The world is filled with investing indexes and benchmarks, and all professional investment managers measure their results relative to some type of performance standard such as the S&P 500.
On the retirement...
The Treasury Department just released a proposed set of regulations that could have a meaningful impact on the retirement income market in the U.S.
The Treasury’s guidance package builds on feedback received in response to the request for comments issued by the Labor and Treasury Departments last fall.
The...
As the manager of the largest bond fund in the world and a founder of PIMCO, Bill Gross is a leading authority on all things related to yield.
Since retirement finances are fundamentally about generating...
Is there a sense of “swimming upstream” when trying to propagate goal-based investing--as described in your new book Risk Less and Prosper--among existing financial advisors? Conventional practices and economic incentives are so heavily skewed towards modern portfolio...
Consumer discretionary spending is the major driver of the U.S. economy as household purchases make-up about 71 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).
Without growth in consumer spending, the economy would most likely go nowhere.
Since economic growth is generally considered a good thing, it stands to reason that we should be looking for things that contribute to consumer spending.
An interesting piece of research from an economist at Credit Suisse shows that health spending has been the primary...
Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco) founder and co-chief investment officer Bill Gross offered a revised view of the global investing landscape in a letter published on the company’s website.
As the manager of the Pimco Total Return Fund, Gross’s 2011 investment decisions were driven in part by the “new normal” thesis.
The new normal view...
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Liquidity or lack thereof tends to be a major concern when it comes to annuities.
Many financial advisors and consumers are reluctant to use annuities because money allocated to...
“Trees grow” is an adage that has stuck with me over the past several years.
In a post financial crisis interview, a successful investment manager was talking about his decision to load-up on Citigroup and a handful of other banks in early 2009 when the decision to do so was difficult to say the least.
The manager referenced a professor who shared the trees grow saying with him, and he emphasized the impact that the idea had on his decision to build and maintain significant long positions in banks and other financial services stocks when everyone else was certain the world was coming to an end.
The trees grow idea involves considering fundamental qualities of things—whether trees, people or businesses.
Growing is what trees do—it is...
One way to evaluate a...
