What Is Your Advisor Really Costing You?

What Is Your Advisor Really Costing You?

In a recent article in Morningstar, John Rekenthaler talked about how Ameriprise and other brokerages/custodians/advisors offer funds based on how much revenue they get from the fund companies.  These so-called revenue-sharing agreements, he argues, are a way for the brokerages to hide the income they are actually earning from the advice they are providing to…
Read more

What’s The Real Risk In Your Portfolio?

Risk is a commonly used term when it comes to investing, and its importance cannot be overstated. While we cannot control the returns that we get from our investments, we can and should manage the risk very carefully.  As I have written before (Don’t Overlook the Risk of your Investments), there are many different types…
Read more

Is Positive Asset Correlation A Problem?

An article with the provocative title “Why 60/40 Portfolios Are Downright Dangerous Today” caught my eye the other day.  It was in a financial planning trade publication targeted to financial advisors and asserted the following: Bonds and stocks used to be negatively correlated with each other but no longer are. Advisors are not making enough…
Read more

Investment Keywords To Watch Out For

What prompted the writing of this post was a radio commercial I heard the other morning while commuting to work.  It was from some real estate firm that promised to teach me how to buy, hold, and sell properties with no money down and no risk.  Imagine that: no risk!  How could anyone turn down…
Read more

Some Thoughts About Monday’s Market Drop

The media reported that the Dow’s plunge of 1100 points on Monday was the biggest point drop in history. While that sounds scary, keep in mind that media reports are intended to be dramatic.  Put in broader perspective, the percentage drop (which is the more important measure) was 4.6%.  That’s the biggest single day loss…
Read more

What’s In Your IRA?

Pardon me for paraphrasing a catch phrase from a ubiquitously marketed credit card.  But were you aware that you actually have a lot of flexibility in terms of the investments you can choose to put into an IRA?  Besides stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs, you can invest in real estate, gold bullion, and in…
Read more