Gauss is the portfolio up for review today. The owner of this portfolio is not contributing significant amounts of cash each month so the re-balancing will need to come from dividends and interest income. Gauss is a very conservative portfolio as one can see from the low beta value of 0.27. Conservative is defined in this case as low volatility. … [Read More...]
Retirement Planning Mistake #3
This celestial object looks like a delicate butterfly. But it is far from serene. What resemble dainty butterfly wings are actually roiling cauldrons of gas heated to nearly 20 000 degrees Celsius. The gas is tearing across space at more … [Read more]
Retirement Planning Mistake #2
Prospective investors carry too much credit card debt. This mistake is a corollary of Mistake #1. Stay out of credit card (CC) debt. Mistake #2 is not so much an investor mistake, but rather a mistake of bad management as it has nothing to do … [Read more]
Portfolio Construction: The Essential Decisions
William J. Bernstein, in his most recent book, “The Investor’s Manifesto” writes, “Before diving into the most important issue faced by any investor–the asset allocation decision–you will need to understand four things: save as much as you can, make … [Read more]
Retirement Planning Mistake #1
Mistake number one in my book is failure to save or to not follow The Golden Rule of Investing. Open up a spreadsheet and run your own calculations for the following classic comparison. As a nineteen year old you have the foresight and financial … [Read more]
Advisors Do Not Add Alpha
ITA Wealth Management is all about learning to manage your own portfolio instead of hiring a professional money manager. Here is added evidence that consultants and advisors are not adding alpha to some of the most recognized portfolios in the … [Read more]
Great Operatic Choruses
If you enjoy majestic choral work conducted by Robert Shaw, this CD is for you. Grand and Glorious: Great Operatic Choruses is one fine collection. I am partial to the Pilgrim's Chorus, Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, Prisoner's Chorus, and the selection … [Read more]
Top Twenty-Five Classical Composers
Top Classical Music Composers When I first started to make a list of of my favorite classical composers, the idea was to limit it to the Top Ten. I found that to be impossible so I expanded it to 25. Even then, several of my … [Read more]
Correlation Matrix of Critical ETFs
As requested in a comment, here is the correlation matrix of critical ETFs used in nearly all the ITA portfolios. I cut the time frame to 23 months of data so VSS and VNQI did not show up with "short-term" data errors. Identical percentages were … [Read more]