The Informed Investor

Bob Pisani, longtime CNBC markets correspondent and NYSE floor reporter, shares front-row stories from decades on Wall Street. He recounts CNBC’s rise during the internet boom. He explains his audience-first storytelling, lessons on restraint versus overtrading, influences like Jack Bogle, and cautious views on growing ETF complexity.

Episode 38: What if there are already too many exchange-traded funds—and that's actually a good thing? Dive into the ever-evolving world of ETFs with industry expert Todd Rosenbluth to unpack the explosive growth, innovation, and complexity shaping today's ETF landscape. Todd offers a front-row perspective on how the industry has evolved from simple index-tracking funds to a universe of over 5,000 products—and counting. With decades of experience and deep roots in ETF research and education, Todd shares his perspective on where the ETF industry stands today—and where it's headed next. He explores key trends, including the impact of the ETF Rule of 2019, which opened the door for a wave of actively managed ETFs. Todd explains why this surge in new products isn't necessarily a bad thing—but it does put more responsibility on investors and advisors to truly understand what they're buying. From thematic strategies to leveraged and options-based ETFs, this conversation explores the growing complexity within the market. Todd emphasizes that while low cost, tax efficiency, and liquidity remain core advantages, they shouldn't be the only factors guiding investment decisions. "Cheaper" doesn't always mean "better," and knowing the use case behind each ETF is critical. In Episode 38 of The Informed Investor, Dimensional's Mark Gochnour, Head of Global Client Services, speaks to Todd about all things ETF, including the future of ETF share classes, the ongoing shift from mutual funds to ETFs, and whether retirement accounts like 401(k)s will eventually embrace ETFs more fully. Plus, Todd shares why he believes the ETF industry's strong reputation remains intact—even as more sophisticated (and sometimes riskier) products enter the market. LINKS FROM TODAY'S EPISODE: VettaFi: https://www.vettafi.com ETF Trends: https://www.etftrends.com ETF Database: https://etfdb.com The Informed Investor: Feedback Survey https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/informed-investor-survey "The Informed Investor" on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCyJr6FFig-h1mA7rVP7Mbk0irFw2wA90 Dimensional Fund Advisors Shorts on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@dimensionalfundadvisors/shorts Mark Gochnour on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gochnour-9a23598a/ Todd Rosenbluth on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-rosenbluth-89120a/ Learn more at https://www.dimensional.com/

Cameron Passmore, CEO of PWL Capital and co‑founder of the Rational Reminder podcast, is a longtime financial advisor who blends research with practical planning. He talks about investor behavior as the biggest risk, the value of buy-hold-rebalance discipline, why simplicity and planning beat chasing winners, and how systematic approaches and goal-first thinking calm financial stress.

Episode 36: Why all the hubbub about private credit? This unusual investment vehicle, which accounts for about 2% of the global fixed income market, seems to be all over the financial headlines. Some reports say investors are cashing out in droves. Others claim lending to troubled software firms catalyzed a meltdown that's chilling the entire private credit market. Then there are the optimists who argue all the turmoil will lead to enticing opportunities. Investors might have heard that private credit offers untapped potential for higher returns, so the latest developments may be perplexing. In simple terms, private credit consists of loans by nonbank lenders to small and midsize firms that may have trouble obtaining traditional bank loans. The money for the loans comes from investors who are typically seeking yields higher than what's available in the traditional fixed income market. Everyday investors can access this private market through publicly traded business development companies (BDCs), which make these loans and are then required to distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to shareholders. While outsize returns on offer by BDCs make them attractive, the risks are significant and shouldn't be overlooked. BDCs outperformed the conventional bond market in the past five and 10 years. Yet in the past 12 months through February, BDCs tumbled nearly 20% even while the bond market posted positive returns. (S&P data © 2026 S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a division of S&P Global. All rights reserved; Bloomberg data from Bloomberg.) Costs are another concern. The combined management and incentive fees for public BDCs may exceed 5% annually. (Incentive fees are performance-based charges payable if managers exceed a specific return target.) Compare those fees to the average 0.54% net expense ratio for the US Intermediate Core Bond Fund category, based on Morningstar data. In Episode 36 of The Informed Investor, Dimensional's Mark Gochnour, Head of Global Client Services, Kevin Green, PhD, Head of Investment Solutions Analytics, and Jake DeKinder, Head of Client Communications, assess the numerous tradeoffs facing investors in private credit and highlight those that should garner the most attention. LINKS FROM TODAY'S EPISODE: The Informed Investor: Feedback Survey ⁠https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/informed-investor-survey⁠ Dimensional Perspectives: "Hiding in Plain Sight: Private Asset Exposure Through Public Equities" ⁠https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/insights/hiding-in-plain-sight-private-asset-exposure-through-public-equities⁠ Dimensional Perspectives: "A Deep Dive into Private Fund Performance" ⁠https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/insights/a-deep-dive-into-private-fund-performance⁠ The Informed Investor, Episode 11: "Do Private Markets Deliver an Edge?" ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUGb1LLeB1A&list=PLCyJr6FFig-h1mA7rVP7Mbk0irFw2wA90&index=26&pp=iAQB⁠ "The Informed Investor" on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCyJr6FFig-h1mA7rVP7Mbk0irFw2wA90 Mark Gochnour on LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gochnour-9a23598a/⁠⁠ Kevin Green on LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-green-505b15355/⁠⁠ Jake DeKinder on LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-d-4105b98/⁠⁠ Learn more at ⁠https://www.dimensional.com/

