Mergers and Acquisitions in 2024: Headwinds to Tailwinds?
Global mergers and acquisitions plunged to a decade low last year, with $2.9 trillion in deal value announced, down 17% from 2022. Dealmakers mostly stayed on the sidelines as they…
Mike Tang, CFA, CPA, on Spin-Off Listings in Hong Kong SAR
Capital markets in Hong Kong SAR are buzzing with activity in 2024. Mainland China’s largest freshly made bubble tea chain, Mixue Bingcheng, applied for an initial public offering (IPO) on…
Book Review: The Four Pillars of Investing, Second Edition
The Four Pillars of Investing, Second Edition: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio. 2023. William J. Bernstein. McGraw Hill Professional. In The Four Pillars of Investing, Second Edition: Lessons for…
Plan Sponsor Priorities for 2024: A Seven-Item Checklist
Defined contribution (DC) plans are among the most common ways for US workers to save for retirement. US DC plan programs totaled $9.6 trillion in assets as of the third…
It’s Not Always the Economy: Five Questions to Gauge Financial Markets
Last year was humbling for economists and investment strategists alike. It began with an “imminent” recession and ended with equity markets near all-time highs. Historic rate hikes fueled a compelling…
Steve Blank Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition – 2023 Wrap Up
We just wrapped up the third year of our Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition class –part of Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Joe Felter, Mike Brown…
ESG Investing and the Popularity Asset Pricing Model (PAPM)
Thomas M. Idzorek, CFA, is the author of “Personalized Multiple Account Portfolio Optimization,” for the Financial Analysts Journal, and co-author of Popularity: A Bridge between Classical and Behavioral Finance, from…
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,…
