"Buy only true no-load funds and annuities that do not carry fees of any type, including 12b-1 fees."
"Over the past decade, the explosion of assets under management should have reduced fees via economies of scale. This increasing fee trend is nothing short of scandalous."
"The story of Select Technology is emblematic of the nature of fund flows. First, they are most often contrary indicators—funds in high-performing sectors of the market tend to attract great piles of assets. In industry parlance, this is known as “hot money”: assets thrown by naïve investors at high "
"1. Never, ever, pay a load on a mutual fund or annuity. And never pay an ongoing 12b-1 fee for a mutual fund or excessive annuity fees. 2. Do not chase the performance of active managers. Not only does past performance not predict future manager performance, but excellent performance leads to the ra"
"The popular conceit of every bull market is that the public has bought into the value of long-term investing and will never sell their stocks simply because of market fluctuation. And time after time, the investing public loses heart after the inevitable punishing declines that stock markets periodi"
"This is not a trivial issue. At a very early stage in history we are encountering “survivorship bias”—the fact that only the best results tend to show up in the history books. In the twentieth century, for example, investors in the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland did handsomely because they we"
"At first glance, it might appear that the above list of winners and losers contradicts the relationship between risk and return. This is an excellent example of “hindsight bias”; in 1913 it was by no means obvious that the U.S., Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland would have the highest returns, and tha"
"The tradeoff between the variability of bill payouts and the interest-rate risk of consols reverses during the twentieth century. With the abandonment of the gold standard after World War I, and the consequent inflationary explosion, the modern investor now demands a higher return from long-term bon"