After taking about 20 years for exchange trade funds (ETFs) to gain popularity, they are “quickly displacing mutual funds as the mainstay of the average investor’s portfolio because of the…
Europe Still Has Room to Run
Despite fretting over the French election, first-quarter European market data surged and the European Commission’s consumer sentiment survey is near its 2007 peak, according to a recent article in The…
Rob Arnott Questions Use of the Smart Beta Strategies He Pioneered
Rob Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates LLC, published a paper earlier this month in which he questions the use of some “smart beta” investment strategies he pioneered, according to a…
Equity Investors Should Look to Europe
To get the most out of the global recovery, equity investors should look to Europe. This according to a recent Bloomberg article. In an interview last week, Bjorn Lind, a…
Buffett Says Berkshire Stock Will Rise After He Dies
At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meet last Saturday, CEO octogenarian Warren Buffett assured shareholders that they’ll be fine if he were to pass on, according to this week’s Bloomberg. “If I…
Value Indexing: Don’t Chase Performance
In a recent interview conducted by Alex Bryan of Morningstar, Research Affiliates’ John West, head of client strategies, discussed a different approach to value investing in which holdings are weighted…
Buffett Has Sold Large Portion of IBM Stock
Prior to the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting held on Saturday, Warren Buffett disclosed that he sold about a third of his 81 million shares in IBM during the first half…
Secrets from the Richest Man in History
At the time of his death in 1525, German banker Jacob Fugger was worth $400 billion, which represented a whopping 2% of Europe’s GDP at the time. This according to…
Nasdaq 6000 Surge Attributable to Five Stocks
Of the Nasdaq’s run-up above 6000, 40% is attributable to only five stocks: Apple Inc., Facebook, Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet (parent of Microsoft and Google)— which comprise only 10.3% of…
The Math of Stock Picking Works Against Active Managers
The concentration of gains in a minority of index fund holdings—a statistical concept called positive skew—makes it extremely difficult for active managers to beat benchmarks, according to a recent Bloomberg article. Research…