Category: Investing

Small but Mighty: How Individual Investors Can Compete With Large Institutions

On By jpmeyer96In Investing, Personal Finance

Institutional Investors.  These are the big wigs as far as investors go.  They invest money for themselves, for other institutions (e.g. endowments, pension funds, etc.), and typically have billions of dollars at their disposal.  This enables them to buy a majority stake in any S&P 500 company, and if they feel like having a chat with the CEO, or commanding a seat on the Board, both are just a quick phone call away.

How are individual investors supposed compete with these guys?  Continue reading “Small but Mighty: How Individual Investors Can Compete With Large Institutions” →

Why High Earners Still Live Paycheck-to-Paycheck

On By Tim MeyerIn Investing, News, Personal Finance

If you live in the United States and have yearly family income of $150,000 or more, a recent study by Nielsen Global Consumer Insights reveals that there is a 25% chance that you have little or no savings because you consume every last dollar you earn.  This is called living hand-to-mouth or, to put it bluntly, you’re basically broke.  Isn’t that hard to believe?

The average family income in the U.S. is just under $47,000 as of 2014.  It would be reasonable to think those fortunate souls making over $150,000 would not be struggling each month to make ends meet.  Not so, according to Nielsen.  Far from it, in fact.  The same study revealed 33% of households making between $50,000-$100,000 and 50% of households making less than $50,000 are in the same hand-to-mouth situation.

Continue reading “Why High Earners Still Live Paycheck-to-Paycheck” →

4% Rule: Made to Be Broken?

On By Hannah ButcherIn Investing, People, Personal Finance

A common concern among investors is running out of money in retirement. Combating this concern, the “4% rule” is widely presented as a simple way to help your money last. Created in 1994 by financial planner William Bengen, the 4% rule says if you withdraw 4% of your nest egg each year, adjusted annually for inflation, there is a 90% chance your money will last at least 30 years. Yet despite its notoriety, the 4% rule is not without issue.

Continue reading “4% Rule: Made to Be Broken?” →

MCM’s Backbone: Administration

On By Amanda WaldenIn Investing, People

“I’m a Portfolio Administrator at a registered investment advisory firm, Meyer Capital Management.”

“So… you’re a secretary?”

“No, actually. I’m not a secretary.”

There is a stereotype, across various industries, that all administrative professionals are secretaries. This attitude isn’t always fair for individuals, such as myself, whose titles encompass the word “administrator,” since we are much more than secretaries. So what gave the title such a bad reputation?

Continue reading “MCM’s Backbone: Administration” →

Long-Term Investor, Short-Term Attention Span

On By Hannah ButcherIn Investing, People, Personal Finance

Society has an activity addiction. We constantly need to be entertained. So much so that the average human attention span is only 8.25 seconds – down from 12 seconds a decade ago and almost an entire second less than a goldfish’s, according to Statistic Brain. Undoubtedly, millennials bring this average down a bit. 77% of people aged 18-25 said if nothing is occupying their attention, they will grab their phone, compared to only 10% of those over age 65. Begrudgingly, I can attest to this. I’m currently working to complete my MBA degree through Ohio University, which is rewarding but includes a lot of paper writing. Although I’m thriving, I’ll admit if I had a nickel for every time I checked my phone, answered a text message or opened an off-topic internet tab instead of focusing on a paper, I wouldn’t need to earn my MBA…I’d just buy one.

*stops writing this post to research the going price for MBA degree*

Obviously I can’t actually buy a graduate degree and as easy as it is to joke about the fact that many of us can’t pay attention anymore, this notion made think (impressively, for more than 8 seconds) about how investors are affected by short attention spans. This mindset makes investors hypersensitive to trading frequency (“Why didn’t my investment adviser buy anything today!?”) and short-term price movements (“She bought that for me last week, why is it already down -1%!?”). This mentality can cause investors to “act just to act,” or worse, act solely on short-term volatility.

