One of the “must dos” for any serious investor is to make sure your investment house is in order as year-end quickly approaches. Ensuring that you have the best technology is an important way to do that, and I have found through years of experience with different custodians that Fidelity has always been the industry's technology leader (this is not a paid endorsement, just the truth learned from my experience). Fidelity's technology leadership began in its earliest days, pushed on by former Chairman Ned Johnson's passion. I recently wrote about Johnson's focus on technology that "He … [Read more...]

Earlier this week, I wrote to you about the pitfall of environmental, social and governance investing, or ESG. Thousands of investment firms have signed a pledge to follow ESG and abide by a United Nations sponsored statement of principles. The problem here is multifold. First, your investment advisor should act as your fiduciary not an environmental activist with your money. Second, the number of state pensions that have signed this pledge is appalling. Not only are these pensions underfunded, but the administrators are using other people’s money (retired teachers, police, and firemen … [Read more...]

U.S. equity markets tumbled last week, with the S&P 500 down more than 4.5%, and the Russell 2000 index of small company stocks falling 5.50%. Both indices hit all time highs in late summer/early fall, but since then the ride has gotten rough. Since August 31st of this year, the Russell 2000 index is down almost 17% and the S&P 500 has fallen by about 9%. Young Research’s maximum safety Dynamic Maximizers® portfolio is up about 7 basis points over the same time period. The Dynamic Maximizers® portfolio has not experienced a down year this century, and we anticipate another up year … [Read more...]

I have written in the past that politics can have a great effect on market performance. Today America is enduring one of the most contentious political climates in memory, and at the same time the stock market has become volatile. The best year in the four-year presidential election cycle is the year before the election. In this cycle that’s 2019. Since 1875, the average performance of the S&P 500 in the calendar year before a presidential election has been 14.3%. The presidential election year itself comes in next with an average of 10.9%, and midterm election years and the year after … [Read more...]

Last week Vanguard founder Jack Bogle spoke out about the dangers of index funds, something he helped pioneer. Take a look back at this piece I posted on October 12, 2017 for more depth on the issue.  Let the good times roll? Great lyrics from the Cars but it’s a song I can’t get out of my head thinking about the money piling up by the truckload at Vanguard’s back door. We’re talking nearly $300 billion in the first nine months of this year alone. All of that money unloaded and stacked up with the rest of the $4.7 trillion at the firm. That’s a lot of confidence in one company. And maybe … [Read more...]