Rick Ferri has a new book coming out that I can’t wait to read. In the meantime, here’s something he put together illustrating the three costs that investors must control if they’re going to be successful… Figure 1: The Investment Cost Triangle with Components Some costs in Figure 1 are easy to identify and quantify…

The world is a risky place and the financial markets seek to reflect those risks every day. It is not until you begin to understand the nature of risk that you learn how fantastic it is as an opportunity creator. When most people consider investing risk, they focus on how much they can lose in…

Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done — except by liars.

Jason Goepfert via Tyler Durden – tech and biotech insiders are now selling record amounts of their own insider stock. To whom are they selling? Why, to their own companies of course! Insider selling and corporate buybacks are both smashing records at the same time. Circular funding schemes are awesome! It’s just like how the Fed…

The week began with a few big mergers in tech and healthcare. Then this morning we learned the US economy added 295,000 jobs last month versus a consensus estimate of 235,000. Also, darling Apple was added to the Dow Jones. All of this great news was met with one of the ugliest sell-offs of the…

Chris Kimble commemorates today being the sixth anniversary since the S&P 500 traded down to 666 and bottomed on a dime. He notes that average annual returns for the S&P 500 index since then are running about 21% – all you had to do to earn them was to ignore the 57% murdering of the…

Big news on The Street today as Dow Jones Indices may be top-ticking yet another tech darling after a dramatic run-up to a record market cap. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has become famous over the years for adding names at or near generational peaks – and technology names in particular – after they’ve already been…

In the latest Berkshire Hathaway letter to shareholders, Vice Chairman Charlie Munger commemorates the 50th anniversary of “present management” by talking at length about the “Berkshire System” implemented by Warren Buffett almost from the beginning.  Charlie has eight things he expects of the chairman of the company (Warren Buffett for now)… *** Berkshire’s Chairman would…

My pal James Osborne, a Colorado-based RIA at Bason Asset Management, talks about client expectations on his blog this week. Nothing can ruin a relationship between an advisor and their client like a surprise – especially an investment-related surprise… And then there is a second conversation about expectations, one that is likely more important than…