Bob French, CFA

Occam’s – Do Stocks Get Safer The Longer You Own Them?

By Bob French, CFA / October 23, 2023 / Comments Off on Occam’s – Do Stocks Get Safer The Longer You Own Them?

WHAT IS OCCAM’S RAZOR? Occam’s Razor is a principle attributed to William Occam, a 14th-century philosopher. He stressed that explanations must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. Thus, Occam’s Razor is a term used to “shave off” or dismiss superfluous explanations for a given event. This concept is largely ignored within the investment management…

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What is Risk?

By Bob French, CFA / September 20, 2023 / Comments Off on What is Risk?

Risk is a tricky concept to pin down in the investing world. There’s no good definition of what it truly is, or how people relate to it. And it’s – by far – the most important concept in finance. The Challenge of Defining Risk Finance isn’t alone in not being able to define key concepts, though…

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Index Investing 101

By Bob French, CFA / August 2, 2023 / Comments Off on Index Investing 101

It’s important to you and your investments that you understand the basics of how indexes and index funds work. What Is an Index Anyway? In the words of Lewis Carroll, let’s “begin at the beginning” with a simple definition. An index keeps track of returns generated by a basket of securities, and it’s put together…

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Occam’s – How to Generate Inflation Adjusted Income in Retirement

By Bob French, CFA / July 24, 2023 / Comments Off on Occam’s – How to Generate Inflation Adjusted Income in Retirement

Inflation is a fact of life. It’s also not so great for retirees. In fact, it’s one of the biggest risks that retirees face. By constantly eating away at the value of our savings and income, inflation will slowly reduce our purchasing power in retirement – if we don’t do anything about it. To put this…

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Occam’s – How Do Interest Rates Affect Stock Returns?

By Bob French, CFA / April 24, 2023 / Comments Off on Occam’s – How Do Interest Rates Affect Stock Returns?

The financial media loves to talk about interest rates. There are a lot of good reasons for this, but two of the big ones are that interest rates are really important, and they’re relatively understandable and have a direct connection to most people’s lives. They are tied to the mortgage rate you can get, the…

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Occam’s – How Long is the Long Term?

By Bob French, CFA / January 23, 2023 / Comments Off on Occam’s – How Long is the Long Term?

Everyone always talks about investing (and planning) for the long term. But they’re usually vague about what the “long term” actually means. Does that mean 5 years? 10 years? More? (Spoiler: the answer is definitely more). And frankly, talking about how you need to focus on the long term can feel like a bit of…

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Why You Make a Profit From Investing

By Bob French, CFA / December 12, 2022 / Comments Off on Why You Make a Profit From Investing

Almost everyone knows that they need to invest their money to help prepare for retirement. It’s one of the keys to getting where you want to go. The markets may (ok, they will) bounce around in the short term, but over the long term, they have done very well for disciplined investors. But why have markets been…

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What Makes the Markets Move

By Bob French, CFA / December 6, 2022 / Comments Off on What Makes the Markets Move

Financial markets are constantly on the move, and those moves can have serious implications for what your retirement will look like. Still, most people don’t really have any clue as to why the markets move the way they do. They see it as some dark alchemy, or at best, essentially random. In the long run, though,…

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Occam’s – Do the Midterm Elections Matter to the Market?

By Bob French, CFA / October 14, 2022 /

The 2022 midterm elections are coming up (remember to vote on November 8th). With every election, there’s always a lot of talk about how important it is to vote (true), and that if the other side wins it means the end of the world (potentially less true). There are always important issues at play, and…

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