Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater is the latest celebrity investment management firm to opine that in a low-interest rate environment government bonds not only offer little in the way of value for investors, but that their ability to provide risk reduction during financial stress will be impaired as well. As this article from Bloomberg reports, Bridgewater is…
Category: Quick Reads
How Strong Is Your Stomach?
The vast majority of the time, most investors are not terribly concerned with their risk tolerance. Typically, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), a measure of S&P 500 volatility, sits comfortably below 20 and financial markets exhibit a consistent upward trend. However, as 2020 can attest, markets don’t always behave this way. Earlier this year the…
Are Fractional Shares Just a Gimmick?
One area of finance that has been getting a lot of attention lately is the concept of “fractional shares” and their use in investment portfolios. In an effort to make investing cheaper and more available to the masses, certain brokerages are allowing clients to buy fractional shares so that investors aren’t burdened with having to…
Explaining the Disconnect Between the Economy and Stock Market
This week, the S&P 500 flirted with overtaking its high watermark from February of this year, leaving many scratching their head as to how, and why, the stock market has rebounded this quickly. Since the bottom in March, the S&P 500 has risen approximately 50 percent, taking only 175 days for the index to complete a…
Order Matters
Many investors, especially those with longer time horizons, tend to overlook the impact that volatility can have on their portfolio. However, the path of returns is not a factor to be ignored and a recent piece by Amy Arnott helps illustrate this point through several examples. She highlights the impact of positive returns early in…
Not Everyone Is A Winner
While in the midst of COVID-19, historical levels of unemployment, unprecedented levels of economic stimulus, and falling corporate profits, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) is in positive territory for 2020. The economic data would indicate we are in a recession, yet U.S. equity markets are not behaving as such. A recent article by…
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Throughout history, the world has seen many innovations created to solve problems or improve the quality of peoples’ lives that have instead gone on to cause more harm than good. The phrase “too much of a good thing” has fitting applications in both life and investing. Morgan Housel outlines how philosophies and innovations that are seemingly…
Buyer Beware
One unintended consequence of COVID-19’s impact on financial markets has been the influx of new retail investors. Online brokerages, such as Robinhood, provide a platform where almost anyone can deploy capital into public markets, regardless of their experience or financial means. While the goal of platforms like Robinhood is to “democratize” investing, the ease of…
How Much Can You Bear?
In last week’s edition of Sagacious, we explored the rationale for shifting away from a traditional balanced portfolio (60 percent equities, 40 percent fixed income) based on recent comments from Dr. Jeremy Siegel, a finance professor at Wharton. However, just because a portfolio may be deemed efficient, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily right for all…
Good Old Faithful, or Just Old?
The popular 60/40 balanced portfolio (60% equities, 40% fixed income) has been a staple for many investors through their lifetimes and deservingly so. According to a recent piece by M. Batnick, 60/40 portfolios have boasted an annualized rate of return of 7.5% and positive rolling five-year returns in 99.4% of cases over the past half…