When buying a home, you probably know a lot of the potential risks such as the risk your home will go down in value over time or the risk that your home will require a lot of maintenance after purchase. In the same way, knowledgeable investors are aware that investing in the capital markets presents any number of risks – interest-rate risk, company risk, and market risk. Risk is […]
Learning from Biases and How They Affect Our Financial Choices
“Men willingly believe what they wish.” – Julius Caesar The Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was alluding to bias, which happens when individuals process information around them and then stick to their preconceived ideas. Bias can happen in financial matters too, and even the most seasoned investors are subject to them. When dealing with emotions, investors are [...]
Tuning Out the Noise from the Financial Media
Image used under license from Freestock.com When asked what to watch out for when it comes to investing, clients may expect us to tell them about a specific stock to avoid, or something similar. But our answer is often far different. One of the biggest things you may want to watch out for is actually the financial media. [...]
Objective Investment Advice You Can Use
As you probably saw last week, global stock markets dropped sharply in value. There are a number of factors contributing to these recent declines including expectations of higher interest rates, falling oil prices and an economic slowdown in China.
As our focus is on the long-term, we welcome periods of sharp market declines as falling prices often produce for our clients buying opportunities with less risk. Also, periods of sharp market declines are historically normal and to be expected when investing in the stock market. Continue Reading …
Should You Follow Market Forecasters?
USA Today recently published an interesting article titled “How bad are Wall Street forecasts? Really bad.” The article reviews why you are probably better off ignoring financial advisors who try to predict the market. Not only is their combined track record horrible over time, you may get better results by simply tossing a coin – […]
S&P Downgrade
Lessons of Lower Ratings Regarding S&P’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating, the Wall Street Journal’s article Lessons of Lower Ratings provides an historical perspective of how other countries have performed after a cut in their credit ratings. As discussed in the article, history suggests the recent downgrade could actually be a long-term positive […]
