Don’t Increase Your Bond Allocation In Bear Markets
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There is an artistry to a bond allocation, and while the historical analysis can only be suggestive, they do tell a strong narrative.

The Art and Science of a Bond Allocation (529 Plan Example)
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Adding more Stability to an asset allocation isn’t an easy issue. It takes science to know how much bonds you need. It takes artistry to gradually adjust your asset allocation over time. 

Q&A: How Does Your Investment Strategy Work?
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I recently received the following paraphrased questions from a prospective client and here were my replies.

The Case for Investing in Foreign Health Care
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When reviewing our Foreign allocations, we discovered that the foreign Health Care sector has shown high risk-adjusted performance.

This Month, We Removed the Energy Overweight from Our Allocations (October 2020)
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We believe that holding on to Energy and waiting for it to recover might mean missing out on greater gains elsewhere.

How to Use An Efficient Frontier Graph
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While an efficient frontier graph cannot hand you a perfect asset allocation, it remains a useful tool in analyzing what the past can tell us about a wide variety of investments.

We Added 2 New U.S. Stock Sectors to Our Allocations
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We decided to add two new sectors after generating several hundred efficient frontier graphs of various United States classifications, industries, and sectors over a variety of time periods.

What About The Traditional 60/40 Portfolio?
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In our age-appropriate asset allocation models, we don’t recommend a 60/40 portfolio until you are between age 80 and 87.

Q&A: How Do I Calculate My Withdrawal Rate for My Stability Allocation?
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Each of us either has a withdrawal rate or a savings rate, as we are each either contributing to or withdrawing from our invested accounts.

How a Stability Allocation Helps During a Bear Market (and What To Do If You Forgot One)
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While the appreciation allocation helps you achieve your financial goals, introducing a stability allocation into your portfolio can prevent your portfolio from running out of money.

Q&A: Should I Pull Out of the Stock Market Now?
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The fact that you are worried enough to ask might mean that now is a good chance to take stock in your investment strategy.

Q&A: What is a Diversified Alternative to an Individual Bond Ladder?
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A stability allocation has two purposes: to meet withdrawal needs and to move the portfolio more conservative (less risky) by dampening the volatility of stock returns.

University Of Virginia Health Savings Account (UVA HSA) Investment Recommendation
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We believe that this mix of funds should provide a timeless allocation for the HSAs of University of Virginia employees.

Q&A: Why Not Invest Only in the U.S?
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Diversification among many different countries provides a more consistent return than investing entirely in the United States.

In Which Investment Vehicle Should I Stage My Spending Money?
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Your asset allocation matters to maintaining a balance in retirement of having money for the next 5 to 7 years and keeping up with inflation for time periods of 8 years or longer.

How to Implement Basic Investment Strategies
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In 2009, David Marotta wrote a five-part article series for the Charlottesville Business Journal covering basic investment strategies. Its advice is still relevant today.

What is the Correlation of the Asset Classes?
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Asset classes are best defined by looking at the correlation of their returns. These four 2015 articles take a close examination at the three appreciation asset classes.

Helpful Chart Shows Why You Should Diversify Globally
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We continue to believe that diversification among many different countries provides a more consistent return than investing entirely in the United States.

When Should I Worry About Performance?
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Some performance is cause for concern. Other times, you need not worry. Here are 5 times you should not worry and 4 cases when you should.

What You Should Do in Response to 2018 Year-End Returns
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These market returns panicked some investors. However, those emotions are unhelpful. Long term investing erases all this short term volatility. It is always a good time to have a balanced portfolio.

AAII Founder’s Greatest Regret
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“My greatest regret is not being able to convince as many investors as possible of the difference between real risk and phantom risk.”

In Investing, One Decade is Not Long Enough
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There are always those who discount the power of having a diversified portfolio in favor of putting everything in whatever is going to go up the most.

Asset Allocation Between The United States And The United Kingdom
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A blended portfolio has had a higher mean return than either fund by itself.

Is Portfolio Rebalancing Overrated?
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An article in the Wall Street Journal questions the value of regular rebalancing, but regular rebalancing is a key component of modern portfolio theory.

