“How much you can contribute to your investments—not the gains on them—is going to be the biggest share of your portfolio’s growth. ”Christine Benz, Morningstar
I've been saying for years that I'm going to set up a regular investment plan. I frequently extol the benefits of adding small, monthly amounts to the funds you invest in and yet it remains on my “to-do” list. This year, however, I learned that I really need to stop procrastinating and put that plan into place.
A tale of two decades for U.S. andnon-U.S. equity: Past is rarely prologue
2020 Vanguard全球股市報酬預估，美國未必最好
Conclusion
The past 10 years have been tremendous for U.S.
stocks relative to their international peers, largely
because investors expected the U.S. to grow faster
and it did. Now, however, higher valuations and slower
earnings growth in the U.S. relative to the past decade
make future outperformance unlikely. As a result, we
expect that investors who maintain globally diversified
equity portfolios will be rewarded in the years ahead.
Lessons From the Past 25 Years
Implications of a Bear Market for Retirement Security
退休時愈到股市嚴重下挫怎麼辦?---狀況其實沒想像中嚴重
Conclusion
Although bear markets are difficult to endure “in the moment,” the reality is that to participate in the equity markets, investors must expect periodic downside volatility or even protracted periods of below-average returns to justify an expectation of long-term growth beyond that achievable by bonds, cash, or other less risky investments. And although the 2000s, a period characterized by two severe bear markets, have certainly been a challenge for investors, we have shown that by following a diligent savings and investing plan, most retirees have been able to rely on their portfolios to meet a significant portion of their spending needs in retirement. In contrast, those investors who did not remain committed to a savings and investment plan over time were worse off in retirement. Going forward, because the performance of the markets is beyond anyone’s control, reacting to market volatility by substantially repositioning a portfolio offers little in the way of positive long-term impact. Instead, focusing on costs and savings rates while also ignoring the urge to alter an asset allocation may offer the best opportunities for long-term success.
How to Stay Disciplined (and Why It's Important Now)
市場下跌，就加碼，真的比較好嗎?
Lessons From the Past 25 Years
Investing Is Overrated
I'm not saying you shouldn't invest. You absolutely should. It's essential. End of story. What I am saying, however, is that investing is the attention hog in many discussions about how to reach financial goals. It's sexy, there's often a current-events hook to explain why the market is behaving as it is, and hitting it big with an investment doesn't usually require any sort of sacrifice. But ultimately, your boring pre-investing choices--like your savings rate and how you balance debt paydown with investing in the market--will have a bigger impact than your investment selections on whether you amass enough money to pay for retirement or college. (I call these types of pre-investment decisions your "primordial asset allocation.") If your savings rate is high enough and you start early enough, that can make up for some lackluster asset-allocation and investment-selection choices. The flip side is also true: If you haven't saved enough, great investment picks probably won't be enough to save you.
投資有它的重要性。但基本上，個人理財的決定性重點，是你的收入多寡跟儲蓄率。
基本常識就可以知道，月收入20萬，儲蓄率50%，所能累積達到的財富水準，是月收入3萬，儲蓄率50%的人，很難達到的。
投資，很難彌補工作收入跟儲蓄率的基本差距。
但是，增加收入，要培養個人工作技能，或是更努力的表現以追求升遷或其它職涯機會。增加儲蓄率，要犧牲個人享受。這都是要付出的事情。
不如看錢自己長大吧。選個好標的，我都不用努力，資金自然快速增長，那不是更好嗎?
