Bond Ladders and Income Annuities: Simple is Beautiful
I spent some time on Google, but could not ascertain the origins of the term fixed income. Presumably, it was created to describe investments where [...]
About Aaron Brask
This author has not yet filled in any details.So far Aaron Brask has created 16 blog entries.
How to Optimize Fixed Annuity Tax Deferral
Annuities are popular tools for retirement income planning. While stigmas exist around some annuity products (for good reason), recent research shows how fixed annuities can [...]
Dividends, Stock Prices, and Inflation.
Building on the concepts presented in my Dividends Are Different article, here we present data and observations highlighting the relationship between inflation and 1) company [...]
Dividends are Different
There has been abundant discussion regarding the utility of dividends.[ref]Here are a few examples: dividends, dividends, and more dividends…and Jon See'ds piece on buybacks, if [...]
Illustrating the Value of Retirement Accounts
What do most people consider to be the biggest benefit of retirement accounts? Many investors and advisors will say, "tax deferral." But a recent article (pdf [...]
Quantifying the Value of Retirement Accounts
Many people talk about the tax benefits of retirement accounts. However, few attempt to quantify and estimate the actual benefits. To make matters worse, when [...]
Tail Risk Hedging: An Alternative Approach to Risk Management
This article proposes tail risk hedging (TRH) as an alternative model for managing risk in investment portfolios. The standard risk management approach involves a significant [...]
Stock Misplacement in Sized-Based Indices
There has been much discussion of the small-cap premium recently. Has its popularity cannibalized its utility? Are large firms preventing a level playing field? Will [...]
Myth Busting: Stocks Correlations and Active Investment Opportunities
Many investors, investment professionals, and pundits make comments regarding the relationship between stock correlations and opportunities for active stock pickers. For example, here is a [...]
Assessing the Potential Market Impact of Passive, Short-volatility, and Low-volatility Strategies
The market has recently experienced record low levels of realized volatility and the VIX™ (volatility index) has fallen to historic lows. Moreover, the incredibly popular [...]
My “Repackaging” Pet Peeve: Do Other Advisors See This As Well?
Like many advisors, I often find myself reviewing accounts and historical performance for clients and prospects with investments at other firms. Of course I see [...]
Trust, but Verify: The Potential Problems of Blind Investing
Nobody can predict the future, but there is a chance the blind purchase of broad-index portfolios will come to an abrupt and potentially chaotic end when the [...]
The (Un-)Importance of Returns
In my last job with a large investment bank I built two global research teams and worked with high-profile clients around the globe. Having left [...]
Shooting Yourself in the Foot with Socially Responsible Investing
Socially responsible investing (SRI). Environmental, Social, and Governance investing (ESG). Impact investing...and so on... These socially responsible investing concepts can be roughly described as portfolio [...]
Was the Financial Crisis Really a Valuation Crisis?
Most people look back at the dot-com bubble and acknowledge valuations were elevated far above historical norms. Investors ignored historically useful fundamentals, such as earnings [...]
Questioning Everything You Knew about Asset Allocation
Is a 100% stock allocation crazy? As long as one addresses their needs for liquidity (as to avoid extracting capital from the markets at bad times) [...]