A couple weeks ago I had the chance to listen to hedge fund manager Jeff Gramm give a speech about his book Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder Activism. It’s one of the most original investment books I’ve read in some time. Gramm details the history of shareholder activism using case studies of some…

The hedge fund industry has had no shortage of bad press in the past few years. High fees, high profile flameouts and generally awful returns have been none to kind to the once masters of the finance universe. This past month has given hedge funds yet another black-eye as well-known and highly respected Visium Asset Management…

A number of years ago, a staffer at the Pentagon prepared the following document:   This memo was sent to President Bush in April of 2001, a mere six months before 9/11. Trying to figure out what the future holds in terms of geopolitical events is a fool’s errand. No one knows what’s going to…

My first boss in this business was not only an intelligent investor but also a great businessman. I learned a lot from him about investing but also about running a business in general. All of the firm’s client were acquired through word of mouth and client referrals. There were no sales or marketing teams. And…

1. I believe simple beats complex, but simple is much harder to implement because complex will always sound more intelligent and feel more comfortable to buy into. 2. I believe investors spend far too much time worrying about their buy or sell decisions when patiently holding onto an investment is probably the most important aspect…

It may not feel like it for certain parts of the population, but the U.S. employment picture has continued to get stronger over the past few years. Job growth has averaged 150,000-250,000 jobs a month for the past 5 years or so. 2015 saw one of the best years for job growth since 1999. According to the…

Beginning in the summer of 1997 a number of southeast Asian countries experienced a financial crisis that would wreak havoc on their currencies and the broader emerging markets in general. Countries like Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea all experienced a severe depreciation in their currencies. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index proceeded to get chopped in half over…

“Investors are neither rational or irrational. They’re human.” – Jason Zweig Jason Zweig talked with Russ Roberts on the EconTalk podcast this week. I never realized that Zweig helped Daniel Kahneman write one of the best books ever published on behavioral psychology — Thinking, Fast and Slow. Zweig spent two years working with Kahneman on the process and…

Markets got off to a terrible start to the year. Small caps, emerging markets and international stocks were all in bear market territory. Here’s what happened next: Investors have spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about pretty much everything — real estate, oil prices (being too high or too low), interest rates, economic growth,…

As I continue my search for a new home in the real estate market I can’t help but think about how different my home-buying experience is from what it was like for my parents or others in previous generations. First of all the home search process is completely different. Everything is online these days and you…