This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Our guest this week was none other than Meb Faber (co-counder and CIO of Cambria Investment Management), a well-known quant and prominent member of the FinTwit community. In addition to being an asset manager, he is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, not to mention host of a popular podcast – and therefore an entertainer at heart. We enjoyed a wide ranging conversatio...
Dec 01, 2020•2 hr 34 min•Ep. 51
Today’s conversation is with Alexander Mende, Senior Investment Analyst and Head of Investment Research at RPM Risk and Portfolio Management in Stockholm, Sweden. RPM is an alternative investment firm, focusing on directional investment strategies, specifically Managed Futures and Global Macro. Alex is responsible for portfolio management, quant and macro research, manager screening and selection at the firm. We spend the first few minutes discussing the experience of living with COVID-19 in Swe...
Nov 26, 2020•51 min
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. The year that saw the fastest decline, followed by the steepest recovery in market history has left one topic top of mind for most investors – volatility. Though down from its eye-watering spike in the first quarter, the VIX (CBOE Volatility Index) has remained significantly higher than in previous years, and not without good reason. The ongoing pandemic, a bifurcated and ...
Nov 24, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 49
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. As US equities and bonds continue their apparently unstoppable rally, their expected return over the coming years grows vanishingly small, Especially if markets are faced with anything other than the goldilocks environment of growth, deflation and abundant liquidity that has ruled the past 12 years. Readers of our research (as well as any student of history) will know that...
Nov 18, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 48
ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day
Nov 13, 2020•1 hr 26 min
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. In an upside-down market it’s hard to know which way is up. Many investors rely on Kevin Muir, otherwise known as the Macro Tourist, to help them navigate these uncharted waters. Kevin is a pragmatic macro analyst and trader who is focused on trading markets as they are, rather than how you might wish they were. This means being conscious of your own ideologies and biases ...
Nov 02, 2020•2 hr 34 min•Ep. 46
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on Youtube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Even the term used to describe this asset-class is loaded with controversy. Some say cryptocurrency is a misnomer, since Bitcoin and its lesser known brethren can neither be considered a medium of exchange nor a store of value. Rob Furse (co-founder & president of Echelon Wealth Partners) and Matthew Edwards (CEO & CIO of Dalpha Capital Management) would certainly disagree...
Oct 27, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 45
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Before you begin, we highly recommend that you first watch this short video , which serves as a foreword and sets the table for this episode. After enjoying many years of immense popularity, factor investing (also known as alternative risk premia or smart beta) is suffering from significant underperformance, both across asset-classes and especially within security selectio...
Oct 19, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 44
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on Youtube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. It is said that creating a job for yourself is always better than getting one. Whoever said that probably never lived through the trials and tribulations of being an entrepreneur. But some people just can’t help themselves. Phil Bak is one of these serial entrepreneurs . He joined us to riff on topics such as: Building businesses from a young age and knowing when to sell t...
Oct 15, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 43
Today’s conversation is with Marat Molyboga, Chief Risk Officer and Director of Research at Efficient Capital Management. Marat is a soviet trained mathematician who achieved his Masters in Applied Mathematics in Moscow, and holds an MBA in Finance from University of Chicago, a CFA, and a PhD in Finance from EDHEC business school. He has authored or co-authored 20 published papers. Efficient specializes in building multi-manager investment solutions for institutional investors with a particular ...
Oct 14, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 42
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Ever lower interest rates and debt-fueled growth have been the major driving force for asset price appreciation over the last four decades. Many have now come to believe that the system is close to a breaking point, teetering at the edge due to a virtually unpayable debt overhang that has created multiple asset bubbles across the world. To make sense of the current macroec...
Oct 05, 2020•2 hr 46 min•Ep. 41
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. It is, without a doubt, the most logical starting point for any portfolio that seeks both global diversity and risk balance. Preparation before prediction . First, do no harm. Yet there is a wide range of ways to structure and deploy Risk Parity – as always, the devil is in the details (for a deeper dive check out our recent whitepaper ). We had the pleasure of speaking wi...
Sep 29, 2020•2 hr 39 min•Ep. 40
Today’s conversation is with David Berns, an emerging thought leader in asset allocation and behavioral finance, who is pushing the boundaries on how to best measure real-world behavioral preferences and build optimal portfolios that actively incorporate this extra information. We open the conversation with a discussion of his involvement in the design and launch of three new ETFs, which seek to deliver an investment experience that addresses both traditional mean-variance preferences, and also ...
Sep 28, 2020•52 min•Ep. 39
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Every time equity markets experience a major selloff, investors’ attentions are drawn to the handful of strategies that actually benefitted from the event. So-called crisis alpha comes in many flavors and iterations, which further complicates the allocation decision. Our friend Jason Buck (CIO of Mutiny Fund) sought to solve this problem a few years ago. He joined us for a...
Sep 22, 2020•2 hr 40 min•Ep. 38
Many traditional value or factor based investors have been scratching their heads for the past few years, wondering whether a shift in fundamental dynamics may have permanently altered the way markets behave. Corey Hoffstein has been wondering the same thing, which prompted him to spend the last several months speaking to experts in options trading, market microstructure, and the hidden effects of passive index investing about how these forces may be reshaping the underlying market ecosystem. Th...
