One of the most frequently asked questions I am sent is “what is the rate of return I should expect when I invest in the market”? With bonds, it is fairly easy to see that a short-term US Treasury note bought with a yield of, say, 2%, will return you 2% per year if held […]
Following the last post’s chart showing how 75% of the returns investing in the S&P 500 came from dividends, this chart by how much Vanguard Growth Underperformed the S&P 500 over the past 40 years. Not only did the growth fund provide turn an investor’s 1980 $100 into a significantly lower sum ($2,222 vs $5,280 […]
In the short term, stock returns are dominated by the ups and downs of price movements, in the long run, stock returns are dominated by dividends. A common question is “what percentage of stock returns come from dividends over the long run?”, to which I have a simple answer using the past 40 years of […]
Although recent protests have drawn more international news cameras than usual, international wealth management clients have compared opening an investment account Hong Kong to having one in Switzerland, Singapore, or South Florida (Miami) for decades if not since the World Wars. While Hong Kong vs Singapore may be the most overdone comparison in Asia, this […]
It is widely repeated in the investment community that the biggest difference in whether you earn high or low rates of return as a long-term investor is not your choice of an individual stock or bond, but how much you allocated overall to stocks vs bonds. The more you put in stocks, the more likely […]
One way I keep my education on market history fresh is by finding and watching decades-old videos of interviews with investing legends. In this one, Louis Rukeyser interviews Peter Lynch and Sir John Templeton. 4:40 into the interview, Templeton says one of the most quotable truths about the difference between investment advisors vs doctors and […]
68% of shareholders want to replace Mark Zuckerberg as chairman of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB), but Mark Zuckerberg still holds the majority of voting shares (source: Facebook March 2019 Quarterly Report, page 54). As much talk as there is about Facebook’s role IN democracy, this is a reminder that the corporate structure of Facebook IS […]
While I am often asked “is now a good time to invest?” in both booming and declining economic times, I have recently been asked more and more about whether the economy is due for its first global recession since 2008-2009, and how to invest in preparation for the next recession. I recently wrote a short […]
The main reason to buy a stock is to get significantly more money out of it than you put into it. By “significantly more”, the profit you make from a stock should not only be more than interest you would have earned putting the same money into a bank deposit or bond, but also compensate […]
The mutual fund as we know it today is almost 100 years old, and following important steps in 1934 and 1940 and then in 1974, mutual funds can be thanked for helping a large percentage of average working individuals save trillions of dollars for retirement in ways pre 20th century history might not have imagined. […]