Happy New Year, Beginning Thoughts, and Information for International Viewers

27 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by wmosconi in active investing, asset allocation, Average Returns, behavioral finance, benchmarks, bond market, cnbc, Consumer Finance, economics, Education, finance, financial advice, Financial Advisor, financial goals, financial markets, Financial Media, financial planning, financial services industry, gross returns, historical returns, Individual Investing, individual investors, investing, investing advice, investing information, investing tips, investment advice, investments, market timing, passive investing, personal finance, portfolio, rebalancing, rebalancing investment portfolio, risk, risk tolerance, risks of bonds, risks of stocks, S&P 500, S&P 500 Index, statistics, stock market, Stock Market Returns, Stock Market Valuation, stock prices, stocks, Valuation, volatility

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#assetallocattion, #financialmarkets, 401(k), asset allocation, behavioral finance, economics, education, finance, financial, invest, investing, investments, math, noise, portfolio, portfolio management, stocks, trading, uncertainty

I am looking forward to sharing more information regarding investing, finance, economics, and general knowledge about the financial services industry in 2020. I am hopeful to increase the pace with which I publish new information. Additionally, I am happy to announce that I reached viewers in 108 countries in all six continents. Countries from Japan, France, Germany, and Russia to Ghana, Colombia, and even Nepal.

Since the number of my international viewers has grown to nearly 30% of overall viewers of this blog I wanted to allocate a short potion of this post to the international community. Some of my comments are most applicable to the US financial markets or the developed markets across the globe. If you are living in a country that is considered part of the developing markets, I would strongly recommend that you seek out information in your country to see how much of my commentary is applicable to your stock or bond market and situation in general. It is extremely important to realize that tax structure, transparency of information, and illiquidity of stock and bond can alter the value of what I might say. During the course of the coming year, I will attempt to add in some comments to clarify the applicability. However, as the aforementioned statistic regarding the global diversity of viewers of this blog suggests, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that I will not hit on all the issues important to all international individual investors.

I encourage you to take a close look at your portfolio early on in 2020. It is a perfect time in terms of naturally wanting to divide up investing into calendar increments. As you listen to all the predictions for the New Year, I would encourage you to look at your personal portfolio and financial goals first. The second step is to always look at that economist’s or analyst’s predictions at the beginning of 2019. Now I am not implying that incorrect recommendations in the previous year will mean that 2020 investing advice will be incorrect as well.

To help you with a potential way to look at the outlook for positioning your portfolio of investments, I recently published a summary on the topic of rebalancing a portfolio. You can find the link below:

https://latticeworkwealth.com/2019/12/14/rebalancing-investment-portfolio-asset-allocation/

Now, there will always be unknown items on the horizon that make investing risky. You hear that we need to get more visibility before investing in one particular asset class or another. It usually means that the analyst wants to be even more certain how the global economy will unfold prior to investing. I will remove the anticipation for you. There will only be a certain level of confidence at any time in the financial markets.

One can always come up with reasons to not invest in stocks, bonds, or other financial assets. The corollary also is true. It can be tempting to believe that it is now finally “safe” to invest even more aggressively in risky stocks, bonds, or other assets. As difficult as it might be, you need to try to take the “emotion” of the investing process. Try to think of your portfolio as a number rather than a dollar amount. Yes, this is extremely difficult to do. But I would argue that it is much easier to look at asset allocation and building a portfolio if you think of the math as applied to a number instead of the dollars you have. Emotional reaction is what leads to “buying high and selling low” or blindly following the “hot money”; that is when rationality breaks down.

Here is an experiment for you to do if you are able. There are two shows I would recommend watching once a week. The first show is Squawk Box on CNBC on Monday which airs from 6:00am-9:00am EST. The second show is the Closing Bell on CNBC on Friday afternoon which airs from 3:00pm-5:00pm EST. You only need to watch the last hour though once the stock and bond markets are closed. Note that these shows do air each day of the week. Now depending on whether or not you have the ability to tape these shows first and skip through commercials, this exercise will take you roughly 12-16 hours throughout the month of January. You will be amazed at how different the stock and bond markets are interpreted in this manner.

When you remove the daily bursts of information, I am willing to bet that you will notice two things:

Firstly, Friday’s show should demonstrate that many “experts” got the weekly direction of the market wrong. It is nearly impossible to predict the direction of the stock market over such a short period.

Secondly, Monday’s show should illustrate what a discussion of all the issues that have relatively more importance are. However, this is not always a true statement though. Generally though, financial commentators and guests appearing on the show will have had the entire weekend to reflect on developments in the global financial markets and current events. Since the stock, bond, and foreign exchange markets are closed on Saturday and Sunday, there is “forced” reflection for most institutional investors, asset managers, research analysts, economists, and traders. The information provided is usually much more thoughtful and insightful.

I believe that the exercise will encourage you to spend less time attempting to know everything about the markets; rather, it may be more helpful to carefully allocate your time to learning about the financial markets. After you devote your time to watching CNBC in this experiment, I recommend one other ongoing personal experiment. Try picking three financial market guests that appear on CNBC during January and see how closely their predictions match reality. You might want to check in once a month or so. I think that this exercise will show you how futile it is to try and time and predict the direction/magnitude of the stock market and other financial markets too (e.g. bonds and real estate).

Best of luck to you in 2020! As always, I would encourage anyone to send in comments or suggestions for future topics to my email address at latticeworkwealth@gmail.com.

Breakthrough Drugs, Statistics, and Anecdotes: Three Things Every Individual Investor Needs to Know – Yield Curve Inversion and Recession – Part 3 of 3

02 Monday Dec 2019

Posted by wmosconi in Uncategorized

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Here is the last article related to our discussion of observations by the financial media with only a handful of observations, statistics, and time series data. The goal here is to provide an actual example to see what some of the pitfalls are. Prior to starting that discussion, I wanted to provide links to the first and second articles:

The first article laid the groundwork for the idea that there are many misuses of statistics and related items which appear most everyday in the print and television financial media. Here is a link:

https://latticeworkwealth.com/2019/11/11/breakthrough-drugs-statistics-and-anecdotes-investing/

The second article focused more on time series data and using the normal distribution to make conclusions and predictions about the financial markets. As promised, I will be posting a more detailed mathematical article as a supplement. However, the point of this article is only to make you aware of what to look for in general. You do not need to feel the need to get very granular. The audience that really wants more information has contacted me offline and is very small. Here is a link:

https://latticeworkwealth.com/2019/11/20/breakthrough-drugs-statistics-and-anecdotes-time-series-statistics/

Now let’s begin our journey to sum up these two articles by using the specific example of a “yield curve inversion”. First, what exactly is the yield curve? Okay, we are going to keep this explanation simple. The point of this article is not to become an expert on bond yields. The yield curve is simply the interest rate (referred to as “coupon” in the financial jargon) of bonds at certain maturities. For U.S. Treasury issues, you normally look at the interest rate on one-month, three-month, and six-month U.S. Treasury Bills. Then you add in one-year, two-year, three-year, five-year, seven-year, and ten-year U.S. Treasury Notes. And finally, you have the thirty-year Treasury Bonds (otherwise referred to as the “long bond” in financial jargon). Why bills, notes, and bond? It is simply a naming convention for all U.S. Treasury debt less than twelve-months is a bill, between one-year and ten-years is a note, and anything greater than ten-years is a bond. Once you know all those interest rates, you draw a line that connects all of those interest rates from one-month U.S. Treasury Bills all the way to thirty-year U.S. Treasury Bonds.

