This week in WealthTrack’s series on Great Investors, Consuelo Mack delves into the world of hedge funds with MIT Professor and hedge fund investor Andrew Lo. A student of investor behavior, Lo explains how human psychology plays a key role in financial crises, including the most recent one.

Lo is one of the up-and-coming stars of the investment world both as a financial thought leader and investor. The late, great financial historian Peter Bernstein, among others, highly recommended him as one of the best minds in the world of finance.

Note: The transcript of this interview is not available yet, but will be posted here as soon as it arrives.

Source: WealthTrack, August 21, 2009.

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For more than a decade, author and academic Dr. Jeremy Siegel had the Midas touch.  His book “Stocks For the Long Run,” first published in October 1996, surveyed more than 200 years of stock market history both in the United States and abroad and made a compelling case that common stocks are the very best long-term investment vehicle. Better than cash. Better than bonds. Better than real estate. Better than gold.

In the roaring bull market of the 90s - and since - his book was required reading. Millions of investors were strongly influenced by his research.

In the process, Siegel became a celebrity, appearing regularly on network and cable investment shows. He is also now an advisor to WisdomTree Investments, a sponsor of exchange-traded funds.

But while history once buttressed Siegel’s grand conclusions, current events haven’t been so kind…

More specifically, as of June 30, U.S. stocks have underperformed long-term Treasury bonds over

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Dr. Jeremy Siegel: Are Stocks Still The Best Long-Term Investment Vehicle?

by Alexander Green, Advisory Panelist

For more than a decade, author and academic Dr. Jeremy Siegel had the Midas touch.

His book “Stocks For the Long Run,” first published in October 1996, surveyed more than 200 years of stock market history both in the United States and abroad and made a compelling case that common stocks are the very best long-term investment vehicle. Better than cash. Better than bonds. Better than real estate. Better than gold.

In the roaring bull market of the 90s - and since - his book was required reading. Millions of investors were strongly influenced by his research.

In the process, Siegel became a celebrity, appearing regularly on network and cable investment shows. He is also now an advisor to WisdomTree Investments, a sponsor of exchange-traded funds.

But while history once buttressed Siegel’s grand conclusions, current

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As an added Guest Blogger bonus, Bill McCready from Futures Trading Secrets, has a very informative article on the mental aspects of trading, that I think we ALL can learn a little something from. Bill’s been trading for a long time, and a long time successfully, and his knowledge and wisdom is widely appreciated. Bill also hosts widely attended webinars that I think you’d appreciate, learn about the webinars here.

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I have decided that after ten years of posting the same trading patterns and working with hundreds of students, that the trading signals are not the problem. Most students have trouble trading mentally and emotionally.  Here are the topics that are the most important.

Learning the Trading Game The basics are the basics.  Here is what you absolutely must know and master.

1.    Goal Setting that is realistic and possible

2.    Finding your trading edge with patience and discipline

3.   

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This week in the WealthTrack series on Great Investors, Consuelo Mack features the wisdom of the legendary Peter Bernstein, who died in June at age 90. Bernstein, an economist, financial consultant and author of ten books, including Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, appeared in several exclusive television interviews with Mack in 2005 and 2007. Bernstein’s timeless observations about investing and the importance of understanding risk are even more relevant today.

Note: The transcript of this interview is not available yet, but will be posted here as soon as it arrives.

Source: WealthTrack, July 17, 2009.

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Is fiduciary responsibility compatible with craps-style investing and high fees?

It was a weekend of the legends in Dana Point, Calif. On hand for the Research Affiliates advisory board meeting were Harry Markowitz, Burton Malkiel, Peter Bernstein, Mohamed El-Erian, Jack Treynor and of course ... Rob Arnott. And the topic was fiduciary responsibility. 

Rob Arnott brings out a lot of strong feelings in people, who either seem to love him—as a smart, articulate, largely investor-focused researcher—or to hate him—as a self-promotional, flamboyant, market-grabbing shyster. Love him or hate him, he's not dumb, and he is extremely articulate, and often right in the vicinity with his market observations.

And it's been hard times for Rob's RAFI indexes, which I was not shy about bringing up during the Q&A of his cleverly titled (Rob is great at clever titles) "Clairvoyant Value" presentation. I believe the term actually came out of something

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The video clips below come via my hotel room at Dana Point, California, where I am attending a conference hosted by Rob Arnott’s Research Affiliates. Also present are financial luminaries such as Peter Bernstein, Burton Malkiel, Harry Markowitz and Jack Treynor. It will be fascinating to hear whether these gentlemen see any signs of the economy starting to bottom, and how they are investing at this juncture.

On the video front, the IMF upped its forecast of total global credit crisis-related losses to $4.1 trillion by the end of 2010 and the Congressional Oversight Panel on Tarp conducted a hearing on Capitol Hill, whereas a host of commentators - including Martin Feldstein, Joseph Stiglitz, Nouriel Roubini, Frederic Mishkin, Paul McCulley and John Mauldin - weighed in with a combination of gloomy and “bottom-in-sight” economic forecasts, as well as comments on the imminent results of the

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I will find myself in Dana Point, California over the next few days, attending a partners’ conference hosted by Rob Arnott’s Research Affiliates. (Our investment management company, Plexus Asset Management, has a licensing agreement with Research Affiliates for managing and distributing its enhanced Fundamental Index™ methodology in the Pan-African region.)

I am always thrilled about attending this event as it affords me the opportunity to meet with financial luminaries such as Peter Bernstein, Burton Malkiel, Harry Markowitz and Jack Treynor.

Posting will be slow while I am on the road and “Words” from the Wise” will take a break this coming Sunday (April 26). The normal blogging service will be resumed on my return to Cape Town by the middle of next week.

However, I will be “tweeting” regularly throughout my trip.

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So Then, Bonds for the Long Run? … P/E Ratios at 200? Really? … Mark-to-Market Slip Slides Away… Housing Sales Improve?  Not Hardly

Investors, we are told, demand a risk premium for investing in stocks rather than bonds. Without that extra return, why invest in risky stocks if you can get guaranteed returns in bonds? This week we look at a brilliantly done paper examining whether or not investors have gotten better returns from stocks over the really long run and not just the last ten years, when stocks have wandered in the wilderness.

This will not sit well with the buy and hope crowd, but the data is what the data is. Then we look at how bulls are spinning bad news into good and, if we have time, look at how you should analyze GDP numbers. Are we really down 6%? (Short answer: no.) It should make for

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Barron's had it annual "retirement" issue this weekend and candidly there was a little less meat on the bone than when they have done this in the past.The best article had five snippets of varying length from five "risk experts" to "explain how to keep your nest egg from cracking."The five were Peter Bernstein, Charlie Ellis, Barton Biggs, Jeremy Siegel and David Darst.Berstein's post was a mix of general concerns and specific suggests that may not be very new but it was worthwhile to get is take.Charlie Ellis focused on global diversification which is important but the post was very short.Barton Biggs' post was totally worthless in the context of talking about retirement. He essentially spelled out why he likes tech right now. Even if he is 100% right about tech in the time ...