The acronym, VUCA was first used in 1987 with students at the US Army War College to describe the post-Cold war period. It is particularly relevant in the world we live in today where fast change, information overload and fake news is the norm. Volatility We live in a...
The best response for investors at the moment is to focus on what you can control. Share markets can be quite volatile at times. In this blog from Dimensional Fund Advisors they discuss the seven lessons investors should keep in mind. Market timing is difficult to...
Lessons from history What does history tell us about share market returns after a period of economic recession? Below is an interactive article from Dimensional Fund Advisors. It shows how the US share market has behaved during economic downturns. Share markets around...
Why long-term investing is crucial Imagine it’s 25 years ago, 1997: J.K. Rowling just published the first Harry Potter book. General Motors is releasing the EV1, an electric car with a range of 60 miles. The internet is in its infancy, Y2K looms, and everyone is...
Investors need to realise to get the average market return that investment returns do fluctuate and at times can be negative. For example if you look at the Australian share market. The bumpy road to the market’s long-term average return Since 1980, the...
The work of Fama & French showed the three key drivers of long term performance for equities are size, value and profitability. When it comes to evaluating value shares, nearly 100 years of data support the notion that the lower a share’s relative price, the...
SPIVA (Standard & Poors Index vs Active) research is a very extensive study looking at the performance of active fund managers against their relative index benchmarks worldwide. Across many markets the results are similar to the US summary below. Around 80% of...
The cost of trying to time the markets The impact of missing just a few of the market’s best days can be profound, as this look at a hypothetical investment in the stocks that make up the S&P 500 Index shows. Staying invested and focused on the long term helps to...
Article from The Economist, Buttonwood June 24 2017 Sheer luck is as good as past returns in predicting future performance The big investment shift of recent years is from active to passive. Clients have been buying index funds, which passively track a benchmark like...
While the impact of Covid-19 on world economies has not fully played out and portfolios have taken a hit; in my opinion, we are not seeing a freefall in share markets. If you look at the US market from its high at the beginning of February to its low on the 23rd March...
The folly of chasing returns When you look at world share market returns are there some countries that you should focus on to get higher returns? The video below looks at returns across a wide range of countries looking for patterns that could be exploited. This...
