• I will understand my own circumstances and formulate an investment plan based on my needs, not in anticipation of market trends.• I will remind myself that investing is not a form of entertainment—if I have an urge to gamble, I will go to Las Vegas and leave my investment portfolio alone.• I will stick […]

The demise of the traditional pension plan has accelerated rapidly in recent months. The enclosed article explores the root causes of this phenomenon. Workers who are not prepared to assume more responsibility for their retirement planning may end up working far longer than they had hoped. Defined benefit plans, as their name suggests, pay a

As of mid-March, common stocks, as measured by the S&P 500, had reached a five-year high. Pundits love to seize upon this type of “factoid.” It has provided fodder for facile prognosticators, both Bull (Good times are back!) and Bear (The market has gone nowhere in five years!). What is an investor to do when

No good product goes unabused by Wall Street. Such is the case with exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Our readers will recognize that we recommend several ETFs. These allow investors to take a stake in several of our recommended asset class indexes at an extremely low cost. However, ETFs have grown exponentially in a very short period

Gold has been rediscovered by the financial press. Ignored and even scorned during the “tech boom” of the late 1990s, it is suddenly a glamour asset. In our view, gold is one of many asset classes worthy of inclusion in most portfolios. While many view gold as a commodity, our parent, the American Institute for

As the chart to the left demonstrates, returns from the equity markets have fallen sharply in recent weeks. These are the times that try investors’ souls, and put to the test anyone’s ability to stay the course and stick with an established allocation plan. We understand this angst, but we hasten to remind our readers

This month we are making several changes among our recommended investment vehicles as well as to the “weights” we assign to the asset classes we recommend for investors of various circumstances. These changes do not represent a significant departure from our approach. They result from the emergence of new investment vehicles not previously available to

Over six years ago we deviated from our disciplined approach to investing when we removed Philip Morris (now Altria, ticker: MO) from our high-yield Dow investment model. We have come to regret that decision, and it is one we intend never to repeat. MO subsequently provided a total return of about 30 percent per year.

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee (FOMC) chose to keep the Federal Funds target rate at 5.25 percent in its September meeting, while leaving open the possibility of future rate increases. While we will not second-guess the market’s response to this latest Fed news cycle, we do have serious concerns regarding the larger issue of

Capital markets have undergone a dramatic transformation since 1952. That year eventual Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz tossed aside the widely held notion that securities should be evaluated by their individual characteristics. He asserted instead that the rational investor would focus on how a security impacted the overall risk and return of his portfolio. Fifty-four years