When I was a young analyst, I was very anal when it came to forecasting company earnings. I built sophisticated 500-line spreadsheets that required input on everything from growth in number of employees to capital structure by maturity date. One of my colleagues did not believe in complex models and used to give me a [...]
Archive for March, 2010
The importance of sensitivity
Posted in weighhouse, tagged investment assumptions, retirement, sensitivity, weighhouse on March 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Clickworthy: An easy way to reduce the MER
Posted in clickworthy, tagged maximizer, MER, questrade, trailer fees, weighhouse on March 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
How would you like to make an extra $640 per year? If you have $100,000 in mutual funds, there’s an easy way to do just that, while annoying your adviser, all at the same time. Namely: the Mutual Fund Maximizer, offered by Questrade. The service was launched back in 2009, although I’ve only now learned [...]
Clickworthy: Luckily past performance is not indicative
Posted in weighhouse, tagged mutual fund, past performance, weigh House investor services on March 24, 2010 | 1 Comment »
I just came across a report by Standard & Poors called, “Do Past Mutual Fund Winners Repeat? A couple of key points. Note that this is US data: Very few funds manage to consistently repeat top-half or top-quartile performance. Over the five years ending September 2009, only 4.27% large-cap funds, 3.98% mid-cap funds, and 9.13% [...]
Don’t ask, don’t tell
Posted in weighhouse, tagged adviser, benchmark, fees, MER, weigh house on March 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
From page 1 of Weigh House’s presentation to potential clients: Do You Know … The rate of return your portfolio is earning? How it has performed relative to its benchmark? If your investments are appropriate for you? How much your portfolio stands to lose in the next bear market? If you will have sufficient retirement [...]
Clickworthy: Be your own fiduciary
Posted in clickworthy, tagged adviser, fiduciary duty, weigh house on March 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
For those following the US financial reform efforts, the bill, unveiled yesterday, does not include a requirement that brokers adhere to a fiduciary standard. Key points in this WSJ article for me: Brokerage-industry lobbying is widely credited with ridding Sen. Christopher Dodd’s (D., Conn.) financial-reform bill, unveiled Monday, of a clause that would have required [...]
Market gurus
Posted in weighhouse, tagged advisor, forecast, guru, stock market, view, weigh house on March 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The following story is 99% true: ˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜ One evening many years ago I was having farewell drinks with my boss — let’s call him “Jerry.” Jerry was an extremely successful and well-known equities analyst. I was a junior in the firm and I was moving elsewhere to take on greater responsibilities. Jerry had always been [...]
Don’t shoot for the stars
Posted in weighhouse, tagged equities, retirement, return, risk, warren mackenzie on March 16, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I’ve been reading Weigh House founder Warren MacKenzie’s book, The Unbiased Adviser, and there is a section in it that strongly resonated with me: If you do not know the rate of return that you should be aiming for, you may be taking either too much risk or too little…In a well-planned investment portfolio, higher [...]
Clickworthy: Cost on funds higher than you think
Posted in clickworthy, tagged financial adviser, MER, mutual fund, weigh house, weighhouse on March 15, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I am just starting to get my head around the high fees that both advisers and fund managers earn off mutual fund investors like my mother. This article in the Wall Street Journal discusses some of the additional costs that are not captured in those fees, such as brokerage commissions, bid-ask spreads, opportunity costs and [...]
My mother’s portfolio and how I’ve come to blog for Weigh House
Posted in weighhouse, tagged financial adviser, MER, mutual fund, weigh house, weighhouse on March 12, 2010 | 7 Comments »
I don’t like giving investment advice to friends or family. This might seem strange because I used to be an equity analyst — so giving stock advice was how I made my living. But I was at least well-paid to pontificate to fund managers. With friends and family there’s no upside. If you’re wrong, you’re [...]
