Here is a great perspective on the market’s recent downturn from Dimensional Funds Advisors:
Summit Blog
Is It Time to Panic?
Is it time to panic? Is it time to pull out of stocks? Today was a bit ugly in the US Stock Markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 1,175 points, the S&P 500 down 113 points and smaller companies, represented by the NASDAQ closed down 273 points. The news was not a lot better in most international markets, with most major markets posting negative returns for the day as well. Is there reason to panic? Let’s think about recent economic news: The US economy just added 200,000 more jobs, and the jobless rate now stands at 4.1%. The…
Summit’s New Look
Summit Financial Planning is now Summit Financial Partners. A new year, a fresh look, and an unwavering commitment to our clients, Summit Financial Planning is proud to kick off 2018 with an updated brand that better reflects who we are and the services that we provide. This new branding is an outgrowth from conversations with you, our wonderful clients, about our collaborative process and fiduciary fee structure. First, you will see a new name. We have changed from Summit Financial Planning to Summit Financial Partners. Although the difference is subtle, Summit Financial Partners better depicts who we are, the services…
Why We Love Dimensional Funds
This is past weekend, a sweet lady who loves investments asked me to explain to her the Dimensional Funds, the fund family that we use most in building our client portfolios. Sometimes I wonder if my explanation properly explains why we choose them to investment in, when we have thousands of mutual funds, stocks, and exchange traded funds to choose from. Being an independent, fee-only advisory firm, we have no obligation to use any particular investment. The primary reasons that we use Dimensional Fund Advisors, or DFA, are they provide cost-effective access to many asset classes all over the world, their smart trading strategies and the way they screen…
Emerging Markets: Why Stick with a (seemingly) Loser Asset Class
Over the past year I have been asked numerous times why we would not only continue to hold Emerging Markets stocks, but add to those positions when we rebalance portfolios. Index returns show that Emerging Markets have posted negative returns for four out of the past five years, while the S&P 500 has experienced positive returns each of those same five years. To further illuminate the discrepancy of returns: 2015 Return 5 Year Annualized Return MSCI Emerging Markets Index -14.6% -4.5% S&P 500 Index 1.4%…
