January, 2017

article thumbnail

Firearms Versus Bow and Arrows

The Irrelevant Investor

"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.

Assets 52
article thumbnail

Full Faith in Credit

Brown Advisory

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.

Clients 52
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Full Faith in Credit

Brown Advisory

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.

Clients 52
article thumbnail

Influence, Temptation, And Persuasion

The Irrelevant Investor

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.

article thumbnail

Are Robots Replacing You? Keeping Humans in the Loop in Automated Environments

Speaker: Erroll Amacker

As businesses increasingly adopt automation, finance leaders must navigate the delicate balance between technology and human expertise. This webinar explores the critical role of human oversight in accounts payable (AP) automation and how a people-centric approach can drive better financial performance. Join us for an insightful discussion on how integrating human expertise into automated workflows enhances decision-making, reduces fraud risks, strengthens vendor relationships, and accelerates R

article thumbnail

SPY, 24 Years Later

The Irrelevant Investor

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.

article thumbnail

Chasers Gonna Chase

The Irrelevant Investor

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.

More Trending

article thumbnail

The Most Powerful Force In The Universe

The Irrelevant Investor

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.

Numbers 52
article thumbnail

The Final Results Are In

The Irrelevant Investor

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.

Assets 52
article thumbnail

The Ignorance of The Future

The Irrelevant Investor

“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.

article thumbnail

Looking For The Next Amazon

The Irrelevant Investor

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!

article thumbnail

Book of Secrets on the Month-End Close

Based off SkyStem's popular e-Book, the book of secrets to the month-end close will be revealed in this one-hour webinar. Learn leading practices when it comes to building a strong and sustainable month-end close that has room to grow and evolve. Learn about the power of precise estimates, why reconciliations are critical to closing the books, how and when to automate, and how the chart of accounts play into your close process.