Insights

Stock market declines over a few days or months may lead investors to anticipate a down year. But the US stock market has had positive annual returns in many years despite some notable dips. Intrayear declines for the index ranged from 3% to 49%. Many years with large intrayear declines saw positive annual returns. In 17 of the last 20 years, US stocks ended up with gains for the year. Tumbles may be scary, but they shouldn’t be surprising. And
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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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David Booth DFA Chairman and Founder When I was growing up, our local newspaper, the Kansas City Star, was full of news and had one page for opinion. After decades of cable news and nonstop digital postings, I see more opinions these days than news. That’s not a bad thing. But when it comes to investing, it’s crucial to remember the difference between news and opinion, and how they are sometimes used to forecast the future. Any time the government
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Anger is a helpful emotion. We are angry when we see a person abused, and that anger compels us to intervene, helping the abused. But anger can be harmful when it compels us to say what we will soon regret, such as insulting a friend. We cannot learn to eliminate anger, but we can learn to control it through cognitive reflection. We can follow our parents’ advice: “Count till 10 when you are angry before you speak.” Fear and Hope
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Nearly a century of US stock market returns suggests that making investment decisions based on control of the chambers of Congress is unlikely to lead to better investment outcomes. From 1926 to 2022, stocks trended higher regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans controlled the House and the Senate, or whether control was mixed. Actions by Congress and the other branches of the federal government may impact returns, but other factors like geopolitical events, interest rate changes, and technological advances do
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A recent news item reported that Frederick Smith intended to step down as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FedEx Corp., the largest air freight firm in the world. As a Yale undergraduate in 1965, Smith wrote a term paper for his economics course outlining an overnight air delivery service for urgently needed items such as medicines or computer parts. His professor was not much impressed with the paper, but after a stint in the Air Force, Smith sought to
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A lot of people are stressed out about a lot of things right now. Markets are down. Prices are up for many of the things you need to buy. Interest rates are rising and make it a confusing time to consider buying or selling a house, or making other major financial decisions. This all adds to the stress you may be feeling about your job, the ongoing pandemic, and the health of loved ones. If you’re stressed out about what
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Rising inflation, interest rate movements, ongoing trade wars, COVID-19 variants, bear market predictions, the Russian attack on Ukraine and heightened geopolitical uncertainty, …that’s a lot to think about. The first quarter of 2022 reminds us all how much uncertainty can fill the world at any given moment— and how little control we have over it all. This perceived lack of control can lead to feelings of anxiety and stress in our everyday lives. One of the best coping techniques is
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In or Out? If your asset allocation from a week ago made sense then, what has changed to make it less appropriate today? Avoiding knee-jerk reactions in these scenarios is usually the prudent course. To help quell the fears of those still tempted to temporarily take risk “off the table,” we ran a few experiments to help demonstrate why staying the course has historically been shown to be a good option. It is good to remember that for any market
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