21 Aug 2014

Mutual Fund Fees Matter

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s changed over the years here at Acropolis. Three years ago, we made our first investment in open-ended mutual funds. We were early adopters of exchange traded funds (ETFs) that operate like mutual funds in some ways but are a little more tax efficient, offer liquidity during the trading day and are often slightly less expensive. Today, we’ve… Read More

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19 Aug 2014

Not All Indexes Are Created Equal

Acropolis will turn 12 in less than 10 days and I can’t help reflect on what has changed over that time and what has stayed the same. Since the beginning, we’ve used index funds, but the way we use them has changed fairly dramatically in some cases. Take small cap stocks, for example. A dozen years ago, we used exchange-traded-funds (ETFs) as the core component of our small cap allocation… Read More

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28 Jul 2014

Money Market Reform

Cash may seem like the least interesting asset class at this point with interest rates hovering near or at zero for the past several years, but there was a major shift in policy last Thursday. For the most part, investors forget that most cash is actually parked in money market mutual funds.  The money market funds invest in short-term government bills from around the world and debt issued by corporations… Read More

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9 Jul 2014

When Interest Rates Rise

With the Federal Reserve now unwinding their bond purchasing program known as quantitative easing, it’s likely that the Fed will start to raise short-term interest rates at the end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016 (assuming no new information). Now that we ‘know’ that the Fed will raise rates, what will happen when interest rates rise?  The short answer is that it depends.  I know that’s an unsatisfying answer,… Read More

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2 Apr 2014

The Market is Not Rigged

My favorite author, Michael Lewis, appeared on 60 Minutes last Sunday and started out by saying, ‘The stock market is rigged.  The United States stock market, the most iconic market in global capitalism, is rigged.’ A few second later, when anchor Steve Kroft asked who the victims were, Lewis said, ‘Everybody who has an investment in the stock market.’ Wow – that’s scary! Thankfully, his comments aren’t really true.  It’s… Read More

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12 Feb 2014

The Market is Over Valued. Now What?

The same fine reader that asked about buy-side versus sell-side research asked another useful question about market valuation metrics.  Let this be a signal to all readers that I demonstrate my appreciation for questions with answers! The question refers to an article by Mark Hulbert from CBS Market Watch that looks at six different valuation measures that all come to the same conclusion – that the market is overvalued. First… Read More

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27 Jan 2014

Emerging Markets Tail Wags Dog

Concerns about a slowdown in China’s economy appears to be the ‘go-to’ rationale for the selloff, although there hasn’t been any new data since the Purchasing Index Managers (PMI) report that we discussed on Friday. A secondary, but possibly more plausible explanation is that investors are looking at the weakness in Emerging Markets currencies and are concerned about the end of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program. We noted the… Read More

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16 Jan 2014

Morningstar’s Manager of the Year

Markets were higher today on upbeat earnings and manufacturing data.  The S&P 500 closed at an all time high and is now up 0.07 percent for the year!  Who knew such a little return could be so exciting. Much of the excitement about earnings came from Bank of America (BAC), which posted its highest annual profit since the financial crisis.  Back in 2007, when BAC had a market capitalization of… Read More

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