One of the many benefits of writing a blog is the challenge of organizing your thoughts and having them questioned. It’s initially scary to put it out there, but as time passes there is a subtle switch from scary to educational. Our interactions have developed into a mutually beneficial relationship of learning. We rarely all agree on financial topics like the efficient market, behavioral finance, and saving till you are blue in the face.  However, your rebuttals, comments, and suggestions expand and test my own understanding, which in turn creates better articles and mailbags.  So, without further ado, our latest [...]

I loaded up our HIT Investments fire box and got the research train rolling. Aggregating data from 14 fixed income classes, ranging from international high yield bonds to domestic short-term treasuries, was like shoveling coal: difficult, but necessary.

When studying finance in preparation for the Series 65 exam there was an emphasis on specific investment objectives. The "safest" investment objective was "Preservation of Capital" and its primary goal was to prevent loss.  Preservation of capital investments includes Treasury Bills (T-Bill), certificates of deposit (CD), savings accounts, and money market accounts (MMA). These holdings are classified as the “safest” investments and are often insured against absolute loss.  In industry lingo, they generate a “risk-free” rate of return.  But before we take it as so, and solidify the link between "Preservation of Capital" and "risk-free" in our brains, let's see [...]