Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Hi Guys,
Please take a timeout from your real investing work to participate in this two question series that was designed to test your probability and statistics instincts.
Assume you are gambling (speculative investing): In the first question you…
Hi Guys,
Although a minority, there are many talented female money managers in the business. You guys identified many of them.
Several key questions: How many female managers generate positive Alpha? and What is the positive female Alpha producer…
Hi Dex,
Your interpretation of BobC’s 50/50 market odds is very naïve. Formally, your reading might be called a Probit (PROBibility unIT) statistical measure. That form of measurement reduces the stats to an overly simplistic either/or positive/…
Hi Guys,
Although they are few in number, women are becoming a more important segment of the marketplace. Data demonstrates that female investors outdistance their male counterparts. More females are entering the investment business professionall…
Hi BobC,
I completely agree with your retirement planning that includes not going to a fully cash portfolio and keeping a 3 to 5 year cash equivalent reserve.
However, without more definitive projections, I start each year assuming the odds of a p…
Hi Guys,
Thank you Ted for the Link.
Well, neither Consuelo Mack nor David Winters disappointed in this interview. Both were consistent with expectations.
Mack questioned Winter’s recent sub-par performance and his funds high cost structure. Wi…
Hi Scott,
Thank you for the superior summary of David Winters’ year long decision making slump. Given the quality of all your posts, I expect nothing less.
It seems like Winters has bumbled and fumbled from one bad decision immediately after anot…
Hi Guys,
Like Scott, I too look forward to the upcoming WealthTrack interview with David Winters. I learn from a master.
It will be informative to learn if some of his fundamental guideposts have changed recently. To test that possibility it is …
Hi JohnChisum,
A very nice find. Thank you for the reference. I'm not too familiar with Faber's total work product, but based on a few of his articles, I believe he does excellent research and his interpretions of that work is solid. He generate…
Hi Bee,
Thank you for reading and replying to my post.
Our family portfolio does indeed have many more components than are reflected in the simplified forecasting tool that I proposed. The portfolio includes Foreign Developed Equities, Emerging M…
Hi Catch22,
No disrespect intended or implied in my example calculation. I was simply responding to your question about how Old Skeet did his estimate. I just defined my way. It certainly is not the only way and is likely not the best way.
When…
Hi Maurice,
I am puzzled by your RPP submittal. I checked and it has a host of possible meanings like Registered Professional Planner and like Registered Pension Planner.
In what context did you use RPP?
Best Wishes.
Hi Catch22,
Old Skeet is being very humble when he claims that his portfolio value estimate was simply a SWAG.
Most likely, he did what I infrequently do to easily and lazily estimate the impact of a day's action on my portfolio. I need just two …
Hi Guys,
I find it a challenge to gauge Bill Gross. His long term bond trading record is undeniably brilliant. He guided PIMCO to enormous power and success. Yet some of his pronouncements and analyses seem superficial and deeply flawed.
The fa…
Hi Guys,
It is advantageous to individual investors that Morningstar has entered the active/passive mutual fund management scoring ballgame. With their huge data collecting machinery, Morningstar is a formidable competitor to Standard and Poors’ S…
Hi Guys,
A very nice ongoing discussion here. Please allow me to contribute a few thoughts.
The Persistency Scorecard has been a part of the mutual fund industry for many years. In each of its now semi-annual reports, although the specific numbe…
Hi Guys,
I believe Hank is spot on-target when he recommends that a broadly defined two category portfolio would be more precisely classified equities/fixed income over the equities/bonds designation.
After my initial postings here, I recognized t…
Hi Old Skeet,
Thank you so very much for your reply. It is much more than I expected. It informs me and I suspect it informs many MFO regulars.
My number one takeaway from your post is not the specific techniques and rules that you deploy; it is …
Hi Old Skeet,
Have a great time at the beach. I always enjoy it too.
Congratulations on the success of your portfolio. That's like being on the beach full time. Your Alpha is especially impressive. It's like a plus 3 sigma positive returns. I…
Hi Davidrmoran
You asked if the risk-reward curve has a distinctive character such that it attracts special financial attention. The simple answer is No.
The marketplace risk-reward curve rises in a continuous well-behaved manner as the equity fr…
Hi Guys,
Paul Merriman is predictable with his workmanlike analyses of the marketplace. The current article is no exception.
