Critical Material | ITA Wealth Management

Retirement Planning Mistake #10

November 4, 2013 By Lowell Herr

Investors do not monitor their portfolio adequately. Rare is the investor who can place their hands on the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of their portfolio. An even smaller percentage of investors know how well their portfolio is performing with respect to an appropriate benchmark. The

Why I Use ETFs Instead of Individual Stocks

November 21, 2013 By Lowell Herr

Approximately 80% of all investors use individual stocks to populate their portfolios. So why buck the majority trend and use index ETFs? That is a reasonable question that merits an answer. In fact, several answers. Confession: I do select a few individual stocks for

Why Use Index Funds?

December 12, 2013 By Lowell Herr

The Power of Index Investing Why are 80% to 85% of all investors wrong? Could it be the power of advertising and greed? What do I mean when I say a high percentage of investors have it all wrong? Simple! The majority of investors

Strategic Asset Allocation: A Starting Point For Portfolio Construction

December 29, 2013 By Lowell Herr

Much is made of the importance of asset allocation here at ITA Wealth Management. Long-time readers are familiar with the general layout of the portfolios and new readers will find more information by doing a search for “Dashboard.” Not all portfolios tracked on this blog use the seventeen asset allocation

Tactical Asset Allocation: Does It Make Sense?

January 9, 2014 By Lowell Herr

Here is the link to a particularly useful article for ITA readers. As you read the article, pay particular attention to the fundamentals that provide clues as to whether or not the market is likely to generate lower than average, average, or above average returns over the next 10

Useful Website: Transparent Investing

March 10, 2014 By Lowell Herr

Last evening I was made aware of a useful and interesting website titled, Transparent Investing. Even if you lose track of this blog you will be able to find this site by going to the ITA Blog tab, and then scrolling down to Bookmarks. There you will find the

Portfolio Requirements: Basic Ideas For Construction

April 14, 2014 By Lowell Herr

Basic portfolio construction requires that long-term goals include diversification, a risk reduction model, and equity orientation. Here is how I outline the thinking process when putting together a portfolio of securities. Think diversification through asset allocation. Each asset class included in the Strategic

Charles Ellis: Loser’s Game of Stock Picking

April 16, 2014 By Lowell Herr

Let’s revisit Charles D. Ellis’ 1995 paper, “The Loser’s Game,” where he describes his Break-Even Return (BER) equation. Here is a review of this equation. BER = [(Turnover percentage x Transaction Cost) + Management Fee + Target Return]/Market Return It is quite easy to set up this equation in an Excel spreadsheet and play around […]