Meb Faber of Cambria Funds - A Wealth of Valuable Content and Most of It Is Free

Feb 25, 2025

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Today on the podcast, Rusty and Robyn are joined by Meb Faber, Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management. Mr. Faber is a co-founder and the Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management. Faber is the manager of Cambria’s ETFs and separate accounts. Mr. Faber is the host of The Meb Faber Show podcast and has authored numerous white papers and leather-bound books. He is a frequent speaker and writer on investment strategies and has been featured in Barron’s, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Mr. Faber graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in Engineering Science and Biology.

Key Takeaways

[06:05] - How did Meb make the leap from engineering and biology to the investment world?
[07:42] - What was the impetus for founding Cambria Funds and what makes it stand out from its peers?
[11:15] - What is Meb’s overall investment philosophy and why does he produce so much great content that’s freely available?
[14:08] - What adjustments has Meb made to his investment philosophy over the years?
[17:00] - What inspired Meb to start his podcast The Meb Faber Show?
[24:52] - Learn more about Meb’s book, Shareholder Yield, and why should investors check it out?
[30:28] - What prompted Meb to issue a 2nd edition of Shareholder Yield?
[33:36] - Has Meb’s research shown that shareholder yield works better in certain markets, or sectors, than others?
[36:51] - What is Meb’s market outlook for 2025? Also, when will diversification outperform again?
[44:18] - What did Meb mean when he said “nobody ever got fired for buying Vanguard?”
[47:25] - What is Meb’s outlook for the ETF industry going forward?
[49:47] - What is Cambria’s ETF TAX trying to accomplish and how does it work?
[56:03] - When does he foresee the ETF giants, like Blackrock or State Street, getting into 351 ETFs?
[61:02] - What are some other Cambria ETFs that Meb would like to spotlight?`
[68:16] - In this age of information overload, how does Meb balance the need to be informed with the need to unplug and tune out?

Quotes

[20:43] - “That’s kind of the whole point of the Idea Farm. We try to narrow down, and curate, this massive amount of news down to…what are the top 2 or 3 things that people read or listened to this week?” ~ Meb Faber

[36:56] - “On a relative basis, this is arguably the worst period ever for anyone doing diversification in asset allocation, relative to US stocks. The only comparable periods are the 1990s and 1940s…In terms of not just magnitude of underperformance, which is hundreds of percentage points to the person that’s just YOLOing into the S&P or Mag 7, but also the worst part is that it’s years in a row.” ~ Meb Faber

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