9 Aug 2021

The Fed and the Long Term

Over the weekend, I watched a Front Line documentary on PBS that came out in July, called The Power of the Fed. You can watch it here, although you may have to be a member (like me!). The documentary chronicles the power of the Federal Reserve, with particular attention to the bond-buying program called quantitative easing that followed the 2008 global financial crisis. The documentary makes the case that the… Read More

By David Ott Tags: Economy, Federal Reserve, finances, Inflation, Markets, Wall Street

19 Jul 2021

How Many Stocks is Too Many?

Warren Buffett once said that ‘diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you’re doing.’ I’m a Buffett fan, but this quote always bothered me because we know what we’re doing and we’re highly diversified. The question of how many stocks you need to have a diversified portfolio seems less asked today than it was when we got started 20 years ago, perhaps because you… Read More

By David Ott Tags: Diversification, Investing, Markets, Stocks, Wall Street

13 Jul 2021

Portfolio Insights

We are pleased to provide a digital copy of Portfolio Insights, our quarterly newsletter. Table of Contents: Stock Market Summary Bond Market Review Looking for Yield The Big Picture Click here to read the issue: Q2 2021 Portfolio Insights

By David Ott Tags: Investing, portfolio

14 Jun 2021

Drawdowns in Retirement, Part Deux

Last week’s Insight about the risks associated with so-called bond alternatives with higher yields prompted a lot of feedback, which I always appreciate. Here’s the article in case you missed it. One curious reader asked a great question: what if we allocated some of the bond money to a few of these higher-yielding options? That was enough to send me down the rabbit hole, looking at all kinds of higher-yielding… Read More

By David Ott Tags: Bonds, Diversification, Investing, Markets, Portfolio Strategy, Stocks, Volatility

7 Jun 2021

Drawdowns in Retirement

This past week, I was meeting with a client and the discussion turned to the low yield bond environment. The client has a pretty common question – isn’t there something that yields more? The answer is yes, there are a lot of things that yield more than the investment-grade bond market. We could buy junk bonds, emerging markets bonds, or other questionable issuers. These kinds of bonds aren’t inherently bad,… Read More

By David Ott Tags: Bonds, Fixed Income, Markets, Portfolio Strategy, Portfolio Theory, Retirement, Volatility, Wall Street

24 May 2021

Betting Big on the Future

Some of the hottest exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the past few years come from the ARK family of funds, founded and run by famed investor Cathy Woods. The ARK funds are a series of theme-based ETFs that seek to find the early companies in a variety of emerging fields including robotics, space exploration, genomics, fintech, and 3D printing, among others. I can’t say that I’m very familiar with the ARK… Read More

By David Ott Tags: Diversification, Economy, Investing, Markets, Portfolio Strategy, stock market, Volatility, Wall Street

10 May 2021

Our Yale Education; Remembering David Swenson

David Swenson, the pioneering manager for the Yale Endowment passed away last week, after a long battle with cancer. Swenson is among the few investors that will receive an obituary, along with other legendary investors like Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, Bill Gross, and George Soros (Soros is complicated because he’s one of the most incredible investors of all time, but is mostly known for his political views and activities, which… Read More

By David Ott Tags: commentary, Diversification, Investing, Portfolio Strategy, Yale Endowment

26 Apr 2021

Derivatives in Your Portfolio

Last week, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) ran a gripping article about a mutual fund that blew up due to problems with derivatives in the fund’s portfolio. You can read the whole article by clicking here, but let me start by sparing you of wondering whether you have it: not with us; our portfolio management software doesn’t even recognize the ticker. The thrust of the story is that the fund,… Read More

By David Ott Tags: Bonds, Derivatives, Investing, Markets, portfolio, Portfolio Strategy

15 Apr 2021

Portfolio Insights

We are pleased to provide a digital copy of Portfolio Insights, our quarterly newsletter. Table of Contents: Stock Market Summary Bond Market Review Sensational Small-Caps The Gift that Keeps On Giving Pandemic Volatility Subsides The Big Picture Click here to read the issue: Q1 2021 Portfolio Insights

By David Ott Tags: Bonds, Economy, Investing, Markets, portfolio, Small Cap Stocks, Volatility

29 Mar 2021

Having it all with Buffer Funds?

I’m proud to say that Acropolis was an early adopter of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Although they had been around for almost ten years by the time we launched the firm, they were not actively used. In fact, five years before we launched Acropolis, I wanted to buy some in an account that I had with my dad’s broker at A.G. Edwards. I wanted to buy the S&P 500 ‘Spider’ fund… Read More

By David Ott Tags: Asset Allocation, Buffer Funds, Diversification, finances, Investing, Markets, Wall Street

Insights

Our Knowledge, Straight to Your Inbox