Absolute Returns, Threshold Rebalancing, Find Financial Advice

By Harry Sit

Here are some noteworthy articles I read in the last few weeks.

Should You Chase Absolute Returns? by Matthew Amster-Burton at MintLife. If absolute returns are absolute, I’d sign up right this minute. Also see my previous post What Investors Really Want.

Increase in Housing Quality vs. Increase in Housing Prices by Johanthan at My Money Blog. Houses have become bigger while the family sizes have become smaller. You pay more when you buy more.

Use threshold rebalancing to lower your portfolio’s risk by The Accumulator at Monevator (in UK). I haven’t had the need to rebalance by selling for some time now because I rebalance with new cash. If the stock market goes up another 5-10%, I may come to the point I will sell some from stocks and buy bonds.

Why you need to limit what you borrow by Liz Weston at Ask Liz Weston. Perhaps you noticed I never wrote anything about getting out of debt. I have no expertise about that whatsoever. It would never occur to me that creditors will limit the debt for borrowers. Don’t ask a barber if you need a haircut.

Where to Find Financial Advice? Probably Not Your Brokerage Firm by Mike Piper at Oblivious Investor. Mike also agrees the financial planning service offered by Vanguard for $250 is a good value. If you need more than that, see my short list of candidates in The Average Investor Should Use An Investment Advisor: How to Find One.

The PDF version of Explore TIPS is still on sale for $4.95. Coincidentally, Mike Piper also put his Kindle books on sale for $2.99 – $3.99. I read his Investing Made Simple and Can I Retire?. Both are very good. At $3-4, they are a steal. By the way you don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books. Amazon makes free Kindle software for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry.

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Software picked, likely related posts:

Posted on April 8, 2011 under News. Keywords: .

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Comments

2 Comments on Absolute Returns, Threshold Rebalancing, Find Financial Advice

  1. Mike Piper on April 8, 2011
     

    Hi TFB.

    Thanks for the link and for mentioning the books. :)

  2. Kathryn C on April 9, 2011
     

    thanks for the link to the absolute return article on mint life, it’s really interesting. I agree with him in that the average investor should focus on asset allocation instead of trying to get clever with absolute funds, since in reality there are rarely any funds that are truly “absolute”.

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