Earlier this week I wrote about the attributes successful investors share but I forgot one — a deep understanding of financial market history. This history proves to be more of a guide to human psychology than a road map for beating the market. No two market environments are ever exactly the same but fear, greed,…

The mid-to-late 1990s in Major League Baseball saw a huge uptick in home runs as steroid use became rampant. Records were being shattered every year as everyone ignored how huge these guys were all getting during a time when there was basically no drug testing. The steroids era in baseball coincided with something of a…

I’ve spent a good chunk of my career looking at various funds, strategies, presentations, pitch books and sales pitches from money managers. While this experience has come from all sorts of different fund structures, asset classes and styles, there are many similarities between the narratives when you listen to enough of these pitches. Every firm, portfolio…

One of the market myths I covered in my book is that a higher yield makes something a safer or better investment. Income alone doesn’t tell the entire story. You have to look at total return and the risks involved with those higher yields. This piece I wrote for Bloomberg looks at the risks involved…

Bonds will provide an interesting case study in investor behavior in the years ahead. With interest rates at much lower levels than they have been in the recent past the same change in rates will now lead to much more volatility in bonds than it would have at the higher rates seen in the past….

A couple weeks ago when I wrote about my evolution on asset allocation I said that I’ve learned a lot on the topic from Wes Gray and Jack Vogel at Alpha Architect. I’m in the middle of handling a new set of twins, but last week I had a chance to chat with these two to discuss their…

Henry Ford started his famous assembly line in 1913 for mass production of the Model T. It’s estimated that this idea decreased the time it took to build a car by close to 80%. In order to keep the prices relatively low, Ford made every car the same so they could all be produced on…

I had a great conversation on Friday afternoon with Jeremy Schwartz on his Sirius XM show, Behind the Markets. Nir Kaissar was also on the show so we had a nice back and forth on institutional asset management. Jeremy asked me why the institutional investment industry tends to lean towards complexity when building portfolios or offering…

I get a lot of questions from investors, advisors, and institutions for my thoughts about alternative assets. I get it. Valuations in U.S. stocks are high. Interest rates are low. Investing globally can be a scary proposition for some. People have an aversion to volatility. The strategy I’m asked about more than any other is…

A few months ago I was asked to write for Bloomberg to help provide context and perspective around the financial markets. I’m really excited about the opportunity. I’ve been writing there roughly once a week since mid-January. I have to wait a few weeks after my pieces run on Bloomberg to re-publish here so occasionally…