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The Blog

Weekly insights on the markets, economy, and financial planning

The Patience Principle

Turtle

“The Patience Principle” is an article written by Jim Parker, Vice President at DFA Australia Limited, for Dimensional Fund Advisors’ Outside the Flags column. The Patience Principle from Financial Synergies Asset Management, Inc

Elegant Simplicity

DD ComplexityElegantSimplicity

They say a picture is worth a thousand words; in my case, it may be closer to two thousand. That’s one of the reasons I find the work of Carl Richards, a.k.a. The Sketch Guy, to be so outstanding. Last …

Taken Your Temperature Lately?

temperature

When our 28-year-old daughter, Caitlin, was just four months old, my wife and I noticed she was running a fever. We had been parents for exactly four months and began to get nervous about it. We had no parents handy …

Hindsight is 20/20

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In last week’s blog, Heath pointed out the tendency of people to base investment decisions on irrelevant facts or reference points. In the field of behavioral finance, this is known as anchoring. Heath provided a great example of anchoring: basing …

Test Your Own Behavioral Bias

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People are fascinating to me. You’d think that over thousands of years, the human brain would have evolved to become capable of making unbiased decisions as a means for survival. But based on James Montier’s book “Behavioral Investing” our brains …

The Market Takes a Breather in January

Trees Winter

After a year like 2013 stocks deserve a little breather, and that’s exactly what they got in January. Stocks (S&P 500) ended the month down -3.5%, while bonds (Barclays Aggregate Bond Index) posted a 1.5% gain. Last year stocks were …

What it Means to Be a “Registered Investment Advisor”

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When I was home over the holiday break, my father asked me a very important question about why we are different from other large brokerage firms. I simply responded with an impatient answer: “We are an RIA, Dad.” At that …

Syria and the Market

Flags

The situation in Syria has gone from bad to worse over the last few weeks. The U.S. and allies are preparing for a possible military strike against President Assad’s regime in a country that has been torn apart by a brutal civil war. …

View Our 1st Qtr Newsletter

Inside this Issue

We are pleased to announce the redesign of our Quarterly Newsletter. Click here to view the 1st quarter newsletter, which was published on 4/15/2013. Feedback and comments are welcome.

The Annual End of the World

Time mag

There are millions of intelligent people in this country (don’t laugh- seriously!), many of whom invest their money in the securi­ties markets. Why, then, are there so few genuinely successful investors? In my opin­ion, the answer is simple – they …

Is Your IQ Overrated?

IQ Brain

My three-year-old daughter, Dawson, has been learning her ABCs, and for the very first time, on Sunday, she wrote her name. My wife and I were so proud. We awed over her, as parents tend to do, because we wanted …

Benchmarks and Investor Psychology

Busines Man Trees

Growing up on the east coast, your per­ception of Texas is what you might see in old John Wayne westerns. When I told my friends and family I was planning on mov­ing here, I could see wild visions floating through …

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