Episode 35: What are the best reasons to invest in bonds? Maybe you're looking to dampen the volatility of your portfolio or address future spending needs in a concrete way. Maybe you want to reduce the impact of inflation or taxes. Bonds, also known as fixed income, can be used to meet a variety of needs. But different bond categories may be better or worse for accomplishing your goals. A crucial point that some investors might not understand: Putting bonds to work in your portfolio can get complex in part because not all of them behave the same way. If you have short-term spending needs, extremely short-term bonds like Treasury bills may be helpful. (Cash is obviously an alternative.) But longer-term bonds may be more useful as you plan for longer-term saving and spending needs. The credit quality of bonds makes a difference, too. Those issued by the US government and successful businesses are generally considered safer, and typically have lower interest rates. The opposite is true for bonds with lower credit quality. Your goals may steer you one way or the other. Some types of bonds, known as Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), can help manage the risks of inflation. That's important because an average annual inflation rate of just 2.5% over 30 years reduces your purchasing power by half. Yet TIPS aren't risk-free, another characteristic that may confuse some investors. In Episode 35 of The Informed Investor, Dimensional's Mark Gochnour, Head of Global Client Services, Wes Crill, PhD, Senior Client Solutions Director, and Jake DeKinder, Head of Client Communications, identify five reasons to consider investing in bonds and analyze what types of fixed income should (and shouldn't) be used to meet your goals. LINKS FROM TODAY'S EPISODE: The Informed Investor: Feedback Survey https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/informed-investor-survey Dimensional Perspectives: "Chutes and Bond Ladders" https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/insights/chutes-and-bond-ladders Dimensional Perspectives: "Sizing Up the Bond Market" https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/insights/sizing-up-the-bond-market "The Informed Investor" on YouTube www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCyJr6FFig-h1mA7rVP7Mbk0irFw2wA90 Dimensional Fund Advisors Shorts on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@dimensionalfundadvisors/shorts Mark Gochnour on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gochnour-9a23598a/ Wes Crill on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/wes-crill-77a49417/ Jake DeKinder on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-d-4105b98/ Learn more at https://www.dimensional.com/

