In Feb 2021, I wrote an article warning people about frenzies in the IPO and SPAC markets (posted here) I cited a working paper that said, ‘We find, first, that for a large majority of SPACs, postmerger share prices fall’ reference here In May of 2021, the SEC took the extraordinary step of warning investors […] Read the full article…
I’ve been investing for over 35 years and having lived through a number of speculative bubbles you start to get a feel for them. Today, I believe we have some pockets over very over-valued assets such as certain high growth tech and biotech stocks and SPACs. So, today I want to talk a bit about […] Read the full article…
This is a question that comes up from time to time. Let’s look at Bitcoin from three ways: first as an investment. second as a way to generate speculative returns, and third as a hedge or option that will payoff if we end up with substantial inflation or dollar weakness. Think of the last category […] Read the full article…
This past weekend I watched a clip from Bloomberg with an interview of a fellow in Ireland who made his first investment ever. He took his entire $300 savings and bought two shares of GameStop. His rationale was that someone had given him a tip. I hope it works out for him. Now don’t get […] Read the full article…
Share buybacks are a controversial topic, in part because they are not well understood. This article will explain stock buybacks and summarize key finding from recent research by Two Sigma: Share Buybacks: A brief Investigation. Q: What is a share buyback? A share buyback occurs when a company buys back their own shares in the […] Read the full article…
Today I’d like to talk about one of the key elements of great companies – their value proposition. Yes, there are additional critical factors such as the management team, operating strategy and strong financials, but the core value proposition of the company is the centerpiece. For today’s discussion, we’ll use the example of Align (symbol: […] Read the full article…
• We use fundamental analysis to measure relative attractiveness • The US utilities and consumer staples sectors look expensive • US value stocks and the financial sector look relatively cheap • Emerging market equities continue to look like very cheap relative their growth Valuation Method The method used here is based on fundamental analysis. We […] Read the full article…
Today we’ll take a look at the iShares Edge USA Quality Factor ETF (symbol: QUAL). Morningstar rates this fund ‘Silver’ with 4 stars. The star weighting is based on historical risk and return compared with peers. The Silver weighting is Morningstar’s fund rating based on future outlook for the fund. Fund Strategy According to the […] Read the full article…
Given recent events in the financial markets such as Fed rate hikes and weakness in oil prices, we are seeing increased volatility in certain bond sectors. In this piece, I’ll review recent performance and future outlook with an emphasis on bond funds we hold in Brightwood Ventures model portfolios. Recent Performance Bond sectors vary […] Read the full article…
With this final part 3 we will explore three topics. We’ll look at tax costs of the fund, the management of the fund and premium analysis available at Morningstar. Taxes So far, we have reviewed fund performance and risk on a pre-tax basis. If you plan on holding a fund in a taxable account the […] Read the full article…
In part one of this series we reviewed the basic composition of the Vanguard Health Care Mutual Fund (ticker VGHAX) using Morningstar’s website. In this article, we will look at details related to the fundamentals of the fund as well as performance of the fund relative to benchmarks. Before moving on, I wanted to highlight […] Read the full article…
Morningstar is research firm that provides data and analysis on a wide range of investments including individual stocks, mutual funds and exchange traded funds. Morningstar serves retail clients as well as investment professionals. In this three part series, I want to provide investors with an educational review and critique of data available from Morningstar. My […] Read the full article…
What is an Exchange Traded Fund? An exchange traded fund (ETF) is a security that tracks an index or holds a defined basket of securities. ETFs may contain a wide variety of securities including stocks, bonds, and commodities. ETFs trade like stocks on a stock exchange. You can buy or sell an ETF any time […] Read the full article…
In this article, I want to explore some of the quantitative tools we use at Brightwood Ventures to evaluation investment performance. We conduct performance assessments when we make investment selections for model portfolio implementation as well as ongoing performance monitoring. As a general rule, we are biased toward the use passive index investment funds, but […] Read the full article…
Getting a good sense for risk and return and how it is measured is vital to understanding your investments. In this article, I will break down the key measures of risk and return that really matter. By the end, you should have a good sense for these without having ever to actually dig into the details of how the statistics work or do any calculations. […] Read the full article…