Long time readers know that I’ve been cautious on US stocks for some time, calling them overvalued in 2014. Last year, I referred to a quote from Sir John Templeton, who famously said that ‘Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die in euphoria.’ I said then that I could see the rally continuing on for years but that we were probably moving from… Read More
In my mind, the word ‘bucket’ should be banned from the investment industry because it brings to mind the ‘bucket shops’ where unlicensed hacks in boiler rooms cajole unwitting investors into pump and dump schemes. Despite my view about this word in this industry, it seems to be what we as a group have settled on for a particular retirement planning strategy (I’m not a fan of smart beta either,… Read More
In 2014, one of the breakout movies of the year was The Fault in Our Stars, a romantic drama based on a book written in 2012. I didn’t see the movie or read the book, but I did notice the box office receipts of $307 million compared to the production budget of $12 million – now that’s a solid return on investment! I also liked the sound of the title,… Read More
Last weekend, I took an extended drive through the Great Lakes region to drop my kids off at their respective camps. We stayed in Michigan the first two nights – first in Holland and then Munising, right on Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula. After a drop off in Minocqua, Wisconsin, we stayed in downtown Madison. All told, we traveled about 2,300 miles. While my wife and kids were hooked… Read More
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) printed four articles in what appears to be a 17 article series on what they call ‘the quants.’ I was so excited to see these articles because I think you could fairly describe some of the strategies that we pursue as quantitative in nature. Unfortunately, I was turned off immediately. The second paragraph of the first article talked about how the quants use ‘high… Read More
For what feels like the first time in forever, foreign stocks are outpacing US stocks so far this year. The table above includes the MSCI All Country World exUS index, which combines all developed and emerging markets. As of Friday, the MSCI ACWI is outperforming the S&P 500 by 1.79 percent. That contrasts with the results over the last five years ending in March, when the S&P 500 earned 13.3… Read More
There are a fair number of reasonably well known investors that I keep my eye on even though I know that we won’t ever invest in their funds. One of the most fascinating investors in my opinion is Bruce Berkowitz, manager of the Fairholme Fund (ticker: FAIRX). Berkowitz caught my attention at an investment conference bank shortly after the 2008 financial crisis because he had a booth that was swarmed… Read More
One of the tried and true tenets of successful investing is taking a long-term perspective. Warren Buffet says that his favorite holding period is forever. He doesn’t always hang on that long, but still recommends that you should ‘only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10-years.’ Regarded academic Jeremy Siegel wrote the buy and hold bible, titled ‘Stock for the long run,’… Read More
Three or four years ago, I gave up cutting the grass, which I wasn’t too happy about because I really liked seeing a physical change to my yard after a few hours of work. I love my job, but at the end of a year, the numbers on a screen may have changed, but they are still numbers on a screen. It’s simply not as inherently satisfying. In any case,… Read More
