Speeding Tickets & Investing

Recently, I received a gift from the Iowa State Patrol in the form of a speeding ticket. In reflecting on this experience, it occurred to me that I took an unnecessary risk to attain something I didn’t need and ended up sacrificing money I didn’t have to lose.

Q1 Wrap Up: Ukraine, Inflation, Interest Rates | Financial Perspectives

The first quarter of 2022 is in the books and once again, surprising events dominated the news. Russia invading Ukraine and the continued climb in inflation were the focus of attention and for good reason. In this week's Financial Perspectives, we'll take a look at what is happening in markets and the global economy and what investors may want to know.

Webinar: Uncertainty in Ukraine (and Beyond)

How do we deal with uncertainty in a globally connected world? Uncertainty is nothing new. It's an ongoing factor in global markets that can be embraced and often managed in investment portfolios. In this webinar, we will cover: potential impacts of Russia and Ukraine on your portfolio, the ripple effects of the war on inflation, interest rates, oil, and continuing market volatility, thoughts on what you could consider doing now, and updates regarding ongoing developments.

Market Madness

There is just something about the NCAA Men’s and Women’s College Basketball Tournament. There is tremendous excitement in many families and workplaces as tournament brackets are filled in with predictions about the outcomes of 67 games over a three-week period.

Barbell Portfolios Can Be Hard To Hold On To

Barbells work great at the gym because they put weight on a bar in such a way that it’s balanced, leaving room in the middle for someone to use it to workout. We often see portfolios that are designed like a barbell at the gym: lots of risk in one account and lots of cash or very short-term securities in another. In aggregate, it might produce some balance, but the reality is that it can create some real challenges.

Equilibrium Markets in the Time of COVID

Over the years, Foster Group has utilized a number of mutual funds and exchange traded funds managed by Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA). DFA was founded in 1981 on the idea of making academic investment research and empirically based portfolio management accessible to investors. In this article, Professor Kenneth French describes how markets responded to the events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

August 24, 2021 Financial Perspectives

Is it possible to be too smart? Can a problem or set of circumstances be overanalyzed? Is there such a thing as too much information? There’s some evidence out there that this is indeed possible! Kent Kramer shares our perspective on what’s been happening in and around financial markets recently and what we think successful investors should be thinking about – without overthinking it!

What’s Your Best Buy: Firm Foundation or Castle In the Air?

If an investor could discover the true worth of a company, a piece of real estate or even an idea, where “true worth” equated to the future value or price that others would pay, success would be almost certain to follow. Those opportunities that were priced significantly lower than the future value would be automatic buys. The one’s with higher prices today than the future price would be ones to avoid. If only it were that simple!

June 7, 2021 Financial Perspectives

It’s summertime and we have two summer’s worth of movies to look forward to after 2020’s reduced calendar. AMC, a company that runs movie theaters has seen their stock value go way up in the past few weeks. Is this about great movies or something else? This week Kent Kramer talks about two different valuation theories: Firm Foundation Theory and Castle-in-the-air Theory.