Insights

The path to success in many areas of life is paved with continual hard work, intense activity, and a day-to-day focus on results. However, for many investors who adopt this approach to managing their wealth, that can be turned upside down. The Chinese philosophy of Taoism has a phrase for this: “wei wu-wei.” In English, this translates as “do without doing.” It means that in some areas of life, such as investing, greater activity does not necessarily translate into better results. In
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Average Investors Underperformed: Major Indices 1998 – 2017   Stop Changing Lanes What This Chart Means to You: Don’t try to time getting in and out of the market. It’s like trying to go faster on a crowded freeway by constantly changing lanes, only to discover you are going slower than if you had just stayed in the lane you were in. Over the past 20 years, the S&P 500 returned an annual average of 7.20% but average U.S. stock investors
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Ranking of Stock Market Performance Around the World: Based on Ten-Year Performance in U.S. Dollars Annualized Returns Year Ending December 31, 2017   Own Great Companies Around the World What This Chart Means to You: America may be #1 in our hearts, but there are many other countries with great companies to invest in. The average U.S. investor has a portfolio made up of about 75% U.S. stocks1, which seems patriotic, but can mean missing out on a world of opportunity.
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Asset Class Performance 2003-2017 Stay on Track with Diversification What This Chart Means to You: Investing is not unlike a healthy diet. You don’t eat the same thing every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (unless you’re a toddler), so make sure you have variety—in this case, a number of asset classes, such as International, REITs, Short-Term Bonds, etc. As you can see, even though an asset class is on the top one year (like Emerging Markets Value in 2007)
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