July, 2018

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Making a Market

The Irrelevant Investor

One of the concerns that people have expressed over the rise of index investing is that it will prevent true price discovery, if it isn't doing so already. With fewer and fewer people doing fundamental research and more people only acting as price takers, at what point do prices truly separate from the economic realities of the business? This is the visual that really gets these fear juices flowing.

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Toll Collection

Brown Advisory

Toll Collection ajackson Tue, 07/31/2018 - 08:00 The Flexible Equity Strategy’s Maneesh Bajaj discusses the power of “tollbooth” business models and how they fit into the strategy’s overall philosophy of seeking out durable companies with attractive economics. This approach to finding companies with staying power has helped Flexible Equity outperform notably over its 30-year history and during the recent period as Maneesh has partnered with Hutch Vernon in managing the strategy.

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When Your FICO Score Is NOT The Best To Track

Wealth Pilgrim

Most people concerned about their credit score only focus on their FICO number. As a result many throw away good money when they sign up for products and services the company sells. Don’t get me wrong – the company that sells the FICO score (Fair Isaac) is honest and fair as far as I know. […]. The post When Your FICO Score Is NOT The Best To Track appeared first on Wealth Pilgrim.

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Toll Collection

Brown Advisory

Toll Collection. ajackson. Tue, 07/31/2018 - 08:00. The Flexible Equity Strategy’s Maneesh Bajaj discusses the power of “tollbooth” business models and how they fit into the strategy’s overall philosophy of seeking out durable companies with attractive economics. This approach to finding companies with staying power has helped Flexible Equity outperform notably over its 30-year history and during the recent period as Maneesh has partnered with Hutch Vernon in managing the strategy.

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Less Stress, More Success: Accounting Best Practices & Processes for 2025

Speaker: Amanda Adams, Fractional CFO, CPA

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Amanda Adams, a seasoned fractional CFO and CPA passionate about transforming back-office operations for finance teams. This session will cover critical best practices and process improvements tailored specifically for accounting professionals.

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Contrarian Indicators

The Irrelevant Investor

March 15, 2013. CNBC ran an article with the headline Mila Kunis rotates from cash to stocks. In it, the author wrote, "Her words sparked a lively response on Twitter. Financial Acrobat, a trader, consultant and tweeter of financial news, warned that it could be a contrarian signal. 'When people like @FoxonStocks and @RealMilaKunis start talking stocks, we are normally at the very end of a bull market.

More Trending

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No, No, No

The Irrelevant Investor

No, the S&P 500 is not a momentum fund. When Netflix was added to the S&P 500 in December 2010, at $10 billion, it represented 0.08% of the index. Today, 1200% later, Netflix has grown to 0.65% of the index and is now the 33rd largest component, behind Pepsi and Disney. With this example and others like it, some people have come to the conclusion that the S&P 500 is really just one giant momentum fund.

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The Financial Cost of Food Waste

Brown Advisory

The Financial Cost of Food Waste ajackson Fri, 07/27/2018 - 09:00 We all remember being told to clean our plates when we were kids. Unfortunately, that advice hasn’t stopped food waste from becoming a massive problem in the U.S. At Brown Advisory’s recent “Boston Innovates” event on sustainable food systems, we convened a panel of experts and leaders who are working towards food waste solutions.

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The Financial Cost of Food Waste

Brown Advisory

The Financial Cost of Food Waste. ajackson. Fri, 07/27/2018 - 09:00. We all remember being told to clean our plates when we were kids. Unfortunately, that advice hasn’t stopped food waste from becoming a massive problem in the U.S. At Brown Advisory’s recent “Boston Innovates” event on sustainable food systems, we convened a panel of experts and leaders who are working towards food waste solutions.

Food 52
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What Do Ratios Tell You?

The Irrelevant Investor

General Motors has done $140 billion in revenue over the last 12 months. Its market capitalization is $53 billion. Based off its price-to-sales ratio (0.37), it's the 9th cheapest stock in the S&P 500. These are facts, but of course there's a lot more to the story. When GM reported earnings today, management reduced its 2018 earnings-per-share forecast to $6, down from an expected range of between $6.30 and $6.60.

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Avoiding Lease Accounting Pitfalls in 2025: Lessons Learned from Spreadsheet Errors

Speaker: Abdi Ali, Sr. Lease Accounting Consultant

Join this insightful webinar with industry expert Abdi Ali, who will discuss the challenges that can arise from managing lease accounting with spreadsheets! He will share real-world examples of errors, compliance issues, and risks that may be present within your spreadsheets. Learn how these tools, while useful, can sometimes lead to inefficiencies that affect your time, resources, and peace of mind.

