ITA Wealth Management

What is it that sets the ITA Wealth Management blog apart from other investment blogs?  Our investing style, passive vs. active, automatically reduces our audience significantly.  But even that decision is not the difference.  Why this blog is different is that we not only walk the talk, but we show interested investors exactly how to follow an investment style that is backed by academic research rather than a style designed to extract fees to support the billion dollar industry of Wall Street.  We take the passive investing style one step further, and this is what separates ITA from all other blogs.  We show the performance results of nineteen (19) different portfolios and exactly how we do it.  What other blogs shows their results the way we do?  [Look for the Performance Data Table later today.]

By publishing the performance results of portfolios that vary widely in size and were launched at different periods, we are demonstrating a method of investing that can be duplicated by the small to large investor.  To my knowledge, no other blog on the Internet publishes their performance results the way we do here at ITA Wealth Management.  Not only do we publish our performance results, but we also measure the performance against a benchmark such as Vanguard’s Total Market Index Fund, the VTSMX.  In recent months, we developed a customized benchmark for each portfolio.  This is known as the ITA Index.  No other blog can boast of having this customized benchmark as it is truly unique to ITA Wealth Management.

Another feature of this blog is that we provide access to the TLH spreadsheet.  This portfolio tracking software aids ITA readers in setting up an asset allocation plan, the most important decision every investor makes if they are involved in the stock market.  A recent addition to this software is the Information Ratio.  We show TLH users how to insert the data to track the Return/Risk of the portfolio.

Premium Content readers, if they request, will receive an analysis of their personal portfolio.  Examples of this process are available.  We show readers how to go about setting up portfolios around different asset classes and what percentage to invest in each asset class.  This analytical process is designed to maximize projected future returns while reducing projected future risk.  These projections are then tracked through use of the Information Ratio.

At this writing, there are over nine hundred blog entries on the free side of the blog and over six hundred on the Premium Content side.  All are certainly not equal in content, but by spending time on this blog, one will gain a knowledge of how to set up and manage a portfolio, and avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made over a lifetime of investing.

Lowell Herr

Photograph: Nuts and Bolts art

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