Insights

According to the Vanguard Advisor’s Alpha Value paper(1) working with the right advisor can lead to a potential added net value of 3% returns annually. However, the source of this added value may surprise you. Our industry has done a valiant job in educating the masses away from the brokers pitching the hot stock tips, although much of that still remains, to a more comprehensive wealth management experience of working with a financial planner that follows a disciplined long term
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Can an individual broker/advisor and their team consistently deliver outperformance? Perhaps we can look to the mutual fund industry for the answer. Afterall, individual brokers/advisors and their teams are essentially a smaller version of larger active mutual fund managers. Both are looking to deliver outperformance through specific stock picking and market timing. Each year, Dimensional Fund Advisors analyzes returns from a large sample of US-based mutual funds. The objective is to assess the performance of mutual fund managers relative to
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By Nir Kaissar The S&P 500 has proved to be remarkably resilient in the six months before downturns. The US economy is widely expected to tip into recession later this year. The Federal Reserve thinks so, as does Wall Street. And financial Twitter is aflutter with recession talk. Some financial observers are going further, advising investors to swap stocks for cash in anticipation of the looming downturn. The problem with that advice is that no one knows if or when
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The U.S. dollar (USD) has long been the world’s most widely used currency, playing a critical role in global trade and as a store of value for central bank reserves. But we occasionally hear claims that the dollar’s dominance may be in jeopardy. These predictions tend to center around potential shorter-and longer-term trends that could increase demand for international currencies, such as continued growth from China leading to a rise in demand for the renminbi (RMB) or tighter integration of
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David Booth Dimensional Fund Advisors Chairman and Founder Every year at this time, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament thrills fans and creates so much interest that it’s estimated one in four Americans filled out a bracket to try to predict who will win it all.1 I really enjoy watching the games and always fill out a bracket in a pool with my family. This year, I couldn’t help but see connections between investing and March Madness. Let’s start with the
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On Friday, March 10, regulators took control of Silicon Valley Bank as a run on the bank unfolded. Two days later, regulators took control of a second lender, Signature Bank. With increasing anxiety, many investors are eyeing their portfolios for exposure to these and other regional banks. Rather than rummaging through your portfolio looking for trouble when headlines make you anxious, turn instead to your investment plan. Hopefully, your plan is designed with your long-term goals in mind and is
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Certain planning situations like when a client is scheduled to receive substantial sums of wealth ($5M-$15M+) call for advanced planning techniques. Our client may feel a need to transition from wealth creation to wealth preservation. These scenarios include a large inheritance, liquidation scenarios such as a company sale, either a personal company or a corporate sale when the client holds a sizeable amount of company stock, and/or simply the payment of a large bonus. Advanced planning techniques include the consideration
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As a fiduciary, MFG is committed to illustrating all investment options available to our clients, identifying pros and cons of each opportunity and assisting in making informed decisions based on your personal investment plan and financial life. One way we support our clients is by minimizing single stock risk in your portfolio caused by stock concentration. We define a concentrated position as a single stock or handful of stocks making up 10% or more of someone’s investable assets. Stock concentration
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These days there’s a wide gap between what Americans think about the economy and the state of their personal pocketbooks. What’s going on? I study households’ economic expectations and their financial decisions and believe people may be overreacting to the current news cycle with their pessimism about how the economy is doing. Objectively, U.S. households are in pretty good shape. We have a higher level of savings than before COVID, thanks to the government stimulus payments during 2020 and 2021
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Many apps today claim to instantly calculate your net worth by adding up your banking and investment accounts and then deducting what you owe on your credit cards and mortgage. But in my mind, that number reflects wealth. Worth is more complex. Because I believe that if you make life better for someone else, then you’re worth something. That’s true in business, and it’s true in life. My parents never made a lot of money, but they were worth a
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