January 14, 2019
If George Costanza Were a Hedge Fund Manager
By Victor Haghani and James White It’s only a small over-simplification to say that investing is about predicting how things will turn out in the future, and placing your bets […]
October 31, 2018
Reflections on the Mega Millions Lottery: Can a Lottery Ticket with Great Odds Still be a Bad Bet?
By Victor Haghani and James White Last week two of our favorite financial journalists – the WSJ’s Jason Zweig and Bloomberg’s Matt Levine – covered the Mega Millions lottery featuring […]
August 30, 2018
The Most Important Number Not Printed in the WSJ
By Victor Haghani and James White We are often asked for our estimate of the long-term return of the equity market. Our framework currently indicates 5.3% above inflation for global […]
April 6, 2018
A Penny Saved is Two Pennies Earned
By Victor Haghani and James White Most of us associate the maxim “A penny saved is a penny earned” with Benjamin Franklin, but what he actually said is far more […]
February 26, 2018
What Gamblers Can Teach the Buy-and-Hold Crowd
By Victor Haghani and James White The ongoing attack on stock-picking waged over the past 65 years now clearly has the upper hand. Early combatants included Markowitz, Samuelson, Sharpe, Fama, […]
November 20, 2017
HHHHHHHHHHHH: Is there a message in there? Elm Research in Bloomberg Prophets
By Victor Haghani and James White The 12-month winning streak of the stock market through the end of October reminded me of a Friday afternoon on the Salomon trading floor […]
November 9, 2017
The Chemistry of 10% More
By Victor Haghani A few nights ago at the dinner table, I was ritually lamenting my unsuccessful efforts to lose a few pounds. My son Mark, now a high school […]
October 17, 2017
What Didn’t Happen on Black Monday 1987
By Victor Haghani “I don’t know.” That was the only answer I had to each of my dad’s questions. It was very dark as we wandered the streets near my […]
October 2, 2017
Market Multiple Mean-Reversion: Red Light or Red Herring? Elm research published on Bloomberg
From Bloomberg: There may be many reasons to worry about the current high price level of U.S. equities, but mean-reversion of the market’s valuation to its historical average should not […]
August 7, 2017
When (if Ever) Has it Paid to Wait for a Stock Market Correction? Reviewing 115 Years of US Stock Market History
By Victor Haghani and James White A few weeks ago, one of our investors told us she had some cash that she wanted to add to her account with us, […]
March 8, 2017
What’s the Best Way to Get Invested in the Market?
By Victor Haghani and James White A few friends recently asked me how to go about putting more of their savings into the stock market. Is it better to jump […]
February 14, 2017
What Our Market Return Forecasts Really Mean: Equity Convexity and Investment Sizing
This is the third in our series on how expected return, risk and risk-aversion come together to determine how much investment risk is ‘right’ for each of us. (The other […]
January 24, 2017
A Sharper Lens for Sizing Up Nickels and Steamrollers
I just wrote a paper with my friend James White which applies and extends the ideas of the paper Andy Morton and I published in December on Optimal Investment Sizing. […]
December 9, 2016
How much of a good thing is best for you?
We spend most of our time trying to identify good investments and assemble them into an attractive portfolio. The question of how much to invest in that portfolio usually doesn’t get […]
October 26, 2016
Lessons from Betting on a Biased Coin: Cool heads and cautionary tales
What would you do if you were invited to play a game where you were given $25 and allowed to place bets for 30 minutes on a coin that you […]
March 23, 2016
The Unexpectedly High Expected Return of Global Equities
It seems just about everyone I talk to these days is underwhelmed by the long-term expected return of the global stock market. I too am more worried than normal about […]
August 21, 2015
Video: How risky is your stock market?
August 21, 2015
Video: The most important number you won’t find in the Wall Street Journal
August 19, 2015
Revisiting the Expected Return of the Stock Market
A few months ago we posted a short video, titled ‘The Most Important Number You Won’t Find in the Wall Street Journal,’ which described a simple way to forecast the […]