Why do people focus on this? Well, first, you would expect that interest rates for one-month bills to be lower than thirty-year bonds. Think of it like this: if your friend borrowed $20 and was going to pay you back at the end of the week or in three years. What interest rate would you charge him/her? Now a totally altruistic person would say nothing. But let’s say you are trying to teach your kids the value of money. Most people would charge a greater amount of interest for three years compared to one week. The U.S. Treasury debt market works very similarly. People who loan the government money for one month normally demand a lower interest rate than those people who are going to have to wait thirty years to get their money back. When the economy is growing normally, the yield curve is called steep. It goes from lower interest rates and gradually moves higher. But that is not the only shape of the yield curve possible.

The other two are flat and inverted. A flat yield curve simply means that interest rates all along the various maturities are pretty much the same. Now, as our article will shift to, an inverted yield curve means that closer maturities actually have a higher interest rate than the very long-term maturities. Why does this happen? Well, most economists and financial professionals will tell you that the economy is slowing down and a recession is coming. Why? The last 7-8 recessions were preceded by a yield curve inversion. Let’s take a look at the yield curve over time by comparing two-year U.S. Treasury Notes with ten-year U.S. Treasury Notes. Keep in mind that we are taking a look at the difference between the two. A number that is positive means that interest rates are higher for ten-year bonds and a negative number means just the opposite.

Here is a daily comparison from June 1, 1976 through November 6, 2019:

Daily Spreads - All Data

Here is the same comparison but on a monthly basis:

Monthly Spreads - All Data

I used a graph of the month difference (“spread”) to smooth out some of the volatility. Now if you remember your economic history, you will notice that there are negative “spreads” that occur prior to a downturn in the U.S. economy. Let’s focus on the yield curve inversion prior to the Financial Crisis. As you can see, the yield curve was inverted at various times over the course of 2006 to 2008. It took approximately two years from the yield curve inversion before the Financial Crisis hit in full force in September 2008. Because this pattern has occurred before, economists and financial professionals appearing on television or writing articles have pointed to the yield curve inversion just recently.

But you should take a closer look at the latest inversion of the yield curve. It is only a small difference and only lasted for a short period of time. I will blow it up to investigate and will show November 1, 2018 through October 31, 2019:

Daily Spreads - 2018 to 2019

I had to use a one-year timeframe to even be able to get the difference in interest rates to show up. So, for a period during August 2019 and September 2019, there were a plethora of financial markets’ articles and television commentators who talked about how soon a recession would take place in the U.S. economy. In fact, there were days when over 25% of the day’s coverage of financial market news focused only on this yield curve inversion. Now, will the U.S. economy go into recession in the next 12-24 months? Well, that is still an open question. The main point is that the financial news media focus on things that have similar patterns for only a brief period of time. Even worse though, financial “experts” who know very little about the bond market and economics start making predictions. And, as I have said many times in the past, the financial news media rarely, if ever, invites guests back or has another article written about how wrong they were.

Lastly, you will sometimes here people say that there is a 30% chance that the U.S. economy will enter a recession in the next 12-24 months. Where does that percentage come from? Oftentimes, it is a “best guess”. Unless you hear that same financial professional talk about a probity econometric model that came up with that percentage of recession probability, you should take the comment with a “grain of salt”. Trust me though, most financial professionals are not running probit models when they tell you their opinion on this matter (related to an inverted yield curve or due to another topics/event). In the supplemental article that is forthcoming, I will actually discuss a panel probit model that the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) just ran to look at the phenomenon of yield curve inversion preceding a recession in an economy. It is not that the percentages derived are “correct” per se. The important point is that they are not “pulled out of a hat” by someone.

I hope that this series of articles has been helpful in covering this important topic. The main takeaway is that, whenever you hear or read about a financial market prediction, you should always look to see how many examples (observations) are being used. If it is less than 30, you should not take it very seriously at all. Additionally, any time series data that is trending upward or downward cannot be used to talk about the financial markets. Remember you need to first-difference the time series data or adjust it in some other manner. Why? Otherwise, there may be correlations between two or more time series that just are not really there because the trend dominates. (Please refer to the second article for more information in this regard). So, please be more aware and skeptical of what you hear or read. It is not that the information/prediction is totally wrong. The salient thing is that it should be based on sound statistics and mathematics.

Before You Take Any Investment Advice, Consider the Source – Version 2.0

18 Wednesday Sep 2019

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, Average Returns, behavioral finance, bonds, Charlie Munger, confirmation bias, Consumer Finance, emerging markets, Fama, finance, financial advice, Financial Advisor, financial goals, financial markets, Financial Media, Financial News, financial planning, financial services industry, Geometric Returns, Individual Investing, individual investors, interest rates, Internet Bubble, investing, investing advice, investing, investments, stocks, bonds, asset allocation, portfolio, investment advice, investments, Markowitz, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, personal finance, portfolio, risk, risk tolerance, stock market, Stock Market Returns, Stock Market Valuation, stock prices, stocks, Uncategorized, Valuation, volatility, Warren Buffett

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academics, anchoring, behavioral economics, behavioral finance, Ben Graham, Bill Ruane, Capital Asset Pricing Model, CAPM, Charlie Munger, cognitive bias, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, David Dodd, economics, economy, Efficient Market Hypothesis, EMT, finance, invest, investing, investments, mathematics, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, performance, Phil Fisher, portfolio, portfolio management, Security Analysis, stocks, uncertainty, Warren Buffett

I originally wrote about this topic five years ago. However, I think that it may even be more relevant today. You may have heard about behavioral finance/economics and how cognitive biases plagued individual investors when making financial and investing decisions especially during volatility times in the financial markets.

Sometimes an overlooked topic is the fact that whomever provides you with financial advice will invariably be affected by those same biases. Yes, even the professionals cannot escape them. One of the most prevalent and insidious cognitive biases is called “anchoring”.

In layman’s terms, “anchoring” describes the tendency of people to form a particular belief and then stick with it unless there is an incredible amount of evidence to the contrary. It is just part of human nature; we generally do not want to admit that we were mistaken or flat out wrong.

Now when I am talking about considering the source, I am not referring to the person’s qualifications such as having a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Certified Financial Planner (CFP), or Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation. I am referring to the person’s investing paradigm.

For the most part, financial professionals are influenced greatly by the time period in which they first start out in the financial services industry. The first several of years have an outsized impact on their investing recommendations throughout the rest of their careers.

