Tag Archives: performance

I am a pack rat.

A long habit of cutting articles from newspapers and magazines has left me with several boxes of clippings, only some of which have been sorted into files. On a clean-up crusade, I’ve spent more than …

Commentators almost seem to have been competing to coin the catchiest—or most negative—label for the ten years from the end of 1999 to the end of 2009. It’s not surprising that some have called it the “Decade from Hell,” given …

Like everyone else, I’ve been reading (well, skimming) reams of year-end—and in some places, “decade-end”—economic summaries. There’s lots of talk about black swans, financial “Frankensteins,” lost decades, and fundamental changes in investor behavior.

Black swans are old news, and I’ve …

I elicited some grief from certain Vanguard Blog readers by talking about a recovery in 401(k) accounts earlier this year. Allow me to provide an update on the issue.

Recall my basic premise: As a result of ongoing contributions, …

I’m a little tired of reading about how “buy and hold” is dead, and diversification doesn’t work, and how “target-date funds don’t work,” and that there was too much risk, especially for pre-retirees, in these balanced funds. These stories seem …

I realize this will be about my third post on this issue, but the things people are writing about 401(k)s just get more and more absurd, and it’s tough to sit by and let this go unchallenged.

Now the editors …

For 35 years I’ve carried a quotation in my wallet. More precisely, I’ve moved the quotation, clipped from a now-defunct newspaper, from wallet to wallet to wallet over the decades.

The quotation is from Willa Cather’s “O Pioneers”:

“There are …

Nearly 20 years ago, I helped a group of friends start an investment club.

We were regulars at a friendly poker game, so we named our venture the Busted Flush Investment Club. My hope was that I could interest these …

Steve Utkus, one of my fellow bloggers, wrote recently about the dubious value of a local radio station’s early-morning reports on where the S&P 500 and Nasdaq markets are likely to open the day, based on futures trading. He labeled …

The vast majority of what you read and hear about investing focuses on returns. As in, what mutual fund, or stock, or asset class investors ought to buy now to garner the best return for some indeterminate period. Or which …