Back from the Baltic and 12 of your questions

Back from the Baltic and 12 of your questions

July 8, 2026 · 56 min

About this episode

Paul Merriman discusses portfolio performance and answers listener questions after returning from a Baltic cruise.

Paul returns from a two-week Baltic cruise refreshed and ready to dig into the numbers. He opens with a 12-month performance review of the recommended portfolios at Avantis, DFA and Vanguard — Avantis averaged 31.1% across the 10 equity asset classes in the Ultimate Buy and Hold, versus 27.7% at DFA and 26% at Vanguard — and explains why the non-traditional index funds keep outperforming traditional cap-weighted indexes. Paul also revisits Ben Carlson’s look at the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), which grew to $30 billion under management before falling 65% while the S&P 500 gained more than 60% — a costly lesson in performance chasing, with an estimated $7.5 billion in shareholder losses. Then Paul answers 12 listener questions, with a special deep dive into table G1B — 56 years of S&P 500 vs. small cap value returns, one year at a time, plus every combination in 10% increments. QUESTIONS COVERED 1. Funds that match the international and U.S. small cap value asset classes 17:18 2. Keep investments at Fidelity or move to Vanguard? 18:51 3. Is the Vanguard money market fund a good long-term emergency fund? 20:19 4. Pairing the S&P 500 with small cap value — the G1B…

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