2019 Value of an Advisor Study
This annual report looks holistically at the real value advisors deliver for their clients, in their portfolios, in vital services advisors provide, and this year, especially in their after-tax returns. We developed a formula to calculate the full value equation of an advisor’s services.
Productivity and Structural Reform: Why Countries Succeed & Fail, and What Should Be Done So Failing Countries Succeed
In this report the drivers of productivity are shown and are used to create an economic health index. That index shows how 20 major countries are doing…
Avoid Using a Home Equity Loan for These Five Things
If you need cash, you might be thinking about tapping into your home equity. In some cases, this can be a great alternative to a personal loan — but exercise extreme caution when putting your
Don't French Fry When You Should Pizza
Student debt recently surpassed $1.5 trillion. Yes, trillion. Clearly, the vast majority of students finance their college costs. Unfortunately, many students turn to credit cards to pay for incidental costs and
Did You Know: Roth IRAs Can Be Used as Education Savings?
With 70 percent of college students graduating with student loans, saving for college in some form has become a fact of life in the world of post-secondary school. This may look like a future student
The Best Way to Have a Stress-Free College Experience
According to a recent survey, only 1/3 of the U.S. population knows what a 529 plan is. With over the national student debt surpassing $1.5 trillion and impacting 44 million Americans, a tax-advantaged
Does Real Estate Have a Home in Your Portfolio?
Real estate has given investors a tangible real asset to help maintain the purchasing power of their savings. The 2,000 square foot question is, should you hammer real estate into your portfolio?
What Will Be the Next Boost for the Stock Market?
The opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics began on February 9, 2018. It’s unfortunate this wonderful ceremony was preceded by the first stock market correction since 2016.
What's Your Next Shot?
On January 15th, 2018, the Australian Open kicked off. This tournament is the first of the major four Grand Slam events of the year and it gives us tennis fans a perspective of what may occur
When Is Your Advisor Too Old to Be Your Advisor?
“I just returned from the doctor, unfortunately, I have Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and high cholesterol.” Then your advisor pauses, then looks at you and says, “Well, thank god I don’t have cancer.”
Lease or Buy? Either Way, Own Your Decision
For decades, those looking to buy a new car struggle with the decision of leasing or buying. I’m providing this synopsis, so this decision does not overwhelm you one day. Leasing is simply renting
Most People Need Longevity Insurance Rather Than an Immediate Annuity
An immediate annuity is precisely the sum of two parts. One is a deferred annuity commencing at a specified date, with no death benefit before that date. The remainder, before the deferred annuity commences, is a reverse…
Excuse Me Stock Market - May I Order Some Speculation with a Side of Complacency?
The 2018 menu of portfolio choices is one that should be read carefully. The average investor may have trouble staying focused on the menu amid hindrances due to headlines involving North Korea
Populism: The Phenomenon
This report is an examination of populism, the phenomenon—how it typically germinates, grows, and runs its course. Populism is not well understood because, over the past several decades, it has been infrequent in emerging…
A Mountain of Decisions, Where Do We Go from Here?
Heading into 2015, some individuals may have developed a certain confidence when it comes to investing. A tendency to classify oneself more like a Wall Street trader than a prudent long-term
Quantifying an Advisor's Alpha
The value proposition of advice is changing. The nature of what investors expect from advisors is changing. And fortunately, the resources available to advisors are evolving as well.
Goals-Based Wealth Management
Wealth management processes have not always been responsive to an individual clients’ priorities and modes of thinking. A model is presented and evaluated that uses goals-based wealth management concepts to…
Alpha, Beta, and Now...Gamma
When it comes to generating retirement income, investors arguably spend the most time and effort on selecting ”good” investment funds/managers—the so called alpha decision
Dollar-Cost Averaging Just Means Taking Risk Later
Vanguard performs a study looking at the impact of dollar-cost averaging against investing in a lump sum. The authors demonstrate investing in a lump sum has yielded better results both by performance and risk-adjusted returns.