很多人看重投資，不是因為投資真的那麼重要，是因為要求錢自己長大，實在比要求自己輕鬆簡單多了。
所以，想在投資時投入更多時間與精力，努力研究的人，一定要想，你對投資的勤勞，是不是出自於你對自身工作的怠惰與厭倦。
投資人之間很少碰觸的一個難堪現實是，不少在投資時看起來相當努力的人，在個人工作與職涯表現上，是得過且過，毫無表現。
投資只是一個讓他們寄託人生美夢的出口。
但問題沒變。
一個不好的根基，低工作收入或是低儲蓄率，是很難用高超卓越的投資績效彌補的。
Implications of a Bear Market for Retirement Security
退休時愈到股市嚴重下挫怎麼辦?---狀況其實沒想像中嚴重
Conclusion
Although bear markets are difficult to endure “in the moment,” the reality is that to participate in the equity markets, investors must expect periodic downside volatility or even protracted periods of below-average returns to justify an expectation of long-term growth beyond that achievable by bonds, cash, or other less risky investments. And although the 2000s, a period characterized by two severe bear markets, have certainly been a challenge for investors, we have shown that by following a diligent savings and investing plan, most retirees have been able to rely on their portfolios to meet a significant portion of their spending needs in retirement. In contrast, those investors who did not remain committed to a savings and investment plan over time were worse off in retirement. Going forward, because the performance of the markets is beyond anyone’s control, reacting to market volatility by substantially repositioning a portfolio offers little in the way of positive long-term impact. Instead, focusing on costs and savings rates while also ignoring the urge to alter an asset allocation may offer the best opportunities for long-term success.
How to Stay Disciplined (and Why It's Important Now)
市場下跌，就加碼，真的比較好嗎?
Stick to the Plan
Whatever investment plan you craft, it's important to stick with it and avoid making big changes out of fear or greed. That often means sticking to your long-term strategic asset allocation, regardless of what's going on in the market, and populating it with low-cost, broadly diversified funds. That's easy to understand but can be hard to do. Checking in on your portfolio less frequently and keeping the plan simple can help. With investing, less is usually more.
Risk-taking across generations
回憶與經驗塑造你的投資模式
Implications
Although there may be concerns that millennial investors are too conservative as a generational cohort, we find that most Vanguard millennials are taking significant levels of equity market risk.
At the same time, a small but important group may have been affected by the global financial crisis and ought to reevaluate risk levels. We find greater risk-taking among older Vanguard investors than might be expected using conventional financial planning rules of thumb (such as “100 minus your age” to determine the percentage
of stocks to hold). This risk-taking likely reflects older cohorts’ experience with the great equity bull market of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as their broader financial wealth holdings, including the greater presence of pensions. Whether younger investors will, in the future, hold similar levels of equities as today’s older investors will depend not only on stock market experience but also on the changing nature of retirement savings.
How to increase the odds of owning the few stocks that drive returns
持股數目對績效的影響程度
Conclusion
Historical cumulative returns of individual stocks are skewed whereby overall market returns are determined by a small minority of stocks. Therefore, all else being equal, a more diversified portfolio is more likely to hold these outperforming stocks while displaying a lower dispersion of portfolio returns. We conducted simulations of various portfolio sizes and showed that those portfolios with fewer holdings underperformed those with more holdings, leading to a higher return hurdle to overcome. Understanding that some investors may prefer to generate returns above a certain excess return target, we found that decreasing the number of holdings increased the chance of outperformance but came with an even higher probability of underperformance by the same excess return target. In addition, investors who believe their stock-selection ability is better than chance would be best served applying that skill by selecting more stocks, not fewer. Finally, we tested mutual fund performance as a function of various levels of portfolio concentration as measured by number of holdings and found that, historically, increased diversification yielded higher returns.
Global equity investing:The benefits of diversification and sizing your allocation
本國與國際股市比重的問題
Conclusion
In light of our quantitative analysis and qualitative considerations, we have demonstrated that domestic investors should consider allocating part of their portfolios to international equities. In determining how much to allocate between domestic and international equities, a helpful starting point for investors is global market-capitalization weight. In practice, many investors will consider an allocation below this starting point based on their sensitivity to a number of considerations, including volatility reduction, implementation costs, taxes, regulation, and their own preferences.
Exchange-traded funds: Clarity amid the clutter
ETF
費用低廉的真正原因
Conclusion
ETFs offer an attractive, efficient way for investors to implement an investment strategy. ETFs’ broad acceptance in the market can be tied to their fundamental similarities with mutual funds, including their organizational structure, their strict regulatory framework, and, for many ETFs, their index-based nature. As a result, investors have used ETFs and mutual funds for similar purposes.
