Predictions about future price movements come in all shapes and sizes, but most of them tempt the investor into playing a game of outguessing the market. Rather than relying on forecasts that attempt to outguess market prices, investors can instead rely on the power of the market as an effective information processing machine to help structure their investment portfolios.

The fastest growing major mutual-fund company in the U.S, isn't stricty an active or passive investor. It is both.

City National Rochdale has formed an initial assessment of the implications Donald Trump’s victory may have. While this surprising election outcome will have a nearterm adverse impact on market prices, we are not sure if it by itself represents a fundamental material change to our outlook for modest economic growth in the year ahead. We will likely make adjustments. The uncertainty associated with this surprise is substantial—not only due to policy dynamics, but also because of the impact consumer and business indecisiveness may have. This may lead us to lower our outlook.

Dimensional Fund Advisors began with the idea that using academic research to invest in smaller, underpriced companies with a tilt to profitability could outperform the market by avoiding subjective stock picking and the rigidness of pure index investing. The firm’s assets have grown significantly since the financial crisis as institutions look for low-cost active strategies that deliver alpha. It is the largest manager of quantitative strategies, strictly to institutional investors.

Dimensional Fund Advisors is a leading global investment firm that has been translating academic research into practical investment solutions since1981. Guided by a strong belief in markets, we work to implement compelling ideas in finance for the benefit of clients. An enduring philosophy, strong client commitment, and a strong connection with the academic community underpin our approach.

The market is an effective, infomation-processing machine. Millions of participants buy and sell securities in the world markets every day, and the real-time information they bring helps set prices.

Electronic K-1

Investors who receive K-1s from their publicly traded partnership can now receive their tax information faster and eliminate the need for mailing a paper K-1. Simply locate your investment(s) on www.taxpackagesupport.com, register your e-mail address, and choose the option to "Eliminate Paper K-1s".

By choosing to eliminate paper K-1s, investor tax information will bypass the U.S. Postal Service and be delivered securely through the partnership's website. The partnership will even notify you via email the instant the K-1s are available. Investors will have the option of saving the electronic version of their tax information to their personal computer or printing a hard copy. At any time after choosing to eliminate paper K-1s, investors can always contact the partnership's tax help line and have the K-1 mailed to them.

A research paper shows how a simple coin toss may prove that basketball players really can get hot

North Sea Brent crude oil prices averaged $47/barrel (b) in August, a $10/b decrease from July. This third consecutive monthly decrease in prices likely reflects concerns about lower economic growth in emerging markets, expectations of higher oil exports from Iran, and continuing growth in global inventories. Crude oil price volatility increased significantly, with Brent prices showing daily changes of more than 5% for four consecutive trading days from August 27 to September 1, the longest such stretch since December 2008. 

The First Corrected 1099 Cycle Will Be Available March 11, 2015

The first cycle of corrected Consolidated Form 1099s will be available to my clients online on March 11, 2015, and mailed to them shortly thereafter. Copies of these corrected 1099 forms will be available on Veo® for your reference on March 11. This first correction cycle, which was scheduled for March 9, was delayed to align it with the Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit (REMIC) cycle. 

In an effort to allow sufficient time to capture as many income reallocations as possible, TD Ameritrade have designated the following dates for any necessary 1099 corrections. 

1st Correction Cycle - March 9, 2015
Reports reclassified income (not captured on Consolidated 1099 Forms to be issued in late-February 2015) that was reported to TD Ameritrade between February 13, 2015 and February 26, 2015. 

2nd Correction Cycle - March 24, 2015
Reports reclassified income that was reported to TD Ameritrade between February 27, 2015 and March 12, 2015. 

3rd Correction Cycle - April 4, 2015
Reports reclassified income that was reported to TD Ameritrade between March 13, 2015 and March 26, 2015. 

4th Correction Cycle - April 24, 2015
Reports reclassified income that was reported to TD Ameritrade between March 27, 2015 and April 16, 2015. 

5th Correction Cycle - May 8, 2015
Reports reclassified income that was reported to TD Ameritrade between April 17, 2015 and April 30, 2015. 

Please note that TD Ameritrade will be contacting your if you're impacted with a valid email address on file to alert you once your 2014 Consolidated 1099 form(s) and Corrected 2014 1099 form(s) (if issued) are available to be accessed online. Please contact Jonathan Brochstein with any questions.

We are posting some of your clients' 2014 Consolidated 1099 tax forms on Veo® for your reference. The Consolidated 1099 forms currently available are for clients who had reportable activity as a result of trading, or dividends or interest income from equity stocks, and who are deemed not to be at high risk of reclassified income resulting in the need for a corrected 1099 tax form. The forms are now available online for those clients to view and will be mailed to them shortly. 

To view them, go to Accounts | Consolidated View | Documents, then Tax Forms | 1099 Consolidated. 

Please note that clients who are at risk for a corrected 1099 due to high probability of income reclassification, wash sale reporting, or cost basis reporting related to a fixed-income product(s) were not included in the initial 1099 file, and their 1099 tax forms will be available in the coming weeks. Consolidated Form 1099s for clients impacted by Original Issue Discount (OID) reporting are also not presently available for you to view online. 

Tax forms for clients who held shares of Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits (REMICs) in 2014 are not currently available. Impacted clients will be issued tax forms prior to March 15, 2015, and you will be able to view them on Veo. 

Please refer to the list of securities that have not published their income reallocation information. At this point we are unsure whether the issuers will make any revisions. If you have any questions regarding the income allocation data of any of these securities, we suggest you contact the issuer directly. 

TD Ameritrade will be contacting  clients who have a valid email address on file to alert them once their 2014 Consolidated 1099 forms and Corrected 2014 1099 forms (if issued) are available to be accessed online. 

If you have any other questions please contact Jonathan Brochstein.

An all-too-common theme in the markets today is stock performance outpacing fundamentals. 

Dimensional is a global investment firm that has been serving investors for more than thirty years, currently with $356 billion of assets under management.

Decades of research and rigorous testing underpin their approach to achieving higher expected returns.

Capital Markets Summary attached

In many areas of life, intense activity and constant monitoring of results represent the path to success. In investment, that approach gets turned on its head.

Capital Markets Summary, attached

In December 2011, Barron’s told investors to “buckle up.” The consensus prediction of its panel of 10 stock market strategists and investment managers was for the S&P 500 to end 2012 some 11.5% higher, at about 1,360.

"That sounds like a big gain, but a lot of things have to go right for the market to make such impressive headway," the writer said. "Even the most bullish of these Street seers fears stocks could be more wobbly in the next six months than in the six months past."

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It's no surprise that Ken French has strong options about market efficiency. Still, who else could tell a room full of portfolio managers that it's nearly impossible to find managers who can beat the market and get a positive response from his audience?

Find out more about his views on market efficiency, asset-class investing, and the difficulty of trying to beat the market.

Here's a nice piece from Dimensional, about what they describe as "new model of investing: a model based not on speculation but on the science of capital markets" which makes a strong case for investing over speculating.