{"podcast":{"title":"Sound Investing","slug":"sound-investing-342834","podcast_index_feed_id":342834,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/10bb8090/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://paulmerriman.com","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/production/podcast_uploaded_nologo/2707236/2707236-1620226683552-09d701c1e44b2.jpg","author":"Paul Merriman","episode_count":557,"summary":"Weekly podcasts with Paul Merriman. Strategic planning for investing at every stage of life.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-30T06:21:30.518216+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sound-investing-342834"},"episode":{"title":"Back from the Baltic and 12 of your questions","slug":"back-from-the-baltic-and-12-of-your-questions","published_at":"2026-07-08T17:11:23+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sound-investing-342834/back-from-the-baltic-and-12-of-your-questions","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sound-investing-342834","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sound-investing/episodes/Back-from-the-Baltic-and-12-of-your-questions-e3lqtjp","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/10bb8090/podcast/play/122565689/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-6-8%2F64efac20-f079-142e-1563-4de81faacddd.mp3","summary":"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 fine-tuning table 21:46 5. Why the Four Fund worldwide portfolio uses U.S. small cap value only 31:17 6. Should geopolitical tension make you cash out? 33:57 7. Why has small cap value historically produced higher returns? 36:47 8. Can you get rich from investing? The Rule of 72 and $100 a month 41:51 9. Is the all-value worldwide portfolio better than the other strategies? (Table H2) 44:03 10. Where to find the 10 Fund portfolio allocations 48:39 11. Paul’s take on DFA’s micro cap fund (DFMC) 49:16 12. Lump sum or dollar cost average when switching funds in a Roth? 51:57 LINKS • Table H2 — Sound Inves…","meta_description":"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 por…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3340,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/sound-investing-342834/episodes/back-from-the-baltic-and-12-of-your-questions/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sound-investing-342834/back-from-the-baltic-and-12-of-your-questions.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}