Feb 3, 2017

Weekend Links - Feb 3 2017

QUOTE OF THE DAY

To paraphrase Thomas Edison, good risk management is 1 percent quantification and 99 percent beating the cocksure over the head with a stick. - Michael Zwecher

MAP OF THE DAY



RETIREMENT FINANCE AND PLANNING

The Middle Game, Dirk Cotton. Life expectancies are dramatically lower during the Middle Game than in the Opening Game and this fact alone makes the Middle a significantly different game…Hopefully, the retiree has implemented a variable-spending strategy rather than having tried to spend a fixed percentage of initial savings each year. This will act to mitigate the risk of portfolio depletion over time. In my simulations, few retirees deplete their savings before well into the Middle Game…As in chess, the primary objective of the Opening Game in retirement finance is to set up a winnable Middle Game. The best strategy for a retired household's Middle Game will depend largely on how well they were positioned coming out of the Opening Game and they won't know that until they get there. That position will be the result of decisions made in the Opening Game, like Social Security claiming and spending decisions, and luck, like health, mortality, and market returns.  


Ken Steiner on Blackrock's CoRI index.  The details of the calculations in our Actuarial Budget Calculator (ABC) workbooks are in the PV Calcs tab, where “Present Value of Future Years with Desired Increases” is shown.  This is the present value of future years of retirement used in the equation above, and should be very close to the CoRI index, when you input the recommended assumptions and desired increases equal to inflation into the ABC. 


Making Retirement Income Last a Lifetime, John Ameriks, Ph.D., Robert Veres
and Mark J. Warshawsky, Ph.D. (2001)   and some commentary from Pfau (2011) 

Portfolio Success Rates: Where to Draw the Line, Philip L. Cooley, Ph.D.; Carl M. Hubbard, Ph.D.; and Daniel T. Walz, Ph.D. JFP.  





MARKETS AND INVESTING 



The Limits of Investment Math, Morningstar.  too much math can be a drawback. It can mislead.  


ALTERNATIVE RISK



A Smoother Path to Outperformance with Multi-Factor Smart Beta Investing.  Research Affiliates.   Researchers have identified hundreds of factors that purport to predict equity returns; we find a half dozen that provide an opportunity to outperform the market…a smart beta strategy diversified across factors substantially reduces tracking error relative to the average of the single-factor strategies, and dynamic rebalancing materially increases expected return relative to rebalancing to equal weights.  https://www.researchaffiliates.com/en_us/publications/articles/594-a-smoother-path-to-outperformance-with-multifactor-smart-beta-investing.html

The Other Side of Uncorrelated. Pension Partners.  “Low correlation, low volatility, no downside, and high returns. I want to have my cake and eat it too.” 



SOCIETY AND CAPITAL



Wanted: Factory Workers, Degree Required, NYT “In our factories, there’s a computer about every 20 or 30 feet,” said Eric Spiegel, who recently retired as president and chief executive of Siemens U.S.A. “People on the plant floor need to be much more skilled than they were in the past. There are no jobs for high school graduates at Siemens today.” 

Voices From Rural America on Why (or Why Not) to Go toCollege NYT  Young people from remote parts of the country face special challenges in furthering their education (“Colleges Discover the Rural Student”). Many are low income and first in their families to attend college. Universities can be big and distant, and scary: Are the students smarter? Are their values the same? Six students talked about their choices. 

Our 9,000-Year Love Affair With Booze, National Geogr. Alcohol isn’t just a mind-altering drink: It has been a prime mover of human culture from the beginning, fueling the development of arts, language, and religion.  


Everything You Thought You Knew About Bond Yields Is Wrong: HSBC, Bloomberg. Not so, says HSBC Holdings Plc fixed-income analysts led by Steven Major. Instead, high debt levels, demographic forces and wealth inequality overwhelm the traditional forces cited for the feared unravelling of the bond market's 35-year bull run this year. 

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