Category: Endowments and Foundations
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Fiduciary Papers #14: It’s Time to End Commissions and Revenue Sharing
It is possible that all commission-based compensation involving the sale of investment products, life insurance products, and annuities could be eliminated. And it would be right and just to do so. Every commission can be transformed into a clearly understandable fixed fee that would be paid directly by the consumer. There is no need today…
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Fiduciary Papers #11: Benchmarks for Comparing Investment Portfolio Strategies
Before choosing specific securities (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.), a preliminary step in portfolio design is discerning the investment strategies that should be utilized. The choice of investment strategies, in turn, should be analyzed against a proper benchmark. At its very core, investing is either about owning a portion of companies (equity investing, or stocks),…
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The Major Benefits of Utilizing Factor-Based Investing in Investment Portfolios
In several previous blog posts, I discussed several “factors” – characteristics of stocks – that can be utilized in portfolio construction to seek to improve equity (stock) returns over long periods of time (10-20 years) with a high degree of probability. Over the next 20 years, exposure to these factors brings with it a very…
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Cryptocurrencies: Signed Pieces of Paper in Search of the “Greater Fool”
Do cryptocurrencies possess any real value? Years from now, this fad will pass.
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Fiduciary Papers #2: ERISA, Plan Sponsors, Fiduciaries, and the False Argument of “Choice”
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision rejects the false argument of “choice” often raised by opponents to fiduciary duties.
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The Fiduciary Papers #1: Fiduciary vs. Arms-Length Relationships
We begin our exploration of fiduciary duties, as applied to financial services, by first exploring the distinction between arms-length and fiduciary relationship