Money and Finance
Jason Zweig's latest. This is kind of related to some of the points I made in THIS letter.
- U.s. Stocks Look Pricey, But Bargains Beckon Overseas
Stocks are cheap—just not U.S. stocks. After climbing 5.2% in January, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is again nearing all-time highs, spurring many small investors to pile into U.S. stock funds. More than $36 billion flowed into U.S....
- Are Individual Investors Fleeing Stocks? Nope – By Jason Zweig
A new report from Vanguard Group casts some doubt on the meme that retail investors have been fleeing stocks like rats from a sinking ship. The report, “How America Saves,” is the latest installment in Vanguard’s annual survey of the more than...
- The Dividend-fund Dilemma - By Jason Zweig
Sooner or later, the markets always punish investors who do the right thing for the wrong reason. Some investors in dividend-oriented stock funds might end up learning that lesson the hard way. So far this year, $9 billion has gone into mutual funds and...
- High Yield Reads - 5/17/14
Summary of recents posts and pieces of interest, sometimes enduring, to investors: Consuelo Mack interviews Chuck Akre on the importance of compounding. He uses Markel as a case study. More compounding machines: Base Hit Investor mines the intersection...
- Vaccinate Yourself Against 2014 Predictions With Silver Medals
Its prediction season! What will the market do? What will happen in economics? In the world? No one really knows but there sure are lots of people ready, willing, and able to give authoritative sounding predictions on what will happen in 2014. I follow...
Money and Finance
Have Investors Finally Cracked the Stock-Picking Code? - By Jason Zweig
Jason Zweig's latest. This is kind of related to some of the points I made in THIS letter.
Believe it or not, there could be a new holy grail for investors.
"Great ideas come along maybe once every 20 years or so," David Booth, chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors in Austin, Texas, which manages more than $262 billion, told me this week.
Lately, he and other leading investors have gotten excited about a financial measure called "gross profitability" or "quality." The measure appears to identify companies that will earn even more money in the future. New funds are launching based partly on it. What should you know before you consider joining in?
Research to be published soon in the prestigious Journal of Financial Economics by Robert Novy-Marx, a finance professor at the University of Rochester, shows that bargain-priced "quality" stocks outperformed the overall market by more than four percentage points annually between 1963 and 2011. This stunning margin is even higher than that earned over the same period by traditionally measured cheap "value" stocks, but usually with less severe losses in market downturns. Quality also tends to do well when value does poorly—and vice versa.
- U.s. Stocks Look Pricey, But Bargains Beckon Overseas
Stocks are cheap—just not U.S. stocks. After climbing 5.2% in January, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is again nearing all-time highs, spurring many small investors to pile into U.S. stock funds. More than $36 billion flowed into U.S....
- Are Individual Investors Fleeing Stocks? Nope – By Jason Zweig
A new report from Vanguard Group casts some doubt on the meme that retail investors have been fleeing stocks like rats from a sinking ship. The report, “How America Saves,” is the latest installment in Vanguard’s annual survey of the more than...
- The Dividend-fund Dilemma - By Jason Zweig
Sooner or later, the markets always punish investors who do the right thing for the wrong reason. Some investors in dividend-oriented stock funds might end up learning that lesson the hard way. So far this year, $9 billion has gone into mutual funds and...
- High Yield Reads - 5/17/14
Summary of recents posts and pieces of interest, sometimes enduring, to investors: Consuelo Mack interviews Chuck Akre on the importance of compounding. He uses Markel as a case study. More compounding machines: Base Hit Investor mines the intersection...
- Vaccinate Yourself Against 2014 Predictions With Silver Medals
Its prediction season! What will the market do? What will happen in economics? In the world? No one really knows but there sure are lots of people ready, willing, and able to give authoritative sounding predictions on what will happen in 2014. I follow...