@kevincimring

Jemstep review: San Jose Mercury News

2012-01-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

Peter Carey of San Jose Mercury News ran an interesting article today about online investment advice.Technology is once again disrupting an established industry and, more importantly, solving some real world problems faced by individual investors.

Read Peter's full review here: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19830248

Tag: Jemstep review

Jemstep review - wonder of tech

2011-12-31T09:09:00.001-08:00

To round out an exciting year at Jemstep, here's a review by Carolyn over at The Wonder of Tech which does a good job of explaining the current service in some depth:
http://www.wonderoftech.com/2011/12/jemstep-helping-you-shape-up-your-investments/

Here's wishing you a very happy, peaceful and prosperous 2012!

Jemstep review by Tradestream's Zack Miller

2011-12-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

Zack Miller recently interviewed Jemstep EVP Simon Roy in this Jemstep review. In conclusion Zack states: "Its amazing what you've built".

Listen to the interview here @ tradestreaming here: bit.ly/w2WyaB

Thanks to Zack Miller for this great Jemstep review.

Jemstep review 2011

2011-12-18T15:36:00.001-08:00

It was a busy year, and one that I will remember (from a business perspective) as the year Jemstep launched the initial version of its website to the public. I say "initial" version because it encompasses one major component of our product roadmap (our core ranking engine) but there are several more huge additions which will be happening in 2012, combined with improvements to the user interface.

We were pleased that we surfaced on the radar of many investors - our jemstep community is growing nicely - and we are continuously learning from user comments and behaviors. There were also invaluable learnings to be had from some Jemstep reviews in 2011, and we responded quickly to what we thought were important comments through quick iteration, thanks to our great team.

The result is that we've ended 2011 in a very good place in terms of the robustness of our ranking technology; there is nothing like it available on the web today and it's a mighty powerful tool for investors to evaluate the mutual funds and ETF's they own or are considering investing in.

Some are recognizing the groundbreaking power under the hood - culminating in financial writer Clarke Shultz putting us at #1 on his list of investment web sites for d-i-y investors for 2012. Our challenge is to make this technology more accessible to everyone.

The exciting thing is that its only just the very beginning.

Happy holidays and I hope you come visit in the new year!

3 investment truths that were highlighted in 2012

2011-12-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

In a year of extreme volatility, the likes of which have rarely been seen before in the markets, here are three evergreen truths that were underscored.

1. Invest for the long term

If you need cash within 1 to 3 years, it shouldn’t be in the stock market. In order to weather the ups and downs of the market, you should know that money invested in the stock market is there for the long haul, preferably five years or longer. That way, the interim volatility shouldn’t concern you. If you’re trying to time the market on a short term basis, the gut wrenching volatility will only turn you into a nervous wreck and chances are the outcome won't be a good one - it's almost impossible to predict or time these markets.

2. Understand your risk tolerance

There are two sides to the risk story. One is your actual capacity, from an economic perspective, to weather the storm and see through a downturn in markets. If the market plunges 20%, do you have sufficient resources to stay the course until things turnaround? If you are not forced to sell or crystallize your losses, you are more likely to succeed in the long run.

The other aspect of risk, which tested the mettle of many investors this year, is the propensity to take risk - that is, the psychological aspect of accepting the risk in your investment. If you can’t sleep at night worrying about a potential drop in the markets, you are too exposed and need to reduce your holdings in risky assets, like stocks, and adopt a more conservative stance.

3. Diversify

A prudently diversified portfolio is the best tool at your disposal for long term success. Asset allocation – the act of dividing your portfolio into risk-appropriate asset class weightings – is a proven technique that has been shown by many studies to be the single most important determinant of portfolio success. Research shows that a mix of stocks, bonds, real estate and even some commodities can improve your returns over simply investing in the S&P 500, and for less risk.

Don’t get panicked by the daily headlines, stick to your long term objectives and have a happy 2012.

How does Jemstep evaluate risk?

2011-12-02T08:13:00.001-08:00

I was recently asked how Jemstep's algorithms evaluate risk, and whether we only look at volatility (as measured by standard deviation).