I will give you an example in life, and then I will talk about Warren Buffett and even myself. Take special note that I am including myself in this “anchoring” cognitive bias within the context of investing.

There have been many studies that show that the kind of music you listen to most during your teen years becomes your preferred type of music. For example, there are many people in their early 40’s that love 80’s rock. They would prefer to listen to that over any type of new music. My parents are in their seventies now, and they love to listen to Peter, Paul, & Mary, the Beach Boys, Neil Diamond, Motown, and lots of one-hit wonders from the 50’s and 60’s.

Think about your own taste in music. Does this ring a bell? Most people fall into this category, and it is almost subconscious. You like a certain genre of music best, and it sticks with you. Did you have a family member that was really into music and had a collection of records? Sometimes you get introduced to music at an even younger age, and you are drawn to it. You listened to it during your formative years. The same goes for investing in a rather similar way.

If we take a look at Warren Buffett, he was definitely influenced by the time period in which he started learning about investing seriously. Buffett read Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, and he knew right away that he wanted to go to Columbia to get his MS in Economics. The themes in the book seemed to resonate with him. I have heard stories that the value investing class with Ben Graham and Warren Buffett was really a conversation between the two of them. The rest of the classmates just sat back and enjoyed the “show”.

Warren Buffett also learned a lot from a lesser known gentleman, Phil Fisher. Phil Fisher wrote the classic treatise on “scuttlebutt” called Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. “Scuttlebutt” is essentially trying to gain every last piece of information you can about a company prior to investing. This technique includes, not only speaking to management and reading annual reports, but talking to competitors, suppliers, current employees, past employees, and several other sources.

Warren Buffett remarked in the past that he was “15% Fisher and 85% Graham” in terms of his investing style. Most experts on the career of Buffett would say that the percentage has shifted toward Fisher quite a bit, especially with the massive size of Berkshire Hathaway now.

I did not pick Warren Buffett because of his long-term track record of stellar performance. I only picked him because many individuals are familiar with Warren Buffett. Warren started out working for Graham in the early 50’s after he graduated from Columbia in 1951. If you look back at this time in history, the stock market had finally gained back its losses from the great crash of October 1929. The baby boom was in full swing, and the US economy was on overdrive in terms of growth. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was set up back in 1933 after the crash once an investigation was done regarding the causes of this debacle.

There were two important promulgations from the SEC in 1934 and 1940 that were issued in order to ensure that company information was available to the public and not fraudulent. Well, there were still scams, but they were harder to pull off. (As an aside, the Investment Advisor Act of 1940 did not stop Bernie Madoff from stealing billions of dollars several years ago). Buffett and Graham (and Graham’s partner, Newman) loved to get their hands on any piece of information they could. In fact, Buffett used to read entire books on every single public company.

During that time period, information was so disjointed and hard to get. However, it was now available to the public and professional investors who could do much more thorough analyses. The financial markets had far more inefficiencies back then.

This time period was before the dawn of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMT). Thus, there was a great deal of opportunities for individuals like Buffett who soaked up all the information he could find.

Buffett started his own investment partnership in the mid 50’s. It was essentially a hedge fund in most respects. Without getting into too much of the details, Buffett was able to earn 20% more on average than the Down Jones Average annually until 1969. The stock market at this time seemed to be overpriced in his estimation, so Buffett disbanded the partnership. He referred his partners to Bill Ruane of the famed Sequoia Fund. Bill was a former classmate of Warren, and he amassed quite a record himself.

So if we look at Buffett’s beginning career, he saw how doing your homework really paid off. In fact, there are even stories that Ben Graham would use examples in his lectures about companies he was going to buy. After class let out, all the students rushed to call, or see directly, their stock brokers to buy the companies Graham presented on.

Buffett learned from Graham the importance of valuing a company based upon verifiable evidence and not market sentiment. Fisher’s lessons showed him the benefit of accumulating information from different sources in order to truly understand a business prior to investing. These formative years are still with Buffett.

Now Charlie Munger, Buffett’s Vice Chairman at Berkshire Hathaway, has been an influence as well. What is little known is that they grew up together in Omaha, Nebraska, and they were able to meet during this same time period. This introduction to investing left an indelible mark on Warren Buffett that permeates his investing career today.

Obviously I am no Warren Buffett, but I started investing in mutual funds at age 13 in November 1987. What got me so interested in the stock market? Obviously Black Monday on October 19, 1987 really caught my attention. It was not really the crash that really piqued my interest though. My father told me that the market drop of 508 points on that day was an overreaction (down over 20% amazed me). I did not know much about stocks, but it seemed to me like the world was ending. At least that was how the nightly news portrayed things. My father said watch the market over the next several days.

To my absolute amazement, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) went up almost 290 points in the next two trading sessions. Wow! This turn of events was really weird to me. How could stocks move around in value so greatly?

I thought that all the big money investors in the stock market really knew what they were doing. However, most everyone was caught by surprise by Black Monday. The other interesting thing for me was that 1987 turned out to be a positive year for the DJIA. If you want to get your friend’s attention, you can ask them what the return of the DJIA was for 1987 (positive return) and 1988 (negative return). Most people will get it wrong.

Well, these events left a mark on me. When I learned more about investing and was exposed to Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) and the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMT), I really did not think it was true given my start in investing back in the latter portion of 1987. How could the value of the entire U.S. economy be worth 20% less after one day of trading?

Now, the stock market is normally efficient and stock prices are correct, but I knew that there were inflection points in the stock market where rationality was thrown out the door. Therefore, when I learned about Mr. Market and the vicissitudes and vagaries of the stock market from Ben Graham’s books, I liked that metaphor and way to characterize volatility in the stock market.

For better or worse, I really do not care for the academic, ivory tower analysis of behavior in the stock market. I cling more to focus investing, value investing, and seeing the financial markets as complex adaptive systems. I would fall into the camp of Warren Buffett and the great hedge fund investor, George Soros. Both men have said that they would never be able to pass the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam.

The CFA is now the standard designation for all portfolio managers of stocks and bonds. I tried studying for it, but a lot of it made little sense to me. I guess that is why I think it is funny when Buffett says he wants to gift money to universities to install permanent chairs in business schools to teach Modern Portfolio Theory forever.

Most of the financial professionals you meet will range in age from twenties to sixties. You should always ask them when they started investing or their career as a Financial Advisor. Here are the ten major events that will cover those individuals:

The 1973-1974 severe bear market;
The Death of Equities article from Business Week magazine in 1979;
Black Monday in October 1987;
The Bond Bubble Bursting in 1994;
The Asian Contagion and Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) incidents in 1997-1998;
The Barron’s article in December 1999 that questioned the relevance of the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett;
The Bursting of the Internet Bubble in April 2001;
The Financial Crisis and ensuing Great Recession of 2008-2009;
The “Lost Decade” of Returns from the S&P 500 from 2001-2010 when stocks averaged approximately 2% annually.
Managing Money is Easy. Look at my investing record over the past 10 years (2009-2018). Note that the annualized return of the S&P 500 index over that period was 13.13%.