The End of Behavioral Finance
Tn 1985, Werner De Bondt and I published an article that asked the question: "Does the stock market overreact?" The article was controversial because it gave evidence to support the hypothesis
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today.
Amazon Unbound
Almost ten years ago, Bloomberg journalist Brad Stone captured the rise of Amazon in his bestseller The Everything Store. Since then, Amazon has expanded exponentially, inventing novel products like Alexa and disrupting countless industries, while its workforce has quintupled in size and its valuation has soared to nearly two trillion dollars.
Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior
Do you ever think you’re the only one making any sense? Or tried to reason with your partner with disastrous results? Do long, rambling answers drive you crazy? Or does your colleague’s abrasive manner rub you the wrong way? You are not alone. After a disastrous meeting with a highly successful entrepreneur, who was genuinely convinced he was ‘surrounded by idiots’, communication expert, and bestselling author, Thomas Erikson dedicated himself to understanding how people function and why we often struggle to connect with certain types of people.
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf
Before he became a world-class scientist, John Coates ran a derivatives trading desk in New York City. He used the expression “the hour between dog and wolf” to refer to the moment of Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation traders passed through when under pressure. They became cocky and irrationally risk-seeking when on a winning streak, tentative and risk-averse when cowering from losses. In a series of groundbreaking experiments, Coates identified a feedback loop between testosterone and success—one that can cloud men’s judgment in high-pressure decision-making.
The Intelligent Investor
The Intelligent Investor is based on value investing, an investment approach Graham began teaching at Columbia Business School in 1928 and subsequently refined with David Dodd. This sentiment was echoed by other Graham disciples such as Irving Kahn and Walter Schloss.
The Intelligent Investor also marks a significant deviation to stock selection from Graham's earlier works, such as Security Analysis.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.
One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market
America’s most successful money manager tells how average investors can beat the pros by using what they know. According to Lynch, investment opportunities are everywhere. From the supermarket to the workplace, we encounter products and services all day long. By paying attention to the best ones, we can find companies in which to invest before the professional analysts discover them. When investors get in early, they can find the “tenbaggers,” the stocks that appreciate tenfold from the initial investment. A few tenbaggers will turn an average stock portfolio into a star performer.
The Great Influenza
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Plague in History is a 2004 nonfiction book by John M. Barry that examines the 1918 flu pandemic, the worst pandemic in history. Barry focuses on what was occurring in the United States at the time and attempts to place it against the background of American history and within the context of the history of medicine. The book describes how the flu started in Haskell County, Kansas, and spread to Camp Funston and around the world through troop movements during World War I.
Why We Sleep
“Why We Sleep is an important and fascinating book…Walker taught me a lot about this basic activity that every person on Earth needs. I suspect his book will do the same for you.” —Bill Gates A New York Times bestseller and international sensation, this “stimulating and important book” (Financial Times).
The Deficit Myth
A New York Times Bestseller, the leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory -- the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades -- delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society.
Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.
The Fifth Risk
"The election happened," remembers Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then deputy secretary of the Department of Energy. "And then there was radio silence." Across all departments, similar stories were playing out: Trump appointees were few and far between; those that did show up were shockingly uninformed about the functions of their new workplace. Some even threw away the briefing books that had been prepared for them.
The Undoing Project
Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original papers that invented the field of behavioral economics. One of the greatest partnerships in the history of science, Kahneman and Tversky’s extraordinary friendship incited a revolution in Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis’s own work possible.
The Economists' Hour
In The Economists' Hour, Binyamin Appelbaum traces the rise of the economists, first in the United States and then around the globe, as their ideas reshaped the modern world, curbing government, unleashing corporations and hastening globalization.
The Geometry of Wealth
In The Geometry of Wealth,behavioral finance expert Brian Portnoy delivers an inspired answer based on the idea that wealth, truly defined, is funded contentment. It is the ability to underwrite a meaningful life. This stands in stark contrast to angling to become rich, which is usually an unsatisfying treadmill.
The Big Short
The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts.