Articles (152)

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

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

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

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

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

Key options exist for handling required minimum distributions (RMD), including tax rules impacting qualified charitable ...Read More

Reports cite complaints that bank's wealth management unit is pushing riskier investments and cross-selling banking ...Read More

Determining the best use of these tax-friendly options can prove crucial to boosting your retirement ...Read More

Discounts and tailored loans are some of the services that our planning network can access through other large financial ...Read More

Dimensional's co-head of research explains how best to track and quantify the premium investors gain from tilting to value ...Read More

This popular tech tool, which clients can utilize for free, is part of an enhanced IFA financial planning ...Read More

Diversification is important not just in terms of investing, but also in developing a well-rounded and comprehensive financial ...Read More

Trying to take advantage of the benefits of diversification, purveyors of liquid alts are going wild. But don't believe all of the ...Read More

Advisors offering fiduciary services to 401(k) and 403(b) plans aren't all the same. In fact, they come in two distinct ...Read More

New research by DFA confronts head-on whether the value premium is fading. Analysts crunch 90 years worth of data to gain a better ...Read More

As global trade tensions rose, investors kept buying shares of domestic companies. But foreign stocks fell into the red for the quarter and ...Read More

Such an asset protection strategy often needs to be extended to a wider swath of home and investment property owners than initially ...Read More

As part of IFA's ongoing series breaking down how active managers at major fund complexes are actually doing compared to their indexes, we've put through our microscope Principal Financial ...Read More

Now paired with eMoney, MGP offers our clients greater flexibility in working with their IFA advisors to build comprehensive financial ...Read More

New research by IFA and DFA show how portfolios can be bolstered to take advantage of market-cap size in good times and ...Read More

Active bond fund managers had little success in beating their respective indexes, based on net returns studied over a nearly 16-year ...Read More

Experts warn that cryptorcurrencies like Bitcoin bring out investors’ worst behavior, even more so than actively trading in ...Read More