Continue reading “Long-Term Investor, Short-Term Attention Span” →

Behind the Curtain: My Path to MCM

On By MMIn Investing, Markets, People

After graduation in 2010 from Central Michigan University (CMU), I knew generally what I wanted from my career: to enrich people’s lives by helping them invest their hard-earned, hard-saved money. However, I didn’t have a clear idea how I would do that or how many different career paths were available within the investment management landscape. For example, there are firms that sell financial products such as mutual funds, insurance, and annuities, and there are firms that manage the money directly as a professional service, aka money managers. I knew of these different paths from my studies in college, but I was unsure which was right for me.

Continue reading “Behind the Curtain: My Path to MCM” →

Investment Strategy: Gender-Based Differences

On By Hannah ButcherIn Investing, People

Men own penny stocks on Mars and women have a money market account on Venus.

At least I think that’s how the saying goes…

Okay, maybe not quite like that but the point is, there are noticeable differences between genders when it comes to investing strategies. Many of these came to light just recently, since for years it was the norm for the men to handle most couples’ finances. As women became a bigger presence in the work force, waited longer to get married and couples began divorcing more frequently, women found themselves solely in charge of their own finances. Once they began to invest, based on their own values and goals, it became evident they (typically) invest much differently than their male counterparts. As an investor, a professional investment adviser and a woman myself, this idea is intriguing to me, so I decided to explore these differences…what they mean…and what to do about them.

Continue reading “Investment Strategy: Gender-Based Differences” →

From Liberal Arts to Finance: The Road Less Traveled

On By Amanda WaldenIn Investing, People

ANW One Year

As of this month, I have officially been a part of the Meyer Capital Management (MCM) team for one year! In celebration of the past year I decided to reflect on what I learned and accomplished.

First off, I must acknowledge that a year and a half ago I did not expect to work in the finance industry, particularly for a Registered Investment Adviser. To be honest, at that time I couldn’t tell you what it meant to be a Registered Investment Adviser. In the spring of 2015, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Pre-Law from Northern Kentucky University. Upon realizing that I did not want to go to law school with many of my peers, I asked myself, “What exactly do I want to do with my life?”

Continue reading “From Liberal Arts to Finance: The Road Less Traveled” →

Do You Robo? There’s An App for That

On By Tim MeyerIn Investing, Personal Finance

Could this be the golden age of the mobile app?  Maybe.  Only time will tell.  What is clear is that mobile application software (“app”) is transforming everything from how we reserve a table at our favorite restaurant to how we track our activity, sleep, health and much, much more.  Financial services like banking, personal finance (e.g., budgeting, bill-paying), and investment management, are participating in big ways in the mobile revolution.

To that end, automated investment platforms called robo-advisors are proliferating rapidly.  Nearly all major brokerage firms, mutual fund companies, and even some banks have an up-and-running robo-advisor solution for their customers.  They have intuitively appealing names like “Intelligent Portfolios” etc., and they use a simple algorithm to automatically re-balance portfolios back to a fixed asset allocation determined by each user.  In a nutshell, robo-advisors are an automatic, set-it and forget-it, mobile investment technology aimed at the mass market. Continue reading “Do You Robo? There’s An App for That” →

Share buybacks. Good, Bad, or Ugly?

On By jpmeyer96In Investing, Markets

Publicly-traded companies buying their own shares (share “buybacks” or “repurchases”) increase earnings per share by reducing the total number of shares outstanding (identical earnings spread over fewer shares).  It’s commonly positioned as “returning value to shareholders,” because investors who maintain their shares end up owning a larger percentage of total company shares; in turn owning a larger percentage of future earnings.  As of February 10th, S&P 500 companies have announced plans for $99 billion dollars of share buybacks in 2016.   The largest start to the year ever.  Get ready to receive some serious value!

Not so fast – Continue reading “Share buybacks. Good, Bad, or Ugly?” →