ETFs also possess important features stemming from the method by which investors transact in fund shares. Notably, secondary markets serve as an additional source of intraday liquidity for investors. Moreover, ETF market prices reveal valuable information about market conditions, including the level of transaction costs in the underlying markets and, with respect to international stock ETFs, a more current value of that ETF’s underlying securities. This means that the trading of ETFs represents an on-exchange source of liquidity at a mutually agreedupon price between market participants.
Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders
巴菲特致股東信
Whatever investment plan you craft, it's important to stick with it and avoid making big changes out of fear or greed. That often means sticking to your long-term strategic asset allocation, regardless of what's going on in the market, and populating it with low-cost, broadly diversified funds. That's easy to understand but can be hard to do. Checking in on your portfolio less frequently and keeping the plan simple can help. With investing, less is usually more.
Risk-taking across generations
回憶與經驗塑造你的投資模式
Implications
Although there may be concerns that millennial investors are too conservative as a generational cohort, we find that most Vanguard millennials are taking significant levels of equity market risk.
At the same time, a small but important group may have been affected by the global financial crisis and ought to reevaluate risk levels. We find greater risk-taking among older Vanguard investors than might be expected using conventional financial planning rules of thumb (such as “100 minus your age” to determine the percentage
of stocks to hold). This risk-taking likely reflects older cohorts’ experience with the great equity bull market of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as their broader financial wealth holdings, including the greater presence of pensions. Whether younger investors will, in the future, hold similar levels of equities as today’s older investors will depend not only on stock market experience but also on the changing nature of retirement savings.
How to increase the odds of owning the few stocks that drive returns
持股數目對績效的影響程度
Conclusion
Historical cumulative returns of individual stocks are skewed whereby overall market returns are determined by a small minority of stocks. Therefore, all else being equal, a more diversified portfolio is more likely to hold these outperforming stocks while displaying a lower dispersion of portfolio returns. We conducted simulations of various portfolio sizes and showed that those portfolios with fewer holdings underperformed those with more holdings, leading to a higher return hurdle to overcome. Understanding that some investors may prefer to generate returns above a certain excess return target, we found that decreasing the number of holdings increased the chance of outperformance but came with an even higher probability of underperformance by the same excess return target. In addition, investors who believe their stock-selection ability is better than chance would be best served applying that skill by selecting more stocks, not fewer. Finally, we tested mutual fund performance as a function of various levels of portfolio concentration as measured by number of holdings and found that, historically, increased diversification yielded higher returns.
Global equity investing:The benefits of diversification and sizing your allocation
本國與國際股市比重的問題
Conclusion
In light of our quantitative analysis and qualitative considerations, we have demonstrated that domestic investors should consider allocating part of their portfolios to international equities. In determining how much to allocate between domestic and international equities, a helpful starting point for investors is global market-capitalization weight. In practice, many investors will consider an allocation below this starting point based on their sensitivity to a number of considerations, including volatility reduction, implementation costs, taxes, regulation, and their own preferences.
Exchange-traded funds: Clarity amid the clutter
ETF
費用低廉的真正原因
Conclusion
ETFs offer an attractive, efficient way for investors to implement an investment strategy. ETFs’ broad acceptance in the market can be tied to their fundamental similarities with mutual funds, including their organizational structure, their strict regulatory framework, and, for many ETFs, their index-based nature. As a result, investors have used ETFs and mutual funds for similar purposes.
ETFs also possess important features stemming from the method by which investors transact in fund shares. Notably, secondary markets serve as an additional source of intraday liquidity for investors. Moreover, ETF market prices reveal valuable information about market conditions, including the level of transaction costs in the underlying markets and, with respect to international stock ETFs, a more current value of that ETF’s underlying securities. This means that the trading of ETFs represents an on-exchange source of liquidity at a mutually agreedupon price between market participants.
Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders
巴菲特致股東信