Episode 146: The Historically Informed Investment Portfolio; or, the Historian as Financial Analyst

My guest is Daniel Peris, a historian trained in the history of modern Russia. But by day he is Senior Vice President and Senior Portfolio Manager at Federated Investors in Pittsburgh, PA. He is the author of three books on investing, the most recent of which is Getting Back to Business: Why Modern Portfolio Theory Fails Investors and How You Can Bring Common Sense to Your Portfolio. But he’s also the author of Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless. Yet oddly enough, for a podcast called Historically Thinking, we’re going to be talking about the first book—the one on portfolio investing, not the one on Soviet religious policy Why? Because I want to know if historical thinking can be applied to investing. If it can, then how is that done? Daniel has given a lot of thought to that question, as you'll find out in the course of the conversation. And if you'd like to hear more of Daniel, he's a regular host at New Books in Finance, one of the great podcasts from the New Books Network.