Anybody who has been in the investment business long enough knows the futility of forecasting financial events – especially when looking way out into the future.

A well constructed bond portfolio can stand-alone as a total portfolio or as part of a broader asset allocation strategy. There are many reasons that an investor might choose to allocate some or all of their investment capital to fixed income securities.

In today’s low return environment, investors are scrambling to find higher yielding investments in order to fund future or a current liabilities like retirement, the purchase of a second home, or a college education.

It seems that every election year the pundits bloviate on why this cycle is different than any other election year in history. It appears that the talking heads might be right this time.

I recently got around to watching The Big Short. I thought the movie was so good that I immediately downloaded the book to my Kindle. For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie or read the book I would certainly put both at the top of your summer list.

One of the most common questions I get from people entering the retirement phase of life is, ‘when should I take my social security benefit?’

Whether your game is growth or value, momentum, low volatility or indexing, strategies with strong academic underpinnings generally work out if they are implemented properly and if they are given enough time.

Some years back I used to enjoy reading a research report that was published periodically by Credit Suisse called “Better than Bonds”. The concept of the report was fairly straight forward as I remember it.

If 2015 was flat and boring for investors, then 2016 has ushered in an unwelcome change to volatility and losses. We thought it might be helpful if our friends and clients could see the stock market through our eyes.

It’s been well publicized that the month of January 2016 was not the worst January in history for US equities - it was the second worst. The interesting thing though, is how vocal the perma bear community has become - after the fact.

At Emerald Asset Management we believe that most investors would avoid many investing pitfalls if they would follow three primary rules.

Nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty – nobody. However, in this business, we deal in probabilities, then we monitor and adjust. Therefore the astute analyst should be able to explain the situation on the ground and form an educated opinion about the future.

I can’t remember when I first heard the phrase that is the title of this article. But I’m fairly certain it’s been around for a while and was first used as an analogy relating investor behavior to the stock market.

I started my career on The Street of Dreams in October of 1991 as a stock broker with one of those many great regional brokerage firms that used to exist. There are still a few of them left but most of the old investment companies that used to be household names are gone. In 2004 I earned my CFA Charter.

According to Wikipedia, the definition of a financial plan is “a comprehensive evaluation of an individual’s current and future state by using currently known variables to predict future cash flows, asset values and withdrawal plans.”

Most of my clients have heard me elaborate upon the importance of risk management. The reason that I dwell so much on this particular topic is because nobody knows exactly what the future holds, especially when it comes to investing

…..is missing the point altogether. I’m very well aware of what many studies say but I don’t think those studies adequately address the concerns of real investors with real financial goals.

Over the course of five trading days U.S. Equities as measured by the S&P 500 Index have dropped by over 11%. From the all-time high on May 21st the same index has dropped by 12.55%, not counting dividends.

Since a bond is by definition a loan to an entity such as a government (U.S., agency or foreign), a corporation or a municipality, investors should want to know the risk of being paid back their principal investment and their interest payments in a timely manner before investing.

Every good stock investor that I have ever met has some methodical, well thought out system for risk management that he or she can clearly articulate. Risk management is essential to successful portfolio management because nobody can predict the future.