| Eyes forward |
| 06/22/25 | | Indexing |
"For most investors most of the time, the data tell us that simplicity and low cost are the way to go. Keeping that in mind may be the best way to tune out whatever might be happening in the next lane."
|
| Why diversification is difficult |
| 04/21/25 | | Indexing |
"Diversification isn't about return, it's about risk. It's about smoothing out the financial ride over your lifetime. You know this already. That's the easy part. The hard part is sticking with it even as you underperform in most years. As Brian Portnoy brilliantly stated, 'Diversification means always having to say you're sorry.' And it's true. Most of the time you will feel sorry that you didn't do as well as your best asset class. You'll feel sorry that one (or more) of your positions lost money. And so forth. But this is to be expected. This is what we pay for the benefits of diversification. This is the price of peace."
|
| School is in |
| 04/21/25 | | Indexing |
"These policy shifts are a reminder that, even when everyone seems to agree, things can change. That's why I believe it's best never to go too far out on a limb with investment choices. Nothing is guaranteed."
|
| Paying your tuition |
| 03/30/25 | | Indexing |
"The one thing about the stock market that's predictable is its unpredictability. New crises frequently come along, and each is different enough to give investors renewed anxiety. In dealing with these crises, what's most important? In my opinion, it's perspective. Good investors have a sense of market history that can help them navigate crises better than other investors."
|
| Index three ways |
| 03/24/25 | | Indexing |
"What percentages make sense? I've long relied on research which finds that investors can pick up most of the diversification benefit of international stocks with an allocation as small as 20%. Thus, my preferred allocation to international stocks is just 20%. It's a matter of perspective, though, and there isn't one right answer." [US Based]
|
| Problems with passive investing |
| 01/19/25 | | Indexing |
"Passive investing has absolutely revolutionized the investment landscape for individual investors. Not only has it dramatically lowered the costs of asset ownership, but it has done so while delivering strong returns. What began as a radical idea to buy the overall market without worrying about picking the winners now accounts for 57% of all equity fund assets and over $13 trillion."
|
| Bet on low costs |
| 12/01/24 | | Indexing |
"In his 2017 annual letter, Buffett summarized the results: Over the 10 years, the S&P 500 returned an average 8.5% a year. By contrast, the group of hedge funds returned just 3% annually."
|
| Disappearing index effect |
| 11/18/24 | | Indexing |
"A similar pattern has occurred with index deletions. The average effect of being removed from the S&P 500 was -4.6% in the 1980s, -16.1% in the 1990s, -12.4% from 2000-2009, and a statistically indistinguishable from zero -0.6% from 2010-2020."
|
| Mob rule |
| 10/13/24 | | Indexing |
"In the past, there was the notion of the wisdom of crowds, which posited that groups of people together make better decisions. But Asness feels that today's social media has produced the opposite result, turning large groups of people into 'a coordinated clueless and even dangerous mob.'"
|
| Unwanted attention |
| 09/01/24 | | Indexing |
"There's a federal regulation that no investor can buy more than 10% of the shares of a U.S. bank without regulatory approval if it's seeking to “control” the bank. Thanks to the popularity of its index funds, Vanguard funds collectively owned 12.5% of State Street's shares as of June 30. They also owned 9.9% of Bank of New York Mellon and 9.4% of JP Morgan Chase."
|
| Buying tiny ETFs |
| 04/03/24 | | Indexing |
"We went with a NAV trade in this case, deploying $60 million into a $6 million ETF very efficiently in a single trade."
|
| Fear of heights |
| 02/16/24 | | Indexing |
"In other words, we'd all prefer to invest when the market's cheap, but investors were still better off putting money into the market at all-time highs than not at all. The lesson: Investors who wait on the sidelines in the hope of earning better returns may miss out on receiving any returns."
|
| Trend to passive investing |
| 02/03/24 | | Indexing |
"Expense ratios (about 70 basis points higher for active funds) largely explained the differences between gross and net returns for both active and index funds."
|
| From COW to KARS |
| 01/28/24 | | Indexing |
"The ideal investment, in my opinion, is a simple, broadly diversified stock or bond index fund, such as one that tracks the S&P 500."
|
| Better and better |
| 12/15/23 | | Indexing |
"Looking back over the post-World War II period, I see five key phases in our thinking about money, and those phases roughly parallel the needs and wants of the baby boomers, as they went from amassing money for retirement to spending down those savings."
|
| What goes up |
| 11/12/23 | | Indexing |
"Frustrating as it might seem, the reality is that any investment trend we observe might keep going or it might not, or it might continue for a while longer before fading or even reversing."
|
| Morgan Housel's portfolio |
| 09/24/23 | | Indexing |
"Save your money and have a level of cash with which you can absorb and manage and survive all of the unpredictable nonsense in the economy, but invest your money like an optimist."
|
| On second thought |
| 09/10/23 | | Indexing |
"I'm no longer much interested in retirement, at least as traditionally defined. Instead, I see the overriding goal as financial freedom - meaning the freedom to spend my days as I wish without worrying about money. What's the key to not worrying? In large part, it's about feeling we have enough, which is less about a specific dollar amount and more about our willingness to be content with what we've accumulated."
