because they determine the amount of exposure an investor has to specific types of …Read More.
Recently there has been a lot of research on the question of whether higher moments of return other than volatility (specifically, the skewness of returns) helps to explain equity returns. (I’ve included a brief definition of skewness and a demonstrative example of it below.) For instance, the role of idiosyncratic skewness has been put forward …Read More.
There’s very strong historical evidence to support the existence of a value premium in equity markets. While there’s no dispute over the existence of the value premium (value stocks have provided an annual average return 5% higher than growth stocks over the long term), there is much debate over the cause of the difference in …Read More.
Earlier this week, we examined a recent study contributing to the literature that supports a behavioral-based argument for the value premium, in particular that investors persistently overvalue the earnings prospects of growth (“glamour”) stocks. The study—“Glamour, Value and Anchoring on the Changing P/E”—posits that the differing experiences of glamour and value investors could be explained …Read More.
There are several keys to having a successful investment experience. The first is to create a well-thought-out financial plan. This plan should begin with identifying your ability, willingness and need to take risk, as well as what it is you want your money to do for you. Having identified all the appropriate risks and objectives, …Read More.
It’s that time again, everybody. The one we’ve all been waiting for. No, I’m not talking about spring, March Madness or the start of Major League Baseball. It’s election season. Aren’t you excited? Every four years (or more often, for citizens who never miss a chance to cast a ballot), we partake in what seems …Read More.
Wall Street has an alarming number of shady practices geared to transfer your money to itself. Main Street investors are outgunned and ill-equipped to deal with its chicanery. Conflicts of interest abound There’s a reason Wall Street doesn’t want to be legally obligated to put your interests above its own. Brokers can (and often do) …Read More.
“I’m too [fill in the blank] to worry about insurance.” If you’re a millennial, there are plenty of words you could choose from to complete that sentence. Perhaps “young,” “poor,” “busy” and “skeptical” are good ones (for starters). You might have enough insurance. You might even have too much. But I’d bet you don’t have …Read More.
It’s small consolation that your broker is only harming one client at a time by claiming the ability to “beat the market.” Recommending actively managed funds, private equity, individual stocks and alternative investments is the tried-and-true Wall Street way of transferring wealth from you to them. The zero-sum game If you need more convincing, I …Read More.
Liquidity—the ability to buy and sell significant quantities of a given asset, quickly, at low cost and without a major price concession—is valuable to investors. Therefore, they demand a premium as compensation for the greater risks and costs of investing in less liquid securities. For example, liquidity risk partly explains the equity-risk premium. The average …Read More.
The year-end 2015 S&P Active Versus Passive (SPIVA) scorecard provides yet another example of why—at least when it comes to the overall results of active management relative to appropriate benchmarks—the past is in fact prologue. Following are some highlights from the recently released report: Domestic Equities Last year, 66.1% of large-cap managers, 56.8% of midcap …Read More.
Because of the magnitude, persistence, pervasiveness and robustness of their related premiums, several factors have dominated the academic literature. Among them are market beta, size, value, momentum and profitability. However, despite their persistence, each factor has undergone even fairly long periods during which it produced negative returns. Said another way, while investors can raise expected …Read More.