Episode 34: If you believe your portfolio is too concentrated in big-name companies, why not buy the same amount of every stock in a broad-market index? That's the basic philosophy behind equal-weighted strategies. Instead of letting market capitalization determine weights in your portfolio, just keep the proportions of your holdings the same by buying and selling as often as needed. This approach means you'll prevent a handful of large cap companies from dominating your portfolio. But here's the thing. The name—equal-weighted—belies what's under the hood. Consider the constituents of the S&P 500, a widely followed index of large cap and mid cap companies across the growth/value spectrum. Since the index is weighted by market cap, stocks with large market caps impact performance much more than mid caps. In this structure, the Magnificent 7 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla) regularly move the needle on in the index's return, but mid caps don't because of their much smaller market cap. Recent data show that the top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 account for roughly 38% of its market cap, while the remaining 490 stocks account for 62%. Now imagine that every company regardless of its past performance or expected return accounts for just 2% of the index's market cap. This means a massive overweight for mid caps compared to their typical weights. Is that your goal? After underperforming the S&P 500 in recent years, the so-called S&P 500 Equal Weight Index more than doubled the return of its counterpart in January 2026. (S&P data © 2026 S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, a division of S&P Global. All rights reserved.) Now, some investors are no doubt wondering whether this turn of events will continue—and whether they should adjust accordingly. In Episode 34 of The Informed Investor, Dimensional's Mark Gochnour, Head of Global Client Services, Wes Crill, PhD, Senior Client Solutions Director, and Jake DeKinder, Head of Client Communications, interrogate the trendy rationales behind equal-weighted strategies and discuss alternative ways to tilt portfolios to target higher returns. LINKS FROM TODAY'S EPISODE: The Informed Investor: Feedback Survey https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/informed-investor-survey Above the Fray, Dimensional's Weekly Newsletter Subscribe: https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/subscribe-atf "The Informed Investor" on YouTube www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCyJr6FFig-h1mA7rVP7Mbk0irFw2wA90 Dimensional Fund Advisors Shorts on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@dimensionalfundadvisors/shorts Mark Gochnour on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gochnour-9a23598a/ Wes Crill on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/wes-crill-77a49417/ Jake DeKinder on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-d-4105b98/ Learn more at https://www.dimensional.com/

Episode 33: What if the biggest threat to your investment returns isn't picking the wrong stocks—but how you trade them? Many investors are drawn in by "free trading" and low expense ratios. But while your ETF or stock might be cheap—your trade might not be. Every time you go to market, you face explicit costs (like commissions and exchange fees) and implicit costs (like bid-ask spreads, market impact, and timing risk). Those costs don't disappear—they come directly out of the return you take home. A major theme is clarity around your top priorities: Price, Quantity, and Time (PQT). In trading, you can prioritize two—but rarely all three. If you demand immediate execution and a specific security, you'll likely sacrifice price. If you want the best price, you may need flexibility on timing or position size. Understanding what matters most in each trade—and in your overall strategy—can dramatically improve outcomes. Then there is the relationship between turnover and performance. Data consistently shows that higher portfolio turnover often leads to lower outperformance. More buying and selling means more friction. Even index funds can't avoid turnover entirely, but minimizing unnecessary trading reduces the hurdle your returns must overcome. In Episode 33 of The Informed Investor, Dimensional's Mark Gochnour, Head of Global Client Services, Jake DeKinder, Head of Client Communications, and Rob Harvey, Co-Head of Product Specialists, go beyond the mantra of "buy low, sell high" to show how trading costs can shape your long-term returns. They address common concerns about high-frequency trading, flash crashes, and market volatility. While markets have evolved to be more liquid and efficient—they note the importance of flexibility and discipline. Sometimes the best trade is the one you don't make. LINKS FROM TODAY'S EPISODE: The Informed Investor: Feedback Survey https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/informed-investor-survey "The Informed Investor" on YouTube [update with live link] Dimensional Fund Advisors Shorts on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@dimensionalfundadvisors/shorts Mark Gochnour on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gochnour-9a23598a/ Jake DeKinder on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-d-4105b98/ Rob Harvey on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/robkharvey/ Learn more at https://www.dimensional.com/

Episode 32: Can you define BRICS or BATMMAAN? If not, maybe you've got FOMO? OK, we're talking investing acronyms. For the record: BRICS is a term coined in 2001 to represent investment opportunities in Brazil, Russia, India, and China. (South Africa was added in 2011.) BATMMAAN stands for the following tech companies: Broadcom, Apple, Tesla, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and NVIDIA. FOMO (fear of missing out) is what you get when you're worried (unnecessarily?) that other people know, have, or do something you don't. In the investment world, people throw around acronyms regularly. From ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to ESG (environmental, social, governance) and SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies), there seems to be a trendy acronym for everything. You might feel smart if you know the lingo or feel the opposite if you don't. Either way, what really matters if whether acronyms can help you invest, and on that score, the evidence isn't all that convincing. Looking at the BRICS from 2001 to 2025, only India outperformed a broad emerging markets index, and Russia literally became uninvestable. (MSCI data © MSCI 2026, all rights reserved.) Tech stock jargon—think FAANG and BATMMAAN—has proven more rewarding due to the tendency for strong market performance to be concentrated in a subset of companies. But that's also a cautionary tale. Big firms with winning stocks don't necessarily keep winning. https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/insights/large-and-in-charge-why-to-think-twice-before-chasing-only-big-stocks. Investors with concentrated portfolios may actually miss out on the very stocks that deliver the best of what the market has to offer. FWIW, YOLO (you only live once) is a fun acronym used as a justification for doing something less than cautious (because of expense, danger, risk of seeming foolish, etc.), but it's not a sound investment philosophy. In Episode 32 of "The Informed Investor," Dimensional's Mark Gochnour, Head of Global Client Services, Wes Crill, PhD, Senior Client Solutions Director, and Jake DeKinder, Head of Client Communications, explain investing acronyms that investors may want to know—and several they might consider ignoring. LINKS FROM TODAY'S EPISODE: The Informed Investor: Feedback Survey https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/informed-investor-survey The Informed Investor on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCyJr6FFig-h1mA7rVP7Mbk0irFw2wA90 Dimensional Fund Advisors Shorts on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@dimensionalfundadvisors/shorts Mark Gochnour on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gochnour-9a23598a/ Wes Crill on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/wes-crill-77a49417/ Jake DeKinder on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-d-4105b98/ Learn more at https://www.dimensional.com/