|
| Looking up and down |
| 07/16/23 | | Indexing |
"I'm happy to over-rebalance when the stock market nosedives, shifting a higher percentage of my portfolio into stock funds than my written asset allocation calls for. But the opposite isn't true. When stocks soar, I sell shares to get back to my target percentage"
|
| No right way |
| 07/09/23 | | Indexing |
"Every indexer makes judgment calls. Yes, there may be choices that are more sensible than others. But there's no one index-fund portfolio strategy that's right for everyone. Instead, the right portfolio is the one that works for you."
|
| Negatives of index replication |
| 06/16/23 | | Indexing |
"The dirty secret of index fund investing is that the transaction costs are still there and simply hidden in plain sight."
|
| The disappearing index effect |
| 02/05/23 | | Indexing |
"The abnormal return associated with a stock being added to the S&P 500 has fallen from an average of 3.4% in the 1980s and 7.6% in the 1990s to 0.8% over the past decade. This has occurred despite a significant increase in the percentage of stock market assets linked to the index. A similar pattern has occurred for index deletions, with large negative abnormal returns on average during the 1980s and 1990s, but only -0.6% between 2010 and 2020."
|
| Avoidable costs of index rebalancing |
| 05/29/22 | | Indexing |
"Traditional capitalization-weighted indices generally add stocks with high valuation multiples after persistent outperformance and sell stocks at low valuation multiples after persistent underperformance. For the S&P 500 Index, in the year after a change in the index, additions lose relative to discretionary deletions by about 22%. Simple rules, such as trading ahead of index funds or delaying reconstitution trades by 3 to 12 months, can add up to 23 basis points (bps). This benefit doubles when we cap-weight a portfolio not selected on market value, but based on the fundamental size of a business or its multi-year average market cap."
|
| The politics of passive investing |
| 03/06/22 | | Indexing |
"Most of us in the finance world are well aware of the evolution of 'passive' equity investing over the years, and have witnessed its tremendous growth. And some of us have asked questions about it. We've asked is it all good? Is it mostly good? Are some aspects perhaps bad? Are some really bad? It is a subject that has kindled fierce deliberation."
|
| ETFs are not eating the world |
| 01/30/22 | | Indexing |
"Today, there are more than 2,000 equity-focused ETFs in the United States and only about 3,000 US stocks. These ETFs cover every imaginable strategy and are almost all active bets. This is definitely not what the ETF's creators had intended."
|
| Inflation-Themed ETFs |
| 11/21/21 | | Indexing |
"Although we refer to these five products as inflation-themed, they do not target to offer the actual inflation rate, but a return above that, or exposure to companies that should benefit from inflation. Given this, we observe low correlations of the ETFs to the US 10-Year breakeven inflation rate, which is a measure of the expected inflation and the only time series with daily data."
|
| The mirage of direct indexing |
| 11/14/21 | | Indexing |
"Regardless, managing an investment portfolio based on tax decisions is wrong in principle and carries significant risks, for example, selling losers at an inopportune time, say during a stock market crash. Typically, the worst-performing stocks rally the most during recoveries. So, if these have been sold off, the investor captures the full downside but only a portion of the upside."
|
| Charles Ellis interview |
| 07/25/21 | | Indexing |
"If you look at all those different component parts, most of us have way too much in stable assets, which is what bonds are supposed to do, which is why in the present circumstances, where the expected inflation is higher than the rate of return on the bond, it's really hard to justify being a bond investor today."
|
| Beat the stock market |
| 07/19/21 | | Indexing |
"His firm's research finds that buying the outgoing stock in discretionary deletions from the S&P 500 at the closing price on the day it's removed from the index has beaten the market by an average of nearly 20% over the following 12 months."
|
| The problem with momentum ETFs |
| 06/13/21 | | Indexing |
"This highlights the challenges with momentum ETFs that rebalance only twice a year. In a rapidly changing market environment, the strategies can be slow to catch-up meaning any hope of outperformance, especially in the short term, is most likely wishful thinking."
|
| Indexes proliferate |
| 05/30/21 | | Indexing |
"The lines have blurred between what constitutes an index and what is simply another active investment strategy"
|
| One-click portfolios |
| 02/20/21 | | Indexing |
"I mention all of this to provide some context for a discussion of TD's new trio of One-Click ETF Portfolios. Like other asset allocation ETFs, they offer investors an opportunity to build a globally diversified portfolio at low cost (the management fee is 0.25%) with a single product. But a close look reveals they're far more active than their counterparts from Vanguard, iShares and BMO."
|
| ETF pairs for tax-loss selling |
| 11/08/20 | | Indexing |
"A quick recap: effective tax-loss harvesting with ETFs involves selling a fund to realize a capital loss and immediately replacing it with a similar fund that would not be considered 'identical property.' According to the Canada Revenue Agency, two index ETFs are identical property if they track the same benchmark."
|
| Look under the hood |
| 11/01/20 | | Indexing |
"Because of S&P's discretionary power, some stocks aren't included in any of those three indexes. One such stock: Tesla, which has been left out in the cold. The index committee won't let it into the large-cap index. But because of its size, it isn't eligible for the mid-cap or small-cap index, either."
|
| Index Investors in the pandemic |
| 09/06/20 | | Indexing |
"Less than one half of one percent of Vanguard Investors moved to cash - thats less than 0.50%. This is at a time when the unemployment rate spiked up towards 30% and nearly 40 million people lost their jobs."
