Portfolio Management Category

Bloomberg interviewed Steve Leuthold this morning and the legendary investor had some interesting insights into how 2009 will play out. He has turned even more bullish now given the level of fear among investors. Oh, and he also thinks the S&P 500 will close at least above 1,000 in 2009, a 40%+ return [...]

Recently finance professor Itay Goldstein[Wharton], Qi Chen [Duke University's Fuqua School of Business], and Wei Jiang [Graduate School of Business at Columbia University] autored a study on the impact of large outflows from mutual funds and how the underlying investors are impacted.
The authors believe that there are four underlying factors that will determine if mutual [...]

Mutual Fund Red Flags

In: Portfolio Management

There are several reasons that you may wish to review those funds that you have in your portfolio from time to time. Below is a list of possible red flags that your mutual fund needs to be reviewed. These red flags don’t necessarily mean that it’s time to bail on the fund but [...]

The beginning of the year is an excellent time to review your portfolio, overall investment strategy and goals for the future.   Here are a few things to think about for 2009 and the coming years.
Educate yourself :
Learn what other investment managers are doing and what they see for the future.  I think its a good [...]

Year-end items

In: Asset allocation, Portfolio Management

Since the end of the year is fast approaching I think its a good idea to do a little “portolio housekeeping”. While its good to review your portfolio several times a year most people don’t do that. At the very minimum you should review your portfolio and make plans for the coming year.
Things to accomplish:
1. [...]

Lizard Brain

In: Asset allocation, Portfolio Management

I recently started reading Mean Markets & Lizard Brains. Its an interesting take on how the human brain deals with investing. I am not very far into it (50 pages) but I see that Paul Farrell mentions it in an article on lizard and rat brains he wrote for Marketwatch.
Yes, you heard right: Your [...]

The Yale Endowment has come out with their annual report. In it Chief Investment Officer, David Swenson, outlines the asset allocation and day to day strategy of the funds $16 billion portfolio.
If you have read Swenson’s book Pioneering Portfolio Management it will come as no surprise to you that Yale’s asset allocation is markedly different [...]

Model Portfolio

  • Q4-08 Model Portfolio Update

    The 4th quarter, and all of 2008 for that matter, was an extremely difficult investing environment. There truely was no place to hide if you were not 100% in short term U.S. Treasurys.
    Performance:

    Aggressive -19.25% (Q4) & -32.77% (2008)
    Moderate -13.89% (Q4) & -24.86% (2008)
    Conservative -8.41% (Q4) & -15.51% (2008)

    Positives:
    For the full year only three investments [...]

  • Q3-07 Model Portfolio Update

    The third quarter of 2007 saw a return of volatility to the portfolio, but each portfolio had a positive return.  Below are the quarterly returns for each portfolio: 

    Aggressive + 2.07%
    Moderate + 2.18%
    Conservative + 2.45%

    Positives:
    For the first time in a long time, any growth domestic equity performed well.  Large, Mid, and Small Cap Growth all outperformed their [...]

  • Q2-07 Model Portfolio Update

     The second quarter of 2007 was a relatively good quarter with each model posting solid returns.

    Aggressive + 4.11%
    Moderate + 3.10%
    Conservative + 2.13%

    One asset class that showed disappointing returns as the REIT class.  The VNQ holding was down -9.35 for the quarter.   REIT’s have had quite a strong run over the past few years so this [...]

  • Q4-06 Model Portfolio Update

    The themes that have dominated over the past several years, value over growth, small/mid cap over large cap and international over domestic equities have continued into the 4th quarter of 2006.
    The 4th quarter for the models also saw an environment where no asset finished with negative performance. Leading the strong finish to 2006 was international [...]