11 Apr 2014

Posted at 09:55h in The Friday Brief by
Efficiency and control are two words not generally associated with the process of active investing, but they should be. The disciplines of saving taxes, keeping expenses low, and ensuring you don’t under-perform the markets in which you invest, offer real and measurable improvements in your returns – in fact, some like Betterment and Wealthfront claim up to 4% or more. Our clients have enjoyed the benefits of control and efficiency for eight years. Here are eight ways we do it.

04 Apr 2014

Posted at 10:54h in The Friday Brief by
The latest flap about high frequency trading has everyone talking again about fairness of markets, with some, namely Michael Lewis, calling them 'rigged.' In essence, it's a story about a few trading on information obtained before the public gets the same information. Not surprisingly, the concept is not new.

28 Mar 2014

Posted at 16:29h in The Friday Brief by
Persistence, defined as "continuing without change in function or structure," can be a remarkably good force in our lives or a devastatingly bad one; depending upon our track. What we persist in, we generally accomplish; good or bad.

21 Mar 2014

Posted at 12:47h in The Friday Brief by
  Janet Yellen's first Federal Open Market Committee policy statement as Fed chair caused a bit of a ruckus in both the Treasury and stock markets. As experts have pointed out, it wasn't so much what she said, but rather what the "dots" portend for future interest rate hikes. There was no surprise when the Fed announced they would continue to reduce their monthly purchases of Treasuries by $10 billion per month to a still very large $55 billion starting in April. The sell-off of short and intermediate Treasuries was triggered, according to Barrons by a chart of projections showing FOMC members' expectations of where the fed funds rate would be at the end of 2015.