Due Diligence Pick Good Funds Posted on October 25, 2016April 13, 2017 By Matt The Wall Street Journal and the financial community have been abuzz about passive investing. I wrote about settling for average and outrunning a bear via active management previously. The newest argument for choosing active management over passive is that investors should choose ‘good’ managers, not average or bad managers. Why… Read more
Investing Active Versus Passive in a Down Market Posted on October 23, 2016October 21, 2016 By Matt The Wall Street Journal has been publishing articles about passive investing recently. Many of these articles look like they are pro-passive, but are written by active management shops looking to damn passive with faint praise. My last post addressed the ‘settle for average returns’ fallacy. The second argument I often… Read more
Investing Why Settle for Average? Posted on October 21, 2016 By Matt With the recent flood of Wall Street Journal articles about passive investing, now is a good time to review the space. Money is pouring into firms like Vanguard and iShares, the leaders in the indexing revolution. Investors are seeing that despite perennial declarations of a “stock-picker’s market”, active managers consistently… Read more
Investing Eight Years Ago Posted on October 14, 2016 By Matt Eight years ago, we were in the midst of financial crisis. Warren Buffett penned an op-ed in the New York Times encouraging investors to “Buy American, I Am”. So did you buy American? Too many investors were scrambling to do the opposite. On the front page of the New York… Read more
Due Diligence The Angels’ Share Posted on September 14, 2016April 13, 2017 By Matt As a whisky (whiskey here in the States) matures, it loses about 2% of its volume to evaporation each year. Distilleries call this The Angels’ Share. They fill oak casks with a precious liquid knowing that each year part of their hard work will simply disappear. I can’t help but think… Read more
Investing The Bull and the Swan Posted on September 8, 2016 By Matt Preparing for the swan, it’s possible to miss out on the bull. In my monthly commentary for Fairway, I asked “What does a 20% gain feel like?” Spoiler alert: it feels like right now. The S&P 500 is up about 20% since the bottom in February. However, no sales people… Read more
Investing Fed Minutes Posted on August 18, 2016 By Matt On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its latest meeting. The minutes of these meetings are basically a form letter now with the Fed relaying its thoughts on the economy and rates via tweaks in the vocabulary used. Changing “modestly strong” to “strong” can move markets. There is… Read more
Due Diligence The Tyranny of the Calendar Posted on August 8, 2016 By Matt We are all beholden to the tyranny of the calendar. Monthly or quarterly account statements tie a nice bow on a period of time, but can lend false significance to a time period’s returns. If you’ve got a brokerage account or 401(k), you probably got a statement ending on 6/30/2016. As… Read more
Investing Where’s Your Parade? Posted on June 22, 2016June 22, 2016 By Matt Cleveland toasts the NBA champion Cavaliers today. The victory parade marks the end of a grueling season filled with ups and downs. There were challenges on and off the court. Some were very real (making a coaching change partway through the season). Some were manufactured (the drama around Kevin Love… Read more
Due Diligence Peer to Peer Lending Posted on March 15, 2016 By Matt Fear is an investor’s constant companion. We are supposed to be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. However, fear seems to loom largest when the markets are down and fades away when markets are up. Pain of past losses gives birth to new fears that what… Read more