Insights
Over the course of this year, concerns within global financial markets have been forming. Our past few newsletters have discussed the events resulting in us being conservative throughout the summer. Those concerns are not receding at this point, even as the equity markets have recovered. Therefore, we maintain a defensive
Insights
“This is not a crisis, its turbulence.” - Fauzi Ichsan, Head of the Indonesia Deposit Insurance Corp The time between our last newsletter and today feels like an eternity, yet is only 30 days. In that time, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in market volatility (a swift fall followed by
Insights
China recently elected to devalue their currency causing volatility in most global markets. One benefit of this event was that it removed Greece from the headlines. Although our belief was that too much attention was being placed on Greece and its implications for the European Union, it was welcome to
Insights
Behavioral economics is a well researched field of study and one we find important as it pertains to acting as a fiduciary and a steward of capital. In this newsletter, we reflect on recent research into this topic and attempt to blend it with recent market actions hitting the globe
Insights
Determining the characteristics of superior investing is not a new idea. We hazard a guess that since the first dollar went into the public markets, individuals have spent considerable effort determining short cuts and tricks to identify the items that drive outperformance. Within the modern investment world, both academic and
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"Equity investing is about what could happen, not what has" - Michael Goldstein We have highlighted on many occasions the three facets of investing that most impact performance: market participation, asset allocation, and cost. We can further segment costs into three areas: * Direct costs of management fees and investment
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"A person saving for retirement who chooses low-cost investments could have a standard of living throughout retirement more than 20% higher than that of a comparable investor in high-cost investments." - William Sharpe Mutual funds that rely on stock-based investing where once a great idea. However,
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"And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws." - Where the Wild Things Are Inflation, and our fear of it, is a highly debated topic these days. It is worthy of attention given the
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"The boiling frog story is a wide spread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the
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Interviewer: "if you were to be stranded on an island and could have three people join you, who would they be?" (Expecting the answer to include one or more of George Washington, Albert Einstein, Great Grandfather, Barack Obama, Francis Bacon or the Dalai Lama) Lengthy Pause. Interviewee: "
Insights
"An approximate answer to the right problem is worth a good deal more than an exact answer to an approximate problem."-- John Tukey Most financial professionals preach the positives of diversification. They promote it as much for risk mitigation as they do for obtaining superior returns. During prior
Insights
The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions. - Leonardo da Vinci What better idea than to bring up the Seven Deadly Sins during the holidays? In our constant need to Google everything, absorbing as much data as possible, we came across this graphic created by a Jennifer Hagey.
