DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning

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

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 management—or indexing—investment approach designed to track the performance of the MSCI® US Broad Market Index, which represents 99.5% or more […]

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. Find Home Financial Planning Software While highly successful and very worthy of respect, it […]

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 market’s return, because of extra costs, taxes, and investment mistakes. The idea that investors can beat […]

Diversify with Low Cost Index Mutual Funds and ETFs Only

During the last twenty-five years of the 20th century, mutual fund and exchange traded fund portfolio assembly costs declined dramatically. Brokerage commissions were deregulated in 1975, and transaction costs have fallen very dramatically since then. Furthermore, well-diversified, low-cost index mutual funds have now become commonplace, while none existed in 1968. The mutual fund industry was […]

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