|
| Expected returns for the balanced ETFs |
| 08/30/20 | | Indexing |
"Justin shows Canadian DIY investors how to calculate an expected rate of return for their Vanguard Asset Allocation ETFs (VEQT, VGRO, VBAL, VCNS and VCIP) and iShares Asset Allocation ETFs (XEQT, XGRO, XBAL, XCNS and XINC)." [video]
|
| Weaponized indifference |
| 08/14/20 | | Indexing |
"On essentially no volume, the live, trading price of DGAZF has shot from a net asset value - what the thing is actually worth - of around $125 to $25,000! Cats and dogs living together! 40 days and nights of rain!? The twitter hyperbole has been intense, so lets explain what's actually happening, and how it's possible."
|
| Vanguard investors holding steady |
| 04/04/20 | | Indexing |
"The typical trader is buying equities on the dips, but older, wealthier traders are moving modestly to fixed income. On balance, we believe these levels of trading indicate that the vast majority of investors are maintaining a long-term perspective despite the market turmoil."
|
| Bond ETFs are being dislocated |
| 03/27/20 | | Indexing |
"The chart below shows us the dislocation between the AGG and its benchmark. Clearly, things became dislocated on March 10th, 11th, 12th, etc."
|
| 2020 Couch Potato Model Portfolios |
| 01/24/20 | | Indexing |
"ETFs still aren't right for everyone, but the launch of 'one-fund portfolios' (also called asset allocation ETFs), combined with the low- and no-commission trades at several brokerages, have made them more appropriate even for small portfolios. For the vast majority of DIY investors, I believe these one-ticket solutions are the best way to build a diversified portfolio that balances low cost with ease of maintenance."
|
| Kung Fu fighting |
| 09/10/19 | | Indexing |
"So, this was all a long-winded way of saying, at least at the market level, that we do not think that the tail is yet wagging the dog. We do not believe that passive investing is a bubble, nor do we believe that it is to blame for the underperformance of small caps or value, nor even that they deserve credit for strong equity markets in the US."
|
| Horizons swap ETFs |
| 09/10/19 | | Indexing |
"Should investors be concerned about additional risks in the new corporate class structure? And what is the likelihood that the new ETFs will continue to deliver the returns of their underlying indexes with no taxable distributions?"
|
| The passive bubble |
| 09/06/19 | | Indexing |
"It's like worrying about a trend where everyone decides to eat better, thus hurting sales at McDonald's."
|
| Direct indexing |
| 04/21/19 | | Indexing |
"ETFs disrupted mutual funds by offering something a little bit better. Now ETFs face disruption because direct indexing offers several new features that make them much better."
|
| Multi-factor ETFs |
| 04/12/19 | | Indexing |
"There is a lot to consider in relation to the composition and performance of multi-factor ETFs in the US stock market. Perhaps the most interesting insight is that these products feature factors such as growth that are not supported by academic research and lack exposure to established ones like quality and momentum."
|
| ETF tax dodge |
| 04/03/19 | | Indexing |
"It turns out that transfusions like these are tax dodges, carried out by the world's largest asset managers with help from investment banks. The beneficiaries are the long-term investors in exchange-traded funds."
|
| The equilibrium consequences of indexing |
| 03/25/19 | | Indexing |
"As indexing becomes cheaper (1) indexing increases, whileindividual stock trading decreases; (2) aggregate price efficiency falls, while relativeprice efficiency increases; (3) the welfare of relatively uninformed traders increases; (4)for well-informed traders, the share of trading gains stemming from market timing in-creases, and the share of gains from stock selection decreases; (5) market-wide reversalsbecome more pronounced. We discuss empirical evidence for these predictions." [pdf]
|
| Broken beta |
| 02/12/19 | | Indexing |
"Smart beta will disappoint some investors, but that's as much their fault as the product providers. Investors do not appreciate the significant tracking errors relative to their benchmarks. This has led ETF issuers to create index products with only slight factor tilts. Given the higher price tag of smart beta ETFs compared to plain-vanilla equity ETFs, they are probably not worth the higher fees."
|
| Rebalancing for ETFs |
| 02/05/19 | | Indexing |
"Rebalancing spreadsheets are not new, but this one has an additional feature I hope you will find useful: it allows you to incorporate ETFs that hold more than one asset class."
|
| John Bogle dies at 89 |
| 01/16/19 | | Indexing |
"John C. Bogle, 89, who revolutionized the way Americans save for the future, championed the interests of the small investor, and railed against corporate greed and the excesses of Wall Street, died of cancer Wednesday at his home in Bryn Mawr, his family confirmed."
|
| Bogle sounds a warning on index funds |
| 12/03/18 | | Indexing |
"If historical trends continue, a handful of giant institutional investors will one day hold voting control of virtually every large U.S. corporation. Public policy cannot ignore this growing dominance, and consider its impact on the financial markets, corporate governance, and regulation. These will be major issues in the coming era."
|
| Bundled investment sales |
| 11/05/18 | | Indexing |
"If most financial services are sold rather than bought, regardless of their intricacy, then why are variable-annuity presentations accompanied by filet mignon, while index-fund discussions are not?"
