Articles (121)

An additional way that a passive advisor can add value is not just asset allocation but asset location. Specifically, for a client that has a mixture of taxable accounts, traditional IRAs, and Roth IRAs, it is often helpful to construct a single portfolio consisting of multiple ...Read More

At Index Fund Advisors, we have repeatedly cautioned investors to avoid getting ensnared in the never-ending pursuit of alpha by either picking stocks or hiring an active manager to pick stocks on their behalf. Nevertheless, by engaging in a few prudent practices such as ...Read More

By nature, markets are volatile. Here are a few savvy ways to make investing a more palatable road to follow over a ...Read More

Initial public offerings often attract media and investor attention. New Dimensional research reveals some of the challenges IPO investors ...Read More

How do funds using such an alternative benchmarking methodology fare when put under IFA's research ...Read More

Vanguard's known as a low-cost indexing pioneer. But how has it done as an active manager?
                                          ...Read More

After logging strong returns in the opening three months of 2019, global equity markets slowed in the second ...Read More

As a fiduciary for its clients, IFA only receives compensation from its clients and is therefore unbiased in its choice of ...Read More

Here's why our investment committee remains intrigued by the unique portfolio designs of Dimensional Fund ...Read More

Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Inflation (SBBI) is often characterized as the Almanac of returns data. This magisterial work originally produced by Roger Ibbotson and Rex Sinquefield is considered the go to place when information is needed on the expected returns and risks of a ...Read More

IFA is often in the position of accommodating regular cash withdrawal by its clients. The question is how to best generate cash for ...Read More

Financial advice is a prescription that guides investors to make decisions that best serve their ...Read More

The warnings about potential dangers of trying to file your own tax forms are well-documented. Indeed, we've explored at IFA Taxes many of the biggest blunders taxpayers have made in the past working on even the most basic of IRS accounting ...Read More

A lack of consistency by active fund managers in beating their respective benchmarks has been a constant theme of research over the years from the S&P Indices Versus Active (SPIVA) ...Read More

Manager selection is a process that requires analyzing noisy performance data, so it should lean heavily on the notion of statistical ...Read More

Giving investment advice should always aim to meet investors at their level of understanding. We do not expect everyone to have a PhD in Economics, so it is important to focus on big ideas that are the most crucial to understand. This can include ideas such as diversification, ...Read More

As an investment fiduciary, Index Fund Advisors uses two key pieces of correspondence to keep clients informed about their ...Read More

What is the best way to describe the distribution of stock market returns—a normal distribution, lognormal, or something ...Read More

In a recent Financial Professional Outlook, Russell Investments surveyed 234 financial advisors across 145 investment firms nationwide. According to their results, 60% of advisors said that more than half of their clients are near or in ...Read More

Academics are a hallmark of the investment strategy that we recommend to our clients. While there are plenty of sales pitches professing some sort of new or “hot” idea on how to get rich quick, we rely on peer-reviewed academic research to guide the decisions that we ...Read More

Active management is the art of stock picking and market timing. Passive management refers to a buy-and-hold approach to money management. It can be applied to any asset class: big stocks, small stocks, value or growth, foreign or domestic can all be accessed by passive ...Read More

Two different sets of recent research raise concerns about illiquidity issues related to such alternative ...Read More

Investment opportunities exist all around the ...Read More

Figuring out a good Social Security benefits strategy can be a confusing and complex challenge. Here's how IFA can ...Read More

If you have ever spent any time in a casino, it is likely that you have seen supposedly random events that appeared to be non-random. Perhaps the roulette wheel came up red seven times in a row, for example. If your reaction was to place a large bet on ...Read More

Passive domestic funds assets have pulled even. Morningstar sees such funds soon overtaking their active ...Read More

The work and research of Monty Roberts raises parallels to how humans must manage their behavior during times of market ...Read More

In calculating the t-stat, the first step is to determine the excess returns the manager earned above an appropriate ...Read More

