Resources and Stories for Real People

“I split my contributions 50/50 between bonds and equities,” Harry Markowitz said in a famous 1998 interview with Jason Zweig.1 Markowitz readily admitted that he did not compute co-variances and draw a mean-variance efficient frontier. “Instead, I visualized my grief if the stock market went way up, and I wasn’t

The philosophy of “nudging” individuals toward better choices and outcomes, rather than relying on financial incentives or outright restrictions, has become a major topic within the past decade. Financial services companies have enthusiastically adopted nudging, especially for encouraging customers to save more within retirement plans. Typical nudges include defaults in

Valuations of publicly traded companies are a frequent topic of conversation among investors and for good reason. Valuation ratios tell us the price of stocks relative to fundamentals like earnings, sales, and book value. In other words, valuation ratios are an excellent way to understand the long-term attractiveness of groups

The probability of a positive return from stocks increases over time. An investment in the US stock market grew wealth during 75% of the one-year periods between January 1926 and May 2023. Over ten-year periods, this occurred 95% of the time. While positive stock returns are never guaranteed over any

Think back to this time last year. Inflation was soaring to a 40-year high of 9.1%. The Federal Reserve (Fed) had just made its third-consecutive rate hike, raising the federal funds rate by 0.75% for the first time in more than 25 years. The S&P 500 Index was down just shy

Have you ever had the feeling that people are somehow getting worse over time? Or that the moral foundations of society are fraying as the years tick by? Brand new research published in Nature explores the prevalence of this perception as well as the reasons why it may come to