“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal Last year, psychologists from the University of Virginia asked a number of subjects to sit in a room by themselves for a periods of 6 to 15 minutes at a time. They were asked to simply be…

Every week it seems like there’s a new story that captures everyone’s attention in the world of finance (the same thing happens with the regular news). People focus all of their attention on that one story or market and then quickly forget about it the next week when something new catches their eye.

“Every investor has an alarm clock that goes off around the same time every day. The secret is to know when and to adjust yours accordingly.” – Bill Gross

I recently got my hands on some longer-term market performance data over 15 and 20 year time frames through year-end 2014. I love digging into this kind of long-term data and there were some numbers that immediately stood out to me. Here are those numbers with annual returns over a wide variety of markets and…

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…