New title

  • Mesa Financial Group on Facebook
  • Mesa Financial Group on YouTube
  • Mesa Financial Group on LinkedIn

Insights



The Power of Compounding—in Health and Wealth

“Compounding is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Just ask Albert Einstein, who’s said to have called it the “eighth wonder.” The seemingly small decisions we make every day gain power over time. That’s why it’s important to take the long view and come up with a plan—in both wellness and investing—that creates momentum in the direction of our goals. Don’t squander the power of time when you can recruit it to work in your favor. Most
Read more

Think Twice about Chasing the Biggest Stocks

As companies grow to become some of the largest on the US stock market, their returns can be impressive. But not long after joining the Top 10 largest by market cap, these stocks, on average, have lagged behind the market. From 1927 to 2022, the average annualized return for these stocks over the three years prior to joining the Top 10 was more than 25% higher than the market. Three years after joining the Top 10, these stocks were, on
Read more

You Know More about Investing than You Think You Do

No matter how familiar we are with investing, we’ve all navigated uncertainty, weighed risks and rewards, and made carefully considered tradeoff decisions. Just by being human, we’ve been compelled to tackle the central challenges of life—which also happen to be the central challenges of investing. We believe that having a good investment experience is about more than returns. What matters just as much is how someone feels along their financial journey. And that’s really what the investment business should be
Read more

Focus on the Horizon: Tuning Out the Noise with Valuations and Returns

Valuations of publicly traded companies are a frequent topic of conversation among investors and for good reason. Valuation ratios tell us the price of stocks relative to fundamentals like earnings, sales and book value. In other words, valuation ratios are an excellent way to understand the long-term attractiveness of groups of stocks relative to: one another their historical norms. A large body of academic evidence ties valuation levels and long-term expected returns, and intuitively, that the price we pay for
Read more

Sale to an Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust (IDGT)

Key Takeaways When looking to transfer large amounts of assets to future generations, selling assets to an intentionally defective grantor trust (IDGT) may create greater tax savings than other gifting strategies. With an IDGT, the grantor is considered the owner for income tax purposes and pays taxes on the income produced by the trust, but the trust assets are not considered owned by the grantor for estate tax purposes. Selling highly appreciating or income-producing assets to an IDGT effectively “freezes”
Read more

Beware of Sample Periods

Anyone who’s ever bought a used car knows the importance of avoiding a cherry-picked depiction of history. Low mileage and regular oil changes don’t matter much if the seller fails to mention the car was once submerged in floodwater. Many investors have been drawn to the shiny-object stocks of the S&P 500 index on account of their recent performance—since 2010, the large cap S&P has outperformed US small cap value stocks(1) by an annualized 1.7 percentage points(2). However, this impressive
Read more

Stock Gains Can Add Up after Big Declines

Sudden market downturns can be unsettling. But historically, US equity returns following sharp declines have, on average, been positive. A broad market index tracking data since 1926 in the US shows that stocks have tended to deliver positive returns over one-year, three-year, and five-year periods following steep declines. Cumulative returns show this trend to striking effect, as seen in Exhibit 1. On average, just one year after a market decline of 10%, stocks rebounded 12.5%, and a year after 20%
Read more

The FOMO Worth Your Attention

Fear of missing out. It’s the acronym for a behavioral phenomenon where people worry they’re missing out on something important they believe may help improve their lives —information, the novel features offered by the latest smartphone or the desire to be part of an exciting shared experience like a pop star’s three-hour concert. We’ve also heard much about FOMO in the investment world over the past few years. Many will recall the so-called meme stocks or cryptocurrencies, but we can
Read more

The Big Challenge for Commercial Real Estate

Given the uncertainties in both stock and bond markets this year and the increasing likelihood of a recession by year’s end1, it’s not surprising to see headlines focused on the real estate sector and its lagging performance. Let’s put context around these trends to evaluate the best course of action. What is driving the poor performance in real estate markets? Despite concerns, the overall real estate sector is slightly up for the year so far. That’s because the sector tracks
Read more

High Dividend Paying Stocks

Due to their regular cash flow and perceived lower risk, high-dividend paying stocks are popular with investors. But are they a smart option? In this episode of Buckingham Weekly Perspectives, Head of Investment Research Jared Kizer explains the basics of high-dividend paying stocks and shares why we don’t recommend exclusively investing in them.    Jared Kizer, CFA Head of Investment Research Jared Kizer evaluates findings from academic research and applies that learning to develop investment strategy recommendations. Jared collaborates
Read more