Delta Dental, for the last two decades, has gathered information about the generosity of the Tooth Fairy. The most recent figures show that she’s been stingier over the last two years. In fact, the price for teeth has dropped 18% over the last two years!
As I watched my daughter and her friends baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies, I realized there are several parallels between baking a good cookie and putting together a solid investment portfolio.
This month, one of my heroes passed away at the age of 89. John Bogle was much more than the founder of Vanguard and the pioneer of index funds; he was one of the hardest working and most effective crusaders for investors.
Investment diversification works, but not in all short-term periods. In 2018, very few asset classes had a positive performance for the year. While not pretty, there is some good news to report.
Whenever the markets show weakness, “tactical traders” are featured on various financial programs often telling stories about the importance of avoiding big losses. The buy and hold investor tells the opposite story about the pain of missing out on gains. Neither story is fair.
I have been invited to speak at the “It’s Your Money!” seminar series several times over the last 10 years. This month I was asked to teach their Fixed Income Investing course. Fixed income investing is admittedly not the most exciting topic, but it's one of the more important ones in the series.
The most popular kids in school do not always end up doing the best following their glory days. Is the same true of the most popular stocks?
Once you have done the hard work to determine a mix of holdings that's best for you, there is still plenty of work to be done. MILE Wealth uses smart rebalancing strategies and finely tuned software to keep client portfolios in check.
Most investors have an investment portfolio that’s exclusively made up of stocks and bonds. Adding holdings that provide other sources of income and capital gains makes good sense. There is one area I’ve used for several years and continue to be excited about – “core” real estate.
I’m expecting lower than average returns for the US stock and bond markets over the next five to seven years. With my concerns in mind, I have added Alternatives (“Alts”) to client investment portfolios.
The stock and bond markets are always looking ahead. Unfortunately, we are terrible at predicting the future – especially in the financial world – and the talking heads on TV are no better.
Investing in the bond market is especially tough right now. Click to watch a quick video that explains how the dynamics are different and how MILE Wealth is protecting client portfolios against likely interest rate increases.