Ask the Institute Archive

How Can Investors Use an Efficient Frontier to Help Build Their Portfolios? (PDF)

An efficient frontier can help you understand the potential for the best return you hope to expect from your portfolio, given the level of volatility you are willing to accept.

How can Statistics Help Explain Portfolio Performance? (PDF)

When evaluating the performance of your portfolio, there are three sets of statistics that are important to consider: return, risk and how closely your portfolio tracks to your investment plan.

How Can Emotions Influence Investment Decision-Making? (PDF)

You should understand the roles psychology and emotions can play in your investment decision-making. That’s where behavioral finance comes in.

How Can Credit Work As Part Of An Investment Strategy? (PDF)

When developing a plan to meet long-term financial goals, it can be helpful to consider how you want to invest your assets—and how you may use liabilities.

What Risks Can Investors Expect in a Rising-Rate Environment? (PDF)

Short-term and long-term rising interest rates can impact your portfolio. Here's how you can anticipate the risks and adapt your strategy.

How Can Tax Planning Affect the Way I Invest? (PDF)

How you implement your investment strategy can have tax consequences. The types of investment accounts you own, the products you select, and how you trade can make a big difference tax-wise.

How are Developed, Emerging, and Frontier Markets Different? (PDF)

Investing internationally can help diversify a portfolio by adding assets that have risk-and-return patterns different from U. S. investments, but they carry risks that investors need to consider.

How Can Technical Analysis Bring Another Dimension to Investment Decisions? (PDF)

Incorporating technical analysis alongside fundamentals and macroeconomics can help with looking at financial markets from different angles and lead to greater conviction.

How Do Concentrated Positions Affect a Portfolio? (PDF)

Holding a large position n a single security, sector or assets class, such as real estate, poses risks. Certain strategies can help investors manage concentration risk.

How Can I Use Forecasts in Investment Decisions? (PDF)

Forecasts are meant to inform investors about the direction, magnitude, and timing of an index's or economic indicator's expected movements. Forecasts for performance of asset classes can support tactical portfolio adjustments of exposure to those assets.

How Do Active, Passive, and Smart Beta Investing Differ? (PDF)

Active, passive, and smart beta are strategies for building a portfolio. Investors can use any combination of the three, but should understand the potential benefits and risks associated with each.

How Do I Align My Investments With My Values? (PDF)

Social impact investing aims to align investors' personal values with their investment objectives. Studies suggest that this strategy does not detract from investment performance and, in fact, may be beneficial.

What Role Can Bonds Play in a Portfolio? (PDF)

Including an allocation to fixed-income investments can diversify a portfolio to help manage the overall volatility of returns.

What Is a Hedge Fund? (PDF)

Hedge funds consist of portfolios of underlying securities and can use a variety of investment strategies, from conservative to aggressive, so they can help manage risk but are only made available to certain investors.

How Can Commodities Help Diversify a Portfolio? (PDF)

Commodity prices generally have moved opposite stock markets, which can enhance an investment portfolio's diversification.