When constructing or evaluating a domestic equity portfolio, Index Fund Advisors has traditionally utilized the three-factor asset pricing model that Professors Eugene Fama and Ken French introduced1 in 1993. This model states that the expected return of a broadly diversified ...Read More

As part of IFA's ongoing series crunching data of active fund managers, we put under our microscope mutual funds from Eaton ...Read More

Building on SPIVA research, analysts dig into how persistent active managers are in beating their benchmarks over ...Read More

The latest research by Dimensional underscores the problems associated with trying to invest in active funds over ...Read More

Long-term minded investors shouldn't be surprised. Traders, however, could've been whipsawed by markets in ...Read More

Over the last several years, index funds have received increased attention from investors and the financial media. Some have even made claims that the increased usage of index funds may be distorting market prices. For many, this argument hinges on the premise that indexing ...Read More

As active investors bail, target-date index investors show ...Read More

The latest SPIVA (S&P Indices Versus Active) scorecard is out tracking how active fund managers did last year and over longer ...Read More

A sound evidence-based investment process needs to consider how market volatility can be used to reduce your ...Read More

A quick online search for “Dow rallies 500 points” yields a cascade of news stories with similar titles, as does a similar search for “Dow drops 500 points.” These types of headlines may make little sense to some investors, given that a ...Read More

Index-based stock funds mark another milestone, surpassing active fund assets in the industry's largest ...Read More

Warren Buffett may be the most famous advocate of low-cost index funds, but his sidekick Charlie Munger has been just as insistent over the years that, for most people, indexing is the best way to ...Read More

Investment fads come and go. Letting short-term trends influence your approach may be counterproductive to pursuing your financial ...Read More

Emerging markets and global real estate stock indexes used in IFA portfolios outpaced U.S., developed international in ...Read More

Trying to out-guess others doesn't just shrink returns, it also injects substantial portfolio volatility into the ...Read More

The Vanguard founder was a maverick whose work influenced fund investors around the world, including IFA's Mark ...Read More

Portfolio management is only one aspect of building wealth. A new report points to other low-risk ways to stay ahead of rising ...Read More

How big of a difference can an objective set of professional eyes add to an investor's overall financial success outside of managing a portfolio? A new study takes a look at just that question. Instead of considering hypotheticals, however, this report goes directly to the ...Read More

The latest honor bestowed on Dimensional's founder and executive chairman highlight his years of work on behalf of scholars and ...Read More

As part of IFA's series breaking down active fund managers' performance, we now put Goldman Sachs under our ...Read More

What should you make of recent ups and downs in the stock market? Here's helpful context on volatility and expected ...Read More

Contribution limits for 2019 for various retirement accounts are rising. Here's a breakdown of how much you can now save in a tax-friendly ...Read More

At the end of each quarter, investors can see dividend and/or capital gain distributions from their mutual funds. The mechanics may seem confusing, so we want to take the opportunity to review the ...Read More

At least one hedge fund manager has resorted to sending a message of distress to investors via ...Read More

With technology bellwethers Apple and Amazon becoming America's first companies with market capitalizations surpassing $1 trillion, blue chip domestic stocks turned in banner performances in 2018's third quarter. Robust economic growth and corporate profits overshadowed jitters ...Read More

As part of our ongoing series on IFA's investment process, we look at how our analysts screen between different types of ...Read More

SALT caps make tax-free bonds a timely conversation. But higher returns court a certain amount of ...Read More

It's almost Election Day in the US once again. For those who need a brief civics refresher, every two years the full US House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are up for reelection. While the outcomes of the elections are uncertain, one thing we can count on ...Read More

"Sellers were out in force on the market today after negative news on the economy." It's a common line in TV finance reports. But have you ever wondered who is buying if so many people are ...Read More

Active managers see a new election cycle as screaming for change. Our research, however, warns against 'shooting from the ...Read More

The job of a free market is to set prices so investors are rewarded for the risk they take. Here's a breakdown showing how prices reflect the uncertainty of expected ...Read More

Tax reform is seen by industry analysts as fueling adoption of these types of tradtional retirement ...Read More