March Thaw brings Leadership Shift

Corrections in the stock market often herald a change in marker leadership. Indeed, the first quarter saw a shift in performance of many of the asset sectors that make up a diversified portfolio. 

The fiduciary rule will help to ensure that financial institutions act in investors’ best interests when providing retirement advice.

Do you understand what diversification does for your portfolio? While people generally know diversification is a good thing, they’re often not sure exactly how or why. Academic research has shown that investors don’t understand diversification's impact on volatility and expected returns.

You want to be a team when it comes to your money...but you're not. Here's why — and what you can do.

by economist John Mauldin

An Open Letter to the Next President, Part 4, Where to Find $1 Trillion of Free Money, Making America Competitive Again, New York, Dallas, and Abu Dhabi

When you invest, it’s good to mix things up.  Diversity applies to many things in life—our friends, our colleagues, food, and sports—but it is most well known in the context of investing, and it’s commonly referred to as being diversified.

The beauty of a well-diversified portfolio is that you can come out ahead by sticking to the middle.

The stock market is a lot like weather in New England – wait a few minutes and it will surely change! In late February, as the wintry weather waned, Wall Street waxed, climbing a proverbial wall of worry.

Investor Sentiment now supportive of a market bottom

The Loomis Sayles Bond fund is a credit intensive fund that is invested in domestic and international high yielding corporate debt. What sets Loomis Sayles apart from the other high yield bond funds is their contrarian view towards the high-yield bond market. The manager of Loomis Sayles, Dan Fuss, has recently expressed his confidence in the high-yield debt market and his overall investment strategy, exclaiming that, “the focus is on security selection.” Loomis Sayles continues to be bullish on high-yield debt and remains focused on the long term cycle of the high-yield bond market.

Are you really worse off after the recent drop in stocks? 

From the perspective of your overall financial health, a big jump in stock prices ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Nor is a drop in stocks as damaging as you might fear. This is the “Even Steven” concept – you lose something in one part of your plan, but you gain it back in another.

 You Find out Who's Been Swimming Naked When the Tide Goes Out

JP Morgan: "The market is going to fluctuate"

The vanguard REIT Index fund is one of the least expensive ways to gain exposure to the real estate equity market. Even though this fund has seen more volatility in the last twelve months when compared to the average REIT fund, the risk-adjusted return has also been higher. The index fund's performance has replicated this by being one of the leading performers in it's category for the 3, 5, and 10 year periods. 

Since the Federal Reserve recently raised short term interest rates by .25%, there has been a lot of discussion on the impact that will have on the Domestic and International markets. Open this article and examine 7 charts that explains the decision making process of the Federal Reserve that brought the first rate hike since 2006.

November ended with slight declines for the month in target risk portfolios, but with healthy gains for the latest three month period, marking a recovery from the late summer and early fall correction.

Take full advantage of the diversification and return potential of foreign stocks. 

PowerShares (QQQ) is one of the largest and most actively traded ETF’s in the United States. The main objective of the fund is to track the 100 largest, nonfinancial stocks in the cap-weighted Nasdaq-100 index. This being said, QQQ has a strong presence in the technology (55.02%) , consumer discretionary (19.5%) and biotech (15%) sectors, offering a level of diversification that is desired and essential in many portfolios. Take a look in closer detail to the fundamentals of the ETF by clicking here!    

Shaken Not Stirred

James Bond usually gets roughed up pretty good as he goes about his missions, but invariably comes out golden in the end. And like 007’s infamous martini, global stocks markets were shaken in August and September, only to recover vigorously in October as the S&P had its best month since 2011 with an 8.4% return. 

The DFA Commodity Strategy Institutional fund’s objective is to gain exposure to the broad commodity market, by investing in both domestic and international intermediate term, fixed income securities.