Investment Consulting

The stock markets in the days immediately following the recent US presidential election were surprising to many in a number of ways. US small company stocks experienced higher returns than US large company stocks. This period helps illustrate how different… Read More >

Investors hire advisors for a number of reasons, but the primary reason is usually that they want help choosing investments. Individuals typically rely on brokers or investment advisors. Institutions are served by “investment consultants” who specialize in helping them manage… Read More >

Last Thursday, June 23, citizens of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. On Friday, June 24, equity markets worldwide lost over $2 trillion dollars with percentage declines outside of Great Britain generally exceeding those on the London… Read More >

After being asked several times my opinion on The Big Short (“Short” for short in this writing), a few days ago I went to see the movie. Short is based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis,… Read More >

When markets become more volatile, it is a good time to reflect on the role of bonds in a portfolio. While we do not recommend reacting to short-term changes in market movement, we do think it is a good time… Read More >

Five years ago, the financial press was talking about the “lost decade.” The S&P 500 had not earned an investor any money, even when including dividends, for the first decade of this century (ending December 2009). While 2009 saw stocks… Read More >

One of our fundamental responsibilities as an investment manager is to build sound investment portfolios. The objective of our portfolios is to meet the fundamental return needs of our clients while taking an acceptable level of risk. Inevitably, this requires… Read More >

Robert Schiller, author of “Irrational Exuberance” and recent Nobel Prize winner, has been credited with predicting the last two market crashes. His preferred metric of value for the stock market is the “Cyclically Adjusted Price Earnings (CAPE)” ratio. He makes… Read More >

Answering the following questions requires a view on future stock and bond portfolio returns: “How much can an endowment disburse and maintain its value?” “How much do I need to save for retirement?” “What is the likelihood of doubling my… Read More >

In our last commentary (IMC 13), we looked at rebalancing an all stock portfolio. (If you didn’t read this post, you might want to review it here before continuing.) We looked at the case of an account that only included… Read More >

When we manage client accounts, we typically devise asset allocation policies (or portfolio models) that specify the amount (in percentage terms) that we will try to hold of each investment option in the account. As time goes by, the investment… Read More >

In its first issue of the year 2014, Barron’s published a cover story on Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA), an investment management firm whose funds Porter, White & Company has frequently recommended. DFA funds are not generally available to the public… Read More >

In this first video, Goodloe talks about the genesis of our investment management business and the value of advice we bring to our wealth management clients. Value of Advice for Wealth Management Clients from Porter, White & Company on Vimeo…. Read More >

I. Introduction In an investment commentary published a year ago, we examined the cost of locking in a fixed stream of payments and found that the price of guaranteed returns had increased. Unfortunately, real interest rates have continued to fall… Read More >

The most important decision made by an investor in marketable securities is how to allocate investment capital among debt and equity. To help our investment advisory clients make the debt-equity decision, we present information in thought-provoking formats, such as the… Read More >

In our investment commentary entitled, “Can Investors Have Their Cake and Eat It Too?,” written two years ago, we examined whether the following promise was too good to be true: “GUARANTEED return of your investment PLUS a return linked to… Read More >

As of February 2012, the low yield environment of the bond markets has lowered the expected return of fixed income securities as an asset class. Lower expected return for the fixed income asset class has necessitated a reassessment of whether… Read More >

During the past week, the US government narrowly avoided default on its obligations, the financial markets declined precipitously on poor economic news, Standard & Poor’s downgraded its credit rating on the US debt from AAA to AA+, and the S&P… Read More >