Resolve Riffs Investment Podcast

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. The advent of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) brought about one of the largest and most transformative trends in the investment landscape. With legions of enthusiasts and no shortage of detractors, ETFs also ignited the so-called passive investing revolution, upending the industry and sparking controversy. We could think of no better guest than our friend Dave Nadig (CIO and Director of Research at ETF Trends and ETF Database) for this conversation, which covered: Understanding that not all passive investments are created equal There’s much more discretion than meets the eye – even in the S&P 500 index Price-discovery distortions – (possibly) on its way to a new equilibrium The coining of a new concept – Reflexivity Inflection Point The Rise of ESG and why the category has been outperforming in 2020 The discussion heated up as we debated who gets to define “E”, “S” and “G”, and semantics converged to a better definition – values-based investing. A wildly entertaining episode made even better by the live questions and comments. Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.

Brian is the founder of Shaping Wealth and author of two books, The Investor's Paradox and The Geometry of Wealth. We spoke about the connections between wealth and happiness, and the myriad complications that distract people from what really matters. On our journey we touched on the importance of setting constructive expectations, how to navigate the relative nature of happiness, how the human brain interfaces with social media and markets, and how the advisor role is extending in the direction of holistic financial wellness. Brian's diverse background in manager selection, fund management, and investor education gives him a unique perspective on how humans connect with money and each other.  

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. In the digital age, we are all suffering from varying degrees of information overload and must lean on trusted guardians of the narrative to make sense of it all. Our good friend Ben Hunt (Epsilon Theory), one of the most reliable guardians, joined us this week for a thought-provoking conversation that included: How he witnessed and reported on the COVID pandemic story unfolding well ahead of most people and his current efforts in helping to supply medical masks in the US Why mainstream media keeps getting it (mostly) wrong Staying true to your wolfpack and avoiding the temptation of adding too much cheese to a story – even though it might greatly amplify your reach Gresham’s law and how fiat news often crowds out truly important stories Wallstreet as a highly effective narrative machine that keeps driving investors to buy like clockwork Ben’s alter-ego Neb took charge when describing the system as dominated by crony capitalism and ultimately broken, while his B.I.T.F.D. mantra got plenty of pushback from the South-Americans across the screen. Towards the end Ben returned and shared some very cool images from his own Narrative Machine, focusing on the stock that has dominated headlines this year. Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Behavioral finance has been at the forefront of investing for many years now, yet it is still largely misunderstood and rarely applied to investors’ actual habits. Our good friend Dan Egan has been pushing this frontier, and in this conversation we covered: The fallacy of trying to predict what makes us happy and how that applies to investing Why understanding our biases does not provide immunity against them Formulating incentives and nudging investors towards habits that can benefit them Generalizations vs uniqueness across investors Imagining who is trading against you – and what they might know that you don’t We also discussed the importance of narrative and the study that suggests stories often outweigh the experiences themselves. A true session of psychoanalysis for investors! Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on Youtube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. His hypothesis on the adverse effects of passive investments in market behavior has catapulted him into the spotlight, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Earlier this year he became one of our most popular podcast guests; this time Mike Green (Logica Capital) returned with guns blazing. In a less formal and less constrained happy hour conversation, we discussed: Logica’s long-volatility strategy and use of options for different exposures What an end game might look like if the drive towards passive continues unabated Inflation, interest-rates and MMT How Buffett sometimes plays a version of liar’s poker with the market Covid, the economy and a possible paradigm shift A golden age for impostors and the benefits of being too big to fail The conversation branched into demographics, philosophy and history, including a re-examination of the 1970’s stagflation – for which Mike offered an alternate interpretation (and broke an icon or two along the way). Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.

