Insights

What are your investments really costing you? If you’re not sure, you’re not alone. It’s not like you’re handed a menu of charges to choose from when it’s time to place your order. Even when you know where to look for investment costs, the information can be difficult to digest. Let’s fill in some of the blanks by covering two significant sources of investment costs: fund management fees, and custodian/brokerage (trading) costs. Today, we’ll talk about fund management fees.

How do you invest your money over the long-term? If you've read much of our work, you've probably noticed we embrace evidence-based investing. But what does that mean?

Third Quarter 2021|Jim Williams| This is a brief revisit of some basics of personal finance. Consider this cash flow paradigm: Income, less taxes, less consumption equals investment. A different statement of the formula is that money from income can only go one of three places: taxes, consumption, or savings/investment. This is not higher math. It is arithmetic. Let's examine the elements of the formula.

Second Quarter 2021|Jim Williams| We have heard and seen a good bit about inflation lately. A modest general inflation rate is mostly seen as a stabilizing force in the economy and is likely a consequence of an ever-increasing money supply which may be necessary to accommodate an ever-growing economy. As the economy emerges from the effects of lockdowns and restrictions, the economic damages caused by those actions are becoming manifest.

Dimensional Co-CEO and Chief Investment Officer, Gerard O'Reilly, offers an update on the performance of value stocks relative to growth stocks across the global markets, addressing the theory and data supporting a positive value premium over longer periods of time and recent premiums in the context of last year's (2020) market downturn.

With the U.S. presidential election called, and promising news of a COVID-19 vaccine announced, a U.S. market surge reminds us how keen investors are for a sense of closure. That said, who knows how long the mood will last? Come what may between the U.S. presidential election just ended and the inauguration yet to occur, the results will undoubtedly be attention-grabbing and action-paced. To counter all the excitement, we offer three calming insights.