The Future of Mutual Funds

Paul announces Chris Pedersen’s upcoming AAII presentation on Saturday, July 22.  The 2 hour Zoom presentation will begin at 8:45 a.m.  Chris will discuss how portfolio asset allocation, fund selection and investor behavior impact the returns we get for the risk we take.  He’ll also show some practical approaches to help us all come closer to being best-in-class in all three of these areas.

The public is invited to attend this webinar.  Please share this information with your family and friends.  The FREE WEBINAR will be live-streamed to your computer or mobile device, but you must register at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xYAAhMVnT--qDnipfpaIqQ#/registration

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Paul mentions a new survey on AI. 45% say they would turn to AI to make financial decisions. Paul mentions AI eliminates wading through 20 advertisements to get to the information you’re after.

Paul mentions his lists of 80 project.  One list of 80 focuses on important Investment lessons. One lesson is figuring out how to deal with the reality that there is always good news and bad on every important economic factor.  In a recent Ben Carlson article, "Good News-Bad New About the Economy” he explores the good  and bad news about the economy, inflation, cost of housing prices, wage growth and unemployment. So what do investors do with this list?  Paul suggests it’s best to ignore the temptation to take sides.

Paul mentions a new fund from Avantis.  The Avantis All Equity Markets Value fund combines U.S. and international small, mid cap and small cap value asset classes.  Will this new fund be a one fund solution for the 5 fund Worldwide All Value Portfolio on Table H102?

Paul suggests investors watch the Morningstar U.S. Barometer style box returns on a daily basis.  The purpose of this exercise is to become aware of the wide swings of the range of equity asset classes over short periods of time.

Paul updates the work of Truth-Teller Tim Ranzetta and his non profit NGPF.org.  Their mission is to have every state require a semester of personal finance as necessary for graduation from high school by 2030.  In the last 2 years the number of states that meet the requirement rose from 8 to 22, with 6 more expected this year.

Paul recommends parents consider ways to help their family and their school district make the move.  Here are ways Tim suggest you can help your family and local schools:

• Find out what their state is doing about personal finance education. Here's the most up-to-date: https://www.ngpf.org/state-of-financial-education-report/
• Find out what their school is doing: https://www.ngpf.org/got-finance/
• Advocate at their school using these resources: https://www.ngpf.org/expand-access/
• Take an activity from our website and teach in their child's schools: Bean Game is a particularly easy one and very popular: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MRzOVjYtctMlYpLogKbdc5ZCgBO1b8Rc-FlbGfE5IA4/edit?usp=sharing

Paul recommends parents subscribe to one or more of the NGPF regular newsletters:  

https://www.ngpf.org/blog/current-events/whats-new-with-investing-2023/