As is our custom, we conclude the year by reflecting on the 10 most-read articles over the past 12 months. In decreasing order, based on the number of unique readers, those are:
- Jeremy Grantham Guarantees Gold will Crash (by Robert Huebscher) – May 18 – Jeremy Grantham, the investor celebrated for his ability to spot and exploit bubbles in asset classes, guaranteed that the current bull market in gold will end. His proof? He had just bought some – for his own account – a week prior. His tongue-in-cheek comment was part of a discussion about relative value in various segments of the market. Indeed, Grantham was bullish on two asset classes, but gold was not among them.
- Ten Retirement Lessons from the Smartest People I Know (by Paul Merriman) – August 3 –Since the mid-1960s, Paul Merriman has helped people manage their money and their lives before and during retirement, seeing the good, the bad and the downright ugly. A successful retirement, like a successful life, he wrote, rarely happens by accident or default. It happens by design. Merriman has had the good fortune to know thousands of very smart people. Here are 10 lessons they taught him.
- The Ultimate Income Portfolio (by Geoff Considine) – July 6 – Conventional approaches to constructing income-oriented portfolios use either bonds or high-yield stocks. This article explored a compelling alternative to those approaches: a carefully selected model high-yield portfolio consisting primarily of low-beta, high-dividend stocks, against which the investor sells call options. Such a portfolio has many advantages over conventional approaches. It produces more income, has less risk, and has lower correlation to interest rates.
- Asset Allocation for Grantham’s Seven Lean Years (by Geoff Considine) – March 2 – Followers of Jeremy Grantham know his consistently accurate long-term forecasts well, as well as his ability to identify and avoid asset bubbles and steer clients into high-performing asset classes. Geoff Considine’s Monte Carlo simulations at the end of 2008 produced projections nearly identical to his at the time, and his simulations in this article nearly match Grantham’s current forecasts. Examining a key aspect of Grantham’s allocation, Considine shows that “dividend aristocrats” and low-beta stocks are an attractive universe from which to select high-quality stocks.
- Jeff Gundlach: The US will 'Politely Default' on its Debt (by Robert Huebscher) – June 29 – Comparing America’s three-decade long explosion in public debt to the works of Andy Warhol, a Jeff Gundlach presentation documented the immensity of U.S. debt obligations and the lack of options for alleviating that burden. He did not consider inflation to be a threat in the capital markets. Gundlach cited six options open to policy makers, but believes a seventh – some form of default – is most likely.
