Is it efficient to spread assets across many platforms, advisors, and invesments? One of our recent articles addresses why this strategy may not increase an investor’s odds of success.

Click Here to read – The Wrong Kind of Diversification PDF

We are intentionally a small firm, but we plan to add two new exceptional people to our team in 2007. We are well leveraged and plan to continue to outsource non-core tasks to trusted service providers, focusing our attention on serving our clients.
If you have an interest in learning more about us, we invite you to read the recent nomination of Matt Hall. The piece was created by our prior firm for a local business award.

Click Here to Read the nomination (PDF)

At Hill Investment Group, we meet a lot of well-educated people with successful careers and a library of financial journals. Yet, all of their research and life experience are often for naught when it comes to investing in the stock market. Rick explains this counter-intuitive dilemma and what we can do about it. Click here to read more (PDF)

 

The year 2006 was a good one for equity investors around the world as stock prices rose in 46 of the 50 countries whose equity market returns are reported by MSCI. Among these, only Israel, Jordan, Thailand, and Turkey saw their local stock market indexes slump for the year. Total return for US stocks was 15.32% according to MSCI, placing it next-to-last among 23 developed markets (in dollar terms) and 42nd out of 50 countries in all. There were 36 markets with a total return greater than 20% (in dollar terms), and 19 had a total return greater than 40%. Nine of the top ten were emerging markets.

Overview: Following are 9 principles we’ve adopted to help us serve as a trusted advisor.

Click here to read more (PDF)

Dimensional is rarely in the news, but they are becoming harder for the national media to avoid, as passive portfolios continue to beat the competition. Click here to read the Forbes top story “The Index Insurgents”.

Yale University recently announced a 23 percent return on its investments, swelling its endowment to a whopping $18 billion. The man behind that investment success is David Swensen. He’s made an average 16 percent annual return over 21 years — better than any portfolio manager at any other university.

Mr. Swensen has become passionate about trying to teach individual investors how best to save for retirement. When Mr. Swensen set out to write a book (Unconventional Success) explaining how the average investor could replicate his success at Yale, the research showed him that the odds of beating the market in an actively managed fund are less than one in 100.

We invite you to listen to or read this recent interview to learn more about Mr. Swensen’s experience and his advice. Many of the lessons should sound familiar. Click here for the article and audio

Overview: Following is a discussion of the findings of a paper that looked at the stock recommendations of the cable television show “Mad Money,” a lively and entertaining take on the typical format of a show that dispenses financial advice/information. However, as with all such “hot” news, by the time the information has been disseminated, it is already incorporated into stock pricing within our highly efficient markets, and thus no longer useful information on which to base decisions about trading. Instead, we would suggest that, rather than following recommendations that may or may not match an individual’s ability, need and willingness to take risk, prudent investors continue to adhere to their well-developed plan based on their long-term financial objectives. 

Click here for the full article PDF

Overview: Academic evidence has long argued that a crucial determinant of portfolio performance is asset allocation. Following is a discussion of several findings that suggest another important determinant of portfolio performance is an investor’s discipline to adhere to his or her chosen asset allocation. 

Click Here to Read Discipline and Returns Updated PDF

 

Overview: This paper discusses fifteen investment principles, all of which can be part of an overall prudent approach that includes building a globally diversified portfolio of passively managed asset class investments and adhering to a carefully formed, disciplined strategy regardless of market events.

Click here to see the full article 15 Rules for the Prudent Investor PDF