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Ask Nick...keep reading

November 2005 PDF Newsletter...keep reading

There is perhaps no better note upon which to leave this very strange year, and to close out the first decade of this newsletter, than this astonishing chart of the growth of real per capita GDP in the United States from the end of the Civil War through the last year for which the figures are complete, 2009....keep reading

Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby and author of the new book Anything You Want (see Resources) cites these as his "philosophies" regarding the entrepreneurial endeavor....keep reading

Q: What do you think of "fundamental indexing?
A: I think that "fundamental indexing" -- like "jumbo shrimp," "water landing" ...

Q: With a colleague, I opened a SIMPLE IRA for a three-partner firm. Started ...
A: To the narrow question: resign this account at once. The governing principle ...

Q: I've built a successful practice -- $100 million in assets from 45 core ...
A: This is a really thoughtful letter. I hope you got a lot out of just writing it -- that ...

Q: I'm a wholesaler for the in-house mutual fund family of a major firm. I accept ...
A: The "trend," if such we may hope it is, toward what you call "outsourcing" is ...

Q: A client is building with us a legacy portfolio, which is meant essentially for ...
A: Certainly not, on the facts: his reasoning, and his perspective, seem to me ......keep reading

I write on the night of St. Patrick's Day - a day that saw the ignominious demise of the fifth largest investment bank in the United States, Bear Stearns & Company, where I worked for the eight years through 1992....keep reading

As a beardless boy stockbroker in the later years of the go-go 1960s, I struggled to understand the contradictions I found in investors who knew they should be patient,...keep reading

Ask Nick...keep reading

As you might expect, I got a fair number of "Ask Nick" inquiries during the recent unpleasantness from advisors who were not themselves spooked--bless 'em--but who were in receipt of client emails of varying degrees of coherence, demanding the advisors' response to the obvious fact that the world was ending. The advisors almost uniformly wrote me, "I know we don't read or rebut, but…I feel I have to make some response, and here's a draft of what I propose to write them; waddya think?"...keep reading

Ask Nick...keep reading

Ask Nick...keep reading

Half a century ago, it was pounded into my adolescent head by the Christian Brothers (the poor man's Jesuits, though they wouldn't have agreed) that all successful intellectual inquiry must involve reasoning from first principles. They would never--if either they or I had dreamed I'd ever be concerned with such things--have allowed me to ask, "What is the stock market going to do?" They would insist that I begin with the question, "What are stocks?"...keep reading

Q:Is it possible to believe in my value and not have confidence in my ability to ...
A:The fundamental question you ask is the important one....

Q:Many of the clients I work with are older than the baby boom generation, as I ...
A:Your question highlights the unanticipated difficulty that many advisors ...

Q:My problem client is my parents. Dad's age 77, they have plenty of money for ...
A:Clearly, the plot is somewhat thickened by the fact that these are your ...

Q:(Editor's note: This inquiry was received the night before Citigroup reported ...
A:If it's any comfort -- and I sincerely hope it's not -- I can't believe this, either. ...

Q:I just received the note that follows. This is the second time these folks have ...
A:I'll be delighted to help you craft an appropriate response. There is only one...

Q:I have a large family trust account where several adult children are co-...
A:You can't answer this drivel, and you can't ignore...keep reading

As previously announced, there will be a fourth edition of my Behavioral Strategies Conference here in New York on Friday, October 5, 2012, which is the Friday before the Columbus Day weekend.As previously announced, there will be a fourth edition of my Behavioral Strategies Conference here in New York on Friday, October 5, 2012, which is the Friday before the Columbus Day weekend. As more and more attendees seem to be making a weekend of this event--a decision we strongly encourage--a new feature of this year's edition will be a coffee hour for spouses that my bride has asked to put on, bless her. Enrollment procedures--first for previous attendees, then for other newsletter subscribers--will be announced in the February NMI....keep reading

I recently polled the subscribers who have enrolled in my Behavioral Strategies Conference in November as to the subjects and issues they would like to see covered at the Conference....keep reading

"Follow the money," Deep Throat famously advised Woodward and Bernstein. We stewards of capital may also heed this wise counsel, by searching the Investment Company Institute's equity mutual fund inflow/outflow data for insights into the course of markets and the dark paths of human behavior. (But I repeat myself.)...keep reading

Ask Nick...keep reading

Q:With the market's decline in recent months, some of my clients are getting ...
A:The first thing you have to do is aggressively and totally to disavow any ...

Q:I have a client for whom I've done a good job of creating a well-diversified ...
A:By telling the truth: that a long-term buy and hold strategy offers the greatest ...

Q:I have about five dozen clients with a $2 million account minimum. I have ...
A:I don't know how you "position" anything. You explain the economic realities: ...

Q:From the frontline...client is retiring next year. Talked him off the ledge a few ...
A:You've lost him...if indeed you ever had him, which I doubt. He's not listening ...

Q:After a 20-year career in management, I'm joyfully and successfully building ...
A:Almost all the e-mail traffic I get is from people who aren't sufficiently worried ...

Q:I offer a free pension analysis for a targeted segment of my market; this is an ...
A:I can...keep reading

A mildly distressing percentage of my "Ask Nick" email traffic contains some reference by my correspondent to what other advisors around him are saying, doing, or arguing with him about. My response always begins the same way: not with a direct assault on whatever misguided notion the pygmies around him are peddling, but with the question of why he is even talking to these people, much less letting them rent space in his head....keep reading

Q: I have seen quite a bit of discussion lately around the idea of "touching" your ...
A: The idea that there is an objectively measurable, much less linear, ...

Q: My question has to do with whether or not to conduct evening appointments. ...
A: You must never - absolutely never - put your business ahead of your family. ...

Q: After more than two decades in which I was the only advice-giver in the ...
A: None necessary; you are imagining a delicate problem which, in fact - if your ...

Q: In the September issue, in answer to the guy whose prospects were saying ...
A: I cannot, for the simple reason - I'm chagrined to report - that your client is ...

Q: I am thinking of what holiday gift to give my clients for the upcoming season, ...
A: You're doing exactly the logical thing, I imagine, which is looking through the ...

Q: I recently completed a full financial plan for a couple who are about to retire. ...
A: Absolutely, u...keep reading