These major inflection points in the financial markets will have a great effect on your financial professional’s recommendations for investment portfolio allocation. In fact, I met a Financial Advisor that tells his clients that they can expect to earn 12% annually from stocks over the long term. He uses this return for modeling how much clients need to invest for retirement. He was introduced to investing around 1996 which is when the stock market went gangbusters.

I know another Financial Advisor that tells his clients to never put more than 50% of their money in common stocks. He tells this to all of his clients, even if they are in their thirties and have 30+ years until retirement. He started advising clients in 2007, and he lost a great many clients in 2008. Therefore, he wants to have limited downside risk for two reasons.

First, he has seen how much the stock market can drop in one year. Second, this gentleman wants to ensure that his clients do not close accounts and flee to other financial professionals because the stocks in their portfolio go down 30-40% in a single year.

The importance today of the long, extended bull market of the past 10 years is extremely important to take into account for all individual investors. A recent stretch of 13.13% annualized stock returns makes it seem that investing systematically over the long term is the correct investment strategy. I would not disagree with that thought.

However, Financial Advisors with 10 years of experience or less will only tell clients what they would do hypothetically in the event of a major market decline in the stock and bond markets. Hypotheticals and backtesting are all well and good.

But it has been my experience, that there is no substitute for actually investing during periods of extreme volatility and major stock market declines (20% or more). For example, what was the best stock investment strategy right after the Internet Bubble implosion in terms of the asset class? The best performing asset class for the next decade was to have a larger than normal allocation to emerging market stocks (think Ticker Symbol EEM or VWO). Do you think that your Financial Advisor would have the stomach to recommend this investment to you after seeing the NASDAQ index fall by over 50%?

As you can see, the start of anyone’s investing career has an impact on their outlook for the financial markets and how to set up a portfolio properly. I am not saying that any of this advice is “wrong” per se.

My only point is that you need to probe your Financial Advisor a little bit to understand the framework he/she is working with. Thus, you can refer to the aforementioned list of ten major events in the history of the financial markets. These events really shape the investment paradigm of all of us. And, of course, I will admit that I am no different.

With that being said, most investment strategies recommended by Financial Advisors are borne out of those individuals first few years with the financial markets. Some financial professionals are more bullish than others. Others focus on downside risk and limiting volatility in investment portfolios. Still others utilize complicated mathematics to build investment portfolios that are optimized.

Therefore, you need to understand your risk tolerance and financial goals very well. You have your own personal experience with the market. If your Financial Advisor is somewhat myopic and focused on the past repeating itself in the same way over and over, you need to be careful.

History does repeat itself, but the repeating events will be caused by much different factors in most cases. Unfortunately, the financial markets and market participants are always adapting to changing investment strategies, global economic GDP growth, interest rates, geopolitical events, stock price volatility, and a whole host of other things.

You can learn from the past, but I urge you not to be “stuck” in the past with your Financial Advisor’s “anchoring” cognitive bias at the expense of setting up an investment portfolio that will allow you to reach your financial goals and match your risk tolerance.

Are Stocks Currently Overvalued, Undervalued, or Fairly Valued? Answer: Yes.

10 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by wmosconi in academia, academics, asset allocation, Average Returns, business, CAPE, CAPE P/E Ratio, Consumer Finance, Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings Ratio, Education, finance, finance theory, financial advice, financial goals, financial markets, Financial Media, Financial News, financial planning, financial services industry, Forward P/E Ratio, Individual Investing, individual investors, interest rates, investing, investing advice, investing information, investing tips, investment advice, investments, Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize in Economics, P/E Ratio, passive investing, personal finance, portfolio, risk, Robert Shiller, Schiller, Shiller P/E Ratio, statistics, stock market, Stock Market Returns, Stock Market Valuation, stock prices, stocks, Valuation, volatility

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Confusing and frustrating as it may be, the answer about the current valuation of stocks will always be different depending on who you ask. Various economists, mutual fund portfolio managers, research analysts, financial news print and TV personalities, and other parties seem to disagree on this very important question. Financial professionals will offer a wide range of financial and economic statistics in support of these opinions on the current valuation of stocks. One of the most often cited statistics in support of a person’s opinion is the P/E ratio of the stock market at any given point in time. Many financial professionals use it as one of the easiest numbers to be able to formulate a viewpoint on stock valuation. However, when it comes to any statistic, one must always be skeptical in terms of both the way the number is calculated and its predictive value. Any time one number is used to describe the financial markets one must always be leery. A closer examination of the P/E ratio is necessary to show why its usage alone is a poor way to make a judgement in regard to the proper valuation of stocks.

The P/E ratio is short for Price/Earnings ratio. The value is calculated by taking the current stock price divided by the annual earnings of the company. When it is applied to an entire stock market index like the S&P 500 index, the value is calculated by taking the current value of the index divided by the sum of the annual earnings of the 500 companies included in the index. One of the very important things to be aware of is that the denominator of the equation may actually be different depending on who is using the P/E ratio. Some people will refer to the P/E ratio in terms of the last reported annual earnings for the company (index). Other people will refer to the P/E ratio in terms of the expected earnings for the company (index) over the next year. In this particular case, the P/E ratio is referred to as the Forward P/E ratio. Both ratios have a purpose. The traditional P/E ratio measures the reported accounting earnings of the firm (index). It is a known value. The Forward P/E ratio measures the profits that the firm (index) will create in the future. However, the future profits are only a forecast. Many analysts prefer to use the Forward P/E ratio because the value of any firm (or index of companies) is determined by its future ability to generate profits for its owners. The historical earnings are of lesser significance.

The P/E ratio is essentially a measure of how much investors value $1 worth of earnings and what they are willing to pay for it. For example, a firm might have a P/E ratio of 10, 20, 45, or even 100. In the case of a firm that is losing money, the P/E ratio does not apply. In general, investors are willing to pay more per each $1 in earnings if the company has the potential to grow a great deal in the future. Examples of this would be companies like Amazon (Ticker Symbol: AMZN) or Netflix (Ticker Symbol: NFLX) that have P/E ratios well over 100. Some companies are further along in their life cycle and offer less growth opportunities and tend to have lower P/E ratios. Examples of this would be General Motors or IBM that have P/E ratios in the single digits or low teens, respectively. Investors tend to pay more for companies that offer the promise of future growth than for companies that are in mature or declining industries.