|
| Charley Ellis interview |
| 08/07/18 | | Indexing |
"Charley was an early guest on the show and we reconvened to talk through the full case of indexing for individuals and some of its constraints for institutions. Our conversation covers the case for indexing, smart beta, the retirement problem, investing in alternatives, private equity, and indexing challenges in emerging markets." [audio]
|
| ETFs with Eric Balchunas |
| 07/02/18 | | Indexing |
"My guest this week is Eric Balchunas, the senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg and the author of the Institutional ETF toolbox. This episode is intended for those in the asset or wealth management industry who have considered using ETFs in their portfolios, or for the individual investor who likes to stay up to date on trends in the market for asset management products. We cover all aspects of ETFs in some detail" [audio]
|
| Does your alpha cover its taxes? |
| 06/19/18 | | Indexing |
"Management fees, the investment industry's most visible cost, often get more attention than the less visible and typically larger costs associated with trading and taxes."
|
| Looking past the package |
| 05/07/18 | | Indexing |
"ETFs have adopted all of the mutual fund industry's bad habits."
|
| Vanguard's one-fund solution |
| 02/05/18 | | Indexing |
"It was one of the great mysteries in the Canadian fund market: why had no one created an ETF version of the balanced index mutual fund?"
|
| Direct indexes: cheaper than ETFs |
| 10/23/17 | | Indexing |
"Direct Indexes, where investors directly own shares in a basket of stocks that track an index, outperform ETFs on an after-tax basis. Given that ETFs beat 80 - 90% of all active investments, that's a big plus for Direct Indexes. But Direct Indexes are better than an ETF in another important way: they have the potential to be much less expensive."
|
| Low vol in perspective |
| 10/16/17 | | Indexing |
"The superior performance of low-volatility stocks (as well as low-beta stocks, which are closely related) was initially documented in the academic literature in the 1970s, before even the size and value premiums were 'discovered.' The low-volatility anomaly has been found to exist in equity markets across the globe, and not only for stocks but for bonds. In other words, it has been pervasive."
|
| CAPE ETFs |
| 10/16/17 | | Indexing |
"Shiller's CAPE ratio looks at how current stock prices compared to the company's average inflation-adjusted earnings over 10 years. As described in the BMO prospectus, the indexing process for its ETF involves identifying the top 100 securities with the highest 10-year CAPE yield based on price and sector. A momentum filter is then applied to remove 20 securities with the lowest price momentum over the last 12 months. The remaining securities are equally weighted."
|
| Protection money |
| 08/20/17 | | Indexing |
"Vanguard Group is my favorite fund company - and the place where I now keep all my investment dollars. There's no mystery why: Among mutual fund companies, Vanguard has long been not only the biggest champion of index funds, but also the firm with the lowest annual fund expenses. Except that's no longer the case."
|
| ETF ratios |
| 08/16/17 | | Indexing |
"Depending on how you calculate the average, subtracting the large losses of a few companies from the combined profits of the others can leave a much smaller total of net earnings to go around. That can make the index look more expensive than it effectively is."
|
| The math behind futility |
| 05/28/17 | | Indexing |
"The distribution of returns in the stock market is bizarrely lopsided. Often, equity benchmarks are so reliant on gigantic gains in just a handful of stocks that missing them - as most managers do - consigns the majority to futility."
|
| A monster ETF trade |
| 05/21/17 | | Indexing |
"Until 11:49 a.m. EST, exactly one share had traded hands. Then, boom, 15 million shares. It's not often you see a tape like this"
|
| An ETF gets too big |
| 04/23/17 | | Indexing |
"Can an exchange-traded fund get too big for its index? That's the question investors in one popular gold miner ETF are grappling with after rapid asset growth pushed it to significantly deviate from its underlying index."
|
| ETFs are the new bond kings |
| 04/09/17 | | Indexing |
"Exchange-traded funds are transforming debt markets as big investors use them in ways considered crazy a few short years ago."
|
| The permanent portfolio |
| 03/26/17 | | Indexing |
"The Permanent Portfolio strategy is about as promising as any that I have seen for preserving the value of assets through a wide number of macroeconomic scenarios. The volatility is low enough that almost anyone could maintain it. Finally, it's pretty simple. Makes me want to consider what sort of product could be made out of this."
|
| The momentum index |
| 01/28/17 | | Indexing |
"Momentum investors cut their losers and let their winners run. In a roundabout way, that's exactly what the stock market has done over time."
|
| Charley Ellis interview |
| 01/28/17 | | Indexing |
"Ellis explains that the best approach for most individual investors is a simple asset allocation composed primarily of low cost index funds."
|
| WealthTrack: Arnott interview |
| 12/11/16 | | Indexing |
"When 'smart beta' investing can be dumb. Financial innovator and thought leader, Research Affiliates. Robert Arnott warns about pitfalls with the popular strategy he helped create." [video]
|
| Vanguard's Gerry O'Reilly and Jim Rowley |
| 10/23/16 | | Indexing |
"This episode is a rare and fascinating look into the world's largest asset manager. My first guest is Gerry O'Reilly, who is the portfolio manager for the largest mutual fund in the world, and oversees more than $800 billion for Vanguard. My second guest is Jim Rowley, a Senior Investments Analyst with deep knowledge of indexing and ETF's. The two provide incredible insight into some of the particulars that make Vanguard and its funds tick."
|
| Turning over accepted wisdom |
| 10/16/16 | | Indexing |
"How many of us often just cite 'the average can't beat the average' and move on assuming we've smashed whoever we were debating? I know I have done it many times. Sharpe's insight is, in my opinion, likely still mostly true, perhaps entirely true. But Lasse has, at the very least, created some doubt for me in something I was pretty sure about."
