How Do You Beat Your Benchmarks Over the Long Haul? – A look at Dimensional Fund Advisors

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This week we have been looking at one of the fastest growing companies in asset management – Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). Our Quote of the Week looked at the CEO’s key principal for successful investing, our Chart of the Week looked at DFA’s outperformance. Today we look and see how they do it. [continue reading…]

Want the Active Manager Without the Expense Ratio? Here’s How to Use Motif Investing to Copy Your Favorite Investor’s Portfolio

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Investment fees – the bane of every individual investor. Everyone has seen the numbers on how even moderate expense ratios lead to investors losing out on tens of thousands of dollars over the course of their investments. Just yesterday we highlighted a quote from Meb Faber on how just average fees can ruin a successful investment strategy.

 

But these fees seem impossible to avoid for investors looking for any specific concentrations or active forms of management.

 

But for investors in a select number of ETFs and Mutual Funds, there is a simple way to reduce those fees to a level much closer to 0 – Here’s how: [continue reading…]

Quote of the Week: Just Average Investment Fees Can Turn a Top Performing Strategy into a Loser

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ETF.com is out with a really good interview with Meb Faber discussing topics from his new book: Global Asset Allocation: A Survey of the World’s Top Asset Allocation Strategies Topics of the interview include Asset Allocations, the effects of taxes and fees on your investment returns and more.

But what really jumped out to me was his answer to the question:

ETF.com: Would ETFs change that equation if the best-performing portfolio were allocated primarily to low-cost ETFs?

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Want to Make Your Own ETF? Now You Can With Motif Investing – Here’s Our Review

content_motif-logo_newLong time readers know my usual thought on choosing a stock broker – it hardly matters.

Most are almost all the same.

I typically recommend something along the lines of Vanguard or Fidelity, because of the access to commission free, low cost ETFs that those brokers provide.
I have been mostly invested with Vanguard for a few reasons: They provide a ton of lost cost mutual funds and ETFs that account holders can buy commission free, which makes small monthly investment feasible without commission taking huge chunks out. Vanguard also offers dividend reinvestment and partial share ownership for individual stocks and ETFs. Vanguard is still an excellent broker – and I will certainly continue to use them, But…

There is a new player in town which is a game changer for investors, whether you are a stock picker OR pure indexer.

And what’s best? New investors can take advantage of a special offer – up to $150 for those who create a new account today. Offer details are at the bottom of this post!

 

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Quote of the Week: Expense Ratios – And Exactly How Much They are Costing Investors

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We have heard a ton on the importance of low cost mutual funds and ETFs recently. Here is part of a speech from Jack Bogle, where he reveals exactly just how much investors pay in expense ratio fees. (His answer will surprise you) [continue reading…]

Another Day, Another Study Against Active Management in Your Portfolio

There is new data released from S&P Dow Jones on active vs. passive fund management performance and the results are clear: What exactly are you paying for again? [continue reading…]

2012 Mutual Fund and Hedge Fund Returns

 

The numbers from 2012 are in. How do the returns from Wall Street’s “Best and Brightest” compare to the returns of the major stock indexes?

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