Mark Andreessen laid out some interesting theories on Twitter earlier this week about market cycles: Traders like to say that the market has no memory from day to day. But when stocks are only up roughly 53% of all trading days, any single market session is going to be very noisy. What really matters are longer-term…

“Hundreds of studies have shown that wherever we have sufficient information to build a model, it will perform better than most people.” – Daniel Kahneman Ray Dalio and Bill Ackman are arguably two of the greatest hedge fund managers in the business today. Last week they shared the stage at an investment conference to discuss…

A reader asks: Now that factor funds keep getting launched, do you think that will ultimately spell doom for any potential future out-performance? This is a great question. Investing in factors, tilts, anomalies or whatever you want to call them is definitely becoming more mainstream because the academic research is now well-known. ETFs and mutual…

In a piece for Slate last week, Helaine Olen took the financial industry to task for their continued push to make financial literacy a priority. She pulled no punches:

“Investing is intolerably boring and over-exacting to anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll.” – John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes gets plenty of attention in the world of economics based on his macroeconomic theories, but many don’t realize that…

A few people have asked me over the past couple of weeks to share some of my favorite books outside of finance that are applicable to investing. The majority of these books are based on psychology because it plays such an important role in making better investment decisions. Here’s my list: Mindless Eating: Why We…

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…

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…