23 Feb 2016

Time and Transparency

Today, we have a special Daily Insights courtesy of Michael Lissner: John Wanamaker, a man few of us have heard of, has impacted our lives and saved us time.  Wanamaker became a prominent Philadelphia retailer with a reputation for honesty and transparency.  He made his mark as a merchandising genius, as well as inventor. One great contribution he made was to save people time.  In particular, he wanted to save… Read More

17 Aug 2015

St. Louis Business Journal Recognizes Dannelle Ward

I had the great pleasure of attending the St. Louis Business Journal’s Most Influential Business Women event on Friday to celebrate the success of my business partner, Dannelle Ward. The luncheon at the Chase drew 750 people to honor 25 women that the Business Journal selected from nearly 150 nominations.  It was fun to hear all of their stories, which were obviously all impressive. The feature in Friday’s paper provides… Read More

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2 Jul 2015

Doing Well by Doing Good

The end of the second quarter is always a relief for me because for the past six years, it has meant that we are finally through getting our CEFEX certification. As you probably already know, we serve our clients in a fiduciary capacity, which means that we are required to act in the best interest of our clients.  You may think that everyone in the financial services industry has to… Read More

7 May 2015

Unconstrained funds and Uncontained funds

Yesterday, I wrote that Bill Gross, the former bond king, said that shorting German bonds was the short of a lifetime. Although I didn’t have my nice chart (which I’ve added below), I did note that German yields had spiked, which means prices fell and his short must be working out well.  I also went through the details of a short trade, so if you missed it, you can click here…. Read More

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5 May 2015

Estimating the All-In Costs

While I was in New York over the weekend, my sister walked me past a six-story townhouse right off of Fifth Avenue that now belongs to one of my (very few) high school girlfriends.  It’s a pretty nice house with views of Central Park and apparently cost them a cool $26 million (not including any renovation and decoration costs).    This woman married her college boyfriend who is now the… Read More

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27 Feb 2015

Trading to Win

A little less than a year ago, author Michael Lewis created a firestorm with his book, ‘Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt,’ that chronicled the world of high-frequency trading (HFT). At the time of the launch, he went on 60 Minutes and announced that ‘the market is rigged’ and that everyone who had money in the stock market was a victim of predatory traders.  Michael Lewis is one of my… Read More

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13 Nov 2014

Financial Advisor Magazine Highlights Acropolis 401(k)s

Hopefully, The Department and Labor (DOL) and Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) will continue to move towards placing employees first in company 401(k) plans.  One step they are considering in raising the legal bar on the advisors to 401(k)s.  Acropolis fully supports a stronger fiduciary standard, the lowering of plan fees, and encouraging more effective employee education, as profiled in Financial Advisor Magazine article below. Click here to read the… Read More

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30 Jun 2014

Financial Times Top 300 RIAs Includes Acropolis

The Financial Times Top 300 RIAs includes Acropolis in their inaugural ranking! A subscription may be required, but here is the link to the report. When we started out nearly 12 years ago (our anniversary is in August), we received a few accolades from a magazine published by Bloomberg that consistently said that we were one of the fastest growing firms. Still, compared to other firms on the list, we were… Read More

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