How Advisors Saddle Clients with Massive Tax Bills

My favorite quote on taxes comes from Morgan Stanley… “You must pay taxes, but there’s no law that says you have to leave a tip.” Recently, we met a prospective client that was baffled how her advisor generated a large...

Over-Diversification

“Your portfolio is a bowl of soup of random investments, seemingly cobbled together over time.” Meb Faber, Cambria Investments We review outside investment statements quite…
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Why Clients Fire their Advisor

Change is hard. Humans like patterns, routines, and familiarity. This is especially true when dealing with sensitive issues like financial affairs. We rely on people…
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What Happens After a +25% Year?

I have an evening routine of perusing Twitter for market research nuggets. I email myself interesting articles to read the following morning. I’m not looking…
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What’s All This Volatility Talk?

“When you compare the fundamental risks that we see all around the globe with the lack of volatility in our securities markets, it’s profoundly troubling.”…
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Pure Portfolios 2017 Client Letter

In the spirit of the great Warren Buffett’s annual shareholder letter, we feel it’s important to share not only our thoughts on financial markets, but…
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Following the Herd: Short-Term Bonds

The current tightening cycle has so far been reminiscent of its mid-2000s counterpart. At the time, Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan had characterized the fall…
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Tis the Season for Wall Street Forecasting

“It’s not easy to be as bad as they are. They are much worse than random chance alone would predict.” Salil Mehta, Statistical Ideas The annual…
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Introducing Everplans

“In a moment of crisis, the last thing a family should be doing is worrying or being hassled about paperwork. Everplans elegantly solves that problem.”–…
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Delusional Return Expectations

“Returns expectations are simply too high. It means that many will face a shortfall when they come to realize their investments in the future as…
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