|
| Sharpening the arithmetic |
| 10/16/16 | | Indexing |
"I challenge Sharpe's (1991) famous equality that 'the return on the average actively managed dollar will equal the return on the average passively managed dollar.' This equality does not hold in general. It is based on the implicit assumption that the market portfolio never changes, which does not hold in the real world because new shares are issued and others are repurchased. Hence, even 'passive' investors must trade regularly in order to maintain their market-weighted portfolios. Since passive investors may trade at less favorable prices than active managers, Sharpe's equality is broken. The changes of the market portfolio are large enough that active managers can add noticeable returns. Hence, active managers can be worth positive fees, which allow them to provide an important, beneficial, role in the economy - helping to allocate resources efficiently. Passive investing also plays a useful role, especially since the average active mutual fund manager has charged larger fees than their value added."
|
| The illusion of choice |
| 10/16/16 | | Indexing |
"The challenge with dividends as an investment factor, as opposed to Value, Momentum, or Quality, is that only so many companies pay dividends. As buybacks have become more popular in the U.S., the share of stocks paying high dividend yields has declined. The chart below breaks down dividend payers listed on the S&P 500 by their level of yield. While the share of companies paying small yields of less than 1% has decreased, the share of companies paying greater than 4% has also declined. Historically, about 12% of S&P 500 stocks offer a yield of 4% or greater. As of the third quarter, the tally is half that at 6%."
|
| A more balanced S&P 500 |
| 10/09/16 | | Indexing |
"According to Willis, rebalancing the portfolio of 500 stocks each quarter to its original weight level, as the INDEX does, ensures that investors are adding stocks that have fallen in price and selling stocks whose prices appreciated. Thus, the mechanism of the equal-weight index embeds the 'buy low, sell high' strategy."
|
| Testing smart beta |
| 08/14/16 | | Indexing |
"Equal weighting isn't everyone's cup of tea, but the numbers on a trailing 10-year basis, which encompasses a full business cycle of stress testing, are strong enough to give advocates of the strategy plenty of ammunition for arguing their cause."
|
| Index revolution |
| 08/14/16 | | Indexing |
"Charles Ellis on why investing in low cost, passive index funds, not actively managed ones is the best choice for most individual investors."
|
| Cost versus convenience |
| 06/25/16 | | Indexing |
"if you also factor in the management expense ratios, the total cost of VXC in a retirement account is 0.71%, compared with just 0.19% for the US-listed ETFs"
|
| The high price of low vol |
| 05/08/16 | | Indexing |
"If you buy a 'low-volatility' fund, make sure you're comfortable paying a higher price. That's the warning that emerges from the surge in popularity of funds specializing in stocks that fluctuate less than the stock market as a whole."
|
| Popular at a price |
| 05/01/16 | | Indexing |
"BlackRock hasn't just ignored the fee war. It has raised EEM's fee - a practically unheard move for an ETF. EEM used to charge 0.67 percent. Now it charges 0.69 percent - a rare case when a popular ETF charges more than (gasp) the average active mutual fund."
|
| Minimum volatility investors beware |
| 04/24/16 | | Indexing |
"If the long-term benefits of Low Vol investing are actually associated with some sort of Value premium, then current Low Vol investors should beware. Valuation for Low Vol stocks is expensive. A once good idea has run its course. All of the research I have done or reviewed suggests that high current valuation leads to low future return. Valuations on Low Vol have risen substantially in just the last few years. Based on the PE ratio, USMV is 80% more expensive than it was when it launched. In a best case scenario, Low Vol seems destined for mediocre future returns. In a worst case, the correlations and volatilities underlying the ETF's holdings could change quickly, providing an unexpected return profile for investors whose expectations have been managed for downside protection."
|
| The curse of the Dow |
| 03/19/16 | | Indexing |
"The so-called Curse of the Dow, an old Wall Street adage, holds that companies usually rally leading up to the day they join the blue-chip index, but then underperform in the year after."
|
| How indexing changes indexes |
| 03/12/16 | | Indexing |
"Rat's tails and dead cobras were measures of progress against vermin overpopulation in Vietnam and India. But those measures then became the targets of enterprising citizens, and in the process ceased to be a good measures. In America, home ownership was a measure of quality of life and happiness, so it became a target, and we know how that ended. This is becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the stock market."
|
| Index funds may work too well |
| 07/25/15 | | Indexing |
"I have a good laugh every now and then about the people who think that index funds should be illegal because they make companies less competitive, but honestly it's a nervous sort of laughter. Those people are up to something, something so big and interesting that it makes them nervous too."
|
| In defense of active investing |
| 06/28/15 | | Indexing |
"To the extent investment experts continue to do the important work of advising clients on investment policies to achieve their true objectives and values and sustain their commitments through various markets, our profession will be appropriately admired and well rewarded."
|
| Is it time to dump market-cap weighting? |
| 02/20/15 | | Indexing |
"We are not trying to say market-capitalization indexing is a bad thing, it is better than many of the alternatives out there. The problem we often see, however, is that investors do not realize how big of an allocation Canadian markets have toward a few industries."
|
| Misfit stocks |
| 02/07/15 | | Indexing |
"These types of stocks have at least two advantages. First, well, they're neglected and underappreciated, which means investors have low expectations for them. Second, they often have depressed prices, which makes for a potentially favorable starting point."
