Fidelity Investments has sent a jolt through the investment world with its release of four new mutual funds with zero expense ratios.   That’s right – they’re free!   The Fidelity Zero Total Market Index Fund (FZROX) has no operating expense ratio and no minimum investment requirement either.  This means that anyone with any amount of money can invest for free.    Three other zero-fee index funds are also available covering t…

I recently encountered one of the best podcasts that I’ve ever heard on the subject of investing.   In a re-broadcast from Freakanomics Radio, Stephen J. Dubner takes a look at a phenomena that I’ve wondered about for a long time.    In The Stupidest Thing You Can Do With Your Money he essentially asks the question, “why are so many people willing to pay for subpar performance?” The assertion of the episode is that active management remain…

To many people, retirement is the Holy Grail of financial planning.  Clients almost always list retirement as their top financial planning objective.    This makes retirement planning central to what I do for a living, yet I don’t spend much time thinking about actual retirement.  I’ve been focused more on the process of helping people grow and protect their wealth in order to have more choices in the future.  Prior to writing this art…

It’s not supposed to be over until it’s over - but since most of the results are already in – I guess it’s over.   Hedge fund manager, Ted Seides of Protégé Partners, has conceded defeat before the “official” end of his public wager with billionaire investor Warren Buffett.    About ten years ago, Mr. Buffett, challenged any hedge fund manager to a head-to-head competition against a passive stock index fund over a ten-year period. &nb…

Tax time is sure to bring out certain things, such as confusion, anxiety, and shoe boxes of records and receipts to name a few.  It also invariably invokes financial articles, providing advise such as “last minute tax saving tips” that are either irrelevant to the average reader or not really helpful.    Susannah Snider, of US News & World Report, took a refreshing twist in her piece, Making Sense of 10 Confusing Tax Phrases, where she asked…