Wow, another Mother’s Day. They can really get to you, especially when your Mom is 92 and everyone else of her generation in the family is gone.
Things my mother told me… and some she didn’t
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Author Archives: Jerry Wagner
Selling on impulse
Let’s discuss impulse buying. Studies show that impulse buying is based on fear of loss,
urgency, and what I call Jones-ism. The threat of losing an opportunity, the immediacy of the threat, and keeping up with the Joneses can all lead to impulse buying.
That’s impulse buying—but doesn’t impulse selling tend to arise from the same motivations?
As is the case every quarter, a small percentage of clients close their accounts. I was surprised, however, this last quarter that a number of these clients had only been invested with us for less than a quarter. Almost 19% had been with us less than a year. 55% of the terminations were from clients starting since the end of 2011—just fifteen months ago. These clients left us in a quarter that saw the stock market post gains and most of our strategies post very good results.
Invest with longevity in mind
Studies show that the longer something has existed, the longer it is likely to continue to exist. Check out Chapter 20 of Nassim Taleb’s latest book, Antifragile.
Impulsive investing
Do you read the celebrity magazines? I don’t, but my wife does (isn’t that what every husband says?).
Is your investing one dimensional?
At the National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) Uncommon Knowledge Conference in Denver last week, a reporter from Financial Planning magazine asked us, “What is ‘active investing’?” Many confuse the phrase with the simple act of running a mutual fund populated with stock picks within the strict guidelines of a prospectus, as opposed to running an index fund, where the manager simply buys and holds the shares making up a particular stock or bond index.
Flying high
Just a quick note from Denver, Colorado, where four of us are attending the National Association of Active Investment Managers’ annual meeting. Later today I’ll be presenting the Wagner Award for the best paper in the fifth running of our annual active investment management paper competition. This year’s top $10,000 prize winner wrote on using high yield bond spreads to create a portfolio of ETF sector funds. Truly innovative research! Our own Dr. George Yang, Director of Research, snared third place with a paper on removing market noise from the investment decision. Congratulations all.
Market update
No surprises here this week. As we suggested last Monday, stocks continued to weaken (down the most in five months but just 2.12% in the scheme of things on the S&P) as they hit a short-term top, while gold bounced off the bottom put in place last Monday.
Did you forget?
We all get busy.
And the media seems to be blaring new headlines at us every day about events that literally take our breath away.