December 31, 2008 What do we know about wealthy individuals and their charitable inclinations? Quite a bit, actually, and perhaps far more than is generally recognized. But much of the knowledge base on the intersectio... December 31, 2008 Reputation counts for much in money management—nowhere more so than in the hedge fund industry. Everyone understands this, although exactly how reputation influences investing strategies beyond the an... December 31, 2008 True learning only comes through pain, Aristotle observed. If that’s the case, investors endured one heck of an education last year. The source of their illumination was the financial crisis of 2008, ... November 30, 2008 Knowing your customers isn’t critical for launching a business, but it comes in handy for staying solvent. But what about advising clients on philanthropy? How much do you really need to know about wh... November 30, 2008 Owning multiple asset classes is the foundation of sound investment strategy. As commonly analyzed and practiced, however, multi-asset class diversification may offer fewer risk management benefits th... November 19, 2008 Last year's collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis was blamed on design flaws, the National Transportation Safety Board advises. Alas, there is no federal agency that dissects failure in investment strat... October 31, 2008 Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) look menacing to some, while others say they’re beneficial for the global economy. But no matter what you think of these portfolios, it’s hard to overlook them or underes... October 31, 2008 Inflation is upwardly mobile again, or at least it was before the financial crisis exploded. Pricing pressures may fade until the economic and financial ills stabilize. Regardless of inflation’s futur... October 31, 2008 Surviving a month like September 2008 is a tough way to earn strategic perspective. Mercifully, bearish runs of that magnitude are rare in any calendar month, which makes them all the more valuable as... September 30, 2008 Failure is always lurking in philanthropy’s shadows. So it goes for tackling challenges that have defied resolution otherwise. That doesn’t mean that organized altruism per se is stumbling. Although s... September 30, 2008 Carbon is many things. It’s an element that’s been known since antiquity and it’s one of the most abundant substances in the universe. It is also the crucial ingredient in organic matter, which means ... September 30, 2008 Volatility can be an investor’s best friend, but friend can turn foe at times. The first line of defense is understanding volatility’s role in money management and being prepared for the Jekyll and Hy... August 31, 2008 Strategies that traditionally have been available only in the shadowy world of privately offered hedge funds are increasingly popping up in mutual funds and exchange-traded products. A recent example ... August 31, 2008 The reasoning starts with the fact that no single database is comprehensive, says Meredith Jones, managing director at PerTrac Financial Solutions, a New York-based provider of investment management s... August 31, 2008 Demand is soaring for hard numbers, deeper analysis and more compelling evidence that a charitable strategy is effective. Alas, coming up with satisfying answers is not always easy. Sometimes it’s dow... June 30, 2008 Asset allocation? Don't even think about it, says Stan Richelson of the Scarsdale Investment Group, Ltd., a Blue Bell, Pa. wealth management shop that he runs with his wife, Hildy. The only sensible s... June 30, 2008 Philanthropy is conventionally defined as activity aimed at promoting human welfare of one kind or another, as any dictionary will tell you. Conspicuously absent from the definition is any mention of ... June 30, 2008 If you build better indices, the possibility of enhancing asset allocation strategies naturally follows. Why, then–in a world that's minting a new generation of benchmarks at a record clip–isn't there... May 31, 2008 An intriguing example comes from a custom indexing shop in the San Francisco area, a region that’s no stranger to finding inspiration in the finance literature for minting investment strategies. The B... April 30, 2008 Ben Bernanke just can’t get a break. From day one he was saddled with the burden of filling his predecessor’s shoes. No mean feat when you take the helm from someone widely hailed as “the maestro.” Bu... April 30, 2008 It’s another story in the 21st century. History’s first triple-digit close arrived just this past February, and no one saw it coming—certainly no one back at the end of the 20th when talk of supply gl... April 30, 2008 It has been five years since veteran investment consultant and celebrated author Peter Bernstein invoked the word “obsolete” to describe the policy portfolio, which encourages fixed weights for multi-... March 31, 2008 Since 1857, the U.S. has endured 32 recessions, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The good news is that, of late, the slumps have been fairly modest compared with their pre... March 31, 2008 So asserts the recently published Get Rich, Stay Rich, Pass It On: The Wealth-Accumulation Secrets of America’s Richest Families (2007, Portfolio), by Catherine McBreen and George Walper Jr., managing... March 31, 2008 Investor protections took a hit in January when the High Court ruled that shareholders can’t bring lawsuits against third parties that engaged in fraud that helped send a stock tumbling. In