Investments

The analysts shop

Visitors to Morningstar’s website can easily see which funds our analysts like the most in our Fund Analyst Picks section. But it’s enlightening for readers to see that we put our money where our mouths are. First, I’ll share what I’m planning to buy this year, and then we’ll survey what a few of my […]

By Brian O'Neill |January 1, 2009

5 min read

Waiting for the end

In the run-up to the U.S. elections, investors might have been forgiven for thinking the worst of the bear market was behind them. The S&P 500 had bounced off of its low of about 840, set on October 27, to above 1,000 by November 4, 2008 – Election Day. The choice of Illinois Senator Barack […]

By Staff |December 22, 2008

5 min read

Market busters

When markets tank – even though a correction, or even a bear market, was long overdue – investors usually have difficulty staying the course. That’s not news for fi- nancial advisors. Risk tolerance morphs into loss aversion as the enduring fact of market cycles is learned one more time. Are market cycles avoidable? There’s no […]

By Scot Blythe |December 22, 2008

8 min read

Rewarding risk

Portfolio and fund managers have short time horizons when investing. Their compensation promotes asset gathering and short-term performance. That means managers are paid for hot annual numbers, trade more frequently than is sometimes prudent, and subject clients to unnecessary costs. Managers will deny it, but they all try to “time markets,” a notoriously difficult and […]

By Ioulia Tretiakova |December 22, 2008

5 min read