When it comes to the entire stock market, the P/E ratio applied to a stock market index (such as the S&P 500 index) measures how much investors are willing to pay for the earnings of all the companies in that particular index. For purposes of discussion and illustration, I will refer to the S&P 500 index while discussing the P/E ratio. The average P/E ratio for the S&P 500 index over the last 40 years (1966-2015) was 18.77. When delivering an opinion on the valuation of the S&P 500 index, many financial professionals will cite this number and state that stocks are overvalued (undervalued) if the current P/E ratio of the S&P 500 index is above (below) that historical average. If the current P/E ratio of the S&P 500 index is roughly in line with that historical average, the term fairly valued will usually be used in relation to stocks. The rationale is that stocks are only worth what their earnings/profits are over time. There is evidence that the stock market can become far too highly priced (as in March 2000 or December 2007) or far too lowly priced (as in 1982) based upon the P/E ratio observed at that time. Unfortunately, the relative correlation between looking at the difference between the current P/E ratio of the stock market and the historical P/E ratio does not work perfectly. In fact, it is only under very extreme circumstances and with perfect hindsight that investors can see that stocks were overvalued or undervalued in relation to the P/E ratio at that time.

Here are the historical P/E ratios for the S&P 500 index from 1966-2015 as measured by the P/E ratio at the end of the year. Additionally, the annual return of the S&P index for that year is also shown.

Year	P/E Ratio	Annual Return
2015	22.17	1.30%
2014	20.02	13.81%
2013	18.15	32.43%
2012	17.03	15.88%
2011	14.87	2.07%
2010	16.30	14.87%
2009	20.70	27.11%
2008	70.91	-37.22%
2007	21.46	5.46%
2006	17.36	15.74%
2005	18.07	4.79%
2004	19.99	10.82%
2003	22.73	28.72%
2002	31.43	-22.27%
2001	46.17	-11.98%
2000	27.55	-9.11%
1999	29.04	21.11%
1998	32.92	28.73%
1997	24.29	33.67%
1996	19.53	23.06%
1995	18.08	38.02%
1994	14.89	1.19%
1993	21.34	10.17%
1992	22.50	7.60%
1991	25.93	30.95%
1990	15.35	-3.42%
1989	15.13	32.00%
1988	11.82	16.64%
1987	14.03	5.69%
1986	18.01	19.06%
1985	14.28	32.24%
1984	10.36	5.96%
1983	11.52	23.13%
1982	11.48	21.22%
1981	7.73	-5.33%
1980	9.02	32.76%
1979	7.39	18.69%
1978	7.88	6.41%
1977	8.28	-7.78%
1976	10.41	24.20%
1975	11.83	38.46%
1974	8.30	-26.95%
1973	11.68	-15.03%
1972	18.08	19.15%
1971	18.00	14.54%
1970	18.12	3.60%
1969	15.76	-8.63%
1968	17.65	11.03%
1967	17.70	24.45%
1966	15.30	-10.36%

Average 18.77

The P/E ratio for the S&P 500 index has varied widely from the single digits to values of 40 or above. The important thing to observe is that very high P/E ratios are not always followed by low or negative returns, nor are very low P/E ratios followed by very high returns. In terms of a baseline, the S&P 500 index returned approximately 9.5% over this 40-year period. As is immediately evident, the returns of stocks are quite varied which is what one would expect given the fact that stocks are known as assets that exhibit volatility (meaning that they fluctuate a lot because the future is never known with certainty). Thus, whenever a financial professional says that stocks are overvalued, undervalued, or fairly valued at any given point in time, that statement has very little significance. Whenever only one data point is utilized to give a forecast about the future direction of stocks, an individual investor needs to be extremely skeptical of that statement. The P/E ratio does hold a very important key for the future returns of stocks but only over long periods of time and certainly not over a short timeframe like a month, quarter, or even a year.

An improvement on the P/E ratio was developed by Dr. Robert J. Shiller, the Nobel Prize winner in Economics and current professor of Economics at Yale University. The P/E ratio that Dr. Shiller developed is referred to as the Shiller P/E ratio or the CAPE (Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings) P/E ratio. This P/E ratio takes the current value of a stock or stock index and divides it by the average earnings of a firm or index components for a period of 10 years and also takes into account the level of inflation over that period. The general idea is that the long-term earnings of a firm or index determine its relative valuation. Thus, it does a far better job of measuring whether or not the stock market is fairly valued or not at any given point in time. However, another very important piece of the puzzle has to do with interest rates. Investors are generally willing to pay more for stocks when interest rates are low than when interest rates are high. Why? If it is assumed that the future earnings stream of the company remains the same, an investor would be willing to take more risk and invest in stocks over the safety of bonds. A quick example from everyday life is instructive. Imagine that your friend wants to borrow $500 for one year. How much interest will you charge your friend on the loan? Let’s say you want to earn 5% more than what you could earn by simply buying US Treasury Bills for one year. A one-year US Treasury Bill is risk free and, as of May 10, 2016 yields interest of 0.50%. Therefore, you might charge your friend 5.5% on the loan. Now back in the early 1980’s, one-year US Treasury Bills (and even savings accounts at banks) were 10% or higher. If you were to have provided the loan to your friend then, you would not charge 5.5% because you could simply deposit the $500 in the bank. You might charge your friend 15.5% on the loan assuming that the relative risk of your friend not paying you back is the same in both time periods. It is very similar when it comes to investing in stocks. Due to the fact that stocks are volatile and future profits are unknown, investors tend to prefer bonds over stocks as interest rates rise. This phenomenon causes the value of stocks to fall. Conversely, as interest rates fall, the preference for bonds decreases and investors will choose stocks more and prices go up. Now this assumes that the future earnings of the company or index constituents stay the same in either scenario.

With that information in mind, a better way to gauge the relative valuation of stocks in terms of being overvalued, undervalued, or fairly valued, would be to look at the Shiller P/E ratio in combination with interest rates. It is most common for investors to utilize the 10-year US Treasury note as a proxy for interest rates. Here are the historical values for the Shiller P/E ratio and the 10-year US Treasury note over the same 40-year period (1966-2015) as before:

Year	CAPE Ratio	10-Year Yield
2015	24.21	2.27%
2014	26.49	2.17%
2013	24.86	3.04%
2012	21.90	1.78%
2011	21.21	1.89%
2010	22.98	3.30%
2009	20.53	3.85%
2008	15.17	2.25%
2007	24.02	4.04%
2006	27.21	4.71%
2005	26.47	4.39%
2004	26.59	4.24%
2003	27.66	4.27%
2002	22.90	3.83%
2001	30.28	5.07%
2000	36.98	5.12%
1999	43.77	6.45%
1998	40.57	4.65%
1997	32.86	5.75%
1996	28.33	6.43%
1995	24.76	5.58%
1994	20.22	7.84%
1993	21.41	5.83%
1992	20.32	6.70%
1991	19.77	6.71%
1990	15.61	8.08%
1989	17.05	7.93%
1988	15.09	9.14%
1987	13.90	8.83%
1986	14.92	7.23%
1985	11.72	9.00%
1984	10.00	11.55%
1983	9.89	11.82%
1982	8.76	10.36%
1981	7.39	13.98%
1980	9.26	12.43%
1979	8.85	10.33%
1978	9.26	9.15%
1977	9.24	7.78%
1976	11.44	6.81%
1975	11.19	7.76%
1974	8.92	7.40%
1973	13.53	6.90%
1972	18.71	6.41%
1971	17.26	5.89%
1970	16.46	6.50%
1969	17.09	7.88%
1968	21.19	6.16%
1967	21.51	5.70%
1966	20.43	4.64%