The red meat in the article is the reference he makes to his “fine-tuning table”. The table provides equity/bond mix ret…
Hi Guys,
Returns are intimately tied to when you leave the investment starting gate. Nobody can consistently predict returns for the next few years. Both GMO and John Hussman have launched signals warning that the Shiller cyclically adjusted price…
Hi LewisBraham,
The article researchers openly acknowledge the shortcomings of this early study. From a statistical perspective, it is short on number size and also on fair geographic distribution representation. These factors alone make the cont…
Hi Ted,
Please extend my very best wishes to Roy and his family.
I had never posted on any internet board prior to doing so on Fund Alarm. It was Roy's honesty and integrity that encouraged me to participate actively. He never failed us in his t…
Hi Heezsafe,
I certainly agree that a multiple peer review process removes some skepticism about the credibility of any research or article report. But it only goes part way in establishing the merits and veracity of a paper. It is not yet the go…
Hi Guys, Hi Ted,
Ted, you are not alone in an overarching investment policy to Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS). A decade ago I owned most everything, mostly based on believed “expert” recommendations that accumulated over time. Today, I wholehearted…
Hi Catch22, Hi Old Joe,
You guys are on-target. My reference to the discontinued M3 measurement is no longer relevant. It hasn't been calculated for years. My reference to it certainly dates my more active-year involvement in reading these types…
Hi Ted,
The last Waggoner USA Today article that I could locate was dated in mid-May. I did find a report that interviewed him that claimed a departure from USA Today. Here is the Link:
http://talkingbiznews.com/1/usa-today-investment-columnist-…
Hi Old Joe,
Thank you for commenting on Davidrmoran’s submittal. It would have completely escaped my notice since I had mentally closed this MFO Discussion exchange.
The request to identify my investment lessons learned and from whom over six dec…
Hi Dex,
Well your last post identifies both the depth and the meaningfulness of your analysis of Tom Lauricella's body of work for the WSJ. After all, that's what this exchange is about.
I'll end my submittals now since I have expressed my feelin…
Hi Dex,
Just my assessment based on your statement that you didn't think he learned much.
I believe that is a faulty judgment on your part. I seriously doubt that any man holds a competitive position for that length of service without improving h…
Hi Dex,
I’m still waiting your response to the fair questions I asked. Why do you doubt that Tom Lauricella learned during his long tenure at the WSJ?
I believe anyone learns something every single day whether he intends to or not. I also believ…
Hi Dex,
Well I suppose your one-liner, gratuitous comment is calculated to secure some attention. But it falls miserably short if it is designed to inspire a consensus.
It is far too easy to denigrate a person’s working contributions on the Inter…
Hi Guys,
Thank you all for facilitating this controversy on income growth and distribution. It is a centuries-old debate that does have a direct impact on our economy, and by easy extension to our marketplace.
Like most of us, I would prefer a mo…
Hi Lewis Braham.
Thanks for the heads-up with regard to my referencing the supposedly Rothschild quotes. I recognize that quote attributions are often hotly debated, especially those dated by century timescales.
I am a little familiar that contro…
Hi Sven,
I too have access to Bill Sharpe's Financial Engines website. I elected not to mention it because of its likely limited access for many MFOers.
I have a true anecdotal story involving Sharpe and me. In the early 1990s I was planning ret…
Hi rjb112,
Thank you for asking. You are the first person on MFO to specifically ask for a few Monte Carlo code addresses. Here are three that offer different user options.
My favorite because of its flexibility for my needs is from Flexible Ret…
Hi Bee,
Thank you for reading my post and for the questions that it motivated.
I’ll try to address each and every one of them. If I inadvertently fail to do so, please ask again.
The portfolio that I postulated was a somewhat arbitrary attempt t…
Hi Bee,
Thanks for the reference to Dr. Craig Israelsen’s paper on the performance of portfolio asset mix options.
Based on precisely past performance data, he made a case for his equally divided 7 category portfolio.
Since I used the word “preci…
Hi JohnChisum,
I don't know the answer to your question. Perhaps it would be better directed to BobC.
But I doubt the answer is positive since that number is a measure of a portfolio's maximum historical risk whereas the N-year cash reserve more …