Although technology has revolutionized many aspects of our lives, there are still some industries that resist change and professionals who are certain that the old way is the right way. Some believe this applies to investment advisors. They most likely have never met Shiraz Ahmed. He is the quintessential modern advisor, with whom we had the pleasure of riffing on topics such as: Building and improving your career by observing your peers (and learning from their mistakes) Finding a niche of people that you can really connect with instead of cold calling The value of conveying your true self and embracing a genuine narrative Navigating the ambiguous compliance and regulatory environment when engaging on social media His expertise in US-Canadian cross-border investing We also discussed Shiraz’s motto of paying it forward, how he lives by that rule, and what he actually means when he says an advisor needs to put his money where his mouth is.

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. While the theme was the Chinese investment landscape, this episode can also be described as the Bobby Schwarz show. From his early days as a floor trader in Chicago, through his experience making movies in Hollywood, then finally founding RCM Alternatives, Bobby recounts countless memorable stories including: The high-octane environment of life on a trading floor, including heart and panic attacks Verbal exchanges with big names in Hollywood (including John McClane aka Bruce Willis) and creating a multi-factor model to gauge movie success that is used to this day Returning to Chicago to build a new business and adapting to an industry in constant flux Venturing into China, learning the culture and understanding their values Big risks and even bigger opportunities The candor and quality of Bobby’s narrative produced meaningful insights and great humor, making this one of the most entertaining episodes of our Riffs to date. Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. For the last 12 years, the Fed and other major central banks have exerted overwhelming influence and power over investors’ behavior and capital markets. Since the pandemic began, governments have been forced to step up and unleash a fiscal tsunami to help ailing economies during the deepest recession in living memory. To make sense of this convoluted macroeconomic environment, we invited Jeff Weniger (WisdomTree) for a wide-ranging conversation that included: Birthrates in western countries and their impact on growth Fiscal and monetary policies The power of narrative in driving animal spirits Inflation and the velocity of money Mega cap stocks and other market distortions We also discussed how families have adapted to shelter-in-place measures and the implications on the jobs and housing markets. Jeff shared data and multiple anecdotes, which made this both highly informative and very entertaining. Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.

Today we interview Lars Kestner, a Managing Director at a European investment bank. Over his 20+ year career on Wall Street, he has led teams that have managed derivative risk across a vast range of market environments. He is the author of Quantitative Trading Strategies, a cutting edge text on systematic trading. Lars designed and employed his first systematic trading system to trade 30yr bond futures before entering college. We discuss two papers that Lars released on his website, satquant.com, in the last few weeks. His paper “Preferred Portfolios” describes a novel framework for assembling strategies with wildly different characteristics into a coherent and resilient portfolio. We discuss how to sort strategies into Boosters, Defenders, Diversifiers and Selectors based on a novel quantitative method. We then go on to examine the theoretical limits of diversification, and the importance of aligning strategy composition with investor psychology and goals to minimize the potential for abandonment. We also discuss a brand-new paper called “Replicating CTA Positioning: An improved method”, which proposes a method to peer into current CTA portfolio positioning. This is of value because CTA trend-followers are often the marginal buyer in markets at certain points. The ability to identify concentrated risk positioning and/or potential turning points may offer investors a unique edge. Lars is clearly passionate about using quantitative methods to maximize investment results in the real world and he offers a variety of valuable nuggets for the perceptive listener. Please enjoy my conversation with Lars Kestner.

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on Youtube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day. Despite the common understanding – and ubiquitous disclaimers – that past performance is not indicative of future returns, it is well documented that performance chasing can be almost considered a fundamental law of capital allocation among institutional and retail investors alike. It is also an open secret in the industry that well-connected managers are much more likely to receive institutional allocations than obscure ones. To discuss and shed some light on a recent whitepaper that explores these topics, we invited our good friend Brian Portnoy to bring his vast experience as a hedge fund analyst and allocator to bear. Throughout the conversation we cover: How to determine whether a manager has skill The evolution of alpha through time Many ways of defining alpha The role played by familiarity bias Principal-agent problem in capital allocation It was a far reaching discussion with many layers, and once again much improved by the many questions and comments we received throughout the live stream. Keep ‘em coming! Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.