|
| Vanguard makes its move |
| 10/11/14 | | Indexing |
"You knew it was coming: Vanguard Canada has dramatically reduced the fees on 11 of its ETFs. The announcement came this week, and it affects some of the most popular funds in the Vanguard lineup"
|
| The growing case against ETFs |
| 02/23/14 | | Indexing |
"Whether you are racing, cruising, stopping or crashing, safe driving comes down to a mix of equipment and personnel. The same can be said for mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, and while there is growing consensus that ETFs are the better vehicle, there's growing evidence that the people using them may not be so skilled behind the wheel. That's a real issue because a number of studies seem to indicate that the 'better' investment vehicle isn't delivering better results"
|
| Why do ridiculous portfolios outperform? |
| 01/18/14 | | Indexing |
"Jason Hsu on why monkeys and upside-down portfolios produce better results than cap-weighting over time." [video]
|
| Dilbert's investing gift |
| 12/29/13 | | Indexing |
"Don't dismiss it because Dilbert is just a world-famous comic hero. I'm here to authenticate it, to tell you this one-pager is no joke - it really is one of the best books on investing and personal finance you'll ever read. Moreover, it's actually less than one page, just 129 words, 9 simple points. Rarely has any financial writer ever been so darn succinct."
|
| Index effect raises concerns |
| 12/08/13 | | Indexing |
"Goodhart's law was widely cited in the 1980s, when the UK government tried to control inflation by targeting the money supply. But policymakers found that as soon as they focused on a monetary aggregate such as M-3, the measure started to misbehave. The law is familiar to those in the indexing business, too. Investors have long been aware of the distortions that can arise when large volumes of money track or reference a particular measure of the stock market."
|
| How low can prices go? |
| 09/29/13 | | Indexing |
"This is what it has come to in the ETF business after about 15 years in Canada: Companies are now competing with price cuts that amount to mere cents on a modest investment. Some may mock this as a sign the ETF business has run out of ideas to attract new customers, but not people who understand that low costs are one of the foundations of successful investing. Switch funds over a difference of 0.02 of a percentage point on fees? That's pointless. Put the fund with the lowest fees on your short list of places to invest new money? Definitely."
|
| Confessions of an institutional investor |
| 08/10/13 | | Indexing |
"I've spent my entire career managing institutional portfolios for pensions, endowments and foundations. A few have used a simple, conventional approach while the majority have used the more complex, alternative model that is so popular these days. My current job is with a large fund that uses a complex approach with a focus on downside volatility and the use of hedge funds and private investments. This experience has cemented my opinion that the simple approach is just plain better."
|
| Who should try to beat the market? |
| 08/04/13 | | Indexing |
"Instead, Zweig thinks Graham would have advised those who have an edge at stock-picking to do so, while recommending those who don't take a passive approach with index funds"
|
| The active passive investor |
| 05/12/13 | | Indexing |
"Today, the more affluent investor's default strategy is - increasingly - indexing, inspired by the likes of John Bogle, Charles Ellis and William Sharpe. But I have often found that indexing advocates implement strategies that are quite a departure from the underlying theory they use to support their choices."
|
| Vanguard total int'l bond fund |
| 05/05/13 | | Indexing |
"The latest filing provides additional details on the fund that.s designed to track the Barclays Global Aggregate ex-USD Float Adjusted RIC Capped Index (dollar hedged), and will tap into a universe of 7,000 high-quality corporate and government bonds from 52 countries."
|
| Why do Value Investors like Indexing? |
| 12/29/12 | | Indexing |
"In general, most value investors like indexing. Buffett and many others agree on this. But why? 1) Most value investors that I have known want ordinary people to have an option of doing pretty well, without investing with them, because the minimums are too high - investing in index funds fits that... 2) The second reason is less noble. We like less competition."
|
| When cheap funds cost too much |
| 10/13/12 | | Indexing |
"Exchange-traded funds have quickly become one of the cheapest and simplest investing tools in the world. They also are the raw material for an increasingly popular but potentially expensive and confusing way to invest."
