Trump’s legacy is that he is teaching his millions of followers to ignore laws, disrespect Court authority, local and federal laws, cheat on taxes, and tolerate adultery as acceptable behaviors in the Trump MAGA new America. At first, she looked like any other older woman leaving the beach in Palm Beach County, Florida, except for her “Make America Great Again” sequined hat and worn beach bag.  I was sitting on a bench next to where she locked her bicycle.  We looked at each other, and despite the hat, I said it was an excellent day for the beach.  She nodded.  I asked ho ..read more

Bear markets are an inherent part of market cycles, just as expansions and contractions are a normal part of business cycles. While investors should be concerned about bear markets, especially their duration, there is also an established link between market and business cycles. Understanding both will help investors better understand the cause and duration of bear markets.  Under these circumstances, dollar-cost averaging (DCA) can provide a disciplined investing strategy to re-invest during volatile markets. Making Sense of Business Cycles Economists recognize that the economic cycle und ..read more

ETFs, also known as Exchange Traded Funds, are the past century’s most popular and investor-friendly investment inventions. ETFs are now a $7 trillion market and offer various exposures to all market sectors, equity and bond styles, indexes, and specific categories of investments, such as ESG funds. ETFs allow you to trade the market in a single purchase, have continuous pricing, buy on margin, sell short (on a downtick), and access the market via all types of orders. This video explains how ETFs work and why they belong in your 401(k) or retirement portfolio.  The growth of the ETF mark ..read more

Hedge funds are more popular today than ever before, but they are not well understood by most investors. They are primarily an institutional product, but they are also used by high-net-worth individuals. For average investors, some of these strategies can be replicated using leveraged ETFs. This video explains those strategies, how hedge funds work, their risks, and their use in a diversified portfolio. One category of hedge funds, managed futures, has one of the oldest track records in the hedge fund industry.  Managed futures are actively managed positions in commodities and financial f ..read more

  In an increasingly complicated and volatile investment environment, individual investors have a greater need than ever to protect their hard-earned money against both market declines and investment industry sales practices, which can be both opaque and misleading. While market declines are an expected risk, investors’ advice from financial advisors and planners about which mutual funds to purchase may be tainted by a little-known practice called “revenue sharing.” Revenue sharing comprises the cash payments made by mutual fund companies to selling agents, who promote their proprietary m ..read more

  If you are one of the 116 million individual investors in the U.S. who own a mutual fund, you might want to re-evaluate your buy-and-hold strategy. The reason is that it may have a significant downside. This downside is called “overlap” or “drift,” and it works against you when your fund gets too big and unsuccessful.  While that may not sound like bad news, it can be expensive and risky as your fund drifts away from its stated investment objectives and overlaps with other funds or ETF holdings. So how can you prevent this problem?  Drift happens when mutual funds deviate fro ..read more

  Can people become rational investors? Or is there something we do that prevents us from consistently making sophisticated financial decisions? Human motives and fears are now recognized as inherent in investor behavior. How people invest, what stocks or funds they select, and their attraction to risky investments are among the factors examined to determine the path investors take between objectively evaluating financial advice and succumbing to psychological traps that cause economic losses. Today, the area of study known as behavioral finance has identified some critical tendencies tha ..read more

Private Equity Definitions Angel investors–Wealthy individuals with operating experience typically invest $50,000 to $1 million in exchange for equity in an entrepreneurial enterprise. Angels are generally passive investors but may sit on the board and offer their experience and advice during the company’s initial growth stages.  Arbitrage – A strategy that exploits mispricings between identical or similar financial instruments on different markets or other market forms.  Buyout -An equity investment that often garners majority control in a company.  When significant debt financ ..read more

  The foreign exchange market is the largest, most liquid, and arguably the oldest globally. About $5 trillion in forex transactions are made worldwide on various trading rooms and exchanges daily. Some of these markets are regulated by national authorities, such as forex transactions on futures exchanges, with large numbers of individual traders.  Other forex trades are done off the exchange in bank trading rooms and are more commonly used by commercial customers (institutions, banks, manufacturers) in large denominations. There are three ways to trade forex: the spot market, the fo ..read more

  The basic idea behind asset allocation is to create a diversified portfolio so that one set of investments in an asset class will rise or fall at different times than others in the portfolio during a market cycle.  While counterintuitive, sometimes adding a risky asset to a portfolio can reduce its overall risk. This can be considered a form of hedging. Adding groups of riskier assets than the core portfolio requires some advanced asset allocation decisions. These decisions can be better made once an investor knows their portfolio’s risks.  Types of Risk While investors acknow ..read more