Daniel Kahneman once said, “Hindsight makes surprises vanish.” The hindsight bias can lead investors to constantly fight the last war. Since the financial crisis the last war has made top calling in the markets a cottage industry. Looking back now the peak before the prior crash looks easy. It was not. Predicting when the music will…

Earlier this week I wrote about how holding can be one of the hardest aspects of investing. Anyone can buy or sell but holding takes discipline. I promised a follow-up to discuss how I handle this. To offer a potential solution I’m going to walk you through my evolution on how I’ve come to think…

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…

They say that sentiment tends to follow price which is why when markets rallied following the presidential election it was immediately called the Trump Rally. I took a look at this rally in late-February to dissect how things changed at that time. Many of these assets have since lost their gains or new leadership has…

There are all sorts of rules of thumb about saving for retirement. There’s the 4% withdrawal rule. Another rule states you need to have saved 20-25x the annual income you want to spend in retirement. Then there’s the one that says you’ll need to replace 80% of your current income from your portfolio in retirement….

I’m fascinated with financial market history because learning about prior cycles gives you a sense about how some things never change while others are in a constant state of flux. It’s both always and never different this time. This week I read a number of thought-provoking pieces that discussed market history in terms of where…

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…

I recently had the opportunity to have a great back and forth conversation with Morningstar’s Jeffrey Ptak on all things institutional asset management along with some thoughts and ideas from my new book. Jeff is a really sharp guy and asked me a series of in-depth questions after reading Organizational Alpha. Many of the questions…

I’m a huge proponent of index funds for a number of reasons that most people have heard ad nauseam: Low costs Low turnover Tax efficiency Easy to understand Transparency You’re basically guaranteed to beat the majority of other investors over the long-term Beating the market is extremely difficult There are plenty of people out there…

“If you don’t have the discipline to stick with your underlying strategy particularly when it’s not going in your favor, it’s nothing. It’s data on a page.” – Jim O’Shaughnessy Portfolio management can be broken down into two distinct camps — macro and micro. The macro deals with investment plans, asset allocation, risk management and philosophy…