Active investors try to 'beat' the stock market's performance

Value investing seeks to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth

Value investing specifically focuses on fundamentals like earnings, assets, and price-to-earnings ratios. In contrast, growth investing targets companies with rapid future potential, often trading at higher valuations. Both strategies offer unique paths to returns.

Can random investments outperform managed funds?

The biggest selling point of mutual funds is they're usually actively managed. Depending on your investment strategy, this could be a breaking point. This podcast episode includes a conversation with a Wall Street Journal columnist about why one-off investments are sometimes better for your portfolio than an actively managed investment.

Find out the difference between prediction markets, sports betting, and investing

As one expert put it, "investing is a long-term strategy to build wealth over time, speculation is an attempt to predict the future, and gambling is a game of luck."

Retail investors are not professionals—they invest their own money

For retail investors, the stakes may seem higher and more personal. Critics say that this dynamic means that retail investors are more susceptible to behavioral biases that could lead them to make poor decisions when it comes to buying and selling assets. For instance, fear of missing out could cause a retail investor to buy a stock that is popular but not a financially worthy investment.

90 percent of active managers of large public funds underperform

High fees tend to eat away at whatever edge professional managers accrue, resulting in most such funds performing worse than their underlying benchmark indexes like the S&P 500.

Shorting is a high-risk and expensive investment strategy that hedge funds specialize in

Most investors buy stocks with the expectation that those stocks will be worth more tomorrow than they are today. Short selling, known as “shorting,” a stock is the opposite: The investor is betting the stock will drop in value.

Mutual funds are a type of shared investment strategy that pools money

Mutual funds can invest in stocks, bonds, or other types of securities. This method is a popular way for investors to diversify their portfolio with less risk, making it ideal for long-term financial goals (like retirement).

The difference between stocks and bonds

While more people invest in stocks than bonds, experts say owning both can make for a healthier portfolio. Stocks are considered a riskier investment than bonds, but tend to have higher returns. While bonds might be the safer option, they won’t grow your wealth as quickly.

Some institutional investors are growing wary of private equity, as certain investments underperform traditional market indices

Private equity often attracts investors who can afford to tie up capital for long periods of time in exchange for higher returns than traditional investments. For many years, private equity at least tracked with the S&P 500 in terms of returns to investors, but in 2024 and 2025, it underperformed and posted declining returns.

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

A barbell investment strategy focuses on balancing high-risk and low-risk investments

Barbell investment strategies emphasize bypassing medium-risk investments in favor of combinations of high-risk and low-risk investments. The idea is that the stability on the low-risk side offsets the volatility on the high-risk side, and would look like a barbell with two large weights on either end of the bar.

Activist investors use large ownership positions to influence companies

By holding large ownership positions, which often come with leveraged access to a company's board or the ability to force a shareholder vote, activist shareholders can change a company's corporate governance, leadership, and overall direction. Critics argue that activist shareholders hurt companies in the long term by prioritizing short-term higher shareholder returns over sustainability and growth efforts.

Investors rely on the S&P 500 as a benchmark for the state of the economy

Since the index represents a broad range of diverse industries, it's become a proxy for the market itself and a common benchmark for investors to compare returns and performance patterns against. Generally speaking, when someone says a stock is under- or out-performing the market, that actually means under- or out-performing the S&P 500. The S&P 500 is exchange-agnostic, and includes companies listed on both the NYSE and Nasdaq.

Watch Ray Dalio break down his 'holy grail' investment strategy

As a hedge fund manager, Dalio's investment strategy relies on insulating investments from economic downturns. To do this, Dalio attempts to diversify investments as much as possible while considering the correlation between industries and markets.

Buffered ETFs are designed to protect investors from market downside while still providing exposure to upside

Investors typically hold them for a defined period before they “reset.” During periods of market volatility, buffered ETFs can seem particularly appealing.

Asset location is the type of account an asset is placed in

Investors are likely familiar with “asset allocation,” creating an ideal mix of different asset types in an individual's portfolio. But asset location matters just as much for investors who are conscious of how much they owe in capital gains taxes.

Angels invest in a mix of startups from different industries

To diversify their portfolios and mitigate their risk, angels may invest in startups that are at earlier or later stages of development, as well as in various industries.

Eleven of modern history's greatest investors

The greatest investors have all made a fortune off of their success and, in many cases, have helped millions of others achieve similar returns. Read about the lives and approaches of Carl Icahn, Warren Buffett, George Soros, and more.

Alternative investments have become more popular since the 2008 financial crisis

When the traditional markets crashed during the 2008 financial crisis, many people saw the value of their traditional investments plummet and began to look into alternatives as a result.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Reinvested dividends are not a way to dodge paying capital gains taxes

When an investor holds stock in a company that pays a dividend—a portion of its profits directly returned to shareholders as monthly or quarterly payments—they can choose to hold that dividend in cash, spend it, or reinvest it into more shares of that company’s stock.

How university endowments invest in the capital markets

This PitchBook article explores how university endowments invest in capital markets to support their institutions. It explains how endowments are structured and managed to generate returns that fund scholarships, research, and operations. The piece also discusses the evolution of endowment investment strategies. This is a valuable read for understanding the financial mechanisms behind academic endowments.

A certificate of deposit (CD) strategy guide

Popular CD investment strategies include the ladder, barbell, and bullet methods. These strategies can help you get the most out of investing in CDs.

Four popular budgeting strategies

While budgeting is an individualized process, there are a few tried-and-true budgeting methods people interested in saving money or paying down debt tend to use. These methods include the envelope method—where people budget for things like rent, savings, and food by putting cash in various physical envelopes—the 50/20/30 method, and others. Read about four popular budgeting strategies in this article.

Legendary venture capitalist Peter Thiel once wrote that 'competition is for losers'

With Peter Thiel's "Monopoly Theory," the Founders Fund partner argued that investing in companies that create new categories, rather than those that compete with other businesses in existing ones, is a best practice in venture capital.

How did the bull and bear markets get their names?

The terms "bull" and "bear" are used to describe certain sentiments or activities in the financial markets. A bear market refers to declining stock prices and pessimistic outlooks, whereas a bull market represents the opposite.

What 401(k) savers near retirement can do amid market volatility

If you're close to retirement, volatility in the stock market can feel scary. This guide for 401(k) savers has suggestions on what to do with your retirement accounts during uncertain times, based on how close you are to the age you'd like to retire.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Animal phobias are likely the most common type of phobias, followed by an extreme fear of heights.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.