Archive for the ‘Asset Classes & Allocation’ Category
Are There Rebalance Bonuses?
Posted on: February 24, 2014
Professor Kenneth French
Last month I did a study to understand why equally weighted the S&P 500 index RSP has outperformed value weighted S&P 500 index SPY by almost 3% a year since its inception. My conclusion is that it’s mostly due to Fama French risk factor loading.
However, my research also found after removing the effect of risk factors, RSP has a slight alpha advantage over SPY. I conjecture this alpha advantage is due to the fact that RSP requires annual rebalancing and SPY does not. In other word, this could be the so-called “rebalance bonus.”
To test its robustness, I extended my study to six pair of Fama French “indices.”
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10. P2P Lending: A New Asset Class?
9. A Lesson From a Client: Celebrity Business Gone Bad
8. The High Cost of Fee-Based Financial Advisors
7. How Often Do Market Corrections Happen?
6. Captive Insurance: A Business Owner’s Heaven?
5. How I Helped a Client Save $100k in One Meeting
4. Variable Annuity Fees You Don’t Know You are Paying
2. Be Careful When Buying a Condo as a Rental Property
1. Profit from Harry Dent’s Prediction? Think Again
Also see Top Ten in July.
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1. ThinkAdvisor highlighted a Maryland study which showed that states which pay the highest fees to Wall Street (for managing pensions) have the lowest returns. That says it all about Wall Street. No wonder Rick Ferri wants you to steer clear of actively managed funds.
2. Reuters Money reported how Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) can be used as retirement savings accounts. This information is especially useful for small business owners and self-employed individuals who tend to neglect their retirement savings and face high deductibility in their health insurance. Here is the garden variety of ways they can save for retirement.
3. DIY Investor Robert Wasilewski encountered a bear while hiking. He survived to write about it, but he mused that the same reactions that kept him in the gene pool will surely “eliminate you from the investment pool.”
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P2P Lending: A New Asset Class?
Posted on: July 27, 2013
P2P Lending
Last night I was “wasting” time on Google+, when I stumbled upon Joe Udo’s blog where he had written about how he made an 11.3% annualized return with P2P lending. The next thing I knew, it was past midnight and I just had spent three hours eyeballs deep in the subject.
Let me first tell you what P2P lending is. P2P stands for person-to-person or peer-to-peer. P2P lending is the practice of lending to strangers, enabled by technology and the web.
The two leading companies in this arena are LendingClub and Prosper. Between the two of them, they’ve enabled nearly $2 billion of lending between investors and borrowers. However, that still pales to the total US consumer credit of $1 trillion.
I am super excited about P2P lending! Let me tell you why.
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Rebalancing your portfolio
Recently, I visited a prospective client in New Jersey. He is currently a client with Fisher Investments, and his advisor told him never to rebalance since that involves market timing.
I have to hand it to this financial advisor for recognizing that market timing is an unproductive endeavor, but he is so wrong about rebalancing that I am compelled to write this article.
Rebalancing is not a market timing activity, it is calendar-driven or condition-driven. For instance, you may decide that you will rebalance your portfolio on January 1st of each year or whenever an asset class allocation is off by 20%.
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Is this your fund manager?
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White supports a new rule that would allow hedge funds to market directly to the public. I think that’s a fantastic idea. Let me explain why.
Between 1998 and 2010, hedge fund managers earned “only” $379 billion in fees. Do you know how much they made for investors?
Before you answer that question, you should be aware that one-third of hedge fund money is channeled through funds of funds. Their managers need their cut too. Between 1998 and 2010, their take was about $61 billion.
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New York Stock Exchange
The S&P 500 closed the first quarter at a record high. Should that worry investors? The short answer is, No.
When the market was 30% below the high three years ago, I did some research. I categorized all market conditions into:
1. Breaking a new high.
2. Less than 10% below historical high.
3. Between 10% and 20% below historical high.
4. Between 20% and 30% below historical high.
5. Between 30% and 40% below historical high.
6. More than 40% below historical high.
Then I calculated the one year forward returns of the six conditions.