With the help of one of our analysts, here is a brief review of our evaluation of risk: While volatility (standard deviation) is one of the factors that we include in risk it is not the only risk attribute we use in the rankings. In addition to volatility we also look at a fund’s value at risk, worst and best 3 month performance, its performance in different market cycles (bull and bear markets) and the fund’s risk-adjusted returns. Value at risk addresses many of the problematic issues related to using standard deviation as a risk measure, and by analyzing a fund’s performance during different market cycles we get a much better idea of the fund’s underlying characteristics i.e. is it a defensive fund that performs better in bear markets? These additional risk attributes have a major impact on our rankings. For example by only looking at volatility you would say that historically the Yacktman fund (YACKX) is more risky that the an S&P 500 index fund such as the Vanguard S&P 500 fund (VFINX). However when we analyze our additional risk attributes we see that YACKX in fact performed better during the past bear market than the S&P 500 index fund (-46.43% vs -55.16%), also it has a lower value at risk over 1, 3, 5 and 10 years, for example its value at risk over 5 years is significantly lower at -24.8% vs. -31.1%.

In the very near future we will also be adding additional risk attributes to address concentration risk.

The case for Yacktman

2011-11-30T17:27:00.001-08:00

The Yacktman fund (YACKX) is a US Large Cap Stock Fund that has delivered some stellar returns over the past few years. Over the past ten years it has returned approximately 169% while the S&P500 has returned 27.4%. The three year return for YACKX is about 88% compared with the S&P’s 42.12%. And while YACKX is more volatile than the S&P (measured in terms of standard deviation) it's not by much. It’s ten year standard deviation stands at 16.8 compared to 16.1 for the S&P500.

So YACKX often surfaces to the top of Jemstep’s rankings for a number of different profiles. Part of Jemstep’s value is to help expose funds that meet users goals and preferences and for those who are looking for a quality active fund, Yacktman is a strong fund.
Some feedback has pointed to the fact that index funds may not rise to the top of Jemstep’s rankings, and there are users who would prefer less-risky index funds in their portfolios. Users who are looking for passive index funds can filter out active funds if they wish, and will receive recommendations for top ranked index funds that meet their needs. In addition, those that seek active funds, but which are less aggressive, can also filter out aggressive active funds. In this way we give users more control and granularity for those that seek it.

The funds that bubble to the top of Jemstep’s rankings also depend heavily on your goals, personal preferences and profile. As explained in an earlier post, risk adjusted performance is but one of many many metrics we factor into the rankings.

Continued feedback on your Jemstep experience is appreciated and helps us improve the service for all.

Past performance as an evaluation metric

2011-10-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

With Jemstep coming out of beta, we’re getting some interesting and useful debate about our recommendation engine and the methodology used to rank funds. The main issue coming through at this stage is that many folks are concerned about using past performance as a predictor of future performance.

The key point worth making is that Jemstep does not only use performance as an evaluation metric. In the words of our CEO - “While past performance is taken into account, its only one of many metrics used in our evaluation. Jemstep uses more than 40 data points in 6 broad fund categories to evaluate funds, including tax, fees, risk, income, return, manager tenure. Furthermore past performance is broken up into total returns, risk-adjusted returns, performance in bull and bear markets, worst and best 3 month performance and value at risk and value at growth (an inversion of value at risk). Therefore a fund’s total returns only makes up a portion of past performance and a small portion of a user’s overall profile. The importance or “weight” given to each data point in our evaluation depends entirely on the user’s goals and preferences. Users can in fact see how we break this up by clicking “how is this calculated” on their rankings page, and can modify this by changing their preferences. In this regard, we encourage users to fill out their profile and preferences with as much detail as possible to allow for more personalized recommendations”.

I encourage you to give Jemstep a try for yourself, and let us know what you think. Healthy feedback, comment and debate can only help us enhance the service and make it better for our users.

Jemstep launches to public

2011-10-17T16:23:00.000-07:00

Here is the press release:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jemsteps-free-online-investment-guidance-service-helps-anyone-invest-with-confidence-2011-10-17

Jemstep overview - video

2011-10-13T10:49:00.001-07:00

The Jemstep website was recently opened up to the public after being in beta, and I am excited that a broader spectrum of users will now be able to use the system and give us feedback. As part of the new home-page, we included this brief video which will give you an overview of what Jemstep is all about.

Please give the Jemstep video a quick review and let me know what you think.

Farewell foursquare?