Episode 31: You need to invest in emerging markets if you want a globally diversified portfolio, right? That may seem like an obvious choice considering emerging markets account for roughly 12% of the world's equity market capitalization. But it's easy to understand why many investors might say no to emerging markets. Uneven returns tell the story. From 2015 through 2024, the broad US stock market gained an annualized +12.6% while international developed markets added +7.7%. Emerging markets? A measly +3.6%. Then came 2025. As concerns mounted about the seemingly high relative prices of US stocks and the decline of the US dollar against other currencies, emerging markets returned +31.4%, almost doubling the return of the US market. Any investor who had shunned emerging markets probably regretted their lack of wanderlust. This evidence suggests that a longer-term lens is critical when evaluating opportunities in emerging markets. A broad view is helpful, too. Emerging markets comprise more than 20 countries, including large economies like Brazil, China, and South Korea as well as tiny ones like Colombia and Indonesia. But predicting which ones will deliver outsize (or undersize) returns is impossible. In 2025, Colombia was the top gainer at +112% while Indonesia, at –2.8%, brought up the rear. In 2024, it was Taiwan (+34.4%) and Egypt (–31.2%). And the leaders and laggards were also different in 2023, 2022, and 2021. Based on the difference between the highest and lowest average returns in emerging markets from 2005 through 2025, it's fair to say they are more volatile than developed markets. Which may scare some investors. But ignoring emerging markets means avoiding opportunities to offset weak performance in one market with stronger returns elsewhere. In Episode 31 of The Informed Investor, Dimensional's Mark Gochnour, Head of Global Client Services, Rob Harvey, Co-Head of Product Specialists, and Jake DeKinder, Head of Client Communications, survey the emerging markets landscape and lay out what investors should look for through their viewfinders. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Indices are not available for direct investment; therefore, their performance does not reflect the expenses associated with the management of an actual portfolio. Risks include loss of principal and fluctuating value. Diversification does not eliminate the risk of market loss. Sources: Frank Russell Company is the source and owner of the trademarks, service marks, and copyrights related to the Russell Indexes; MSCI data © MSCI 2025, all rights reserved. LINKS FROM TODAY'S EPISODE: The Informed Investor: Feedback Survey https://www.dimensional.com/us-en/informed-investor-survey The Informed Investor on YouTube https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCyJr6FFig-h1mA7rVP7Mbk0irFw2wA90&si=0mJiRGEkZqYosieU The Informed Investor, Episode 2, "Should You Invest Outside the US" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmiL0GM01bg&list=PLCyJr6FFig-h1mA7rVP7Mbk0irFw2wA90&index=30&pp=iAQB Dimensional Fund Advisors Shorts on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@dimensionalfundadvisors/shorts Mark Gochnour on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gochnour-9a23598a/ Rob Harvey on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/robkharvey/ Jake DeKinder on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-d-4105b98/ Learn more at https://www.dimensional.com/

They debate whether a 60/40 stocks-and-bonds mix still makes sense after unusual market years. Origins and flexibility of the 60/40 concept are explored. They explain how bonds reduce volatility and the multiple roles fixed income can play. Listeners are warned about replacing simplicity with complex, costly alternatives. Historical data and practical allocation takeaways are discussed.