Last month in the New York Times, Sam Polk offered a refreshing first-hand account from the underbelly of Wall Street. Polk is a former Wall Street trader who lived the excessive life that Hollywood often shows hedge fund managers and investment bankers living (see: The Wolf of Wall Street). Eventually, he did something that a lot of people would find difficult: he gave up his money addiction in search of something better. This article struck me as a great reminder that having the most money isn’t what life is about, and even if you do have financial freedom it doesn’t guarantee happiness. That’s why at Hill Investment Group we’re passionate about helping to refocus on the things that are truly important; life is too short to worry about the rest.

Read the article here.

Matt Hall was quoted in a January 5th article by business reporter Jim Gallagher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Jim discusses floating rate funds and how they perform in different market environments. As Matt notes in the article, floating rate funds aren’t a wise investment because they “fare much worse than investment-grade bond funds in bad times, but they don’t have the upside gains of the stock market in good times.”

We read in a recent InvestmentNews article that Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) is now the 8th largest mutual fund company. As they continue to grow, we’re encouraged to see that more investors are finally catching on to the idea that markets work and investing can be simple rather than complex.

Unlike most mutual fund companies, DFA has not used expensive public advertising campaigns to reach new investors. Their shareholders benefit from low-cost access to the markets that is limited through advisors only—sheltering DFA funds from the effect of rapid inflows and outflows that typical retail funds experience.