Here’s Some Convincing Evidence Last week, we came across this headline in InvestmentNews: DOL fiduciary rule delay boosts prospects for annuity sales Indexed and variable annuities are likely to get a big bump in sales if the rule is delayed until July 2019 Here’s why this matters. The Department of Labor, and every other decent person, wants all advisors to be fiduciaries, whereby advisors would have to, by law, do what’s in their client’s best interest at all times. This effort almost became law recently, but will likely be pushed back to 2019 – or never enacted at all. So …
The True Costs of Investing: Part 2
Ignoring Science Can Cost You Like physics, chemistry, and math, investing is a science. The body of peer reviewed, unbiased research and evidence supporting this branch of science is vast and deep. Some of the lessons science has taught us, such as keeping costs low (see Part 1) and diversifying, are well known. Others, not so much. In particular, the effect of investment “factors” on your portfolio, while well-established through decades of research, is widely unknown by the average investor and, consequently, widely unused. In short, a “factor” is a source of return generated by a grouping of similar stocks …