fact, frau... February 29, 2008 Foreign exchange can be a quandary for investment strategy. Currencies generally suffer an expected return of zero in the long run, a shortcoming that raises questions about the strategic value of the... February 29, 2008 Mention the name Vanguard and while several images come to mind in the world of money management and fund companies, alternative investing probably isn’t among them. Low-cost indexing? Sure. Several w... January 31, 2008 The announcement last November that two of the largest independent wealth managers have joined forces may look like a modest deal from the vantage of Wall Street’s canyons. But in this corner of finan... January 31, 2008 This being a presidential election year, taxes are topical all over again. As an added incentive for chattering about fiscal matters generally, there’s a vigorously rising price tag for government p... December 31, 2007 Alpha is widely viewed as a zero sum game, and so for every investor who beats the market, someone must trail it. If this balancing act accurately describes how the money game works, there’s a limited... December 31, 2007 Many if not most investors accept the equilibrium of alpha as a zero sum game. And so it is for investment returns generated from a specific opportunity set, such as the stocks in the S&P 500. But wha... November 30, 2007 Indexing has been known to rouse strong opinion, both pro and con. Some accept it unconditionally, and others reject it entirely. But many—perhaps most—investors steer clear of absolutes and own both ... November 30, 2007 Stocks and bonds, bonds and stocks. Asset allocation starts with this fundamental mix, and for good reason. Low correlation prevails between the two asset classes—and for enduring economic reasons. No... October 31, 2007 Beta’s been declared dead for so long, by so many, that it’s tempting to dismiss the risk metric as a museum piece. Yes, it’s hotly debated, and probably always will be. Like any quantitative tool, it... October 31, 2007 Hunter Lewis is an unlikely candidate for questioning wealth in the world’s pre-eminent bastion of capitalism. As co-founder of the 34-year-old global investment firm Cambridge Associates, he’s achiev... September 30, 2007 Inflation’s bite into equity returns over time is deep, cutting the S&P 500’s annualized total return to a real 7.2 percent from a nominal 10.4 percent for the 81 years through 2006, according to Ibbo... September 30, 2007 Strategic-minded investors have discovered (some might say rediscovered) commodities as an asset class in the 21st century. But the recent surge of interest in raw materials doesn’t make storing barre... August 31, 2007 The world is brimming with Betas. the U.S.-listed catalog of index funds now totals more than 800, available in three basic design wrappers: mutual funds, ETFs and the latest twist known as ETNs (exch... August 31, 2007 There’s reason to wonder after a lengthy stretch that’s notable for a conspicuous lack of red ink in markets around the globe. Yes, some asset classes are showing signs of stress midway in 2007. REITs... August 31, 2007 A national debt, Alexander Hamilton advised a young republic struggling with finances, will be a “national blessing.” By that standard, the United States is free of fiscal sin in the 21st century. But... June 30, 2007 It was easy to overlook the news amid the avalanche of ETF launches. But recognized or not, the April launch of the new Barclays iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (Amex: HYG) is a minor milestone ... June 30, 2007 Asset allocation is tough enough without introducing the complicating effects of taxes into the equation. So, why do it? Because reality demands no less, says Stephen Horan, the recently appointed hea... May 31, 2007 The good news is that the gap is closing. But rebalancing questions still persist and a consensus remains elusive—a vacuum that allows rules of thumb and anecdotal evidence to flourish. No one should ... May 31, 2007 As benchmarks go, it’s hard to beat the consumer price index for real-world impact. CPI’s fingerprints show up on bond prices, cost-of-living increases for Social Security payments and negotiations fo... April 30, 2007 Endorsing indexing required something of a leap of faith (and perhaps a bit of ego) in the days when Nixon was in the White House, gasoline was 40 cents a gallon, and active management was universally... April 30, 2007 The outlook for the capital markets and the economy may be clouded, but the climate for launching exchange traded funds looks bright and clear! In 2006, the ETF population exploded by 75 percent, reac... March 31, 2007 Inflation is an equal opportunity risk, harassing everyone regardless of race, creed, color or portfolio size. Yes, the threat can be neutralized to a degree with Treasury Inflation-Protected Securiti... March 31, 2007 Mindful that there’s more than one way to quantitatively slice an investment, we ran the major asset classes through number-crunching prisms other than performance. The intended quarry: Noteworthy tre... February 28, 2007 ETF launches have become routine in the 21st century, especially when it comes to targeting ever narrower slices of the capital markets. But two new ETFs are bucking the trend on the foreign-equities ... February 28, 2007 In the 1980s, the U.S. began posting large, chronic trade deficits. Pundits at the time warned that the trend was unsustainable and that an economic day of reckoning was coming. Tapping the era’s nega... |