Author Archive

Nearly every financial and wealth advisor speaks of the importance of putting clients’ interest above all else. The words roll off the tongue. It is much harder, however, to back up those words with consistent, meaningful actions. In a blog from...

How can you find a great financial advisor – a true professional? This age-old question has long been answered with suggestions of requesting referrals from friends, doing internet searches, and asking standard questions of prospective advisors....

The rollercoaster that was 2020 has slipped into the rear view. So many of us are looking forward to a happier and healthier 2021 and beyond. The turn of the calendar is also a time of resolutions for many. Once the financial planning basics are...

Risk may be top of mind for many people these days – with public health, the economy, and financial markets challenged. Given my focus on due diligence, I think a lot about where risk lies in waiting, how to measure it, and how to communicate it...

The biblical figure Methuselah and the “Book Value” or “Book Cost” shown on investment statements have something in common. Maybe all of this distancing is getting to me; but stay with me. Methuselah was said to have lived to the age of 969...

Rebalancing an investment portfolio involves occasionally selling better recent performing investments to buy more of those investments that have performed poorly. This usually happens during bear markets for stocks (i.e. when prices drop by at...

There have been many large proclamations in the investing world over the years. Perhaps the most famous – or infamous – is Business Week’s August 13, 1979 magazine cover declaring “The Death of Equities”. Others emerged during the late...

Razor-thin interest rates have motivated investors to reach for extra returns for years. Accordingly, many investors have invested in investment funds holding bank loans – a.k.a. senior secured loans, leveraged loans, term loans, floating rate...

Skinny bond yields have prompted investors to replace high-quality but low-yield bonds and to sometimes expect too much from their chosen bond substitutes. But increasingly, investors are also responding to low yields by stepping further out on the...

I have often criticized the investment industry for pumping out products designed to sell, rather than build, wealth for investors, and have worked to raise investor awareness of how gimmicky products destroy wealth. The battle against such products...