Average 19.80 6.44%

These two data points provide a much better gauge of whether or not stocks are currently overvalued or undervalued. For example, take a look at the Shiller P/E ratio in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The value of the Shiller ratio is in the single digits during this time period because interest rates were higher than 10%. Lately interest rates have been right around 2.0%-2.5% for the past several years. Therefore, one would expect that the Shiller P/E ratio would be higher. Now the historical average for the Shiller P/E ratio was 19.80 over this period. The Shiller P/E ratio was in the neighborhood of 40 during 1998-2000 which preceded the bursting of the Internet Bubble in March 2000. The Shiller P/E ratio was at its two lowest levels of 7 and 8 in 1981 and 1982, respectively which is when the great bull market began. However, while this Shiller P/E and interest rates are better than simply the traditional P/E ratio, there are flaws. The Shiller P/E in 2007 was 24.02 right (and interest rates were around 4.0% which is on the low side historically) before the huge market drop of the Great Recession between September 2008 and March 2009. In fact, the S&P 500 index was down over 37% in 2008, and the Shiller P/E did not provide an imminent warning of any such severe downturn. Therefore, even looking at these two measures is imperfect but better than the normal P/E ratio in isolation.

To summarize the discussion, individual investors will always be told on a daily basis by various sources that the stock market is currently overvalued, undervalued, and fairly valued at the same time. One of the most commonly used rationales is a reference to the current P/E ratio in relation to the historical P/E ratio. As we have seen, this one data point is a very poor indicator of the future direction and relative value of stocks at any given period of time, especially for short periods of time (one year or less). The commentary and opinions provided by financial “experts” to individual investors when the P/E ratio is mentioned normally relates to the short term. By looking back at the historical data, it is clear that this one data point is really only relevant over very long periods of time. The Shiller P/E ratio in combination with current interest rates is a great improvement over the traditional P/E ratio, but it is even imperfect when it comes to forecasting the future returns of the stock market. There are two general rules for individual investors to take away from this discussion. Whenever a comment is made about the current value of stocks and only one statistic is provided, the opinion should be taken with a “grain of salt” and weighed only as one piece of information in determining investment decisions that individual investors may or may not make. Additionally, and equally as important, if a financial professional cites a statistic about stock valuation that you do not understand (even after doing some research of your own), you should always discard that opinion in most every case. Individual investors should not make major investment decisions in terms of altering large portions of their investment portfolios of stocks, bonds, and other financial assets utilizing information that they do not understand. It sounds like common sense, but, in the sometimes irrational world of investing, this occurrence is far more common than you imagine.

A New Paradigm for Investing on 50 year-old Investment Advice Available on Amazon.com

01 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, beta, business, Consumer Finance, Education, Fama, finance, financial planning, Free Book Promotion, Individual Investing, investing, investing, investments, stocks, bonds, asset allocation, portfolio, investment advisory fees, investments, Markowitz, math, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, passive investing, personal finance, portfolio, risk, Sharpe, sigma, statistics, stock prices, stocks, volatility

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Amazon.com, business, economics, education, FA, finance, Financial Advisors, free books, individual investing, investing, investment advice, investments, mathematics, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, personal finance, statistics

I have decided to make my recently published book FREE for today only, March 1, 2014(it normally retails for $4.99). The book is another installment in my A New Paradigm for Investing series. In this particular book, I focus on the use of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) as the primary tool by Financial Advisors to recommend portfolio allocations. The theory is over 50 years old, and most of its assumptions have been shown to be less and less useful. I explore the reasons why in my text. I have tried to write in such a manner that you do not need a degree in mathematics or statistics to understand its contents. Moreover, you do not need to know about the intricacies of MPT in order to follow my logic. You would find the same information in a college textbook but in a condensed format here. It actually is quite surprising how little Financial Advisors know about MPT in general and how the ideas apply to individual investors.

Note that this book is available for download onto a Kindle. Additionally, there is a Kindle app for iPhones and Android devices which is free to download. Amazon.com Prime Members can borrow the book for FREE as well. I have provided a link below to make it easier. My email address is latticeworkwealth@gmail.com should you have any questions/comments/feedback.

The book is:

1) A New Paradigm for Investing: Is Your Financial Advisor Creating Your Portfolio with a 50 Year-Old Theory?:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Paradigm-Investing-Financial-ebook/dp/B00FQQ0CKG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381520643&sr=1-1&keywords=a+New+paradigm+for+investing+by+William+Nelson

I would like to thank my international viewers as well of my blog that can be found at https://latticeworkwealth.com/. I also wanted to especially thank some selected followers of my @NelsonThought and @LatticeworkWlth Twitter accounts (each of whom I would strongly recommend following for their content and insight):

Followers on @NelsonThought:

– The Wall Street Journal Wealth Report @WSJwealthreport – #wsjexperts

– Institutional Investor @iimag

– The Royce Funds @RoyceFunds – Small Cap value investing asset manager

– Research Magazine @Research_Mag – Latest industry information for wirehouses and ETFs

– Barron’s Online @BarronsOnline – Weekly financial news magazine of Dow Jones

– Cleveland Fed Research @ClevFedResearch

– Euromoney.com @Euromoney

– Pedro da Costa @pdacosta – Central banking and economics reporter at The Wall Street Journal

– Muriel Siebert & Co. @SiebertCo

– Roger Wohlner, CFP® @rwohlner

– Ed Moldaver @emoldaver

– Sylvia Maxfield @sylviamaxfield – Dean of the Providence College of Business

– The Shut Up Show @theshutupshow

– Berni Xiong (shUNG) @BerniXiong

Followers on @LatticeworkWlth:

– Tracy Alloway @tracyalloway – US Financial Correspondent at Financial Times

– Vanguard FA @Vanguard_FA – Vanguard’s ETF research and education

– EU External Action @eu_eeas – Latest news from the European External Action Service (EEAS)

– Direxion Alts @DirexionAlts

– Charlie Wells @charliewwells – Editor at The Wall Street Journal

– Jesse Colombo @TheBubbleBubble – Columnist at Forbes

– Alastair Winter @AlastairWinter – Chief Economist at Daniel Stewart & Company

– AbsoluteVerification @GIPStips

– Investment Advisor @InvestAdvMag

– Gary Oneil @GaryONeil2

– MJ Gottlieb @MJGottlieb

– Bob Burg @BobBurg

– TheMichaelBrown @TheMichaelBrown

– Phil Gerbyshak @PhilGerbyshak

– MuniCredit @MuniCredit

Happy New Year, Beginning Thoughts, and Information for International Viewers

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, bonds, business, Consumer Finance, Education, Fed Taper, Fed Tapering, Federal Reserve, finance, financial planning, Individual Investing, interest rates, investing, investments, math, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, personal finance, portfolio, rising interest rate environment, rising interest rates, risk, statistics, stock prices, stocks, volatility

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asset allocation, bonds, economics, finance, financial planning, individual investing, investing, investing ideas for 2014, investments, stocks, volatility

I am looking forward to sharing more information regarding investing, finance, economics, and general knowledge about the financial services industry in 2014. I am hopeful to increase the pace with which I publish new information. Additionally, I am happy to announce that I reached viewers in 40 countries in all six continents. Countries from Japan, France, Germany, and Russia to Ghana, Colombia, and even Nepal.

