Tag Archives: Modern Portfolio Theory

Withdrawing from a $1,000,000 nest egg upon retirement using the familiar 4% rule to generate a successful 30-year inflation-adjusted (3% per annum) retirement proved to be totally inadequate as per the retirement withdrawal strategy that I put forth in a previous article (1). In fact, it crashed and burned in year 25 of the 30-year plan! In fact, as I show in this article, it will only succeed if your portfolio outperforms the S&P 500 by 5% every year for 30 straight years - and what is the likelihood of that? Words: 1533

You have alternatives for protecting your portfolio, and you can decide when you want to start. Here are a dozen choices.

Most investors don't know anything more about diversification than you "shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket" [but] spending some time trying to understand the ways you might be shooting yourself in the foot could seriously enhance your portfolio returns and stop catastrophic risk. [There are some advantages to diversification if you REALLY know what you are doing but the shortcomings can go a long way towards killing your portfolio returns. In this article we identify what they are and how best to avoid them.] Words: 1055

Asset allocation is the most essential factor in building a high performing portfolio. Paying attention to the risk of each asset class allows you to create a portfolio that can beat the market in good times as well as bad.

In the last few years a new “advisor” has entered the fray – the robo advisor, now being called “automated investment services”. Automated investment services are platforms that automate your investment portfolio and try to help you reduce fees, increase efficiencies and streamline your process through a simple computerized interface. Here's a look at 4 primary benefits and 4 potential problems to help you decide if such a service is for you.

What would the optimal portfolio allocation in gold have been according to Modern Portfolio Theory over several different periods of time? This article has a look at how an investor could have combined gold and equities to enhance risk-adjusted returns.

[No one would argue that] diversification is not a sound investment practice but exactly how much risk reduction, in actual numbers, is obtained through application of this philosophy? This analysis is an attempt to quantitatively determine its relevance - [and you will be surprised by the answer. Read on!] Words: 1317

Risk inherent to the entire market or market segment is referred to as systematic risk and modern portfolio theory says that a blend of investments has the potential to increase overall return for a given level of risk, and/or decrease risk for a given return that the investor is trying to achieve. The expected risk/return relationship is known as the efficient frontier. [If you have a portfolio of investments then you need to fully understand what all this really means and how you can apply it to your portfolio makeup to enhance returns under any circumstances. Let me do just that.] Words: 1325

We are in an environment where gold bugs boldly proclaim that gold is going to the moon, and gold bears strongly protest that gold is in a bubble. At such a heated stage, this article attempts to answer the question, “What is a prudent investor to do now?” Words: 575