Investing Research Articles

In the preface to the eleventh (2015) edition of his book entitled A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, author Burton Malkiel states: “The message of the original edition was a very simple one: Investors would be far better off buying and holding an index fund than attempting to buy and sell individual securities… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 10/29/18 through 11/2/18. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to your investing needs. Subscribers: To receive these weekly digests via email, click here to sign up for our mailing list.

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 2/4/19 through 2/8/19. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to your investing needs. Subscribers: To receive these weekly digests via email, click here to sign up for our mailing list.

Target-date funds (TDFs) are popular fund-of-funds retirement investments that offer asset class diversification and periodic rebalancing aimed at a specific retirement year. TDFs typically charge layers of fees (fund-of-funds fee plus fees of underlying funds). Can investors do better themselves? In their October 2020 paper entitled “Off Target: On the Underperformance of Target-Date Funds”, David… Keep Reading

A subscriber requested evaluation of three retirement investment alternatives, assuming a constant increment invested at the end of each month, as follows: 50-50: allocate each increment via fixed percentages to stocks and bonds (for comparability, we use 50% to each). Seasonal 1: during April through September (October through March), allocate 100% of each increment to… Keep Reading

In the preface to the 2021 edition of his book, The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio: Get Wise, Get Wealthy…and Get on With Your Life, Alexander Green sets the following goal: “[S]how readers the safest, simplest way to achieve and maintain financial independence. …I’ll cover the investment basics and unite them in a simple, straightforward investment strategy… Keep Reading

…the sponsors of retirement/endowment plans show little timing ability in hiring and firing investment managers. There is some evidence that more sophisticated sponsors (of large plans and of plans that invest internationally) make better decisions.

…lifecycle investors will generally achieve greater terminal wealth using interim success-based dynamic stocks/fixed income allocation rules than using pre-determined shifts away from stocks and toward fixed income.

…evidence indicates that sophisticated investors appear to recognize the importance of trading friction to net return and gauge holding periods accordingly.

Do individual investors truly benefit from using full service brokers? In the February 2011 draft of their paper entitled “What is the Impact of Financial Advisors on Retirement Portfolio Choices and Outcomes?”, John Chalmers and Jonathan Reuter compare outcomes for those Oregon University System’s Optional Retirement Plan participants who choose a firm that uses brokers… Keep Reading