|
|
|
|
|
|
   
Dear Reader,
July 17, 2012 - Vol 6 No 29
The 7th Annual MIT Sloan Investment Management Conference will be held Friday, March 9th, 2012 at The Charles Hotel. This year's conference on "Fundamental and Quantitative Strategies for Turbulent Markets" will feature keynote addresses from Donald Sussman, Ron O'Hanley, and Professors Roberto Rigobon and Alberto Cavallo. Industry experts will lead panel discussions on emerging markets, the crisis in Europe, high frequency trading, low volatility strategies and other topics. Please visit here to register and find more information.
If you are experiencing problems opening or navigating through our newsletters, we can send you a text-only version. Please send an email to feedback@advisorperspectives.com requesting the "text-only" version.
If you have received this newsletter in error, or you do not wish to receive future newsletters, please use the "Safe Unsubscribe" option at the end of this email.
|
 Jim O'Shaughnessy: What Now Works on Wall Street By Katie Southwick
Understanding the science of investing has been the lifelong passion of Jim O'Shaughnessy, whose 1996 book, What Works on Wall Street, was among the first to explain the benefits of quantitative, empirical methods. Now, with the hindsight of the two bear markets since, he has refined his approach - rejecting some of his original ideas in favor of improved ways to forecast market performance. His new and improved approach finds that a dividend-oriented global strategy is best in today's environment.
|
What's My Next Move? - Fixed Income Outlook
Sponsored Content by American Century Investments
Recent market volatility may have you wondering what to suggest when discussing your clients' fixed-income portfolios. G. David MacEwen, Fixed Income Chief Investment Officer, offers guidance for portfolio positions, especially for retirement-focused clients.
|
Woody Brock on Healthcare Reform and Trade Relations with China
By Robert Huebscher
Dr. Horace 'Woody' Brock is the founder Strategic Economic Decisions, an economic research and consulting service. In the second part of this two-part interview, he discusses his recently published book, American Gridlock, and focuses on how to fix two of our nation's most pressing problems: the crisis in health care - made worse by ObamaCare - and our trade relations with China.
|
Globalization: Its Saboteurs and Its Chicken Littles
By Michael Edesess
The word 'globalization' provokes both excitement and fear. The excitement has sold millions of Tom Friedman books and turned a drab annual business conference, the World Economic Forum, into one of the hottest events of the year. It is front-and-center in recent tensions between the U.S. and China, and makes the European Union's economic crisis a concern for the whole world. Should we fear or embrace globalization?
|
The Problem with Target-Date Fund Glide Paths
By James A. Colon, CFA
The attack on target-date funds (TDFs) continues to gain steam, and for good reason. Virtually all TDFs offer a mechanical approach to glide-path management, unnecessarily exposing investors to risk - most noticeably when they are on the verge of retirement. A superior approach would keep the long- and short-term volatility of an investor's portfolio within appropriate ranges by actively managing the glide path.
|
A Simple Strategy to Triple Client Savings Rates
By Dan Richards
Whether dieting, exercising, turning off American Idol to read that book on our side table or spending versus saving, maintaining focus on our resolutions is a universal issue. While attending the American Economic Association meeting in early January, I had three conversations with leading academics concerning experiments to help people stick to their plans, including one that tripled savings rates among employees.
|
Communication Skills to Outperform Your Competitors
By Jack Singer, Ph.D.
To succeed as an advisor, it's not good enough to have the right products and the right clients. You need to understand your clients' underlying goals and constraints and to develop an atmosphere of trust and understanding. In the course of my work with numerous advisors, I have found that the 'T.R.I.U.M.P.H.S.' model effectively develops those skills.
|
Letters to the Editor
Readers respond to Christopher Sidoni's article, The Conflict between Tactical Asset Allocation and Behavioral Finance, which appeared last week, and to Simon Johnson's commentary, Too Big to Jail, which appeared on February 21.
|
Our Most Read Article from Last Week:
Gundlach: The Two Questions that Matter Most
By Robert Huebscher
Two questions stand out amid the complexity of the current economic and market environment, according to Jeffrey Gundlach, both of which relate to critical elements of fiscal and monetary policy and should guide portfolio construction for investors.
|
Highlights from Market Commentaries
Here are the top three commentaries from last week.
 Investment Advice from Your Uncle Polonius
Believe in history. In investing Santayana is right: history repeats and repeats, and forget it at your peril. All bubbles break, all investment frenzies pass away. You absolutely must ignore the vested interests of the industry and the inevitable cheerleaders who will assure you that this time its a new high plateau or a permanently higher level of productivity. The market is gloriously inefficient and wanders far from fair price but eventually, after breaking your heart and your patience, it will go back to fair value. Your task is to survive until that happens. Heres how.
Investment Advice from Your Uncle Polonius by Jeremy Grantham of GMO
 Unusual Drawdown Risk
Presently, the investment opportunity set remains one of the most unfavorable in history - we estimate a 4.4% annual total return for the S&P 500 over the coming decade, corporate bond yields are now at just 3.3%, the 30-year Treasury yield is at 3.2%, the 10-year Treasury yield is at 2.0%, and Treasury bill yields are at 0.1%. We would view a significant change in the investment opportunity set as a very welcome development, but we remain unwilling to accept significant risk for insignificant or negative prospective return simply because of the temporary absence of better opportunities.
Tags: Investment-Grade Bonds Equities Bearish US
Unusual Drawdown Risk by John P. Hussman of Hussman Funds
Our Five Year S&P 1500 and Sector Forecast
Emotions are and will continue to be the drivers of short-term demand for stocks and bonds. At the individual stock level, we believe we can isolate certain human traits which drive this demand. However, at the broader market levels, we believe that the method to judge emotions is more intuitive than quantitative. In other words, it pays to be somewhat of a contrarian and to try not to become a member of the Buy High/Sell Low Club. History of markets can be a helpful guide to understanding the emotions that have driven previous investor buying decisions after major market declines.
Tags: Equities US
Our Five Year S&P 1500 and Sector Forecast by Kendall J. Anderson of Anderson Griggs
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