Since the number of my international viewers has grown to nearly 20% of overall viewers of this blog I wanted to allocate a short potion of this post to the international community. Some of my comments are most applicable to the US financial markets or the developed markets across the globe. If you are living in a country that is considered part of the developing markets, I would strongly recommend that you seek out information in your country to see how much of my commentary is applicable to your stock or bond market and situation in general. It is extremely important to realize that tax structure, transparency of information, and illiquidity of stock and bond markets can alter the value of what I might say. During the course of the coming year, I will attempt to add in some comments to clarify the applicability. However, as the aforementioned statistic regarding the global diversity of viewers of this blog suggests, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that I will not hit on all the issues important to all international individual investors.

I encourage you to take a close look at your portfolio early on in 2014. It is a perfect time in terms of naturally wanting to divide up investing into calendar increments. As you listen to all the predictions for the New Year, I would encourage you to look at your personal portfolio and financial goals first. The second step is to always look at that economist’s or analyst’s predictions at the beginning of 2013. Now I am not implying that incorrect recommendations in the previous year will mean that 2014 investing advice will be incorrect as well. However, the important takeaway is that trying to account for the entire unknown factors both endogenous (speed of the Fed taper) and exogenous (geopolitical risk in the Middle East and Asia) affecting the global financial markets with a high degree of precision is exponentially difficult and challenging.

There will always be unknown items on the horizon that make investing risky. You hear that we need to get more visibility before investing in one particular asset class or another. It usually means that the analyst wants to be even more certain how the global economy will unfold prior to investing. I will remove the anticipation for you. There will only be a certain level of confidence at any time in the financial markets. One can always come up with reasons to not invest in stocks, bonds, or other financial assets. The corollary also is true. It can be tempting to believe that it is now finally “safe” to invest even more aggressively in risky stocks, bonds, or other assets. As difficult as it might be, you need to try to take the “emotion” of the investing process. Try to think of your portfolio as a number rather than a dollar amount. Yes, this is extremely difficult to do. But I would argue that it is much easier to look at asset allocation and building a portfolio if you think of the math as applied to a number instead of the dollars you have. Emotional reaction is what leads to “buying high and selling low” or blindly following the “hot money”; that is when rationality breaks down.

Here is an experiment for you to do if you are able. There are two shows I would recommend watching once a week. The first show is Squawk Box on CNBC on Monday which airs from 6:00am-9:00am EST. The second show is the Closing Bell on CNBC on Friday afternoon which airs from 3:00pm-5:00pm EST. You only need to watch the last hour though once the stock and bond markets are closed. Note that these shows do air each day of the week. It is not necessary and, more importantly, will negate the experiment if you watch them every day. Now depending on whether or not you have the ability to tape these shows first and skip through commercials, this exercise will take you roughly 12-16 hours throughout the month of January. You will be amazed at how different the stock and bond markets are interpreted in this manner.

When you remove the daily bursts of information, I am willing to bet that you will notice two things:

Secondly, Monday’s show should illustrate what a discussion of all the issues that have relatively more importance are. Now this is not always a true statement though. Generally though, financial commentators and guests appearing on the show will have had the entire weekend to reflect on developments in the global financial markets and current events. Since the stock, bond, and foreign exchange markets are closed on Saturday and Sunday, there is “forced” reflection for most institutional investors, asset managers, research analysts, economists, and traders. The information provided is usually much more thoughtful and insightful.

Best of luck to you in 2014. As always, I would encourage anyone to send in comments or suggestions for future topics to my email address at latticeworkwealth@gmail.com.

A New Paradigm for Investing on 50 year-old Investment Advice Available on Amazon.com

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by wmosconi in alpha, asset allocation, Bernanke, beta, bonds, business, Consumer Finance, Education, Fama, Fed, Fed Taper, Fed Tapering, Federal Reserve, finance, financial advisor fees, financial planning, Individual Investing, investing, investing, investments, stocks, bonds, asset allocation, portfolio, investment advisory fees, investments, Markowitz, math, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize in Economics, portfolio, rising interest rate environment, rising interest rates, risk, Schiller, Sharpe, sigma, statistics, stock prices, stocks, volatility, Yellen

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alpha, asset allocation, Bernanke, beta, bonds, business, consumer finance, economics, education, Fama, Fed, Fed taper, Fed Tapering, Federal Reserve, finance, investing, investments, math, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize in Economics, personal finance, portfolio, portfolio management, Schiller, Shiller, statistics, stocks, volatility, Yellen

I am happy to announce that I have published another book on Amazon.com. I have decided to make it FREE for the rest of the week through Saturday, December 7^th(it normally retails for $4.99). The book is another installment in my A New Paradigm for Investing series. In this particular book, I focus on the use of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) as the primary tool by Financial Advisors to recommend portfolio allocations. The theory is over 50 years old, and most of its assumptions have been shown to be less and less useful. I explore the reasons why in my text. I have tried to write in such a manner that you do not need a degree in mathematics or statistics to understand its contents. Futhermore, you do not need to know about the intricacies of MPT in order to follow my logic. You would find the same information in a college textbook but in a condensed format.

Note that this book is available for download onto a Kindle. Additionally, there is a Kindle app for iPhones and Android devices which is free to download. Amazon.com prime members can borrow the book for FREE. I have provided a link below to make it easier. My email address is latticeworkwealth@gmail.com should you have any questions/comments/feedback.

