Don't predict the future, prepare for it.

As I will be on vacation next week, I wanted to provide an early mid-year investment update, along with some perspectives on market valuations and what may be driving stock prices higher. I look forward to discussing it with you when I return. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to call Carla or Andy if anything arises. I will be in touch daily.

“It’s not too much of a stretch to say that we’re in a race between how much wealth and value and improvement in lifestyles human ingenuity can create versus how much destruction of wealth and lifestyles governments can destroy.”

Compared to index funds, actively managed funds charge higher investment management fees and, because there is more turnover, they incur much higher transaction related costs.

Following up on my recent post, New Research on All-in Funds, I thought it would be informative to show how this plays out in the real world.

Young students coming out of business school invariably ask me, "What is the one thing I must master to achieve success in the investment world?"

Traditionally, we've focused on your physical and financial assets.  However, these aren’t the only assets that need attention – you should also think about protecting your digital assets.  

The holidays are a time for relaxing, helping the less fortunate, showering family and friends with love and attention—and, sometimes, for smiling and nodding through unsolicited stock tips from an overbearing relative who has been sampling the eggnog.

Last week the Boston Globe ran an article with this headline:  An Easy Year for Investors, 2014 to be More Difficult. Really?  We all accept how difficult it is to predict markets, not that pundits don’t keep trying, but how difficult can it be to recount the past accurately?

It is gratifying that Eugene Fama and Robert Shiller won the Nobel Prize in economics last month because these scholars have had a formative influence on my investment thinking over the years, but their theories are contradictory... Which one is right?

Insight on teaching children and grandchildren to be good savers - a lesson which will serve them well throughout their lives.

Perspective Amid Worst-Case Forecasts

Now that the market is some 20% higher than it was on January 1st, how many even remember the "fiscal cliff" concerns that caused the market correction last fall? Doomsday scenarios on the budget deficit erroneously analogize the fiscal condition of the entire country to the condition of a household.  They fail to recognize the country's valuable tangible and unique intangible assets, supported by an unparalleled history of innovation.  The present wave of innovation may be entering a new phase of deployment rendering current budget assumptions meaningless.

After pronounced ups and downs in the last five months, markets surged in September. Stocks ended the quarter with a return of 6.27% and 21.45% for the year to date.

Did you know that looking at a picture of yourself ten to twenty years down the road might help you to be a better saver?

These are notes from the book I wish I’d written. It pretty much says it all. The path of the author, Gordon Murray, mirrors my own high-flying experience on Wall Street and subsequent epiphany about the right way for individual investors to find investment success.