By: Matt Garrott I have a bold prediction to make.  Yes, I know I talk all time about how Fairway isn’t in the prediction business and that basing any long-term financial decision on a forward-looking prediction is a fool’s game, but I’m going to do it anyway: I predict that the 10-year return [...]

By: Matt Garrott It’s July and in Cleveland the sun is finally out.  The summer sun brings with it the potential for sunburn.  Sunscreen is essential to avoid the pain and potential long-term damage from getting burned, but when it works we don’t really notice its positive effect.  Having bonds in a portfolio [...]

  By: Matt Garrott One of my favorite investment reads is The Route to Performance by Oaktree Capital’s Howard Marks.  Marks starts by disputing the argument that more risk means more return, “If you want to be in the top 5% of money managers, you have to be willing to be in the [...]

By: Matt Garrott It’s clear that 2018 will not be a repeat of 2017.  Low volatility, a steady march up and to the right, and a general disregard for headline risk were last year’s calling cards.  2018 seems jittery by comparison, but is actually a more normal market.  Historically, drawdowns have been slower [...]

By: Matt Garrott The stock market fell back to earth at the end of February as CNBC trotted out its ‘Markets in Turmoil’ chyron.  For all its gyrations, as of the end of February the S&P 500 was up about 1% for the year – hardly turmoil territory.  […]

By: Matt Garrott What Happened in 2017  Experts predicted that 2017 would be a difficult year for investors.  Looking back, they are now calling it an easy year.  All investors had to do was stay invested, but how ‘easy’ was that?  Half of a year-end Barrons roundtable of investment experts predicted S&P 500 [...]

By: Matt Garrott Everything went according to plan.  Now what?  After a lifetime of saving, it can be difficult to justify spending on things that we once considered frivolous. Meir Statman recently wrote a paper for the Financial Planning Association titled “Are Your Clients Not Spending Enough in Retirement?” that outlines an interesting [...]

By: Matt Garrott What Keeps Us Up At Night? The ghosts and goblins of Halloween are in the rear-view mirror so what keeps us up at night now?  Are macroeconomic conditions a concern?  What about political discord at home and abroad?  Maybe the dreaded Black Swan event is our bogeyman?  Our true fears [...]

By: Matt Garrott Wealth management is often associated with the word “No”.  Got any hot stock tips?  No.  Should we be investing like that guy on TV?  No and a speedboat is not an investment.  Being negative all the time is no fun for us either, so here are some things to be [...]

By: Matt Garrott James Bond movies and the TV series Seinfeld are both classics and cultural touchstones, but the conflicts in these stories could have been resolved more quickly than they played out.  Goldfinger could have just shot Bond instead of strapping him to a table under a slow-moving laser.  Seinfeld episodes like [...]