Investing Active Versus Passive in a Down Market Posted on October 23, 2016October 21, 2016 By Matt The Wall Street Journal has been publishing articles about passive investing recently. Many of these articles look like they are pro-passive, but are written by active management shops looking to damn passive with faint praise. My last post addressed the ‘settle for average returns’ fallacy. The second argument I often… Read more
Investing Why Settle for Average? Posted on October 21, 2016 By Matt With the recent flood of Wall Street Journal articles about passive investing, now is a good time to review the space. Money is pouring into firms like Vanguard and iShares, the leaders in the indexing revolution. Investors are seeing that despite perennial declarations of a “stock-picker’s market”, active managers consistently… Read more
Fairway Harvard’s Endowment Posted on October 5, 2016October 5, 2016 By Matt Fairway’s third quarter commentary has been published. Keeping up with the Joneses has distracted Harvard’s endowment from its true mission. Here is some background on what happened: First, the actual endowment report. Harvard lost 2% over the last year, driven into the ground by what I call conspicuous sophistication. The… Read more
Investing The Bull and the Swan Posted on September 8, 2016 By Matt Preparing for the swan, it’s possible to miss out on the bull. In my monthly commentary for Fairway, I asked “What does a 20% gain feel like?” Spoiler alert: it feels like right now. The S&P 500 is up about 20% since the bottom in February. However, no sales people… Read more
Opinion I Want to Know Where the Gold At Posted on March 17, 2016 By Matt Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! It seems like reporters go out of their way to find the craziest people to put on camera for a story. It certainly seems to be the case in the financial entertainment community where you can find perma-bear hucksters given the same regard as respected economists… Read more
Due Diligence January Effect Posted on January 8, 2016 By Matt By now, you’ve heard that the US stock market is off to the worst start to a calendar year ever. This is the sort of news that is trumpeted far and wide as humans are wired to value and pass along bad news (and to elevate the status of those… Read more
Investing 1.21 Gigawatts Posted on November 2, 2015 By Matt On October 21st, 1985, Marty McFly went back in time 30 years to escape Libyans, save Doc Brown’s life, and turn his dad from a weenie into a hero. He also wound up with a rad 4×4, but before he could take it for a spin, Doc Brown stopped by… Read more