26 Sep 2014

Canaries in a Coal Mine: Stocks Sell Off

Since taking over Daily Insights last July 1, the market has gone up steadily at an annualized pace of 19.69 percent through the close of business yesterday. In addition to the substantial gains, volatility for the S&P 500 has been uncharacteristically low. Naturally, I’m appreciative that we’ve all been able to enjoy a straight-up market, but I’m also realistic and know that it won’t always be like this. It’s normal… Read More

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25 Sep 2014

Retiree Spending

In our retirement planning model, the Acropolis Financial Forecaster, there are essentially five key variables that affect the probability of meeting your goals.  They are as follows: Saving Before Retirement When to Retire Spending in Retirement Market Returns & Inflation Rate Portfolio Risk The first three factors are entirely under your control and the second one is the most critical because the timing of your retirement stops contributions to your… Read More

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23 Sep 2014

When Academics Go Bananas

You may have noticed already, but I constantly refer to academics and academia. As a firm, we put a lot of value on the ideas that come from the ivory towers and have academic support for nearly every strategy and sub-strategy that we employ. We appreciate the thoughtfulness, research, peer-review process that has contributed so much to the way we think about markets. But, sometimes, academics can get a little… Read More

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22 Sep 2014

Alibaba vs. Amazon

Alibaba Group Holding (ticker: BABA) went public on Friday at a price of $68 per share, which valued the company at $168 billion, making it one of the 40 largest companies in the world, according to S&P Capital IQ. Once the stock started trading in the open market, however, investors bid the stock higher and it ended the day at almost $94 per share, valuing the company at $231.4 billion…. Read More

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17 Sep 2014

ETF Deathwatch

Although the first exchange-traded-fund (ETF) hit the market in 1993, they really didn’t catch on until about 10 years ago. The first product ever is still one of the most popular, the Spider S&P 500 ETF Trust, which trades under the ticker SPY. When we launched Acropolis in 2002 there were 113 ETFs on the market with a total of $102 billion in assets under management according to data from… Read More

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16 Sep 2014

The Naked Truth About Actively Managed Mutual Funds

Twice per year, Standard & Poor’s issues a report that compares the performance of actively managed mutual funds to corresponding S&P indexes. The most recent report, the S&P Indexes Versus Active, or SPIVA, can be found here. It’s a great report because it provided high quality, continuous evidence in the ongoing debate about active versus passive management. The debate, which has being going on for 30+ years, centers on who… Read More

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15 Sep 2014

Where Your Taxes Go

If you pay quarterly taxes, they’re due today! The next payment isn’t until January 15th of next year, but it probably makes sense to start salting away money now so that you’ll have plenty on hand in a few months. If you aren’t sure whether or not you need to pay quarterly taxes, you probably don’t. The quarterly taxes are actually estimated tax payments on income that is not subject… Read More

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12 Sep 2014

Planning on a Long Life with Longevity Insurance

One evening, years ago, I was fiddling around with a life expectancy calculator online and after running the numbers on myself, I decided to run through the program for my wife. Her problem was very different than mine (I’m on borrowed time already). According to this calculator, her life expectancy was 116! It made sense, there is a lot of longevity in her family and she doesn’t chain smoke or… Read More

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11 Sep 2014

Avoid This Catastrophic Loss

Every now and then, I come across some research that really drives a point home. Yesterday, I found a terrific study by JP Morgan on what they called catastrophic losses – or what kids today might call ‘epic fails,’ which Urban Dictionary defines as: a complete and total failure when success should have been reasonably easy to attain. In the JP Morgan study, a catastrophic loss is defined as a… Read More

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10 Sep 2014

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Smart Beta

Speaking of hot topics, the investment community is abuzz with a new term: smart beta. The term is gaining increasing popularity and the current edition of Institutional Investor magazine has a lengthy article (and series of ‘sponsored content’ pages) on the topic. Despite the popularity of the phrase in the industry right now (I do think it’s a fad, but I will get to that in a minute), let me… Read More

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