Can You Spot the Closet-Indexer? Introducing Visual Active Share
Readers, We're working on some internal tools to help investors make more informed decisions. The primary challenge that investors face is understanding what they are [...]
Leveraging Persuasion Science to Nudge Investors in a Better Direction
Making choices can be difficult, but possible alternatives can be arranged in a way that facilitates effective decision-making. This is the idea behind “choice architecture,” [...]
Digging Deeper into Adaptive Asset Allocation
In some ways, investing is simple. After all, we all want the same things. High returns. Low volatility. Small max drawdowns. Unfortunately, it's very difficult--if [...]
Invert, always invert: Will Stocks Diversify Bond Investments in the Future?
My last post, "Will bonds deliver crisis alpha in the next crisis?," created quite a stir on the blogosphere. The underlying assumption of the analysis is [...]
Fascinating insights from ETF industry veteran Eric Balchunas
In the world of ETFs, while there are many people who claim a deep understanding of ETFs, there are few who actually possess it. Eric [...]
Want to Know the Secret to Inefficient Prices? Lazy Prices.
How do you handle repetitive tasks? If you're like most people, you work through a task in a variety of ways, find the most efficient approach, [...]
Will Bonds Deliver Crisis Alpha in the Next Crisis?
Bonds are often viewed as being great diversifiers due to the perception that they perform well during tough times for stocks. Historically this has been a [...]
Book Review — Family, Inc.: Using Business Principles to Maximize Your Family’s Wealth
For many people, navigating the road to long-term family wealth creation can be a challenging process. This is because families, especially young ones, may be [...]
Bubble Investing: Learning from History
We just wrote a piece for Forbes on financial bubbles in the lab. Punchline: investors initially underreact to fundamentals, then they overreact, and eventually prices correct. [...]
DIY ASSET ALLOCATION WEIGHTS: June 2016
Do-It-Yourself tactical asset allocation weights are posted. Create a free account here if you want to access the site directly. Sign in here if you already have a [...]
Want to spot a true Value Investor? Look for horrible recent performance
Harry Houdini is perhaps the best-known magician of all time, gaining notoriety in the early 20th century through his daring escape acts. Houdini escaped from straight [...]
BARRACKS CASH: A Military Guide to Better Saving and Spending
Foreword: Mark Cowett is an interesting character. He is a University of Chicago undergraduate with a BA in History as well as an MBA from [...]
Congratulations to our new CFA® Charter Holder — Tao Wang!
As many of our readers know, a CFA® designation represents a lot of blood, sweat, and tears expended on understanding the nuance of finance at [...]
An Epic Historical Performance Streak: Domestic 60/40
US-centric 60/40 portfolios have knocked it out of the park since 2010. Nearly a 10 percent compound annual growth rate, less than a 7 percent worst [...]
Book Review — Entrepreneurs in the Midst: Stories from Founders, Creators, and Builders
When considering the prospects for an early-stage business, it’s hard to know the right ingredients for success. You might assess the firm's business model, and [...]
Behavioral Finance Strikes Again: Contrast Effects in Financial Markets
At this point, even hard core efficient market fans will likely admit that behavior can influence investment decisions. Humans aren't robots. However, just because some investors exhibit bad behavior [...]
A Stunning New Finding: Return Seasonalities are Everywhere
We've discussed return seasonalities in the past, especially as they pertain to our approach to momentum. Turns out seasonality effects aren't confined to momentum -- they [...]
Not so Simple: Valuations and Low Volatility Strategies
Low volatility funds are everywhere. The reasons for their proliferation are clear: Who wouldn't want to own something with the label "low volatility" andRecent performance [...]
Replicating Private Equity Returns with Small Value Stocks…3min video
We discussed private equity replication with public equities here and here. Erik Stafford just won the "honorable mention" award from AQR for his work on [...]
How Portfolio Construction Affects Value Funds
Value investing is an investment philosophy that has been extensively discussed and examined at least since the days of Ben Graham, who popularized it as [...]