Sep 21, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 37
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. The advent of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) brought about one of the largest and most transformative trends in the investment landscape. With legions of enthusiasts and no shortage of detractors, ETFs also ignited the so-called passive investing revolution, upending the industry and sparking controversy. We could think of no better guest than our friend Dave Nadig (CIO and ...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 36
Brian is the founder of Shaping Wealth and author of two books, The Investor's Paradox and The Geometry of Wealth. We spoke about the connections between wealth and happiness, and the myriad complications that distract people from what really matters. On our journey we touched on the importance of setting constructive expectations, how to navigate the relative nature of happiness, how the human brain interfaces with social media and markets, and how the advisor role is extending in the direction...
Sep 10, 2020•55 min•Ep. 35
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. In the digital age, we are all suffering from varying degrees of information overload and must lean on trusted guardians of the narrative to make sense of it all. Our good friend Ben Hunt (Epsilon Theory), one of the most reliable guardians , joined us this week for a thought-provoking conversation that included: How he witnessed and reported on the COVID pandemic story un...
Sep 08, 2020•2 hr 41 min•Ep. 34
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Behavioral finance has been at the forefront of investing for many years now, yet it is still largely misunderstood and rarely applied to investors’ actual habits. Our good friend Dan Egan has been pushing this frontier, and in this conversation we covered: The fallacy of trying to predict what makes us happy and how that applies to investing Why understanding our biases d...
Aug 31, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 33
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on Youtube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. His hypothesis on the adverse effects of passive investments in market behavior has catapulted him into the spotlight, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Earlier this year he became one of our most popular podcast guests; this time Mike Green (Logica Capital) returned with guns blazing. In a less formal and less constrained happy hour conversation, we discussed: Logic...
Aug 24, 2020•2 hr 34 min•Ep. 32
Although technology has revolutionized many aspects of our lives, there are still some industries that resist change and professionals who are certain that the old way is the right way . Some believe this applies to investment advisors. They most likely have never met Shiraz Ahmed. He is the quintessential modern advisor, with whom we had the pleasure of riffing on topics such as: Building and improving your career by observing your peers (and learning from their mistakes) Finding a niche of peo...
Aug 18, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 31
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. While the theme was the Chinese investment landscape, this episode can also be described as the Bobby Schwarz show. From his early days as a floor trader in Chicago, through his experience making movies in Hollywood, then finally founding RCM Alternatives, Bobby recounts countless memorable stories including: The high-octane environment of life on a trading floor, includin...
Aug 10, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 30
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. For the last 12 years, the Fed and other major central banks have exerted overwhelming influence and power over investors’ behavior and capital markets. Since the pandemic began, governments have been forced to step up and unleash a fiscal tsunami to help ailing economies during the deepest recession in living memory. To make sense of this convoluted macroeconomic environm...
Aug 04, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 29
Today we interview Lars Kestner, a Managing Director at a European investment bank. Over his 20+ year career on Wall Street, he has led teams that have managed derivative risk across a vast range of market environments. He is the author of Quantitative Trading Strategies , a cutting edge text on systematic trading. Lars designed and employed his first systematic trading system to trade 30yr bond futures before entering college. We discuss two papers that Lars released on his website, satquant.co...
Jul 29, 2020•58 min•Ep. 28
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on Youtube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Despite the common understanding – and ubiquitous disclaimers – that past performance is not indicative of future returns, it is well documented that performance chasing can be almost considered a fundamental law of capital allocation among institutional and retail investors alike. It is also an open secret in the industry that well-connected managers are much more likely ...
Jul 28, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 28
Dan Egan is the Directory of Behavior Science and Investing at the online advisor, Betterment. In launching this rather unique career, Dan levered a Masters degree in Decision Science at the London School of Economics into a role as Behavioral Finance Specialist at Barclays Wealth in London before moving on to Betterment. With 15 years operating at the cross-section between human behavior and markets he is one of the world’s foremost experts in this field. To kick off the discussion I wanted to ...
Jul 17, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 27
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on Youtube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. To help us make sense of this market we invited Chris Schindler back to discuss: Why the next 10 years are likely to be very challenging and different from the past 10 years Why investors should set very low return expectations for virtually every major asset-class The power of recency bias and lottery-ticket (wishful) thinking The role of commodities and how to use them e...
Jul 14, 2020•2 hr 41 min•Ep. 26
This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on Youtube every Friday afternoon to debate current and most relevant themes in the world of investing. Among hot and contentious topics in investing, cryptocurrencies certainly rank top of the list – including their designation as a form of currency . From a techno-libertarian experiment, Bitcoin, its peers and particularly the blockchain technology that underpins them, have morphed into a global phenomenon that promises to revolutionize finance itself. Our conv...
Jul 02, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 25
With the popularity of sports betting personalities entering the investing world we thought it would be timely to bring an expert sports handicapper to discuss the similarities and differences between these highly probabilistic domains. Our guest for this conversation is Steve Merril of ProSportsInfo.com. Steve has been a professional sports handicapper and betting analyst for over 24 years and can be seen and heard every week on numerous radio and TV shows across the United States. We discussed...
Jun 27, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 24
Today’s guest produces the Breakingthemarket blog, which exploded onto the scene in spring of last year, spewing shrapnel at traditional beliefs about investment objectives and portfolio construction. Borrowing key concepts from Ed Thorpe and the Ergodicity Economics community, Matt - who would like to remain anonymous for now – builds portfolios that focus on maximizing geometric returns by combining uncorrelated investments with frequent rebalancing and appropriate exposure informed by the Kel...
Jun 26, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 23
