Time for a Spring Cleaning

When is the last time your portfolio had a thorough spring cleaning? Find out the ways to best accomplish this task.

Finance, Investments, Personal Finance, TaxesGreg BrownMay 1, 2014simplicity

Survivorship Bias and the Curse of the Undead

How survivorship bias can turn a good study bad.

Finance, InvestmentsGreg BrownApril 24, 2014survivorship bias

Survivorship Bias and Your Financial Well-Being

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.

Finance, InvestmentsGreg BrownApril 17, 2014survivorship bias

Complexity and Other Mirror Tricks: Why the Guru’s Glass Is More Than Half Empty

How can a group of “experts” actually underperform a coin toss? We would propose it’s related to the complexities involved in active investing.

Finance, InvestmentsGreg BrownApril 3, 2014active management, complexity

Beware of those Sneaky, Leaky Money Holes

Hidden trading costs can be difficult to combat; they are by definition elusively observed and slippery to measure. Most investors are unaware they even exist.

Fees and Expenses, Finance, InvestmentsGreg BrownMarch 20, 2014expenses, fees

Buffett Wisdom: More Than Meets the Eye

This 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.

Finance, Investments, Personal FinanceGreg BrownMarch 13, 2014buffett

You, Your Money, and the Mind Games You Play

There’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.

Finance, Investments, Psychology of FinanceGreg BrownMarch 6, 2014Behavioral Finance, Psychology

Choosing Socks, Picking Stocks

It’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.

Finance, InvestmentsGreg BrownFebruary 27, 2014simplicity

Our Ode to Simplicity

There 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.”

Finance, Investments, Personal FinanceGreg BrownFebruary 20, 2014complexity creep, simplicity

Investment Lessons on the Bunny Hills of Life

After 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?

Finance, Investments, Personal / FunGreg BrownFebruary 6, 2014kids, skiing

2013 Year in Review: Sweet Dreams for Long-Term Investors

I 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.

Costs and Outcomes: Like Playing Chutes and Ladders

In 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.

Fees and Expenses, Finance, InvestmentsGreg BrownJanuary 23, 2014expense ratios, trading costs

Defining Reasonable Fund Fees

If your comparable fund’s total expense ratio is considerably higher, you may want to find out why.

Dimensional Fund Advisors, Fees and Expenses, Finance, InvestmentsGreg BrownJanuary 16, 2014dfa, expenses

Five Steps for a Reduced-Fat-Fee Diet

Seek a fee-only advisor, so he or she is being solely compensated by you, the client, with no outside incentives from other sources.

Fees and Expenses, Finance, Investments, Personal FinanceGreg BrownJanuary 9, 2014expenses, fee-only, fees, trading costs

A New Year’s Resolution for Trimming Fat Fees

If 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…

Fees, Inglorious Fees

“In investing, you get what you don’t pay for.”

Fees and Expenses, Finance, Investments, Personal FinanceGreg BrownDecember 19, 2013costs, expenses, fees

I Don’t Know and You Don’t Know Everything That We Already Know

To “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.

Finance, Investments, Personal FinanceGreg BrownDecember 12, 2013surowiecki, wisdom of crowds

Getting to Know Dimensional Fund Advisors: Part II

For 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.

Dimensional Fund Advisors, Finance, Investments, Personal FinanceGreg BrownDecember 5, 2013dfa, dimensional, index funds

Getting to Know Dimensional Fund Advisors: Part I

So 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.

Entering a Secret Investment Dimension

Founded 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.

Finance, Investments, Personal FinanceGreg BrownNovember 14, 2013dimensional, fama, nobel prize

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