The Irrelevant Investor
JANUARY 31, 2017
"Every stock market system with an edge is necessarily limited in the amount of money it can use and still produce extra returns." - Ed Thorp In the decade after Ed thorp launched Princeton Newport Partners, the fund gained 409%, annualizing at 17.7% before fees and 14.1% after. Not bad for a market neutral portfolio. Over the same period, the S&P 500 annualized at just 4.6%, including dividends.
Brown Advisory
JANUARY 26, 2017
Full Faith in Credit achen Thu, 01/26/2017 - 10:33 As investors continue to seek yield opportunities while facing historically low interest rates, municipals have been a beneficiary of inflows and seen a proliferation of issuers. In many instances, however, this backdrop of increased issuance has belied decreased transparency–particularly in general obligation (GO) issues.
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Brown Advisory
JANUARY 26, 2017
Full Faith in Credit. achen. Thu, 01/26/2017 - 10:33. As investors continue to seek yield opportunities while facing historically low interest rates, municipals have been a beneficiary of inflows and seen a proliferation of issuers. In many instances, however, this backdrop of increased issuance has belied decreased transparency–particularly in general obligation (GO) issues.
The Irrelevant Investor
JANUARY 24, 2017
Robert Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Pe rsuasion, has removed any lingering doubt I had that we are reasonable creatures. Cialdini shares so many examples of experiments that at times I literally stood up in disbelief. Here's a good one: More compelling evidence for the importance of similarity in determining whether we will imitate another's behavior comes from scientific research.
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The Irrelevant Investor
JANUARY 22, 2017
What started as an experiment has proved to be an unequivocal success. Twenty-four years ago today, SPY was listed on the American Stock Exchange. Today, there are more than 6,000 ETFs/ETNs, which give investors the ability to trade baskets of stocks all day, unlike traditional mutual funds. ETFs now hold $3 trillion in assets, with SPY at the top of the heap, at $220 billion.
The Irrelevant Investor
JANUARY 19, 2017
Eric Balchunas shares smart-beta flows since the election. [link] Not surprisingly, this lines up pretty well with how these different risk factors have performed over this time. ETFs have given investors the perfect vehicle with which to chase performance. These billions of dollars are being driven by professional investors, I'd guess individual brokerage accounts are responsible for less than 10% of these flows.
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The Irrelevant Investor
JANUARY 18, 2017
Anyone can solve the equation 6+6+6+6. But ask somebody to calculate 6x6x6x6 without a machine and they're going to look at you cross-eyed. The human brain was designed for linear, not exponential processing. The other day I joked about the Dow reaching 2,000,000 by the year 2099, a one hundred fold gain from today's prices. I was only kidding, but Morgan Housel told me for that to occur, the Dow would need to compound at 5.7% for the next 83 years.
The Irrelevant Investor
JANUARY 3, 2017
Amazon is the sixth largest company in the S&P 500 by market cap. Incredibly, they wear this crown despite having earned less than 121 different companies over the previous twelve months. It's no secret that Amazon is an expensive stock. Even if Bezos were to capture 100% of the total retail revenue, its price-to-earnings ratio would still be 63!
The Irrelevant Investor
JANUARY 17, 2017
Last week, Morningstar published their Asset Flows Commentary for 2016. As you can see in the chart below, active funds have had more outflows in each of the last two years than they did in 2008. Below, I pulled some of the notable numbers (emphasis mine). Among U.S. equity funds, passively managed funds–led by Vanguard’s offerings–took in $50.8 billion during December, which topped the previous monthly record of $41.9 billion set in November.
The Irrelevant Investor
JANUARY 16, 2017
“Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind; and, by impelling us to seek remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and the ignorance of the future” - Charles Mackay People spend a lot of time thinking about the future, it's part of what makes us human. The problem is we're not very good at dealing with uncertainty.
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