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