2011-10-11T13:21:00.001-07:00

Up until fairly recently, I was a frequent user of the popular geolocation check-in service, foursquare. I used to "check in" during my visits to Whole Foods, Trader Joes, restaurants, coffee shops and salad bars across the Bay Area. It became almost an unconscious habit, part of my regular daily activity like saying "bless you" when someone sneezes.

But at some point recently - I don't know exactly when - I realized I was no longer checking in. Wasn't even thinking about it - and then when sometimes remembering that I should check in, decided it wasn't worth the hassle. The novelty had somehow turned into an exercise of futility and had phased itself out of my psyche.

Foursquare has remained just a check in service for too long. At one point there was the promise of loyalty awards and other cool stuff. Although there are scraps of specials and promos here and there, the service has not evolved into anything more compelling than just a social check-in game. There are some cursory user-generated recommendations but there are other, better services for that purpose. So the lure of cool badges and top leader board positions was evidently not enough to keep foursquare an essential part of my daily social media activity, and so it kind of just quietly slipped off the table.

The result? I've lost a couple of mayorships, even my prized position as mayor of Los Altos Whole Foods. But things didn't fall apart. No one thinks lesser of me (I think). So my life will go on, with or without foursquare - but at this stage I'm thinking most likely without.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Incredible market volatility continues unabated

2011-10-04T16:02:00.000-07:00

Here’s an extract from an article posted earlier today by Briefing.com, a company that provides live market commentary throughout the day:

“Reports that officials in the European Union are considering plans to recapitalize banks coincided with a barrage of buying in the final hour. The move by the S&P 500 from its afternoon low to its close spanned 4%. At the same time, the Dow bounded by more than 350 points with barely a pause along the way. The Nasdaq settled with a 3% gain, the strongest of the trio”.

Or consider this from Benzinga.com:
"Once again, it was another insane day of volatility on Wall Street as global markets gyrate in stomach churning fashion driven by the Eurozone debt crisis and global economic woes. On Tuesday, the bulls won, as the major averages exploded higher in the last hour of trade after spending much of the day deep in the red."

The fact that markets ended positively after being down 2% or more in early morning trade is, even by recent standards, quite an amazing turnaround. Its also stomach churning volatility which has gone the other way too - big advances reversing into major negative territory. The markets continue to bounce up or down on the slightest news coming out of Europe, making these trying times for everyday investors who are seeing their hard earned investments being whittled away yet again.

But does any of this matter in the short term? For many investors who are not relying on money from their portfolios to support their current living expenses, this will hopefully be a blip on the road to positive, healthy returns in the long term. There's a South African expression: "Vasbyt", which means "hold fast", or "hold tight". Stay the course, hopefully we'll all come out of this sooner than we know it.

Resources for stock market data

2011-09-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

For live prices and up to the minute news on the stock markets, my favorite source at the moment is the CNBC RT app for the iPad and iPhone. I have experimented with dozens of available financial apps and this is the best I have come across.

Another good-looking data interface for the iPad is Stocktouch, another company to take advantage of the great design affordances made available through mobile devices, especially the iPad.

For those less inclined to become trapped in the markets' daily movements, a weekly roundup is always useful and for this purpose, Jemstep's own Monday Market Snapshot is a perfect way to start the week with an overview of where markets are at, what's driving them and what can be expected for the week ahead. Kim Cooper over at Jemstep is doing a great job with this series and its worth checking out.

Now that's what I'm talking about

2011-09-22T23:02:00.000-07:00

Two quick pieces worth reading at the end of a gloomy week:

Article by Felix Salmon: There's no reason why stocks are down today

Article by James Altucher, Marketwatch: Tune out the fear and the panic

Wednesday Futures Gain, Helped by Euro Zone Bond Talks

2011-09-14T05:43:00.001-07:00

No sooner had Weds futures dropped (see previous post), were they rising again as the first steps were being taken to address the Euro debt crisis. According to CNBC, futures were higher Wednesday as investors were encouraged by comments from European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who said the commission will present options soon for the introduction of euro-area bonds.

Full Story:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44514846

Why did I post this? Is my blog turning into a clone of CNBC? No - just making the point about the market's astonishing volatility at the moment. It moves at the slightest bit of news, and affirms how difficult it is to time the market. You're better off investing for the long haul - most of the time.

- Posted using BlogPress

Location:Los Altos,United States

Avoid the daily swings

2011-09-14T00:11:00.001-07:00

If your'e watching the market daily, I'm sure you're getting frustrated by the daily ups and downs of the main indices.

