Investing Doing Good While (Hopefully) Doing Well Posted on January 17, 2018January 16, 2018 By Matt Each year, BlackRock’s Chairman and CEO, Larry Fink, writes a letter to CEOs of “leading companies” in which BlackRock’s clients are shareholders. Last year’s letter encouraged long-term thinking in the context of a world that is increasingly focused on short-term volatility. This year’s letter strikes a similar tone, but goes… Read more
Investing ‘Bron, ‘Bama, and the January Effect Posted on January 9, 2018 By Matt The NBA may as well cancel the rest of the season. Why? Alabama won the college football championship, of course! This means LeBron James is sure to win a title of his own: This reminds me of the January effect in the markets. The thinking is that if January… Read more
Investing Tone Deaf on ETFs Posted on October 23, 2017 By Matt A couple of major announcements in the Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) world last week: State Street announced that they slashed the expense ratios on a ton of their ETFs and TD Ameritrade added a ton of ETFs to their ‘no-commission’ platform. At first glance, this is great news. Cheaper beta… Read more
Due Diligence Wrongness and a Strange Animal Posted on August 25, 2017 By Matt Investing is such a strange animal. You can be wrong and still make money. You can be right and still lose money. I have been wrong on high yield bonds for the last couple of years. I didn’t like the energy component of the space. Oil prices were falling due… Read more
Due Diligence No, the Secret Sauce Posted on August 15, 2017 By Matt “I thought you guys had some sort of insider’s edge and that’s how you get returns for your clients’ investments…?” My friend was grilling up burgers and dogs for his kid’s birthday party while picking my brain about investing. He was surprised to find out how vanilla our investment philosophy… Read more
Chasing Risk Posted on August 4, 2017 By Matt I read the Howard Marks memo last weekend and you should, too, if you haven’t already. The memo got me to revisit some of my investing viewpoints. It’s easy to listen to the same investment philosophy on repeat. My fear is that one day I’ll look up and find… Read more
Investing As Seen on TV Asset Allocation Posted on July 14, 2017July 14, 2017 By Matt I want to saw a boat in half, then tape it back together and take it out on the water. I didn’t know I wanted to do this until I saw a commercial that runs during Cleveland Indians games. The spokesperson could be the dad on any sitcom, straight out… Read more
Due Diligence Outsourcing to an Absentee Investment Committee Posted on June 13, 2017 By Matt They say there’s no such thing as a stupid question. They are wrong. Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers. The Let Me Google That For You website is the perfect passive-aggressive answer to many stupid questions. Rather than simply answering the question, LMGTFY provides a link that walks through the… Read more
Investing This Weekend’s Fiduciary Test Posted on June 12, 2017 By Matt The first phase of the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule went into effect on Friday. This is the rule that mandates that your financial advisor must act in your best interest. The whole thing doesn’t go live until 2018, but it will be interesting to see who makes what kinds… Read more
Investing Two Numbers You Need to Know Posted on May 30, 2017 By Matt How much is your electric bill? What about media (cable, Netflix, etc)? Or your phone bill? You probably have at least a general idea, and if you had to know the exact number, you could find it relatively easily. The two numbers you need to know in investing are how… Read more