Best Non-Correlated Asset Classes for the S&P 500
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Even very volatile investments may, in moderate amounts, reduce a portfolio’s volatility if the investment is not correlated with the rest of the portfolio’s components.

Don’t Buy Bonds Out of Fear
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There are reasons to have the stability of fixed income investments for a portion of your portfolio, but switching to bonds because you are afraid of stocks is not one of them.

Invest Even When Afraid
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You can’t invest for the future in the future. Don’t let your fear of the future ruin your future.

An Asset Allocation For Your Health Savings Account
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You are unlikely to need funds for any long-term care episode until about age 85. Given the long time horizon, we suggest investing your HSA for appreciation.

Mailbag: How Do I Replenish A Bond Laddering Strategy?
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When you use a bond laddering strategy with funds, rebalancing to your asset allocation naturally buys and sells bond funds as appropriate.

Five Things You Can Control: Goals-Based Asset Allocation
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An advisor’s job is to recommend the optimum asset allocation regardless of how the client might answer a survey about risk tolerance.

Using Factor Investing To Boost Country Specific Returns
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The rough idea is that the stock price of companies that are profitable are more likely to appreciate than companies which are not profitable.

Factor Investing: Small and Value Factors
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Factor investing “tweaks the idea of asset allocation and diversification by seeking out types of securities that have been shown, by decades of academic research, to offer positive return premiums over time.”

Don’t Forget to Rebalance All Your Assets
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It can be easy to forget about your company’s 401(k) because you aren’t depositing the money yourself, your pre-tax contributions are deducted from your paycheck and are electronically deposited by your employer.

Selecting an Endowment’s Asset Allocation
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Two rules of endowment investing: 1) Keep an equity bias and 2) diversify.

Five Reasons to Have Some Cash Equivalents
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There are at least five reasons to hold cash. Without a good reason to hold cash, you may be holding too much.

Narrowly Framed Questions Fail to Meet Life Goals
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Purchasing investment products in isolation from the larger context of your specific situation is like pushing random buttons on a vending machine in order to provide a Thanksgiving dinner for your family.

Bloomberg Article Gets Asset Allocation Exactly Wrong
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Apparently the idea behind asset allocation is more complex than they think.

Investing Strategies for an Irrational Brain
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Recency bias is perhaps the most difficult natural bias to overcome.

Dimensional On: Why Should We Invest Internationally?
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“Historically there has been a wide variety of returns from US and International stocks, and when one does poorly often another does well.”

The Complete Guide to Creating an Investment Plan
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This is a summary of the six steps required to create a well-crafted investment plan.

Asset Allocations for UVA Retirement Plans at Fidelity
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The University of Virginia plan includes funds sufficient to produce these excellent portfolios.

Marotta’s 2016 UVA Fidelity 403(b) Calculator
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Age appropriate asset allocation for 2016 using the choices available in the University of Virginia’s Fidelity 403(b) Tax Deferred Savings Plan (TDSP).

Marotta’s 2016 UVA Fidelity 401(a) Plans Calculator
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Age appropriate asset allocation for 2016 using the choices available in several of the University of Virginia’s Fidelity Retirement Plans.

Marotta’s 2016 Vanguard Gone-Fishing Portfolio
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Here is a review of Marotta’s 2015 Vanguard Gone-Fishing Portfolio and a description of our changes for 2016.

Marotta’s 2016 Gone-Fishing Portfolio
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The gone-fishing portfolio provides suggested asset allocations for investors up to age 70 and up to $1 million.

Investors Want Non-Correlated Assets Until They Experience Non-Correlation
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While many investors say they want a low-correlation portfolio, they don’t want to actually experience a low-correlation portfolio.

Defining Your Sectors
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The process of defining your sectors is an attempt to identify the quintessential features of your strategy and formalize your selection criteria.

Do Resource Stocks Deserve Their Own Asset Class?
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Resource stocks represent one of the most interesting collections of diverse indexes as they do not always move in sync with one another.

The Asset Allocation Within Your Asset Allocation
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It is good to take the two categories which are most similar and use them as underlying sector divisions within the same larger asset class.

Your Asset Allocation Should Be Priceless
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The value of not running out of money when making withdrawals cannot be measured.

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