The book is:

1) A New Paradigm for Investing: Is Your Financial Advisor Creating Your Portfolio with a 50 Year-Old Theory?:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Paradigm-Investing-Financial-ebook/dp/B00FQQ0CKG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381520643&sr=1-1&keywords=a+New+paradigm+for+investing+by+William+Nelson

I would like to thank my international viewers as well. I also wanted to especially thank some selected followers of my @NelsonThought and @LatticeworkWlth Twitter accounts (each of whom I would recommend following for the content and insight):

Followers on @NelsonThought:

The Wealth Report @wsjexperts – Wall Street Journal #wsjexperts

The Royce Funds @RoyceFunds

Research Magazine @Research_Mag

Barron’s Online @BarronsOnline

Vanguard FA @Vanguard_FA

Cleveland Fed Research @ClevFedResearch

Pedro da Costa @pdacosta

Muriel Siebert & Co. @SiebertCo

Roger Wohlner, CFP® @rwohlner

Ed Moldaver @emoldaver

Sylvia Maxfield @sylviamaxfield

The Shut Up Show @theshutupshow

Berni Xiong (shUNG) @BerniXiong

Followers on @LatticeworkWlth:

Euro-banks @EuroBanks

Direxion Alts @DirexionAlts

Charlie Wells @charliewwells

AbsoluteVerification @GIPStips

Investment Advisor @InvestAdvMag

Gary Oneil @GaryONeil2

MJ Gottlieb @MJGottlieb

Bob Burg @BobBurg

Melody Campbell @SmBizGuru

TheMichaelBrown @TheMichaelBrown

Phil Gerbyshak @PhilGerbyshak

MuniCredit @MuniCredit

D.J. Rob-Ski @DJRobSki

A New Paradigm for Investing Available on Amazon.com – FREE for Thanksgiving Holiday

27 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, Bernanke, bonds, business, Charlie Munger, Consumer Finance, Education, Fed, Fed Taper, Fed Tapering, Federal Reserve, finance, financial advisor fees, financial planning, GIPS, GIPS2013, Individual Investing, interest rates, investing, investing, investments, stocks, bonds, asset allocation, portfolio, investment advisory fees, investments, math, Modern Portfolio Theory, MPT, personal finance, portfolio, risk, statistics, stock prices, stocks, Suitability, volatility, Warren Buffett, Yellen

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bonds, Charlie Munger, consumer finance, economics, education, Fed, Fed taper, finance, financial advisor fees, Financial Advisors, financial planning, financial services, free books, interest rates, investing, investment advisory fees, investments, retirement, stocks, volatility, Warren Buffett

Greetings to all my loyal readers of this blog. In keeping with the Thanksgiving spirit, I have decided to make my first two books absolutely FREE for the rest of the week. These two books on Amazon.com are available for download onto a Kindle. Additionally, there is a Kindle app for iPhones and Android devices which is free to download. Please feel free to check out the titles below. I have provided links to make it easier. My email address is latticeworkwealth@gmail.com.

The books are as follows:

1) A New Paradigm for Investing: Can Your Financial Advisor Answer These Questions?:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Paradigm-Investing-Financial-ebook/dp/B00F3BDTHW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381107823&sr=1-1&keywords=A+New+Paradigm+for+Investing+by+William+Nelson

2) Spend 20 Hours Learning About Investing to Prepare for 20+ Years in Retirement

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Investments-Prepare-Retirement-ebook/dp/B00F3KW9T2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379183661&sr=1-1&keywords=William+Nelson+Spend+20+Hours

The first book listed is normally $9.99 but available for FREE until November 30th. The other book is normally $2.99, but it is also FREE for the same time period.

Followers on @NelsonThought:

The Wealth Report @wsjexperts – #wsjexperts

The Royce Funds @RoyceFunds

Research Magazine @Research_Mag

Barron’s Online @BarronsOnline

Vanguard FA @Vanguard_FA

Cleveland Fed Research @ClevFedResearch

Pedro da Costa @pdacosta

Muriel Siebert & Co. @SiebertCo

Roger Wohlner, CFP® @rwohlner

Ed Moldaver @emoldaver

Sylvia Maxfield @sylviamaxfield

The Shut Up Show @theshutupshow

Berni Xiong (shUNG) @BerniXiong

Followers on @LatticeworkWlth:

Euro-banks @EuroBanks

Direxion Alts @DirexionAlts

Charlie Wells @charliewwells

AbsoluteVerification @GIPStips

Investment Advisor @InvestAdvMag

Gary Oneil @GaryONeil2

MJ Gottlieb @MJGottlieb

Bob Burg @BobBurg

Melody Campbell @SmBizGuru

TheMichaelBrown @TheMichaelBrown

Phil Gerbyshak @PhilGerbyshak

MuniCredit @MuniCredit

D.J. Rob-Ski @DJRobSki

The Two Numbers the Financial Services Industry Does NOT Want You to Know Available on Amazon.com

11 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by wmosconi in asset allocation, bonds, business, Charity, Consumer Finance, Education, Fed Taper, Federal Income Taxes, Federal Reserve, finance, financial planning, Income Taxes, Individual Investing, interest rates, investing, investing, investments, stocks, bonds, asset allocation, portfolio, investments, math, personal finance, portfolio, risk, State Income Taxes, stocks

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I wanted to pass along the latest installment of my book series, A New Paradigm for Investing that I have published on Amazon.com. The subtitle is The Two Numbers the Financial Services Industry Does NOT Want You to Know. Have you ever struggled with trying to determine how much value you get for the investment advice you are paying for? It can seem like everyone has the same “pitch” and the same fees. Since you are entrusting a Financial Advisor or other financial professional with a large part of your net worth and financial future, you deserve to know exactly how fees work in general. I am by no means advocating dumping the individual you have developed a relationship with. Rather, I would like to provide some insight into investment fees and how much they actually are when compared to your annual income. I assure you that, if you are utilizing a full service brokerage firm or other advisory services, these figures will astound you.

The link to the book is:

A New Paradigm for Investing: The Two Numbers the Financial Services Industry Does NOT Want You to Know:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Paradigm-Investing-Financial-Services-ebook/dp/B00GCQACF4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384183129&sr=1-1&keywords=a+new+paradigm+for+investing+by+william+nelson

I would like to thank my international viewers as well. I also wanted to especially thank some selected followers of my @NelsonThought and @LatticeworkWlth Twitter accounts (each of whom I would recommend following for the content and insight):

Followers on @NelsonThought:

The Wall Street Journal Wealth Report @wsjexperts – #wsjexperts

The Royce Funds @RoyceFunds

Research Magazine @Research_Mag

Barron’s Online @BarronsOnline

Vanguard FA @Vanguard_FA

Cleveland Fed Research @ClevFedResearch

Pedro da Costa @pdacosta – Reporter for Reuters covering economics and the Federal Reserve

Muriel Siebert & Co. @SiebertCo

Roger Wohlner, CFP® @rwohlner

Ed Moldaver @emoldaver

Sylvia Maxfield @sylviamaxfield

The Shut Up Show @theshutupshow

Berni Xiong (shUNG) @BerniXiong

Followers on @LatticeworkWlth:

Euro-banks @EuroBanks

Direxion Alts @DirexionAlts

Charlie Wells @charliewwells – Editor of the Wall Street Journal Wealth Experts

AbsoluteVerification @GIPStips

Investment Advisor @InvestAdvMag

Gary Oneil @GaryONeil2

MJ Gottlieb @MJGottlieb

Bob Burg @BobBurg

Melody Campbell @SmBizGuru

TheMichaelBrown @TheMichaelBrown

Phil Gerbyshak @PhilGerbyshak

MuniCredit @MuniCredit

D.J. Rob-Ski @DJRobSki

Latticework Wealth Management, LLC

~ Information for Individual Investors

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