When investors ask me to review their company’s 401(k) investment options, I can’t get over the lack of bond fund choices offered by the plans. More times than not, the choice is between a bond fund with a maturity too many years out for my comfort level, and one with credit risk that is far too high. Unfortunately the retirement plan advisors that put these plans together are more interested in conformity than coming up with a formidable bond lineup for participants. According to a study released in October from BrightScope Inc., the PIMCO Total Return Fund was the most popular bond fund … [Read more...]
Weak Real Estate Values
The following chart illustrates the close correlation in recent years between real estate investment trusts (REITs) and stocks. For my money, this makes REITs far less attractive today than did the negative or low correlations and the much higher yields of days gone by. And I also don’t see much value in REITs given that 10-year Treasuries yield about the same—both are near 3% today. In a separate item, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into nontraded REITS as reported in the Wall Street Journal piece “Nontraded REITs Are Put on Notice by SEC.” The article … [Read more...]
Absolute Return
The next time you see an advertisement for an absolute return fund, make sure you do your homework and understand exactly what you’re getting yourself into. I’ve been digging through the 100-plus prospectus pages of the Putnam Investments Absolute Return suite of funds and can tell you the reading isn’t as straightforward as I’d like it to be. Even in the reduced format of the Putnam Absolute Return 100 Fund’s summary prospectus 2/28/11 (only seven pages), there’s some mind-numbing small print. Here’s what I gather you’re up against for the Class A shares: a 1% sales load (charged at the … [Read more...]
Investing in Your Food Supply
You may want to start thinking and investing like a farmer. As a group, farmers’ average age continues to rise. And as their numbers decline in the coming years, the quality of our food is likely to follow suit, given the notion that more processing will pick up the slack. That’s why it’s so important to protect our heritage breeds—animals that were around when Thomas Jefferson walked the fields of Monticello. Protecting our heritage breeds may not be something you think about every day. But those who work at the SVF Foundation in Newport, Rhode Island, do. The SVF isn’t your ordinary farm. … [Read more...]
This One Thing Could Save Your Life and Your Portfolio
You might think I’m crazy buying $175 sneakers. I’ve never spent that kind of money on sneakers before, and it’s at least double what I’ve normally spent in the past. So I’m calling my Newton sneakers an investment. I was introduced to Newton sneakers by my Pilates teacher and trainer, Jane Beezer, as we were discussing the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. It’s reshaping the sneaker industry. And as it turns out, less is more. Years of running injuries can be tied back to a sneaker industry that babied our feet with too much cushion, encouraging a heel-first strike point rather … [Read more...]
A Little Mistake That Can Cost Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars
You being in the top 97th percentile in good looks and wealth might be good. But being in the top 97th percentile in the fees you pay your investment advisor is…not so good. PriceMetrix, a wealth-management software firm, has come out with a report showing that a significant variation in pricing exists between investment advisors. The firm has quite a database to pull from—15,000 advisor books, 2.3 million investors, 380 million transactions, 1 million fee-based accounts, and over $850 billion in investment assets. The study examined the pricing on balanced accounts for households with … [Read more...]
Outliving Your Money
Just over thirty years ago, the 3-Month Treasury-bill yielded 16.3% in the secondary market. At the beginning of this month, as you can see in the chart above, it yielded only 0.01%. That’s 1 basis point, or a difference of 16.29%. It can’t possibly go below zero. Though the yield is already negative when accounting for inflation, as investors line up to pay to lend the government money. Investors are in a real predicament, especially those living on a fixed income. How many investors built their retirement savings plans using such low rates as inputs in their models? Not many to be sure. … [Read more...]
Sell in May and Go Away
The following charts illustrate the irrefutable stock market power in the year before a presidential election. As you can see there is no other year quite like year three in the presidential election cycle in terms of consistent gains from stocks. The average return in year three is 16.9%, compared to 6.7%, -0.1%, and 5.9% in years 1,2,4 respectively. Year three also has the lowest standard deviation of the four. “In the first seven months of the third year since 1960, Year 3 has returned 2.5% per month for a total of 20% real (after inflation adjustment). In contrast, the … [Read more...]
Dividend Increases
According to Standard & Poor’s, 2011 is setting up to be an excellent year for dividend increases. To date, at least 150 companies have increased their dividends. And that’s with less than half of the year gone by. That’s a solid pace, considering that 256 companies increased their dividends in all of 2010. But don’t be fooled by headlines promoting big increases. Even an impressive 20% increase like the one Cablevision announced on Wednesday can leave investors wanting more, since it still only yields 1.7%. On the flip side, National Bankshares Inc. increased its dividend by only … [Read more...]
Cheeseburger in Paradise
Your financial freedom is at the mercy of a politicized Federal Reserve seemingly more interested in recapitalizing big Wall Street banks than helping you maintain your purchasing power. Near-zero interest rates and a declining dollar turn their lunch into a cheeseburger in paradise while you’re stuck brown-bagging it. The Fed’s dual mandate of full employment and price stability hasn’t exactly materialized, as unemployment logs in at about 9% (11% in Rhode Island), and searching for lower prices has become the great American pastime. Meanwhile, balanced economic growth, which is part of … [Read more...]
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