Bad Ideas: Why Active Equity Funds Invest in Them and Five Ways to Avoid Them
How many attractive stock ideas does Naomi, an institutional active equity fund manager, have at any one time? “Oh, I think between 10 and 20,” she told me. So, why…
Monte Carlo Simulations: Forecasting Folly?
Introduction The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SSE) was booming in early 2015, and as it soared, legions of new investors rushed in to try their luck at securities speculation.…
The Unspoken Conflict of Interest at the Heart of Investment Consulting
Mark J. Higgins, CFA, CFP, is the author of Investing in U.S. Financial History: Understanding the Past to Forecast the Future from Greenleaf Book Group Press. After World War II,…
A More Robust Macro Risk Targeting Strategy for Equities
Investors who want to target exposure to macroeconomic risks in their equity investments can enhance the robustness of those portfolios with a new strategy that delivers more consistent exposures to…
Decoupling Correlations: Global Markets since COVID-19
Correlations between world stock markets began to increase in the 1970s. This trend endured for nearly a half century as globalization took hold and defined much of the era. But that…
How to Build Better Low Volatility Equity Strategies
The Role of Low Volatility Strategies in Investment Portfolios Low volatility equity strategies appeal to investors for many reasons. First, they help keep our portfolios invested in equities during periods…
Climate Risk and the Future of US Commercial Real Estate
Introduction The imperatives of climate change demand enhanced risk management in the commercial real estate (CRE) loan market: Investors and lenders must refine their strategies and conduct meticulous property-level risk…
Steve Blank The Department of Defense Is Getting Its Innovation Act Together – But More Can Be Done
This post previously appeared in Defense News and C4SIR. Despite the clear and present danger of threats from China and elsewhere, there’s no agreement on what types of adversaries we’ll face;…
Can Investor Activism Boost Small-Cap Stock Performance?
Activist investor interventions with small, newly public companies can improve their stock performance, a Financial Analysts Journal study finds. In “Shareholder Activism in Small-Cap Newly Public Firms,” Emmanuel R. Pezier…
US Cannabis Investing: An Overview
The cannabis sector is slowly emerging from its long period of prohibition, and the investment opportunities are turning heads. Retail investors believe in the industry’s future and want to participate…
