We Are Winning

The Day the Markets Roared: How a 1982 Forecast Sparked a Global Bull Market. 2021. Henry Kaufman with David B. Sicilia. Matt Holt Books. The title of Henry Kaufman’s latest book focuses on a single date, 17 August 1982, but the contents range far more widely. Kaufman recounts his personal history, from fleeing Nazi terror […]

What is driving the surge in inflation and how are central banks misplaying their hand? China: A “One-Country Check on Global Inflation” In “Monetary Policy in the Grip of a Pincer Movement,” Claudio Borio et al. discuss how the effects of globalization, particularly China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the collapse of […]

“I came of age and studied economics in the 1970s and I remember what that terrible period was like. . . . No one wants to see that happen again.” — Janet Yellen Introduction Inflation has dominated investing conversations in 2021. Many countries have rebounded strongly from the COVID-19 crisis and are experiencing significantly higher-than-expected […]

The following is derived from the Editor’s Snapshot podcast summary of the latest issue of the CFA Institute Financial Analysts Journal. Institutional subscribers and logged-in CFA Institute members have full access to all the articles. What’s in the CFA Institute Financial Analysts Journal 2021 third quarter issue? Contributions explore Volmaggedon, American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), soft […]

Sustainable investing based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors has quickly become central to how we invest. Investors are demanding more from their asset managers: They want to invest based on their values and they are demanding more accountability from companies about addressing changing societal issues. Indeed, the Index Industry Association (IIA)’s most current […]

When it comes to volatility, finance has two schools of thought: The classical view associates greater risk with greater reward. The more risk a portfolio takes on, the more potential return it may earn over the long run. The more modern perspective takes the opposite view: The lower a security or portfolio’s risk (or volatility), the […]

My thought leadership speaking tours to the Middle East and Europe were postponed and then postponed again in 2020. To convince the organizers to host their events online instead of in person, I went on a shopping spree and bought all kinds of audio and video equipment. That was on the last day before Singapore’s […]

Ample research demonstrates that companies with higher levels of women in leadership (WIL) report superior performance on a range of metrics. Founded on WIL and other gender equity criteria, the 29 gender lens equity funds (GLEFs) available to individual investors include 13 global equity funds and 16 regional equity offerings. As of 31 March 2021, […]

Benchmarking requires the ability to objectively generalize results. This is why the development of any financial benchmark is in essence the complex outcome of a rigorous averaging exercise. From this perspective, the currently adopted public market equivalent (PME) methodologies for benchmarking private equity have not overcome the well-known limitations of the internal rate of return […]

Quick, what is 1 July 2021 the 50th anniversary of? The incorporation of Berkshire Hathaway The first index fund The Dow’s first close above 8000 The founding of the SEC If you answered Berkshire Hathaway, you were off by only 130 years, depending on when you date the company’s origin. The Dow closed above 8000 […]