By Justin Carbonneau Imagine this: 80 years ago, you won a prize that promised 13 payments of $10,000 to be paid out over time. You think you’ve finally got lucky, hit the big one. That is, until you read the fine print: Terms & Conditions You must invest the money in the U.S. market, as represented by the S&P 500. You can’t touch the money once invested. You can’t look at the investments’ performance until… Read More
By Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) Imagine for a moment you were one of the very first investors in Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 and you’ve stayed committed to Buffett all these years (54 years and counting be exact). You’re meeting him today to profusely thank him for producing the results he has. You say, “Warren, I want to thank you for producing the long-term outperformance over the market you have delivered on my investment. You’ve more than… Read More
In an interview with Citywire, lead portfolio manager for the Fiera Capital US Equity fund Nadim Rizk discusses his buy-and-hold strategy. Rizk characterizes his fund’s approach as “tectonic—everything is very slow,” adding that he is rarely tempted to make changes. In fact, the fund made no moves in 2018 (even during the Q4 correction) or so far in 2019: “A one to two-month correction is not enough for us to react to market changes,” he… Read More
By Justin J. Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau) — As investors, we are taught to try and think long term. The story goes something like this — invest in stocks, stay disciplined and patient and let your money compound over many years or even decades and you can growth your wealth. I strongly believe in that story, but the reality is for many investors the definition of “long-term” becomes too narrow and time focused. When thinking about long… Read More
On the subject of long-term investing, a recent Economist article outlines six precepts every investor should keep in mind: You can’t start too early—compounding is a compelling reason to start saving when you’re young, the article argues. Risk and reward are related, but don’t think the latter is guaranteed.Risk, the article explains, is not about volatility but rather about loss of capital. “That is why investors should always have some money in cash or government… Read More
The stock market is more expensive today than it was when baby-boomers were starting their careers, writes Bloomberg columnist Nir Kaissar. “Which means,” he adds, “that millennials can’t expect the same payoff from U.S. stocks as their parents.” That said, he writes, since millennials will soon enter their peak earnings years, they should “root for recent market turmoil to turn into a long rout. And if their wish is granted, they should shovel as much… Read More
Nancy Zevenbergen set up her own investment company at age 28 and, by 1992, had an office, 51 clients and $212 million under management. This according to a recent article in Forbes. Today, Zevenbergen Capital Investments operates out of a small office in Seattle, overseeing $2.4 billion in assets. The article outlines the founder’s career path and accomplishments. Her firm’s flagship growth equity fund, it reports, has returned 11.5% annually, net of fees, since 1987… Read More
Over a more than 46-year investment career, former Franklin Templeton portfolio manager Don Reed has learned patience, says a recent Morningstar article. In an interview on January 31st (the formal date of his retirement), Reed offers investors the following insights: Sticking to your guns can be tough: During the tech bull market of the late 1990s, Reed recalls, Templeton owned no tech stocks because the companies didn’t meet the firm’s valuation criteria. With some stocks,… Read More
At the end of the Super Bowl, a jubilant Tom Brady attributed the Patriot’s win to the “mental toughness” the team had demonstrated all year–which, no doubt, came in handy when they entered the fourth quarter trailing the Falcons by ten points. Unless we’re talking about basis points, things would be pretty dismal for any investor entering the fourth quarter down by ten. But the idea of mental toughness applies to investing as well as… Read More
The evolution of Yale University’s endowment fund has become something of legend, as described in a recent article in Chief Investment Officer. In the mid-80’s, as the story goes, the Ivy League university’s CIO David Swensen shifted the $25.4 billion fund from a traditional mix of primarily bonds and a few equities into “carefully selected alternative investments—hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital—using external managers to capture the so-called illiquidity premium.” It was a good… Read More