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They All Fall Down

The Irrelevant Investor

Yesterday Facebook had a market capitalization of $602 billion. Today it's $500 billion. A 20% decline in one day hurts, a lot, but this is type of move happens from time to time in the strongest stocks. Even after today, Facebook is still up 500% over the last five years. One common theme amongst the best stocks is that they all fall down. To illustrate this point, let's look at what sort of experience a Disney shareholder has had over the last few decades. $1 invested in Disney in 1970 is now

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Animal Spirits: The Worst 401(k) Advice

The Irrelevant Investor

On this weeks Animal Spirits, we discussed: The Pareto Principle Ben's take on concentration in the stock market The worst 401(k) take ever. History of the 401(k) Fidelity's retirement data Liquid alternatives The Vanguard of hedge funds? The value winter Survey of the week Housing regrets 4-day workweek America is running out of caregivers Can hindsight bias be inherited Should new all-time highs be sold?

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Thinking Big and Survivorship Bias

The Irrelevant Investor

Larry Page once built a programmable ink-jet printer out of Legos. Sergey Brin was described as a nerdier Steve Jobs. ( Playboy interview ) These guys aren't faking it. Page and Brin met as graduate students at Stanford, where they created an algorithm called PageRank, which would form the basis of Google as we know it today. The search-engine giant became the fastest company ever to reach $1 billion in revenue.

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Strong Defense: The Falling Opportunity Cost of Allocating to Bonds

Brown Advisory

Strong Defense: The Falling Opportunity Cost of Allocating to Bonds ajackson Tue, 07/24/2018 - 09:25 For years, “defense” in portfolios—i.e., allocations to cash and core fixed income holdings—has meant a willingness to accept extremely low returns. But after many years of economic recovery, we finally have reached a point where defensive allocations once again provide a reasonable yield.

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Back to Basics with Reconciliations

Join us in this webinar, where we share best practices on how to think about the reconciliation work each month, when best to do reconciliations, how they should be prepared, and some common pitfalls to avoid. Learning Objectives: This course objective is to understand how to properly prepare and review balance sheet reconciliations and its impact on the financial statements.

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Strong Defense: The Falling Opportunity Cost of Allocating to Bonds

Brown Advisory

Strong Defense: The Falling Opportunity Cost of Allocating to Bonds. ajackson. Tue, 07/24/2018 - 09:25. For years, “defense” in portfolios—i.e., allocations to cash and core fixed income holdings—has meant a willingness to accept extremely low returns. But after many years of economic recovery, we finally have reached a point where defensive allocations once again provide a reasonable yield.

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Pick One Stock

The Irrelevant Investor

I recently spoke with Michael Samuels about my book and investing in general. Michael is the portfolio manager of Broome Street Capital, a fund that specializes in m&a and event-driven trading. I've done half a dozen podcasts at this point about the book, and this was easily my favorite discussion. Michael is in the business, so it wasn't just a question followed by an answer, but rather a discussion, which I really enjoyed.

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These Are the Goods

The Irrelevant Investor

Articles The key to changing your worldview on time is knowing when to trade it for money. By Nick Maggiulli The inversion would likely be a premature “sell equities” signal By Tim Duy China uses control over electronic communication in vastly draconian cyber dystopia ways compared to the wide range of opinions that are allowed online in the rest of the world.

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Pareto

The Irrelevant Investor

I tweeted this chart earlier. This chart shows that the five largest S&P 500 stocks have a market capitalization equal to the bottom 282 S&P 500 stocks. This turned out to be something of a Rorschach test, which was not my intention. I just thought it was a powerful visual. I wasn't really trying to make a point, certainly not the point that many thought I was going for.

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2024 Lending Outlook: Innovations and Evolutions in the Financial Sector

As we step into 2024, the lending landscape evolves rapidly with technology, regulations, and market dynamics driving change. For banks and financial institutions to stay competitive and meet the evolving needs of their customers, these drivers must be understood and engaged with. Lenders can anticipate significant transformation fueled by technological advancements, regulatory shifts, and changing consumer behaviors.

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The Flattening

The Irrelevant Investor

There's been a ton of talk lately about the flattening yield curve. I don't really have anything insightful to add to the conversation, but I do want to share some of the best charts I've seen on the topic. First, why is the curve inverting, via Tim Duy. Last week the interest rate spread between ten- and two-year Treasuries narrowed to a cycle low of 25 basis points.

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Animal Spirits: Half the Population

The Irrelevant Investor

On this week's Animal Spirits, we discuss: Gundlach says we're getting closer to a recession People are watching the yield curve blip by blip Inflation could actually be okay for bond owners Survey of the week 7 countries hold half the world's population In 20 years, half the population will be in 8 states Amazon is a value stock. No, really Tons of great charts Houses are getting bigger Is Time Warner going to ruin HBO?

