29 Jan 2015

Expected Returns for Stocks

A friend recently forwarded me the address of a fascinating investment website that I have spent hours studying. The site, found here, beautifully displays market forecasts for stocks, bonds, commodities and currencies from around the world. This site is run by Research Affiliates, an investment research firm that develops indexes and strategies that other investment managers license. They say that as of the end of the third quarter last year,… Read More

By David Ott Tags:
1 Dec 2014

A Surprisingly Efficient Market

I heard a wonderful example of a surprisingly efficient market the other day on NPR’s Planet Money blog. The post (found here), titled ‘Textbook Arbitrage: Making Money Off Used Books’ tells the story of two entrepreneurs that sell books, t-shirts and other assorted goods on Amazon. A little while back, they noticed that the price of college textbooks were more volatile than they would have expected. Better yet, the prices were… Read More

By David Ott Tags:
13 Oct 2014

Dirty Words of Finance

A little before my time, comedian George Carlin did a bit called ‘seven dirty words’ that were unsuitable for television. Although the words are fairly commonplace now, I’m glad that the networks and basic cable keep them off of the air until my kids are in bed. Finance has a few dirty words as well, but unlike Carlin’s list, I can use them here to describe how we mostly, but… Read More

By David Ott Tags: ,
23 Sep 2014

When Academics Go Bananas

You may have noticed already, but I constantly refer to academics and academia. As a firm, we put a lot of value on the ideas that come from the ivory towers and have academic support for nearly every strategy and sub-strategy that we employ. We appreciate the thoughtfulness, research, peer-review process that has contributed so much to the way we think about markets. But, sometimes, academics can get a little… Read More

By David Ott Tags: