Among the numerous economic and financial indicators that investment advisors utilize in an attempt to predict future stock market performance there is a pretty broad consensus that company profit margins (or earnings per share) are one of the better predictors.  The challenge, of course, is the difficulty of predicting future profit margins.  Currently for the…
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The New York Times recently reported on research at USC suggesting that when under stress, men take more risks than women by focusing on bigger wins, even when they are costly and less likely. One experiment involved giving points for inflating digital balloons on a computer.  The trick was to pump them enough to maximum…
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The recent volatility in worldwide stock markets reminds us that stock and mutual fund prices can and do fluctuate frequently and sometimes wildly. Indeed, coming on the heels of one of the best years for investing in several generations (2013), the market’s recent gyrations appear that much more unexpected and severe.  The fact is that…
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If you were to review the historical performance of any mutual fund, asset class, or investment portfolio over any period of time, you’d certainly notice quite a bit of variation in the returns.  Take the S&P 500 (representing the largest 500 U.S. companies), for example.  The returns from this asset class over the last five…
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