Lance on Jul 28 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Equities, Economics, Great Investors, Housing Market, Risk, economy
I apologize ahead of time if this post is a bit intemperate.
Buried around a truism, the New York Times has produced a misleading and rather silly piece on the value of “predictions.”
The thrust of the piece is that predicting the markets and the economy, especially in the short term, is fraught with peril. True enough. [...]
Lance on Feb 20 2008 | Filed under: Absolute Return, Asset Allocation, Great Investors, Relative Return
The Financial Times writes of his feeling of vindication.
Jeremy never falls out of favor here, but then, we are a client.
Inevitably when he is early, as he generally is, people take it as a sign he is wrong, and note the returns he gives up when he frequently goes against the tide. However, the true [...]
Lance on Feb 18 2008 | Filed under: Great Investors
Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process.
-Benjamin Graham
Lance on Feb 17 2008 | Filed under: Great Investors
You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.
-Benjamin Graham
Lance on Feb 16 2008 | Filed under: Great Investors
“The four most dangerous words in investing are ‘This time it’s different.’”-Sir John Templeton
Made more dangerous by the fact that occasionally, in some respects, it is. On that thin reed much damage has been done to investors.
Lance on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Great Investors
Bottoms in the investment world don’t end with four-year lows; they end with 10- or 15-year lows.
-Jim Rogers
Lance on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Great Investors, Humor, Risk, Valuation, economy
John Hussman is always worth a read. I like this from his letter this morning:
As I wrote in April 2000, bear market psychology typically evolves something like this:
“This is my retirement money. I can’t afford to be out of the market anymore!”
“I don’t care about the price, just get me in!!”
“It’s a healthy correction”
“See, it’s [...]
Lance on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Asset Allocation, Economics, Great Investors, Housing Market, Risk, Valuation
Jeremy Grantham echoes a few themes here at Risk and Return in this interview with Barron’s:
Secondly, this occurred at a time of what I believe is the first global bubble in pretty well all asset prices, so there is a much greater degree of broad-based vulnerability.
Lance on Feb 11 2008 | Filed under: Absolute Return, Asset Allocation, Domestic Equities, Great Investors, Hedge Funds, Relative Return, Risk, Valuation, indexes, real estate
The recent downturn from the high in October has led to a great deal of chatter about the markets being cheap. That the recent turmoil has presented us with wonderful buying opportunities based on valuation. Readers here know that I disagree, and vehemently. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made as speculators. Certainly [...]
Lance on Feb 07 2008 | Filed under: Domestic Equities, Great Investors, Valuation
Occasionally I look at my list of reads and realize I haven’t been someplace in quite a while, so early this morning I headed over to Jeff Matthews place to rectify that issue. Full of great stuff, but I want to highlight two pieces.
First, Jeff tackles the subject of stock buybacks and the piece echoes [...]
Lance on Feb 06 2008 | Filed under: Asset Allocation, Great Investors, indexes
One of my favorite people to read is Rob Arnott, who never ceases to examine every truism, shibboleth and academic orthodoxy in the field of finance. What are alpha and beta? Why and when is it important to distinguish between them.
All About Alpha reviewed some of his points a little over a year ago, and [...]
Lance on Feb 04 2008 | Filed under: Great Investors, Valuation
To paraphrase [value investing pioneer] Ben Graham, the markets seem high, they are high, and they are as high as they seem.
-Jean-Marie Eveillard
I know, I know. This isn’t what you here, but they are.
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Lance on Jan 29 2008 | Filed under: Great Investors
In line with the comments in the previous post about the reasons people invest the way they do, and repeatedly fall for the excesses of short term speculation, Jeremy Grantham has long spoken of the career risk of unconventional success and failure.
The great paradox of our business is that reducing or avoiding real risk [...]
Lance on Jan 29 2008 | Filed under: Absolute Return, Asset Allocation, Commodities, Developing Markets, Domestic Equities, Domestic Fixed Income, Great Investors, Hedge Funds, International Equities, Managed Futures, Portable Alpha, Relative Return, Risk
Finally it is the long-term investor, he who most promotes the public interest, who will in practice come in for most criticism, wherever investment funds are managed by committees or boards or banks. For it is in the essence of his behaviour that he should be eccentric, unconventional and rash in the eyes of average [...]
Lance on Jan 28 2008 | Filed under: Great Investors, economy
Really, I just wanted to post this line :
Now celebrating 10 years of predicting the end of the world, George Soros takes a huge dive into the pool of confirmation bias
Go read what he is referring to. Not only is that a compelling image and well written sentence, he is right.
I know, I know. In [...]
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