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Archive for 2017
11.30.2017
What is the Difference Between Gambling and Investing?
Most investors instinctively know that investing and gambling are not the same thing. At the same time, they may find it difficult to articulate exactly why they are different. They are both often considered in a similar context — in fact, when asked to describe their personal investment strategy, investors sometimes resort to using gambling […]
10.30.2017
What About Warren Buffett?
As evidence-based investors, we know that in aggregate, the relative performance record for active mutual fund managers is dismal. Depending on the asset class in question, roughly 80%-90% of active equity managers have underperformed their benchmark index in any given 10-year period, and these poor results are actually worsening over time. The amount of the […]
09.28.2017
Charts that Humble
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” -Mark Twain At Vickery Financial, we know that successful investing is not easy. It requires, among other things, a disciplined plan, a consistent and well-reasoned investment philosophy and a long-term view. But even with […]
08.25.2017
How to Win by Not Losing
At Vickery Financial, we know that everyone wants a successful investment experience. Unfortunately, there are several obstacles in our way toward achieving that goal. Some of these obstacles are simply ‘frictions’ or costs that can be reduced but not entirely eliminated. These would include investment management fees, mutual fund expenses, trading costs and of course, […]
07.27.2017
Why does the Federal Reserve want Inflation?
Investing, as we all know, involves risk. In fact, there are several – to name just a few, there is market risk, interest rate risk, currency risk, default risk, political risk, economic risk, and even natural disaster risk. Now if you want to avoid most of these risks, you can always keep all of your […]
06.28.2017
What do we mean by “the market”?
If you happen to tune into the financial media (and we don’t recommend it!), you will undoubtedly hear frequent references to “the market”. The reporters and commentators will discuss not only what “the market” did, but also how it looks to them, and even how it feels, as in “the market looks strong”, “the market […]
05.10.2017
Corrections are Part of the Plan
If the US stock market made a noise it would sound like crickets right now. As I write this piece in early May, the S&P 500 index has not moved up or down by more than 0.2% for the last nine trading days in a row. The last time the market experienced such a long […]
04.17.2017
The Case of the Missing Stocks
Here’s a pop quiz for you: How many stocks are in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index? Hint: There’s a big clue in the name of the index. If you answered “500”, you’re correct! That was too easy, right? OK, here’s another one: How many stocks are in the Wilshire 5000 Index? The answer is […]
03.22.2017
The Underperformance of Active Managers Should Surprise No One
I’d like to start this month’s commentary with a moment of silence for the actively managed investment industry. Net client cash flows have been negative since 2004 for actively managed mutual funds, and the latest Morningstar data offers no relief on that front. Investors withdrew $340 billion from actively managed funds and deposited more than […]
02.14.2017
What is Evidence-based Investing?
At Vickery Financial, we throw the phrase “evidence-based investing” (or “EBI” for short) around fairly casually, without spending much time to actually define it. This month, I’d like to explain to our readers outside of the finance industry exactly what we mean by EBI and why we believe it offers the best path for a […]
01.19.2017
The Essence of Finance
On the first day of my very first Investments course in college, our professor stated that he wished to take us all to the tattoo parlor down the street and have two phrases permanently inked on our arms. On one arm, he would write “Time Value of Money”; the other arm would read “Risk and […]
