Fees & Tax Harvesting

How did I miss this book? Endowment Asset Management: Investment Strategies in Oxford and Cambridgeby Dimson (Triumph of the Optimists author). Maybe because it focuses on the endowments across the pond. . .

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Interesting new book out by Mercer consulting titled 2020 Vision. It has interviews with 12 leading figues from acadamia and the investment industry including World Beta favorites Stan Beckers, Ray Dalio, and Ben Inker. (For some reason you can only buy it on the Mercer website in Aussie Dollars here.)

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I don’t really get the electronic readers. Hard to lay out on the couch with one of these readers I imagine. However, Amazon is really pushing the Kindle this holiday season.

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10 Google Documentaries to watch

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There is a great article in Wealth Manager titled “Bountiful Harvest” (no link). It lists a bunch of ETFs and equivalent options to exchange for tax harvesting. The author estimates investors can save .5% to 1% a year by exchanging ETFs on similar indexes.

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I should probably spend more time replying to comments, but since I post about every other day, I have usually left behind a topic by the time a good conversation is getting started. There was one such good conversation going on in my archives and I thought I would elucidate some of my opinions here.

According to Buffett, the “Enemies of Equity investors are Expenses and Emotions.” I think most people that follow a buy and hold allocation can do it on their own with low cost index funds rebalanced every so often, and don’t need to have a portfolio manager. If you do hire a manager, his fees should be as low as possible. There is a good article in the Dec 2007 Wealth Manager magazine titled “Financial Crusaders” that is a good read (no online version yet).

An investor could do a lot worse than Rick Ferri (profiled in the article and author of All About Asset Allocation). He charges a tiny maximum .25% fee per annum that declines to .10% for $10 million+ accounts. Granted, he doesn’t offer any financial planning, but he argues that it should be charged separately anyway. He places client money mostly in low cost index mutual funds (Vanguard/DFA) and ETFs (Barclays/Vanguard).