Trade wars, increasing inflation, rising interest rates, high valuations, geopolitical tensions, political dysfunction, major deficits and debt, late-stage economic cycle, wealth inequality, and aging demographics are all reasons investors should be careful about investing right now. Or are they? All these things matter, they just don’t matter that much to...
Stocks have given up their 2018 gains after a few rough days in the market, with the S&P 500 dropping about 10% from the peak before stabilizing some this morning. We believe a primary driver of the sell-off is inflation fears, as wage inflation is starting to finally pick up....
Highland pays close attention to impact investing, which is the practice of buying into companies and funds that aim to make positive social and environmental change. This investment strategy of "doing good to do well" is a huge priority for millennial investors and has gained traction in recent years among...
Smart investors exercise discipline, which sounds practical and unsexy. They focus on strategies that really work over the long term rather than get caught up in short-term events. They also understand the work of behavioral economists on topics like overconfidence, recency bias (decisions based on recent events), home country bias, loss...
The bottom line up front: Nobody knows anything. The smartest people who work in the motion picture industry do not know for certain what’s going to be a hit or a flop. “Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one,” wrote William Goldman in “Adventures in...
Raising capital for entrepreneurs in our local economy is not just an investment decision. It can also be a great way to support innovation and growth where you live. Many of our current, and hopefully future, clients have benefited from the Seattle region’s unique business climate, and participating in the seeding...
The cost spread between actively managed funds and indexed funds is not driven only by the management fee that ostensibly pays for an advisor's expertise. Other somewhat hidden costs also drive up the true price of an actively managed fund. John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, recently wrote a paper called The...
In our last post, we touched on the challenges of outperforming the market. We know the vast majority of money managers do not beat index returns, and the ones that do rarely repeat the feat. The average investor, rightfully, might be tempted to think, 'hey, I could probably do this myself.'...
In my last post, I talked about investments as falling into one of two categories: passive index funds, and actively managed funds. More precisely, investments really fall into four categories or quadrants, drawn by two axes, the (vertical) cost-complexity axis and the (horizontal) strategy axis. The chart above illustrates the concept...