Why Active Management is Not Zero Sum

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 2, 2020 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments Another day, another controversial subject within investment management I am taking on. In this post I discuss and hope to dismantle an oft-repeated missive about active management. Namely, that active management is zero sum. For brevity’s sake, I propose the acronym of AMIZS (pronounced, “amazes”) as a stand in for “active management is zero sum.”   AMIZS is Logical…Right? Here are...
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The Dark Side of Asset Allocation, Part 4

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Oct 30, 2018 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments So far in this series I have shared three ways in which asset allocation as typically executed by investment professionals can lead to undesirable outcomes. In Part 1, I shared that asset allocation frequently leads to too much risk being taken on by investors, as well as deworsification. While in Part 2, I pointed out treating frontier and emerging markets as an asset class can starve frontier...
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21st Century Finance vs. 20th Century Finance

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Nov 16, 2017 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments (Part I of a series on the future of banking and finance) Finance’s 20th century business lines – their go-to money makers – are all in jeopardy of being destroyed. Primarily this is due to finance’s blatant disregard for its customers’ actual needs. This is the result of the industry’s traditional 40%+ profit margins that allow them to make money regardless of customer satisfaction. This all...
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Meditation Tips for Investment Professionals: Visualization Meditation

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on Jun 28, 2017 in Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments Meditation provides investors with many benefits. Below are meditation tips from the newly released Meditation Guide for Investment Professionals, the full version of which is available online for CFA Institute members. Visualization meditation, or creative visualization, is a basic meditation practice that features a tremendous variety and depth of techniques. As such, it is difficult to...
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The Active Equity Renaissance: Renaissance Investment Management Firms

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 23, 2017 in Active Equity Renaissance, Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments Throughout The Active Equity Renaissance series, we have pointed out the obvious need to overturn modern portfolio theory (MPT) and replace it with something better. How have we done this? By describing the broken 1970s model of portfolio management, enumerating what we call The Cult of Emotion, and declaring the fall of MPT. But what should replace MPT? We first proposed new frontiers of risk...
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The Active Equity Renaissance: Renaissance Portfolio Management

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 17, 2017 in Active Equity Renaissance, Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments What can we do to inspire the renaissance in active equity portfolio management? Over the course of The Active Equity Renaissance series, we have dismissed the broken 1970s model of portfolio management and the cult of emotion. We also charted the rise and fall of modern portfolio theory (MPT), considered new frontiers of risk assessment, and discussed behavioral portfolio management concepts....
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The Active Equity Renaissance: Behavioral Financial Markets

Posted by Jason Apollo Voss on May 8, 2017 in Active Equity Renaissance, Best of the Blog, Blog | 0 comments We have questioned many orthodoxies of modern portfolio theory (MPT) in this series, challenging currently accepted models of financial markets and exploring the decline of MPT and the folly of using volatility as a measure of investment risk. But in undermining the foundations of MPT, what do we propose to take its place? Behavioral Finance Is a More Promising Alternative It is time to move...
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