Merriman

The return-centric environment in which we live too often gives little credence to an equally important measure – risk. Professionals and individual investors alike can often quote the return of a given stock or index, followed by silence when asked to recite its relative measure of risk. The financial crisis shouted to us the importance of understanding and controlling risk. If you did not hear the call – and hopefully you did before the fall – it’s not too late to answer it.

Two quantifiable means of controlling risk are diversification and asset allocation.

Proper diversification stretches well beyond your region and your country of residence. It has little to do with individual stock positions or individual sectors. It consists of all types of stocks – large, small, value, growth, etc., which are located all over the world. Global diversification is the goal.

Diversification is equally important for bond allocations. A bond portfolio consisting of high-yield bonds differs from one invested in U.S. treasury bonds. Obtaining an adequate amount of diversification on both sides of your portfolio is essential in controlling your risk.

Asset allocation speaks to the percentage of stocks and the percentage of bonds in your portfolio. While the specific mix has many variables, age and retirement goals are often large factors. Each investor’s situation is unique and there is no “one size fits all” solution. A good place to start is by answering the following questions:

• At what age do I begin adding bonds? 40? 45?
• How often do I add bonds and how much do I add?
• What is an appropriate allocation once I am retired?

If you are struggling to answer these questions, it may be time to seek professional guidance. The answers are essential to your long-term investment success.

Investor discipline is a less tangible but equally important component of risk mitigation.

As stocks outpace bonds, a portfolio’s risk increases. At some point, there will be a need to sell the stocks to buy bonds and maintain the target allocation. In essence, this follows the golden rule of investing – that is to sell high and buy low. The same logic holds within each asset class of the portfolio, such as when international stocks outpace domestic stocks or small cap stocks outpace large cap stocks.

I can almost guarantee that when the time comes, rebalancing will not feel like the natural thing to do. Why, for example, would you want to buy into an underperforming asset class? Despite our rational brain, loading up on the winners will feel like the right thing to do at that moment. There are two questions you must ask yourself:

• Do I have the discipline to rebalance my portfolio?
• What mechanical process will I use to rebalance?

Your long-term investment success hinges on your answers to these questions. If you do not know how to answer them, seek guidance.

Investing is about risk and return. Understanding how much risk you can afford to take and how much risk you’re willing to take is the key. Quantitatively, two ways in which we control risk for clients is through diversification and asset allocation. Keeping clients disciplined in their goals and executing on a well thought out rebalancing process is another, less tangible means of controlling risk.

As Warren Buffet famously said, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.”

Every year, we update some of our core articles.

The 2013 update of The ultimate buy-and-hold strategy, which includes performance information through 2012, is now available in our Best of Merriman library.

Every year, we update some of the core articles in our Best of Merriman library.

The 2012 update of The ultimate buy-and-hold strategy, which includes performance information through 2011, is now available in our Best of Merriman library.

So far, this workshop has covered the most important things every investor should know and think about. However, all the investment knowledge in the world won’t do you much good unless you put it to work in your portfolio and your life.

In the sixth session of our online workshop, Moving into action, I identify the key things that will be most useful in translating knowledge into action and action into results. I’ll also point you to a lot of helpful books and other resources.

Recommended reading to supplement this section: “Your Action Plan,” Chapter 15 in Paul’s book “Live It Up Without Outliving Your Money.”

When you retire, your financial life may change profoundly. You may have been saving money all your life, and suddenly the flow of dollars starts moving the other way. This change has large challenges emotionally, mathematically and financially.

In the fourth section of our online workshop, Paul discusses taking distributions in retirement and suggests solutions that are likely to work for retirees in various circumstances.

If this topic is of particular interest to you, we recommend reading our Best of Merriman article, titled “Retirement distributions: How much can you afford?”

We hope you have enjoyed the first two sections of our online workshop. The third section, Selecting the best mutual funds, is now available at our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/merrimaninc.

Thousands of mutual funds are available in today’s marketplace, but only a handful are truly the very best for investors. In this section of the Merriman Online Workshop, Paul Merriman compares two fund families, showing why each is worthy of your investment dollars and your trust.

If you missed the first two sections, you can find them here:

Section 1: Choosing the best asset classes

Section 2: Fine tuning your asset allocation

A couple of weeks ago, we introduced our online workshop with Section 1: Choosing the best asset classes.

Now Section 2, Fine Tuning Your Asset Allocation, is available at www.youtube.com/merrimaninc. Arguably the single most important decision every investor makes is how much of his portfolio to hold in stock funds and how much in bond funds. This is the main determining factor in both risk and returns. In this section, Paul Merriman uses a table of investment results going back to 1970 to help you choose the allocation that is most likely to be successful for you.

The six videos that make up Section 2 cover:

1. Fine Tuning Your Asset Allocation
2. Fine Tuning Table
3. S&P 500 vs Worldwide Equity
4. The impact of adding fixed income
5. Fine Tuning for retirees and moderate risk investors
6. Finding your personal best asset allocation

Successful investing is all about making smart choices, and I’ve taught thousands of investors how to do that since our company opened in 1983. Our teaching has taken many forms, including radio, television, newsletters, podcasts, books, articles, websites and DVDs. But my favorite format is the live workshop, a room filled with investors looking for the best solutions.

For most of my career, delivering a workshop required actually being in such a room, often with extensive travel involved. Now I am delighted to present a consistent workshop experience to thousands of investors online. (more…)

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

With bond yields so low, is it a good idea to substitute dividend-paying stocks for bonds? Some would say yes, since dividend-paying stocks yield more than some bonds, and have more upside potential.

However, I don’t think this is a good strategy.

Obviously, dividends are an important component of stocks’ total return. From 1930 through October 2010, for example, dividends provided 45% of the annualized percentage gain of the S&P 500. Dividends also help sustain portfolio income when interest rates are low.

But there’s no getting around the fact that stocks, including dividend-paying stocks, are generally more volatile than bonds. Substituting dividend-paying stocks for bonds will lead to a higher risk portfolio.

Let’s take an example of how volatile dividend-paying stocks could be. We’ll look at three exchange traded funds (ETFs). The first is SPY, which tracks the S&P 500. (more…)