Probably only one thing is certain: The world is still full of surprises yet to be revealed. Is your portfolio diversified in preparation for the next one?
At the end of 2019, Foster Group’s Investment Strategy Group wanted to create an object lesson to illustrate how hard it is to predict what will happen in financial markets and the world in general.
Since we were unable to answer all of the questions asked during the live webinar, we'd like to share some of the questions and answers in written form.
Aside from COVID-19, what represents the biggest risk for investors in the second half of what is turning out to be a historic 2020?
As this year exemplifies, stock markets have the tendency to do things we would never expect.
This year has reminded us of the many important roles that fixed income can play in portfolios.
Imagine that you fell asleep at the beginning of the year and woke up at the end of 2020. When you wake up, there are some things that would immediately feel different.
Many of my favorite content pieces from 2020 reflect on the themes of uncertainty, risk, change, and remaining optimistic in the face of unsettling circumstances.
In the three months since Joe Biden was elected President of the United States, small company stocks have risen more than 30%. Four years ago, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States and small company stocks went up almost 20% in the twenty-six days surrounding the election, from November 3rd to December 9th. Do small company stock investors just like new Presidents?
We had completed our hike successfully, and the challenges made it more memorable and satisfying. The same is true for all of us as investors.
Guest Blogger, Marlena Lee, PhD. While it’s not the intended victim of the YOLO traders, will the efficient market hypothesis be a casualty of these events? The answer depends a lot on your definition of efficient markets.
On March 23, 2020, the S&P 500 tumbled another 3%, culminating a near 34% drop over that same month. The Dow Jones hovered around 19,000. Gains from the past few years were gone.
One of the primary roles we play as financial advisors is to help our clients remember to take the long-view.
Don’t believe the lie that you don’t belong or that the keys belong to someone who won’t give them to you.
As we’ll see, each of these are real risks, because if they are unmanaged or unanticipated, they may cause investors to focus on the wrong things at the wrong times and lead to actions that may sabotage goals and portfolios.
Investors have been experiencing some fear of heights recently. Many stocks and stock markets are at or near all-time highs. So, here’s the question investors need to ask themselves today, ”Do you think that stock markets 26 years from now will be higher or lower than they are currently, even if today is an all-time high?”
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!
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.
