DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning

Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software

American Funds – Washington Mutual Investors Fund – Class A Shares (AWSHX) acquire a +2 Fund Authority Score

Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]

American Funds – Income Fund of America – Class A Shares (AMECX) rate a +2 Fund Authority Score

Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]

Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund – Select Shares (SWPIX) achieve a +8 Fund Authority Score

Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise, objective, and realistic summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within […]

American Funds – The Investment Company of America – Class A Shares (AIVSX) net a +3 Fund Authority Score

Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]

Publish your blog news articles on traditional media center and newspaper websites

An easy way to publish and syndicate your best news articles on some of the big news and media websites Web content is more plentiful that grains of sand on the beach. However, really good and newsworthy web content is much more scarce. The cyberspace audience is discerning, but it takes time to attract them, […]

Nationwide S&P 500 Index Fund – Class A Shares (GRMAX) fetch a +2 Fund Authority Score

Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]

American Funds – Capital Income Builder Fund – Class A Shares (CAIBX) attain a +4 Fund Authority Score

Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]

American Funds – Capital World Growth and Income Fund – Class A Shares (CWGIX) warrant a +2 Fund Authority Score

Fund Authority Scores rate mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the most important economic factors that influence individual investors’ net long term diversified investment fund performance. The Skilled Investor developed the Fund Authority Score system to provide individual investors with concise and objective summaries of mutual funds and ETFs for comparisons within investment […]

Fidelity Spartan 500 Index mutual fund (FSMKX) achieves the Best +10 Fund Authority Score

The Standard & Poors 500 stock index is the most common equity index fund benchmark in the U.S. The S and P 500 tracks about 75% of publicly traded U.S. equity market asset value. The dominant issue in choosing among passively managed index mutual funds and ETF funds benchmarked against the S & P 500 […]

American Funds – EuroPacific Growth Fund – Class A Shares (AEPGX) get a +2 Fund Authority Score

The diversified investment fund strategy of American Funds’ EuroPacific Growth Fund According to American Funds’ Annual Report for the EuroPacific Growth Fund, the fund “seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in the securities of companies based in Europe and the Pacific Basin.” American Fund’s 497 filing on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission EDGAR […]

American Funds – Growth Fund of America – Class A Shares (AGTHX) collect a +2 Fund Authority Score

The investment fund objective of American Funds’ Growth Fund of America With 4.4 million shareholder accounts, the Growth Fund of America (AGTHX) is the largest actively managed stock mutual fund in the United States. According to American Funds prospectus, the investment objective of the Growth Fund of America “is to provide you with growth of […]

California Investment S & P 500 Index Direct (SPFIX) pulls in a +8 Fund Authority Score

The Standard & Poors 500 stock index is the most common equity index fund benchmark in the U.S. The S and P 500 tracks about 75% of publicly traded U.S. equity market asset value. The dominant issue in choosing among passively managed index mutual funds and ETF funds benchmarked against the S & P 500 […]

Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund (VGTSX) lands a +9 Fund Authority Score

The Vanguard Total International Stock Index mutual fund is a low cost alternative for broad, passive index investing internationally. This fund is a composite of three other Vanguard international funds: the Vanguard European Stock Index Fund (55.7%), the Vanguard Pacific Stock Index Fund (24.1%), and the Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund (20.2%). The percentages […]

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSMX) achieves a +9 Fund Authority Score

The diversified investment fund strategy of the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund According to the Vanguard website, the investment strategy of the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index mutual fund is to use a “passive managementâ€”or indexingâ€”investment approach designed to track the performance of the MSCIÂ® US Broad Market Index, which represents 99.5% or more […]

Vanguard 500 Index Fund – VFINX – merits the Best +10 Fund Authority Score

The Standard & Poors 500 stock index is the most common equity index fund benchmark in the U.S. The S and P 500 tracks about 75% of publicly traded U.S. equity market asset value. The dominant issue in choosing among passively managed index mutual funds and ETF funds benchmarked against the S & P 500 […]

Why only one Warren Buffett? The illusion of superior professional mutual fund manager performance.

<<– Continued from Part 1 (Where’s Waldo? The illusion of superior professional mutual fund manager performance.) Instead of highlighting dozens or even hundreds of perennially superior mutual fund money managers, the media conversation has become a repetitive chant about Warren Buffett. Personal Financial Planning Software While highly successful and very worthy of respect, it is […]

Where’s Waldo? – The illusion of superior professional mutual fund manager performance.

If investment mutual fund managers were truly skilled at beating the market, then you would expect mutual fund manager performance prowess to persist over time. Unfortunately, the evidence indicates that superior past professional performance among mutual fund managers tends not to persist. Past superior mutual fund performance is simply not a predictor of future superior […]

How to distinguish between true investment skill and luck

Even if an investor has obtained superior results over an extended period, is this sufficient proof that these investment results were actually due to skill rather than just a lucky streak? No, these investment results could still be due to chance. For example, take a large population, such as all individual investors in the U.S., […]

Chance creates the illusion that individual investors can beat the stock market

“Market efficiency” makes it very difficult for individual investors to “beat the market.” Making their own decisions, individual investors perform so poorly that on average their investment returns lag behind the returns that one would expect from random stock selection. The average professional trader does somewhat better than amateurs do, and professionals probably do so, […]

Can you really beat the stock market?

You are not likely to beat the stock market, despite all the cheer leading from the securities industry and the financial media. When you try to beat the public securities markets, unfortunately you are more likely to trail the marketâ€™s return, because of extra costs, taxes, and investment mistakes. The idea that investors can beat […]

"Larry, Thanks for the response. I watched the videos you’ve made so far on YouTube. Very good. In fact one of them addressed a situation that applies to me. I first learned about the zero federal taxes on long term capital gains when under the 25% marginal income tax rate from working with Veriplan a number of years ago. I’m no longer working but not yet receiving RMD’s or social security so my ordinary income is relatively low. So I’ve been taking full advantage of zero federal capital gains taxes by selling off my high expense ratio mutual funds which have a lot of capital gains built in since I’ve held them a long time and then I reinvest them in index mutual funds which don’t generate as much capital gains distributions. So the education that you and Veriplan provide has saved me thousands in taxes, not to mention the expenses on high cost mutual funds. Thanks again."M. D. in El Paso, TX

"I thought I would let you know that VeriPlan was the primary decision support tool in my decision to retire early, which was about 4 years ago now. And it has worked out really well. Since then I got married, and we have traveled to 10 countries -- some on mission trips. I had used the lifetime planners in Microsoft Money and Quicken but they were not robust enough to make a major decision with. In retrospect they are toys compared to VeriPlan. So VeriPlan has been a very big help to me. Also, I recently read your Lowest Cost Mutual Funds book, which was great. It brought a few things to my attention that I need to work on."Email update from T. H. in Silicon Valley