A financial study is tainted by survivorship bias if it fails to include returns from typically underperforming funds that have been closed or merged into other funds during the analysis period. In other words, the (likely worst) results simply disappear from the final count.
Read MoreHow can a group of “experts” actually underperform a coin toss? We would propose it’s related to the complexities involved in active investing.
Read MoreA typical reader might be confused by the seeming disconnect between the mostly glowing review and the “B” grade. As a former Morningstar analyst, I am in a better position than most to decipher the results.
Read MoreHidden trading costs can be difficult to combat; they are by definition elusively observed and slippery to measure. Most investors are unaware they even exist.
Read MoreThis year’s shareholder letter has not yet been officially released (due out in May), but a Fortune magazine sneak preview of 2014’s installment of “Buffettisms” does not disappoint.
Read MoreThere’s even an academic field of inquiry called Behavioral Finance that studies how our minds play tricks on us when we think about our money.
Read MoreIt’s one thing when you’re wearing mismatched socks. It’s quite another when your stock risks are misaligned with your need to build or preserve your and your family’s personal wealth.
Read MoreThere are plenty more similar tales I could tell. We all start out with good intentions. But something happens along the way that I refer to as “complexity creep.”
Read MoreAfter reading our story, I want you to think about yourself. How have your and your family’s own experiences shaped your relationship with your wealth?
Read MoreI am glad to have Dimensional’s funds and insights available to us. They help us build and manage families’ investment portfolios to sensibly reflect individual long-term goals and keep sleepless-night concerns in check.
Read MoreIn considering the impact of expense ratios, Dimensional demonstrated that, over time, funds with higher expense ratios lost ground – fell down too many chutes, if you will – compared to low-expense-ratio funds.
Read MoreIf your comparable fund’s total expense ratio is considerably higher, you may want to find out why.
Read MoreSeek a fee-only advisor, so he or she is being solely compensated by you, the client, with no outside incentives from other sources.
Read MoreIf minimizing excess fees is such a big deal, why doesn’t every investor pay rabidly close attention to them? We can think of at least three reasons…
Read More“In investing, you get what you don’t pay for.”
Read MoreTo “beat” the market, you have to be better than others at correctly forecasting future prices. Not just now and then but consistently, again and again.
Read MoreFor lack of a better term, those who justifiably turned away from active investing ended up being thought of as passive investors, i.e., the opposite of active investors. Personally, we prefer the term “evidence-based investing” as more descriptive.
Read MoreSo how is it that Dimensional more closely resembles a cult classic than a box-office hit among individual investors? Quietly, almost clandestinely, they’ve succeeded by offering investors an improved way to think about investing … for those willing to listen.
Read MoreFounded in 1981, Dimensional is the eighth largest mutual fund manager today. Its board of directors includes Eugene Fama, the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics laureate we mentioned in our last post.
Read MoreSimilarly, we were thrilled to hear that Dr. Eugene Fama was recognized with a 2013 Nobel Prize in economics for his and other colleagues’ work on the science of investment-pricing theory.
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