|
| Shiller launches value indexes |
| 09/14/12 | | Indexing |
| New funds, old flaws |
| 04/14/12 | | Indexing |
| High-speed trading hurts ETFs |
| 04/07/12 | | Indexing |
| Hubble, bubble, index trouble |
| 03/14/12 | | Indexing |
| If you pay peanuts for ETFs ... |
| 07/11/11 | | Indexing |
| Too much of a good thing |
| 07/02/11 | | Indexing |
| Systemic risks of ETFs |
| 04/22/11 | | Indexing |
| Celebrating 75 Years Of Sloth |
| 02/08/11 | | Indexing |
| Are ETFs a Menace? |
| 11/12/10 | | Indexing |
| The Hidden Costs of Indexing |
| 10/27/10 | | Indexing |
| Hidden Cost for Index Funds |
| 10/27/10 | | Indexing |
| A closer look at BetaPro's HXT |
| 10/09/10 | | Indexing |
| Economic Consequences of Index Investing |
| 09/22/10 | | Indexing |
| Beware of professors bearing ETFs |
| 09/12/10 | | Indexing |
| iShares ETFs becoming more expensive |
| 05/05/10 | | Indexing |
| ETFs running off in all directions |
| 05/01/10 | | Indexing |
| ETF clutter |
| 04/17/10 | | Indexing |
| ETFs were off the mark in 2009 |
| 02/19/10 | | Indexing |
| Maida runs new AlphaPro ETF |
| 02/10/10 | | Indexing |
| ETFs may hide tax surprise |
| 02/09/10 | | Indexing |
| Free for a fee |
| 11/02/09 | | Indexing |
| Tax plan could cripple industry |
| 09/21/09 | | Indexing |
| Leveraged ETFs |
| 09/10/09 | | Indexing |
| The three-dimensional portfolio |
| 08/16/09 | | Indexing |
| It's easy to front-run a TIPS ETF |
| 08/16/09 | | Indexing |
| Gone for a Burton |
| 07/30/09 | | Indexing |
| Exotic ETFs are toxic ETFs |
| 06/27/09 | | Indexing |
| Investors are getting killed in ETFs |
| 06/18/09 | | Indexing |
| Know what you own |
| 06/15/09 | | Indexing |
| Is Vanguard sailing in uncharted seas? |
| 06/14/09 | | Indexing |
| Currency hedging |
| 06/13/09 | | Indexing |
| Nine basis points! |
| 06/03/09 | | Indexing |
| Shorting leveraged ETFs |
| 05/25/09 | | Indexing |
| Just buy everything |
| 05/11/09 | | Indexing |
| Long term performance of leveraged ETFs |
| 03/25/09 | | Indexing |
| Market woes hit newer ETFs |
| 12/08/08 | | Indexing |
| Some ETFs fall short on pricing |
| 11/21/08 | | Indexing |
| S&P 500 index: now more poor, less standard |
| 11/21/08 | | Indexing |
| Complex and pricey |
| 11/19/08 | | Indexing |
| New ETFs can serve as caution signs |
| 10/30/08 | | Indexing |
| Tumult jars bond-tracking ETFs |
| 09/26/08 | | Indexing |
| An active value strategy in disguise |
| 08/27/08 | | Indexing |
| The prescient are few |
| 07/13/08 | | Indexing |
| Equal weight indexing: five years later |
| 06/28/08 | | Indexing |
| Do-it-yourself ETF may not be worth your time |
| 06/28/08 | | Indexing |
| 'Lazy Portfolios' for stagflation |
| 06/13/08 | | Indexing |
| Why you're not a rational investor |
| 11/07/07 | | Indexing |
| ETFs for everyone. Even dermatology investors |
| 04/23/07 | | Indexing |
| ETFs: A user's guide |
| 02/08/07 | | Indexing |
| The weird world of ETFs |
| 02/08/07 | | Indexing |
| New ETFs will whet your appetite |
| 11/18/06 | | Indexing |
| Index changes and losses to index fund investors |
| 09/28/06 | | Indexing |
| ETF-O-Mania |
| 09/05/06 | | Indexing |
| Seeking sanity amid a market of ETF mania |
| 08/05/06 | | Indexing |
| Investors choose high-fee index funds |
| 06/02/06 | | Indexing |
| Fundamental indexing and the three-factor model |
| 05/25/06 | | Indexing |
| Commodity wary? Try custom indexing |
| 05/14/06 | | Indexing |
| ETFs: 5 smart strategies |
| 05/07/06 | | Indexing |
| Barclays announceschange from iUnits to iShares |
| 04/30/06 | | Indexing |
| ETFs: The cheap, the dear and the fairly valued |
| 04/16/06 | | Indexing |
| It's better to do it yourself with ETFs |
| 04/08/06 | | Indexing |
| Foreign ETF Fee-ver |
| 04/03/06 | | Indexing |
| Making the most of Vanguard's VIPERs |
| 03/25/06 | | Indexing |
| ETFs claiming superior stock selection draw fire |
| 02/14/06 | | Indexing |
| An intriguing twist on stock indexing |
| 02/05/06 | | Indexing |
| So many RRSP choices. What to do? |
| 01/29/06 | | Indexing |
| Index ETFs: watch your weight |
| 01/10/06 | | Indexing |
| Barclays Canada announces four new ETFs |
| 12/24/05 | | Indexing |
| ETFs are performing well at a lower cost |
| 12/12/05 | | Indexing |
| TD plans to terminate ETFs |
| 12/12/05 | | Indexing |
| Plenty of room for improvement |
| 12/01/05 | | Indexing |
| When index funds go bad |
| 11/11/05 | | Indexing |
| ETFs provide access to the world of bonds |
| 11/06/05 | | Indexing |
| Barclays muscles in to zap TD's last advantage with ETFs |
| 10/16/05 | | Indexing |
| S&P/TSX index outpaces managed funds |
| 08/14/05 | | Indexing |
| First style-based international ETFs |
| 08/06/05 | | Indexing |
| Variance among U.S. equity indexes |
| 06/08/05 | | Indexing |
| The cost of AA programs |
| 05/15/05 | | Indexing |
