21 Nov 2022

You might not be surprised to learn that I love investment-related podcasts. I listen to about a dozen of them fairly regularly and am often impressed by the guests they get. A recent episode of the Meb Faber Show featured an hour-long interview with Professor Gene Fama. Fama is probably the most influential academic in modern finance after creating the Efficient Market Hypothesis in the early 1970s and co-creating the… Read More

27 Sep 2021

Is China’s Evergrande Our Lehman Brothers?

The big selloff last week centered around a massive Chinese real estate developer, Evergrande, which is almost certainly insolvent. Although not many folks around here (including me) had ever heard of Evergrande, the company is the second-largest developer in China and ranks 122nd on Fortune’s Global 500. According to Wikipedia, in 2020, Evergrande reported revenues of $78.4 billion and profits of $1.25 billion, which is a fairly slim profit margin… Read More

2 Aug 2021

Emerging Markets Submerge of Late

In celebration of the Fourth of July, I wrote about how we are fortunate to have the freedom that other countries don’t always enjoy. Specifically, I wrote about China and its recent crackdown on Alibaba after the founder and CEO Jack Ma made comments that the government found unacceptable (you can read the article by clicking here). Little did I know that we were at the beginning of a terrible… Read More

27 Aug 2018

Just How Rich Are You?

According to a Gallup poll last year, almost two-thirds of Americans identify themselves as middle class.  Despite identifying as such, most Americans can’t define ‘middle class,’ which isn’t too surprising because the definition varies so broadly. I found a nice calculator on The Washington Post’s website that allows you to type in your income and your location to find out where you stand. Before going any further, I should note that I… Read More

3 Apr 2017

A Long View of Non US Stocks

For what feels like the first time in forever, foreign stocks are outpacing US stocks so far this year.  The table above includes the MSCI All Country World exUS index, which combines all developed and emerging markets.  As of Friday, the MSCI ACWI is outperforming the S&P 500 by 1.79 percent. That contrasts with the results over the last five years ending in March, when the S&P 500 earned 13.3… Read More

23 Aug 2016

Allocating to Risky Assets

What’s the right allocation to a risky asset class like emerging markets stocks? Since the launch of the MSCI EAFE EM index that tracks emerging markets in 1988, the returns have outpaced the S&P 500 by 0.33 percent per year: 10.56 percent versus 10.23 percent.  (All data from Jan 1988 through Jun 2016). As you might expect, the extra return has come with extra risk: the emerging markets index has… Read More

19 Jul 2016

Turkey’s Failed Coup and Your Portfolio

Personally, I was a little surprised that stocks held up as well as they did yesterday after the failed coup in Turkey. Even though the political regime ultimately didn’t change, I thought that tanks rolling through the capitol would be enough to remind everyone that emerging markets (EM) are risky. Instead, the MSCI Emerging Markets index gained 0.26 percent and the two main ETFs that track EM stocks both gained 0.88 percent… Read More

15 Apr 2016

Yale Bets Big Overseas

One of my favorite reads of the year is from the Yale Investments Office, which manages their $25.6 billion endowment.  You can find the report by clicking here. Yale is routinely the best-performing endowment in the world and has earned a remarkable 13.9 percent return over the last 30 years – well above the 10.7 percent return for US stocks, 8.7 percent return for foreign stocks and 7.1 percent return… Read More

17 Nov 2015

A Big Bet on Emerging Markets

For most of last week, I was in Boston at Schwab’s IMPACT conference – my fourteenth pilgrimage that includes prominent speakers, workshops and a football field size area of vendors pitching everything under the financial services sun. This year featured more academics than usual, which I found particularly engaging.  One of the sessions was actually a debate between academic Roger Ibbotson (who also manages some money) and Rob Arnott, a… Read More

21 Aug 2015

Emerging Market Currencies Roil Stocks

In addition to the growing concerns about global economic growth, the Chinese stock market sell off and yuan devaluation and falling oil prices, markets are increasingly spooked by other emerging market currencies and stock prices. An average of 15 emerging market currencies is down about 10 percent so far this year while countries with large commodity exposure are suffering even more.  For example, so far this year, the Russian ruble… Read More