What is Inflation? Inflation is a measure of how much prices for goods and services are rising in an economy. Inflation can be caused by a number of factors. Demand-pull inflation occurs when there is more demand for goods or services than the current supply can meet. This allows companies to raise
Scott’s Column
Posts for Category: Scott’s Column
Fees and Expenses: Do They Really Matter?
Fees Eat Up Return Fees and expenses are two of the most important factors to consider when investing. You can’t control the direction of the financial markets, but you can control what you pay to invest. Every mutual fund or exchange traded fund (ETF) in your portfolio has what’s called an “i
Growth and Value: Understanding Investment Styles
Growth and Value: Two Styles of Stock Investing Stocks are often grouped into two distinct categories or “styles:” growth and value. Knowing the differences between the two and how to incorporate them into a portfolio can help investors smooth out the ride toward their long-term financial goals.
Understanding Exchange Traded Funds – ETFs
What Are ETFs? ETFs are professionally managed, diversified portfolios of stocks, bonds, or other assets that are traded on an exchange. How Common Are ETFs? The first ETF debuted in 1993. Today there are over 2,000 ETFs available in the US. At the end of 2019, there was over $4.4 trillion invested
Big. Some firms say you should work with them because they are very, very big. But who wants to be just another number? Ever try to resolve a problem with your cable company or your health insurance provider? That’s what big looks like. Old. Some firms say you should work with them becau
Gaining an Edge – Understanding Factors
What Are Factors? Factors are characteristics common to a group of securities that help explain their returns. These characteristics are distinct and quantifiable and give rise to similar patterns of performance among the securities within the group that distinguish them from other securities over t
Marketing Timing May be Hazardous to Your Portfolio’s Health
An Elusive Dream The stock market goes up and the stock market goes down, as you can see below. Over time the trend is strongly upward, but there have been significant market declines along the way. Growth of the U.S. Stock Market 1926-2019 US Stock Market as represented by the Ibbotson SBBI
There’s a growing gap between what we know and what we feel. We know that avoiding panic and staying in place is the best strategy during turbulent markets. History shows that patient investors are always rewarded, and market timing is a futile exercise. Yet our emotions tell us it’s time to
Should You Be Worried About the Stock Market’s Fringe Players?
We recently ran across an article about a little corner of the Internet known as “r/WSB.” It’s where a modern-day version of day-traders hang out to share ideas, brag about their conquests, and sometimes try to move the market to their advantage. Here’s a link to the article: The a
You Can Act Like a Fiduciary Regardless of What the Law Says
Reg BI has now been birthed and with it a maelstrom of emotion and controversy. Fiduciary advocates are wearing black and flying their flags at half-mast. They see Reg BI as a sell-out of the individual investors the SEC was created to protect and a knife in the back of the fiduciary RIA community.
A New Series of Portfolios to Give You More Options
On April 1st (no fooling) we launched a new series of portfolios—the Factor Select portfolios. We created them in response to advisors who wanted our best ideas about how to build low cost, factor-based portfolios. A lot of work and research went into their design and we proudly offer them to give
TAMP Users: Watch Out for This Fiduciary Landmine
TAMP users beware! There is a disturbing trend in our industry that may get you in trouble with the regulators if you’re not careful. Everything Was Fine Until… It all started innocently enough. In the “early days” (early 1990s) there weren’t many TAMPs, and their investment offerings
Building Your Own Piece of the Future – Client Profiling
“You better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone for the times they are a changin’.” –Bob Dylan Last time we talked about how technology is changing the game for advisors. To sum up, in the future, the traditional cornerstones of your value proposition like investment managemen
Building Your Own Piece of the Future – Technology
“You better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone for the times they are a changin’.” –Bob Dylan You have no need to fear the future, but you better be prepared for it. Failure to adapt to the changes that are taking place today will cause your business to sink like a stone tomo
Stop the Dangerous Notion That Asset Management is Commoditized
This article also appears in the Journal of Financial Planning: Practice Management Blog. The emergence of low-cost investment solutions like robo-advisers and model marketplaces has elicited statements by earnest pundits about the “commoditization” of asset management. These well-meaning observ