SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND
Evidence-Based
You’d expect me to say this, I know, but evidence-based investing has a BIG future. Why? Well, apart from the fact that it’s far superior to the alternative, it has until now, everywhere outside the United States, remained more or less a secret.
True, the flow of assets from active to passive funds in the US in the past two years has been astonishing. But even in America, where there is now a growing consensus that indexing is best, passively managed money remains a drop in the ocean compared to actively managed assets. Outside the States, the evidence-based approach has barely made inroads.
Yet the irony is that, because the US has, by some distance, the lowest fund fees in the world, it’s actually in other countries that investors have most to gain from indexing.
In my latest post, I’ve been comparing the fees charged by active managers in different countries. As you’ll see, the difference between the highest and the lowest charges is colossal.
Read the article here:
In which countries do investors pay the highest fees?
The article on fund fees around the world is actually the second in a two-part series. In the first part, I looked at how consistent active fund performance is in different countries. Generally speaking it’s remarkably so — consistently poor, that is — but there are some pockets of reasonably good performance as well:
Which countries have the best (or least incompetent) fund managers?
Other posts you may have missed..
Even by their standards, market forecasters are having a mare
New research highlights the self-serving nature of the fund industry
If appealing to people’s intellect fails, try humour
More extraordinary revelations from the former head of the UK fund industry
Want to make active funds look good? Just use the wrong benchmark
Why do advisers keep recommending expensive funds?
Also worth reading..
The market downturn in context:
Bear markets without recessions – it’s a thing (Josh Brown)
The blunt truth is that the markets owe you nothing (Michael Batnick)
Ethical investing:
Does ethical-based investing impact returns? (Larry Swedroe)
The Vanguard legal case:
How Vanguard has brought the mutual-fund industry back closer to its roots (Justin Fox)
Behavioural finance:
Everyone is bad at this (Urban Carmel)
Politics and investing don’t mix (Mike Piper)
Life is uncertain. So is our financial life (Carl Richards)
Having an answer to all market environments is a liberating feeling (Michael Batnick)
Financial media:
What impact does media coverage of a particular stock have on returns? (Wesley Gray)
How the media make fund returns look more impressive than they really are (Dan Solin)
Advice:
Some investors need tough love (Anthony Isola)
Are you saving too much or too little for retirement? (Mark Hebner)
The difference between investment success and investor success (Donald Bennyhoff)
When it’s worth paying for a financial adviser — and when it’s not (Harold Pollack)
Quote of the week..
“The truth is that no one’s in charge, and no one has a damn clue how markets or stocks are going to move. All explanations are post-hoc rationalisations based on intuition and dumb modelling. The only solution is to ignore it all, treat it as noise and focus on the few things you can control.”
Adviser marketing..
It was a pleasure to meet Brett Davidson at the Nucleus Conference in Birmingham last week. For those who don’t know, Brett runs a consultancy called FP Advance, which helps advisers to build successful, client-focused businesses. I can highly recommend Brett’s blog, which contains a wealth of information and advice. Among the most helpful posts is this one on marketing and lead generation:
How to generate more leads from your marketing (Brett Davidson)
Finally..
The subscriber list for my adviser video blogs continues to grow. These broadcast-quality videos are intended to help evidence-based advisers to attract, retain and educate clients. The videos are for the exclusive use of advisory firms — they don’t appear on The Evidence-Based Investor — and they carry the subscriber’s branding, contact details and a call to action if required. Firms can subscribe to either one or two videos per month, depending on their budget and requirements.
Interested? Watch this video:
Robin is a journalist and campaigner for positive change in global investing. He runs Regis Media, a niche provider of content marketing for financial advice firms with an evidence-based investment philosophy. He also works as a consultant to other disruptive firms in the investing sector.
