A few random observations on the investment process: 1. Good investment advice will always sound the best and make the most sense when looking back at the past or planning ahead for the future. It will rarely sound so great in the moment when you actually have to use it. 2. Depending on which side…

Nicholas Colas of Convergex had a piece out last week on the state of the liquid alt fund universe. For those that aren’t familiar with liquid alts, here’s a nice summary from Colas:

A few weeks ago I pointed out the fact that Vanguard’s stock funds have had an enviable run of outperformance in relation to their benchmarks. I feel that the active fund industry can learn a lot from Vanguard’s process. In last weekend’s Barron’s there was a table that showed that 3 out of the top…

In their book, Quantitative Value, authors Tobias Carlisle and Wes Gray discuss the importance of creating an investment process that systematically reduces irrational behavior. Intelligent people are constantly looking for ways to minimize their own weaknesses. Automating good decisions is one of the best ways to pull this off. There was one example in the book…

Following my last post on the historical performance of long-term treasuries, a few people asked me if I was implying that bonds have no place in a portfolio at these interest rate levels. That was definitely not my intention. Even at ultra-low interest rates around the globe, bonds deserve a place in a portfolio for…

Long-term treasuries continue to be one of the most fascinating areas of the markets to me right now. After a blowout 2014 when long bonds were up nearly 30%, they’re up another 3% in the first week of the new year as interest rates continue to drop. It’s almost like long maturity bonds have become…

I received a great deal of feedback on my post from a few weeks ago about passive inflows and where I think active managers have a place in the fund world of the future (see Putting Passive Inflows Into Perspective).

I’m no good at predicting what’s going to happen over any one year period, so I’m going to try something different for my 2015 outlook. These are my hopes for 2015. I don’t know if they will happen, but I hope so.

Jennifer Ablan of Reuters has been all over the interesting happenings in the fight for bond manager supremacy between Bill Gross and Jeffrey Gundlach. She recently interviewed DoubleLine’s Gundlach and posed an important question about the size of the firm. Specifically, now that DoubleLine manages over $60 billion, Ablan asked him about future growth plans for…

“Investment wisdom begins with the realization that long-term returns are the only ones that matter.” – William Bernstein Now that 2014 is in the books, I’m starting to see the usual flood of annual performance reviews to show what worked and what didn’t. I’ll save you some time – U.S. large cap stocks and long-term…