Blog

When constructing a portfolio of global stocks, whether for clients or simply for yourself, it helps to have a reasonable starting point. This month, I’d like to introduce the concept […]

The 2020 pandemic recession was one for the record books. The pace at which it unfolded was breathtaking, as was the speed of the recovery. U.S. GDP growth collapsed by […]

2020 was a remarkable year in a number of ways, including for financial markets, which established several new historical records. The crash in stock prices as the Coronavirus pandemic unfolded […]

In recent months, the perceived gap between US stock market performance and underlying economic fundamentals has grown to extreme levels. While US market indices sit near all time highs, the […]

You may have heard that another presidential election is coming up soon. For many investors, this one feels more consequential than most, and the advisers at Vickery have been fielding […]

In recent years, investors around the world have become accustomed to very low interest rates. Bond yields were already low by historical standards at the beginning of 2020, but then […]

The upcoming election this November will be highly consequential on a number of policy fronts, including tax policy. While the outcome won’t be known until after November 3, given the […]

In the last few weeks, you have probably seen several headlines just like that one popping up on your computer screen and in the media; periods of high market volatility […]

On March 26, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that 3.28 million Americans had filed for unemployment insurance in the past week, shattering all records for weekly jobless claims since […]

Gold had another good year in 2019, returning +17.4% in USD terms. Since bottoming at the end of 2015, gold has put together an impressive four year track record, returning […]

Any way you slice it, 2019 was a fruitful year for the investor class. In what was nearly a mirror image to 2018, virtually every asset class had positive returns […]

For US-based investors, being a globally diversified equity investor has been somewhat disappointing since 2010. While global equities have performed strongly on an absolute basis, the non-US component of our […]

The average annual rate of inflation in the United States has been slowly (if unevenly) declining for the past 40 years. Inflation rates averaged about 4% per year in the […]

If you’re like most working Americans, you will be entitled to a Social Security benefit when you reach age 62. The formula for calculating an individual’s benefits is fairly complicated, […]

Sooner or later, nearly all homeowners ask themselves “Should we pay off our mortgage early”? The question is almost deceptively simple to state, but can be surprisingly complicated to answer. […]

Last year ended a nine year run of positive returns for the US stock market. As evidence-based investors, we know that investing involves risk, and that negative returns are always […]

Would you feel comfortable owning a portfolio that was 100% invested in a single stock? Now before you answer, what if I told you this was not just any stock, […]

No one ever said that market timing is easy. One reason for the high failure rate is that market prices incorporate new information almost instantly; another is that prices often […]

Next month will mark the ten year anniversary of the Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy, a shocking and unexpected event that helped catapult what had been a relatively mild recession and bear […]

Through the first quarter of 2018, the post – WWII annualized, real (inflation-adjusted) compounded total return on the S&P 500 has been 7.57%. This is an extraordinarily high real rate […]

Many investors today are increasingly looking at more than just risk and return in their portfolios – they are also hoping to make a positive “impact” with their investment dollars. […]

Everything, they say, has its price. Well perhaps not family, love or friendship but certainly most things do! And it turns out that even money itself has a price – […]

Well that was exciting! Until this month’s ~10% “correction” in world equity markets, volatility had fallen so far below historical averages that stock market movements had almost begun to resemble […]

You may have noticed that interest rates around the world have generally moved higher over the last few months. Predictably, this has encouraged certain investment “gurus” to issue increasingly vocal […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

I have a good friend who, despite my advice, invests virtually all of his portfolio in an S&P 500 index fund. No foreign stocks, no real estate, no emerging markets, […]

After an incredibly long, emotionally-charged campaign, the 2016 election is finally over. The GOP has swept and will control the White House and both Houses of Congress for at least […]

One of the more frequent questions we hear pertains to investing in fixed income mutual funds vs. buying individual bonds. The question usually takes the form of something like “Why […]

First, the good news – the world is wealthier today than it has ever been. Total global wealth now clocks in at around $250 trillion, or almost $34,000 for every […]

As you may have noticed, interest rates are very low at the moment. In fact, they may be the lowest they have ever been. As I write this piece in […]

As I write this month’s Insights piece, the financial markets are off to a rough start for the year. After the first week of trading, the S&P 500 is down […]