Category Archives: investing

Bill Gross, Braggart

Posted on September 10, 2008 by Felix

This kind of crowing is unseemly and counterproductive: "Our mortgage overweight and the performance of mortgages on Monday gave the Total Return fund its greatest one day relative performance (compared to our index) in its history," Bill Gross, chief investment … Continue reading →

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Admirable Investors

Posted on September 8, 2008 by Felix

Joe Nocera revisits Bill Miller’s ill-starred bet on Fannie and Freddie: Does this mean Mr. Miller was always overrated as an investor? I don’t have a good answer to that. I’ve always admired investors with the intestinal fortitude to buy … Continue reading →

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When Universities Manage Other People’s Money

Posted on September 5, 2008 by Felix

I’ve finally found some concrete examples of university endowments managing other people’s money — and it turns out to be quite a large business. Anne Tergesen gave a good overview of one way this happens in a BusinessWeek article from … Continue reading →

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When Picking Stocks, Ignore the News

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Felix

Many thanks to Andrew at Humble Money for pointing me to a very astute blog entry from Teresa Lo back in November last year. When stocks fall sharply, a lot of people start thinking about picking up bargains: "it’s human … Continue reading →

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Small Foundations Get Adventurous

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Felix

Craig Karmin profiles Edward Hunia, who runs the $3.8 billion Kresge Foundation. It’s done well of late, thanks partly to bearish bets and an investment with John Paulson: a 16.3% total return over the past five fiscal years, and a … Continue reading →

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0% is Not a Useful Stock Fund Benchmark

Posted on August 29, 2008 by Felix

Barry Ritholtz says it’s "amazing" that out of 2,100 diversified retail U.S. stock mutual funds open to new investors, just 17 have positive returns for both the past 12 months and year-to-date. The factoid comes, depressingly enough, from a very … Continue reading →

Posted in investing, personal finance | 1 Comment

What’s an Easy Way to Buy Cheap Assets?

Posted on August 26, 2008 by Felix

It’s much, much bigger than regional banks buying GSE preferreds. You can buy Fannie and Freddie senior debt at significant spreads over the government which is guaranteeing it; hell, you can write credit protection on the US government and make … Continue reading →

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Wise Investing: No Substitute for Saving

Posted on August 25, 2008 by Felix

Here’s a depressing statistic. In a recent Harris survey, 3,866 Americans were asked which things were "extremely important to achieving financial security in your retirement". 39% said that "investing wisely" was extremely important, while just 34% said that saving money … Continue reading →

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Ignore Stock Market Volatility

Posted on August 25, 2008 by Felix

Jim Surowiecki has a great line this week, in his column on stock-market volatility: For now we’re stuck in a Yeatsian market: the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. The sentiment here is spot-on. … Continue reading →

Posted in investing, stocks | 5 Comments

The Destroyer of Swedish Capitalism

Posted on August 19, 2008 by Felix

For a wonderful real-world example of Martin Wolf’s take on global capitalism, check out Niklas Magnusson’s profile of Swedish activist investor Christer Gardell. This being Sweden, Gardell isn’t only unpopular with unions and other leftists, he’s even unpopular with shareholders: … Continue reading →

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Learning Lessons from Auction Rate Securities

Posted on August 14, 2008 by Felix

Back in February, James Stewart, an investor in auction-rate preferred shares, complained that those shares were illiquid and that he was having difficulty accessing his money. He reckoned that if he couldn’t get his money out of the closed-end fund … Continue reading →

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Carl Icahn: Hitting His Stride

Posted on August 13, 2008 by Felix

It famously took four months for Carl Icahn to even start blogging, after announcing the launch of the Icahn Report in February. So the fact that he now seems to be getting into his stride after only two months is … Continue reading →

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When Bill Met Freddie

Posted on August 12, 2008 by Felix

On December 31, Freddie Mac shares were worth $34.07 apiece, and Bill Miller owned 15 million of them. By March 31, Freddie Mac shares had fallen 25% to $25.32 each, and Bill Miller owned 50 million of them. As of … Continue reading →

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On Risk Aversion

Posted on August 8, 2008 by Felix

I’ve been thinking a bit more about the downside of risk aversion, which is something that Steve Waldman brought up yesterday and which I then applied to the ARS fiasco, among other things. The problem is that it’s entirely natural, … Continue reading →

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When Safety is Worse Than Risk

Posted on August 7, 2008 by Felix

Steve Waldman has a corker of a blog entry today, blaming a large part of the present crisis on "investors’ childlike demand for safety". It’s a very powerful insight. Think of the enormous emerging-market central bank reserves that everyone was … Continue reading →

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Good Idea of the Day: Slashing the Structured Product Investor Base

Posted on August 7, 2008 by Felix

Aline van Duyn reports today that a group of A-list banks — "including JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, HSBC, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley," we’re told, a list which is notable for the non-inclusion of Goldman Sachs — is interested … Continue reading →

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Retirement Advice for Twentysomethings

Posted on August 1, 2008 by Felix

A reader writes: As a "younger investor" myself looking for ways to retire with millions (we can all dream), I’ve been trying to start early and doing my research to figure out ways to gain an advantage in the long … Continue reading →

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John Hempton, Financial Blogger Extraordinaire

Posted on July 29, 2008 by Felix

In mid-May, Australian fund manager John Hempton started a blog which is already one of the best in the world for serious analysis of finance investment ideas on both the long and the short side. Coming back from holiday today … Continue reading →

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Adventures in Technical Analysis, McClellan Oscillator Edition

Posted on July 29, 2008 by Felix

When I dumped on technical analysis last month, one of the more unexpected results was a long email thread with a chap called Jeff Drake, on the subject of something called the McClellan Oscillator. He’s a big fan, while I … Continue reading →

Posted in charts, investing, stocks | 1 Comment

The Intelligent Investor

Posted on July 14, 2008 by Felix

Jason Zweig has a new column at the WSJ, called "The Intelligent Investor": Could things possibly get worse? I don’t know, but I am an optimist — so I certainly hope things do get worse. Nothing else should satisfy an … Continue reading →

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A Look at Long-Term Stock Valuations

Posted on July 8, 2008 by Felix

Rob Bennett emails to tell me about a handy little tool he’s constructed, which looks at stock valuations and calculates what kind of real return you can expect to get from investing in US equities over the next decade or … Continue reading →

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More on Technical Analysis

Posted on June 24, 2008 by Felix

It seems I hit a nerve yesterday: 26 comments and counting here, as well as 18 over at Seeking Alpha, and quite a few more chez Ritholtz both yesterday and today; Barry Ritholtz also has a more formal response here. … Continue reading →

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Adventures in Technical Analysis, Jim Cramer Edition

Posted on June 23, 2008 by Felix

If you like seeing Jim Cramer get his comeuppance, you’ll love this video. It’s a bit long, but basically on Friday June 13, Cramer told his viewers to "buy buy buy" banks, homebuilders, etc, on the strength of something called … Continue reading →

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The Master ETF

Posted on June 20, 2008 by Felix

Matthew Hougan has an interesting idea: What would your portfolio look like if you bought the five-largest ETFs on the market and weighted them based on assets under management? 51% U.S. Equities (41% SPY, 10% QQQQ) 39% Foreign Equities (25% … Continue reading →

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The Million Dollar Active vs Passive Wager

Posted on June 9, 2008 by Felix

Warren Buffett has a 10-year, $1 million bet with some fund-of-funds managers: he reckons that his investment in Vanguard’s S&P 500 index fund will outperform their portfolio of five fund-of-funds. It’s a pretty standard active vs passive bet, albeit for … Continue reading →

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