Most people are focused on saving for retirement so they’ll have the money they need to fund their income in retirement. However, ask most people how much they’re going to spend in retirement, and they have no idea. To plan for retirement effectively, you need to have some sense of what your spending needs are…

In February of 1998, the Trinity study established the idea of focusing on success and failure rates, building into our psyche the idea that your retirement is a failure if the investment portfolio is depleted. This has put too much emphasis on the portfolio and spending conservatively to keep failure rates low. This is not…

Most people try to avoid thinking about statistics, but they’re part of everything we do in investing. When other people get around to thinking about statistics, they often end up thinking about them the wrong way. Most people assume the most important numbers of any data set are the average, median, and standard deviation, and…

Total-return investing focuses on building diversified portfolios from stocks and bonds to seek greater long-term investment growth. By focusing on total return, the objective over the long run is to produce a greater and steadier amount of income relative to what could be obtained by investing for income by focusing solely on interest and dividends to…

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…