You really can’t make this stuff up. Pension funds refuse to read the writing on the wall: We are living in a reduced return world. It’s as simple as that. Yet instead of taking their lumps, and I’m not even talking about funding what they should have paid years ago into the plan, they are reaching for returns. If you’ve learned anything from my posts to you about investing, it’s that you cannot “hope” for the market to do something for you. You do not want to “reach” for returns. And yet that’s what pensions are doing. It’s not teachers, firemen, and policemen doing this. They leave it to … [Read more...]

There’s a lot of reasons for New Englanders to retire to Florida or New Hampshire. From the Tax Foundation: In addition to the federal estate tax of 40 percent (which is fourth highest in the OECD), many U.S. states levy their own estate and inheritance taxes.  Estate taxes are charged against the estate regardless of who inherits the assets, while inheritance taxes are levied on the transfer of assets to heirs, based on the relationship of the inheritor to the deceased. In the case of inheritance taxes, spouses, children, or siblings often have different exemptions and experience … [Read more...]

This week it was reported that Tudor Investment Corp., one of America’s most expensive hedge funds, will be cutting its very high fees from 2.75% of assets and 27 percent of profits to a still very high 2.25% and 25% respectively. Still much higher than most of the confiscatory fees one will find among hedge funds. After hearing this I recalled what Dick Young wrote in his Intelligence Report a couple months ago, Hedge Funds Fail. Hedge Funds Fail Given the above, it was with some astonishment that I read Tim Martin and Rob Copeland's recent Wall Street Journal exposé "Investors Pull Cash … [Read more...]

The average prices paid in sales of existing homes is nearing it 2006 high (12 month moving average). Historically low Federal Reserve rates and unprecedented quantitative easing have nearly achieved creating a complete rebound in existing home prices. The 12 month moving average of the sales price measure is only 1% below its all-time high. … [Read more...]

The game is over for the Putnam Capital Spectrum and Equity Spectrum funds. Sorry to be so harsh. But that’s simply the way I see it. Not to pat my own back but I’ve pointed out in the past how Putnam has been guilty of being more of a marketing machine than a Prudent-Man oriented asset management firm. After reading this excellent blog by Jason Zweig in his WSJ Intelligent Investor column, I feel even stronger about Putnam's focus on marketing over Prudent-Man-type asset management. Zweig points out that these funds hold close to three-quarters of their assets under management in their top … [Read more...]

Dividends are back. “The humble dividend is reclaiming its rightful place as the arbiter of stock-market value. In three of the four biggest developed markets, shares offer a higher yield than the longest-dated government bond, and in the fourth—the U.S.—the dividend yield beats even a 20-year bond,” writes James Mackintosh at The WSJ. But offering higher yields than the longest-dated government bonds is like jumping over a candle stick. “The low returns on the longest-dated bonds are extraordinary: 0.3% on Japan’s 40-year government bond, 0.9% on Germany’s 30-year bund, 2.1% on Britain’s … [Read more...]