The Dow had 2 positive days in a row earlier this week. But as the sound of the closing bell was still resonating today after a positive session, futures were already tumbling this evening - with both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones down in excess of 1% and all but erasing previous days' gains.

The futures indicate a sharply lower Wall Street opening on Wednesday Sept 14, but by the time of the opening bell there may be other news out of Europe that can swing things better - or even worse.

So sage advice - if you have a long term outlook you're better off not watching the market daily. Check back weekly or every so often to stay in touch but avoid the daily blow by blow. It'll only make you punch-drunk.

- Posted using BlogPress

Sleep well during volatile markets

2011-09-12T16:02:00.000-07:00

The stock market was up and down all day today. Just as things looked like they were headed for another loss of at least 1%, the market rallied in the last hour of trade and actually ended in positive territory.

Here is an edited version of the day’s events courtesy of Briefings.com.

09:45 am : Stocks are making a nice move up from opening lows, but the major equity averages are still in negative territory with varied losses.
10:00 am : The Nasdaq has rallied into positive territory for a solid gain.
10:30 am : A bout of selling pressure has caused the stock market to slip in recent trade. The effort has put the S&P 500 back into negative territory after it had mustered a narrow gain.
11:30 am : Stocks have started to rebound. The move has taken the Nasdaq out of the red and back into positive territory.
12:00 pm : Stocks are struggling to set forth on a clear path. Their lack of direction has cut short the market's recent rebound effort.
1:00 pm : Stocks slashed losses in the opening minutes of trade, but they haven't been able to shake the hold of sellers. As such, the major market averages are all in the red.
1:30 pm : A sudden flurry of selling has caused the Dow and S&P 500 to slide to new session lows.
2:00 pm : Stocks are starting to rebound after setting new session lows.
2:30 pm : The broad market remains mired in negative territory with a loss of more than 1%.
4:30 pm : The stock market settled with a solid gain after it had been down in excess of 1% amid heightened concerns about fiscal and financial conditions in Europe.

Crazy stuff, but not even nearly as volatile as some sessions last month. Markets these days are not for the faint of heart. The key is assessing your capacity and tolerance for risk.

Briefly, tolerance for risk means your emotional ability to handle the short term losses, which can be steep at any given point. Capacity for risk means your actual financial ability to weather the storm - earnings stability, emergency fund and the like.

If you have done all that and have invested within your risk parameters (with an appropriate asset allocation strategy), you should still be sleeping relatively peacefully at night. If you’re lying awake wide eyed, checking out the stock futures and reading every finance article from CNBC to Minyanville, you should probably re-assess your exposure and trim your holdings to something you can live with over the long term.

Time tested truths

2011-07-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

Things are gaining momentum at Jemstep (the public version of our website will be launched in a couple of months). The past couple of months have highlighted the importance of:

Team: Having the right team is fundamental to your chances of success. We were lucky enough to start out with great people, but have also been very fortunate in finding absolute rock stars to strengthen our team over the past few months. They have all been integral in pushing us forward.

Testing: Engaging in user testing and customer research has been illuminating and invaluable. This is staple fare for start-up veterans but I still meet founders who underestimate the value of testing and research. Don’t skimp on finding out who your customer is, what they need, what they want, what they like about your offering, what they dislike etc. This is a process that never ends, but do enough upfront to establish a solid starting direction for your offering.

Timing: By this I mean being cognisant in the broad sense about “time”. Don’t let it slip away from you. You’re burning up runway and market opportunity. Set milestones, sprints, deadlines - whatever you choose to name the timeline by which you measure your production. Avoid feature creep, stick to schedules and all the rest of it. You’ve read it on a zillion blogs before but it’s true. It focuses you on making decisions, identifying trade-offs and ultimately getting your product shipped out the door.

Google+ is worth the fuss

2011-07-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Google+. I think in time its going to have a big impact on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and a bunch of other services in the social media and sharing environment, and beyond. +mike elgan put it well when he posted the following on G+:

"Here's what I love about Google+ in general and the Google+ Diet in particular:

Instead of saying, "I'm going to write a blog post now," or "I'm going to send an e-mail" or "I think I'll tweet something" you simply say what you have to say, then decide who you're going to say it to.

If you address it to "Public," it's a blog post.

