Review:  Are thematic ETFs gimmicks or smart strategic plays?

Investment companies are incredibly creative, especially when it comes to new ways to make money. There’s always some new investment trend, and investment companies are more than happy to oblige. They don’t really care if something is a particularly good idea – they just want to help you, the investor. And obviously they should be compensated…

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Occam’s Razor: One of the Most Successful Active Managers of All Time Shows Why Active Management Doesn’t Work

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 landscape. This newsletter…

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2017 – Q1 Quarterly Market Review

This report features world capital market performance and a timeline of events for the last quarter. It begins with a global overview, then features the returns of stock and bond asset classes in the US and international markets. The report also illustrates the performance of globally diversified portfolios and features a topic of the quarter.…

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4 Ways to Manage Sequence of Returns Risk in Retirement

Sequence of returns risk, or sequence risk for short, is the risk that you will need to take distributions from your investment portfolio when the market has recently declined. Taking distributions when the market has gone down effectively “costs” more than at other points in time because you are forced to sell your investments at…

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Review: 11 ways to reduce next year’s tax bill

Hopefully you’ve been able to close the books on last year’s taxes by now. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore them for another year. Now’s the time to make sure that you are doing everything you can to minimize your taxes in the future. This article has some suggestions on how to make sure…

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