DIY Personal & Retirement Financial Planning
Do-It-Yourself financial and investment planning Excel spreadsheet software
Why Day Trading Is a Terrible Idea Investing success is built upon the idea of buying an asset at a discounted price, and then holding it for a long period of time as the value of the asset steadily rises due to the expected risk premium inherent in holding your capital in a risky asset. […]
Industry rules-of-thumb often state that 15 to 30 stocks are enough for a well-diversified portfolio. This can be very misleading. Recent studies point out that industry rules-of-thumb on the number of stocks needed for a well-diversified portfolio are simply not adequate. These rules-of-thumb most often state that 15 to 30 stocks are enough. “The Truth […]
Your personal investment management contribution is the total value that you add to your investment portfolio less the opportunity cost of your time. When divided by the hours you spend, you can estimate an hourly wage for your personal investment management contribution. Obviously, the objective is to have a high investment wage. Unfortunately, for most […]
Before estimating the investment value that you might add or take away from your portfolio, you first need to determine whether your strategies are or are not likely to lead to optimal risk-adjusted investment returns. This value estimation is separate from any hourly opportunity cost related to spending time on your investments versus an alternative […]
The table below in this article presents The Skilled Investor’s Fund Authority Score and other information for the American Balanced Fund – Class A Shares. The diversified investment fund strategy of the American Balanced Fund – Class A mutual fund shares Financial Planning Software for Consumers According to its prospectus filing on the U.S. Securities […]
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 […]
A well-diversified portfolio contains a very large number of individual stocks and/or bonds that are selected without bias toward particular economic segments. A fully diversified portfolio will approximate the global publicly traded securities markets. The question about diversification most frequently asked by individual investors is “how many stocks or bonds do I need to be […]
10 Lower Cost S&P 500 Index Mutual Funds Regular readers know that The Skilled Investor advocates a very boring, low cost, broad market, passive index investment strategy. Costs less. Gets the broad market return — whatever that will be. Narrows the range of outcomes and therefore the risk to your long-term personal financial plan. Takes […]
Your personal tolerance for investment risk should drive your asset allocation decision – A Tip from The Skilled Investor Your tolerance for investment risk is a relative thing. Few people like investment risk, but some can handle it better than others do. The more investment risk you can and are willing to tolerate, the higher […]
Pay lower investment expenses to get higher investment returns While financial services industry sales people tell you that you need to pay more to get more, the correct answer is the opposite. Excessive investment costs are a plague on your personal financial planning. Excessive investment expenses are one of the most significant barriers to lifelong […]
Factors that tend to favor Roth tax-advantaged plan contributions – Part 2 (Continued from Part 1…) Find Home Financial Planning Software In a recent article, “Traditional versus Roth tax-advantaged plan contributions,” The Skilled Investor discussed why the average taxpayer would tend to benefit more by contributing to traditional rather than to Roth tax-advantaged IRA and […]
Own Investment Mutual Funds and ETFs – Not Individual Securities Owning individual stock and bond securities is just a big waste of your valuable time and money Individual investors tend to be terrible investment portfolio managers. Almost everyone can hire an index fund manager to do a much better job for far less time, money, […]