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529 Plans And The New Tax Code

Brown Advisory

529 Plans And The New Tax Code ajackson Tue, 07/17/2018 - 11:30 You Can Now Use 529s for K-12 Costs—But Should You? The cost of college is growing at an astronomical rate, and Section 529 plans have long helped individuals and families grow assets earmarked for education in a tax-efficient manner. The 2018 tax overhaul expanded the reach of 529 plans beyond college.

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529 Plans And The New Tax Code

Brown Advisory

529 Plans And The New Tax Code. ajackson. Tue, 07/17/2018 - 11:30. You Can Now Use 529s for K-12 Costs—But Should You? The cost of college is growing at an astronomical rate, and Section 529 plans have long helped individuals and families grow assets earmarked for education in a tax-efficient manner. The 2018 tax overhaul expanded the reach of 529 plans beyond college.

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Banking on Loyalty: Holistic Financial Advice for Unparalleled Business Growth

Speaker: Joe Buhrmann, MBA, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC® Senior Financial Planning Practice Management Consultant eMoney Advisor

During an era of evolving consumer preferences, the banking sector is undergoing a profound shift. As customers continue to broaden their perspectives, banking professionals must support their customers' financial wellness by providing holistic financial advice that aligns with individual goals and circumstances. Without adapting, financial institutions will find that loyalty may crumble amid uncertainty.

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Pay Your Dues

The Irrelevant Investor

A reader asks: What aptitudes and/or mentality would a given individual need to have for you to hire them with no college education? From the way it has been spoken about to me from people in the finance industry, it seems as if they view it as nothing more than period of time you just have to pay your dues at before getting a job. I’m interested to know what your perspective on college is.

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These Are the Goods

The Irrelevant Investor

Articles Reading is incredibly important, but it won’t give you a big advantage over others. It will just allow you to keep up. By Andrew Thrasher There is nothing “normal” about the distribution of investment returns and nothing straightforward about arriving at a specific return number By Charlie Bilello CEO Reed Hastings has promised negative free cash flow will persist for “many years.

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The Bottom and The Top

The Irrelevant Investor

Aaron Brown of AQR gave a presentation in 2013 for the New York Society of Security Analysts. He said some things that are counterintuitive and controversial like "the more you pay for stocks, the safer they are" and "credit spreads are safe when they’re low and risky when they’re high." It's understandable to question these statements, especially given that the data he backed this up with only looked out ten days, but there is far more truth in these ideas than people are comfortable with.

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Animal Spirits: Ring the Bell

The Irrelevant Investor

On this week's Animal Spirits we discuss: This supply chain is an operation of great breadth, scope, and complexity 800 people are getting their jobs back Student loan debt is _ IPO market is blistering hot JP Morgan's guide is always great Don't sleep on esports Siphoning annuity units to buy a sports team? Listen below Charts mentioned Recommendations Waco: A Survivor's Story Hue 1968 The three-fund portfolio The post Animal Spirits: Ring the Bell appeared first on The Irrelevant Investor.

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Navigating Financial Storms: Strategies for Building Resilient Balance Sheets

Speaker: Carolina Aponte - Owner and CEO, Caja Holdings LLC

In today's rapidly changing business environment, building a resilient balance sheet is crucial to the survival of any business. A resilient balance sheet allows a company to withstand financial shocks and adapt to changing market conditions. To achieve this, companies need to focus on key strategies such as maintaining adequate liquidity, managing debt levels, diversifying revenue streams, and prioritizing profitability over growth.

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57 Points

The Irrelevant Investor

Tariffs. Trade wars. Over valued stocks. Late in the cycle. Rising interest rates. A flattening yield curve. Complacent investors. And yet here we are. The Dow is up 57 points this year. It's easy to imagine a scenario where any combination of the above would cause stocks to fall 20% or more. It's hard to come up with a list of reasons why it will do the opposite.

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Simple Momentum

The Irrelevant Investor

Urban Carmel recently wrote "For all the time spent worrying about bear market risks, the overwhelming majority of short term traders and professional fund managers haven’t found a way to avoid it." Today I want to talk about a systematic way to tune out the cacophony of people that proclaim to see the future before it unfolds. In Dissecting Anomalies, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French wrote "There are patterns in average stock returns that are considered anomalies because they are not explained b

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Take ESG Ratings With A Grain Of Salt

Brown Advisory

Take ESG Ratings With A Grain Of Salt jsayo Mon, 07/09/2018 - 10:05 For good investors, a third-party rating system—for example, credit ratings from Moody’s or Fitch, or mutual fund star ratings—is usually just a first step in an investment decision-making process that involves a lot of other research and analysis. Yet when it comes to environmental, social and governance (ESG) research, a growing number of investors are keen to adopt a third-party rating system as the beginning and end of their

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