I strive to be smart, wise, analytical, creative, intuitive, and informative. I hope to help make you a better active investment management pro.
I recommend you start with the Best of the Blog.
8 October 2015: On Wall Street – Are You Giving Too Much Weight to Earnings Estimates?
Jason Apollo Voss, CFA shares his view about the lack of reliability of earnings estimates for predicting future value with On Wall Street.
read moreThinknum: If It Is on the Internet, It Can Be Analyzed
Last year I reported on an interesting firm, Thinknum, and its innovative new business model. The company makes sophisticated financial models available to everyone on an open, distributed computing platform. It is one of a handful of firms at the cutting edge, and I felt it was time for a check in. For a start-up, Thinknum has undergone a surprising number of changes in a short period of time. In this case, what has changed can be distilled down to one phrase: If it is on the internet, it can be analyzed. Below is the unedited transcript of...
read moreAlpha Wounds: A Lack of Diversity in the Human Resources Portfolio
For the last several months, I have discussed reasons why active investment managers underperform their passive investment manager competition. Alpha wounds discussed so far include navigating toward benchmarks instead of away from them — shame on you active managers! — and the use of inappropriate measures of success – shame on you investment industry adjuncts! This month I turn to a problem hiding in plain sight: the lack of diversity in the human resources portfolio of active managers. The Importance of Diversification What is one of the...
read more11 September 2015: Portfolio Institutional (UK) – Economic activism: Europe’s struggles with monetary and fiscal policy
Jason Apollo Voss, CFA writes an editorial for the UK’s Portfolio Institutional about Europe’s struggles with monetary and fiscal policy.
read moreAlpha Wounds: Bad Adjunct Methodologies
Active management has taken a lot of body blows recently. The principal criticism: Active managers contribute no alpha once their fees are factored in. So is it time to write active management’s obituary? Not quite. But active management certainly is feeling pain. A few weeks ago, I argued that many of the alpha wounds plaguing active management are self-inflicted. But this month, I will discuss injuries to active managers that are not of their own making. Specifically, I will talk about those wounds resulting from the bad evaluative...
read moreTips on How to Manage Money in a Bear Market
One of the biggest challenges for investors is managing money well in a bear market. Are markets going to go down further? Are they going to rebound? Most importantly, what do I do? Here are several tips to make it easier to manage money during a downturn. Tax Harvesting Cash is good to have on hand because it serves as a buffer against losses and allows you to buy great companies at lower prices. I know what you are thinking: If I knew that the market was going to decline so far and so fast, I would have cash on hand, but what do I do now?...
read more27 August 2015: Yahoo! Finance interview “3 tips for managing money in a volatile market”
Jason Apollo Voss, CFA discusses with Yahoo! Finance his 3 tips for managing money in a volatile market.
read moreAlpha Wounds: Benchmark Tail Wags the Portfolio Management Dog
Active management is under siege from many corners, including passive investment advocates, robo-advisers, academics, and individual investors. The narrative, of course, is that active managers add no alpha after fees. Is active management dead? Hardly. But active management is certainly wounded. And many of these alpha wounds are self-inflicted. This and other forthcoming articles will seek to identify some of these wounds and propose some possible solutions for practitioners of active management. Benchmark Tail Wags the Portfolio Management...
read moreXBRL Will Change Your Research Analyst Life
XBRL, short for eXtensible business reporting language, is a global digital standard for exchanging business information. In the financial community analysts are most likely to experience its power when working with financial statements. This is because many of the major global securities regulators (e.g., the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)) require reporting of financial results using XBRL. Once data is in this format, all of the power of connectivity facilitated by the internet and all of the power of computation facilitated...
read moreThe Little Worm That Is Destroying Capitalism
In response to the Great Recession, central banks continue to engage in massive monetary stimulus to artificially depress the costs of capital. Many commentators have expressed concerns (and I concur) about the inflationary forces they believe must naturally be building up because of this stimulus. Yet, very few commentators have discussed the consequential little worm that is destroying capitalism, and the mindset thus birthed. Costs of Capital Generations of business schools have taught — and business leaders have implemented — capital...
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