If you address it to "Your Circles" it's a tweet.

If you address it to your "My Customers" Circle it's a business newsletter.

If you address it to a single person, it can be a letter to your mother.

I'd say this is pretty revolutionary. "

Elgan is worth following for more insights into Google+ but in particular his experiment dubbed the "Google+ Diet" should prove interesting. In his own words:

"I'm currently conducting an experiment I call the Google+ Diet. The idea is to slim down my bloated social networking lifestyle by using only Google+ for all my communication. So far, I've given up Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and about a dozen other services, and replaced them with Google+. I've even given up e-mail!"

G+ has the ability to replace all of these platforms. Whether it will in fact do so, only time will tell. I'm rooting for it.

July 4th Weekend

2011-07-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

We spent the holiday weekend in Aptos. What a great time we had. Hard to believe only two short years ago we were living in South Africa, and here we are celebrating USA Independence Day and making Smores on the beach!

Jemstep seeks Bay Area website developer

2011-06-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

In the current climate, website developers are in high demand and Jemstep has joined the fray!

This is a key position to help with web interface development for Jemstep’s groundbreaking application. If you love to work in a fast-growing, new thinking environment, are a talented web-developer and get excited about developing world-class web interfaces that people find engaging, this could be the right job for you.

What you will be doing

This position is preferably full-time, although we will entertain part-time and contract work. We're located in Los Altos, CA and would prefer someone local who can work on-site to perform the following:

Serve as the go-to front-end developer for all marketing needs for the marketing site
Implement website design across all public facing/marketing pages
Incorporate and deploy Google analytics tracking and Google Optimizer for A/B and multivariate testing
Code and deploy SEO friendly pages
Customize and incorporate social media plug-ins such as twitter feed, Facebooks social graph, forward to a friend etc.
Help with other web development as needed

The skills and qualities you have:

at least 2 years of web development experience
the ability to demonstrate and discuss prior development projects
strong knowledge of HTML, CSS, javascript
experience in a dynamic programming language e.g. groovy, ruby, PHP. JSF would be a big advantage
experience building web applications that support an array of web browsers (Safari; Chrome; Firefox; Internet Explorer 6, 7 & 8) using the latest web standards and best practices
the ability and know-how to Incorporate and deploy Google analytics tracking and Google Optimizer for A/B and multivariate testing
skills and knowledge in coding and deploying SEO friendly pages
the ability to customize and incorporate social media plug-ins such as twitter feed, Facebooks social graph, forward to a friend etc.
Work well under pressure
Enjoy startup environments
Are willing to go the extra mile to do things right

Submit your CV in confidence to kevin@jemstep.com, together with portfolio/website demonstrating your art skills, design sensibilities, and attention to detail. Compensation and benefits will be discussed with suitable candidates in person.

Major update for Jemstep released today

2011-06-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

At Jemstep we very quietly released an updated version of our website today. We are still working on added features and some new designs before a major public push, but this release represents a fairly major update, including the addition of ETFs to the line-up. Please feel free to check it out and give the service a try: www.jemstep.com

Tumblr

2011-04-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

I've referred to Tumblr before as a great microblogging tool, and it seems like the service is growing. Huffpost reported recently that they've hit 1 billion posts on the service. I am not sure how many actual users they have, but the Tumblr community is gaining momentum, and the service has only improved with good iPhone and Android apps.

Since I got my new iPhone, I have been posting to my Tumblog a whole lot more.

Big boys are not necessarily big performers

2011-04-13T17:23:00.000-07:00

Jemstep has posted a couple of articles where it ranks mutual funds in certain categories to see how the big boys stack up, including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. The result? Well, the title to this post says it all. For more details, and to view the top ranked mutual funds in certain categories, you should read these posts:

Jem5 US Large Cap Funds vs Goldman Sachs
Jem5 US Large Cap Funds vs JP Morgan

The power of diversification

2011-03-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

My colleague Simon Roy performed some detailed analysis on the impact of diversification during the so called "lost decade" of investment: 2000 to 2010. Turns out that by implementing even some basic diversification across your portfolio, you could have significantly outperformed the S&P500 (with less risk) and shown a decent return over what is generally perceived to be a very sad period insofar as investment performance is concerned.

He recently posted a blog on this subject which is well worth checking out: Investing from 2000 to 2010: The "lost decade"? Perhaps not!