| The diversified dividend aristocrats |
| 05/08/05 | | Indexing |
| The index to end all indexes? |
| 05/01/05 | | Indexing |
| Sharpen the pencil when picking ETFs |
| 03/29/05 | | Indexing |
| Halfway there |
| 03/23/05 | | Indexing |
| There are better ETFs than the snappy i60 |
| 03/13/05 | | Indexing |
| Vanguard to introduce international VIPERs |
| 03/10/05 | | Indexing |
| The relentless rules of humble arithmetic |
| 03/03/05 | | Indexing |
| Funds: The limits of indexing |
| 02/15/05 | | Indexing |
| Vanguard's switch |
| 02/01/05 | | Indexing |
| Vanguard's new target benchmark |
| 02/01/05 | | Indexing |
| Indexing makes sense -- but not with mutual funds |
| 01/30/05 | | Indexing |
| It's time for investing spotlight to shine on ETFs |
| 01/02/05 | | Indexing |
| Money for nothing |
| 12/06/04 | | Indexing |
| S&P index versus active funds scorecard |
| 12/06/04 | | Indexing |
| S&P launches Canadian fund scorecard |
| 12/06/04 | | Indexing |
| New ETF brings you the whole bond universe |
| 11/21/04 | | Indexing |
| Why your index fund is lagging the market |
| 11/07/04 | | Indexing |
| JasonZweig.com |
| 11/05/04 | | Indexing |
| Index funds best way to go for a little Americana |
| 11/05/04 | | Indexing |
| Can active management beat index funds? |
| 10/26/04 | | Indexing |
| Build wealth in any market |
| 10/11/04 | | Indexing |
| Canadian fund firms should follow U.S. lead |
| 09/23/04 | | Indexing |
| A primer on stock-market averages and indices |
| 08/13/04 | | Indexing |
| ETF tracking error needs improvement |
| 06/30/04 | | Indexing |
| Taking your portfolio abroad |
| 06/16/04 | | Indexing |
| Index fund investment is simple, stress-free |
| 06/13/04 | | Indexing |
| To tilt or not to tilt |
| 06/06/04 | | Indexing |
| Fees upon fees |
| 05/21/04 | | Indexing |
| A better way to invest |
| 04/25/04 | | Indexing |
| Index fundamentalism revisited |
| 04/01/04 | | Indexing |
| Hoodwinking innocent investors |
| 03/24/04 | | Indexing |
| The tragic perils of passive investing |
| 03/24/04 | | Indexing |
| Mr. Rogers goes to Wall St. |
| 03/23/04 | | Indexing |
| Build your own RRSP with ETFs |
| 02/15/04 | | Indexing |
| Vanguard: what flag are they flying now? |
| 02/08/04 | | Indexing |
| New Vanguard ETFs |
| 02/02/04 | | Indexing |
| Some U.S. index funds provide a 'natural hedge' |
| 02/01/04 | | Indexing |
| The virtue of ETFs |
| 12/12/03 | | Indexing |
| The new indexing |
| 12/11/03 | | Indexing |
| Joined at the hip |
| 11/19/03 | | Indexing |
| Inexcusable |
| 11/10/03 | | Indexing |
| New ETFs give access to emerging markets |
| 09/27/03 | | Indexing |
| The envelopes, please... |
| 09/26/03 | | Indexing |
| Sharp jolt for index of fund managers' renown |
| 08/11/03 | | Indexing |
| The S&P is lousy at make-or-break bingo |
| 07/25/03 | | Indexing |
| MERs as Indulgences |
| 07/23/03 | | Indexing |
| 'Active' managers are closet indexers |
| 07/15/03 | | Indexing |
| 10 Questions: Is Your Fund Family the Enemy? |
| 07/12/03 | | Indexing |
| Canada's fund fees called 'criminal' |
| 07/10/03 | | Indexing |
| Succeeding as investors in spite of ourselves |
| 07/05/03 | | Indexing |
| The policy portfolio's role in an era Of subdued returns |
| 07/02/03 | | Indexing |
| The Wisdom of John Bogle - Part 2 |
| 01/29/03 | | Indexing |
| The Wisdom of John Bogle - Part 1 |
| 01/29/03 | | Indexing |
| Index funds not a bear market disaster |
| 01/26/03 | | Indexing |
| Find out more about ETFs |
| 01/16/03 | | Indexing |
| The probability of success |
| 01/11/03 | | Indexing |
| Interview with John Bogle |
| 01/08/03 | | Indexing |
| A collection of fine articles |
| 10/14/02 | | Indexing |
| Active mismanagement |
| 09/26/02 | | Indexing |
| Investors carry power to change |
| 09/25/02 | | Indexing |
| As ETF terminated, plan with extreme prejudice |
| 09/17/02 | | Indexing |
| Scoff at bond funds? |
| 09/13/02 | | Indexing |
| How to beat 77% of fund investors |
| 09/12/02 | | Indexing |
| 'Stay the course' or pay the price |
| 09/10/02 | | Indexing |
| Mug's game |
| 09/01/02 | | Indexing |
| Beware 'orphan' exchange-traded funds |
| 08/28/02 | | Indexing |
| Efficient Frontier: Summer 2002 |
| 07/05/02 | | Indexing |
| Wealth management in the new era |
| 07/04/02 | | Indexing |
| Indexing works better elsewhere |
| 06/18/02 | | Indexing |
| Back to the drawing board |
| 06/13/02 | | Indexing |
| Is Time Running Out For The S&P 500? |
| 05/26/02 | | Indexing |
| Jason Zweig of Money Magazine |
| 04/01/02 | | Indexing |
| Three winning strategies for passive investors |
| 03/27/02 | | Indexing |
| Great expectations |
| 01/31/02 | | Indexing |
| Jack Bogle, man on a mission |
| 12/31/01 | | Indexing |
| The road less travelled |
| 11/15/01 | | Indexing |
| Stocks fall to 3-year lows |
| 09/17/01 | | Indexing |
