Financial Thought Exchange Podcast

In this episode of the Financial Thought Exchange podcast, host Lotta Moberg, CFA, and Marty Fridson, CIO at Lehman Livian Friedson Advisors, delve into the complexities of financial statements and corporate reporting. They discuss how companies often present financial health to their advantage, using Fridson's book, "Financial Statements," as a guide. The conversation covers regulatory impacts, the role of goodwill in valuation, and the challenges of assessing acquisitions. Fridson emphasizes the importance of critical analysis and cash flow generation in valuing companies, providing insights into navigating financial reporting pitfalls.

In this episode of the Financial Thought Exchange podcast, host Lotta Moberg, CFA, and Marty Fridson, CIO at Lehman Livian Friedson Advisors, delve into the complexities of financial statements and corporate reporting. They discuss how companies often present financial health to their advantage, using Fridson's book, "Financial Statements," as a guide. The conversation covers regulatory impacts, the role of goodwill in valuation, and the challenges of assessing acquisitions. Fridson emphasizes the importance of critical analysis and cash flow generation in valuing companies, providing insights into navigating financial reporting pitfalls.

Jim Simons, the late founder of Renaissance Technologies, achieved a track record that surpasses Warren Buffett and all the other great investment managers – by a lot. In a beautifully written account, The Man Who Solved the Market, Gregory Zuckerman, the Wall Street Journal who previously profiled John Paulson in The Greatest Trade Ever, talks about Renaissance's unique culture. The firm brought geniuses from far outside the investment world – mathematicians, computer scientists, linguists – together into an effort that, surprisingly, beat the investment community's best analysts and traders at generating returns and catapulted "quant" investing to the forefront.

Allison Schrager is one of the world's foremost experts on personal risk. An economist by training, she has broadened her reach to learn about the risk management strategies of people who jump out of airplanes, surf big waves, and work in brothels. She is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor at City Journal, and a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion and practically everywhere else.

Cliff Asness, co-founder of AQR Capital Management, shares his origin story, detailing his academic background at the University of Chicago, where he was influenced by prominent figures like Eugene Fama, who encouraged him to explore momentum investing although Fama did not think it could possibly work. Asness recounts his transition from portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs to co-founder and principal research at AQR Capital, one of the best-known investment management firms in the world. He reflects on the tumultuous market period after AQR's founding in 1998, when the nascent firm almost went out of business. The conversation addresses market efficiency, with Asness presenting his views on the "Less Efficient Market Hypothesis." Despite advancements in technology and data availability, he says, the processing of information has not necessarily improved, leading to inefficiencies in the market. Asness discusses the impact of passive investing on market dynamics and the challenges of generating alpha in a landscape where traditional value investing has performed poorly. The episode concludes with Asness sharing insights on the role of machine learning in quantitative finance, emphasizing its potential to enhance research and signal generation while maintaining a balance with economic theory.

Roger G. Ibbotson, Professor Emeritus at Yale School of Management and chairman and CIO of Zebra Capital Management LLC, has authored numerous articles and books, including Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Inflation, which serves as a standard reference for information and capital market returns. Laurence B. Siegel is the Director of Research at the CFA Institute Research Foundation and a writer, speaker, and consultant. Siegel graduated from the University of Chicago with both a BA & a MBA. His website is http://www.larrysiegel.org. Ibbotson and Siegel discuss the driving factors behind long-term returns, how human behavior and investor psychology intervene in financial decision-making, and the future of returns in an interconnected world. From systems of economic production to sustainable investing, they draw on decades of research in financial markets to dive further into these topics. Financial Thought Exchange is brought to you by the CFA Institute Research Foundation. If you would like to support the show and our work, please use the following donation link: https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/en/research-foundation/donate

Anthony DeChellis hosts industry veterans Brian Singer, CFA, and Lotta Moberg, CFA, to discuss their recently released CFA Institute Research Foundation brief, Financial Entrepreneurship: Balancing Active and Passive Investment Horizons. The conversation explores the evolution of the asset management industry over the decades, highlighting shifts from traditional investment approaches to innovative strategies. Brian and Lotta share insights from their decade-long collaboration and the journey that led to their current research, shedding light on the changing landscape of finance and investment. Tune in to discover how these developments impact investors and the financial sector as a whole.

In this episode, host Lotta Moberg is joined by Dr. William Hardin to discuss the philosophical relationship between education and finance, and how to properly utilize a financial education in the business world at large. Dr. William Hardin is Dean of the FIU (Florida International University) College of Business. He is Founding Director of the Tibor and Sheila Hollo School of Real Estate and was Associate Dean for the Chapman Graduate School of Business at FIU. Financial Thought Exchange is brought to you by the CFA Institute Research Foundation. If you would like to support the show and our work, please use the following donation link: https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/en/research-foundation/donate

In this episode, host Lotta Moberg is joined by Philip Maymin via Starlink to discuss the future of AI in the finance industry. Dr. Philip Maymin is Portfolio Manager and Director of Asset Allocation Strategies at Janus Henderson. He is also the Endowed Schramm Chair of Analytics and the MSBA Program Director at Fairfield Dolan, the CTO for Swipe.bet, and an instructor at Analytics.Bet. In the past, he has been a portfolio manager at Long-Term Capital Management, Ellington Management Group, and his own hedge fund. He was Assistant Professor of Finance and Risk Engineering at the NYU School of Engineering, as well as an analytics consultant with several NBA teams and the Chief Analytics Officer for Vantage Sports. Maymin co-founded the journals Algorithmic Finance and the Journal of Sports Analytics. Additionally, he was a policy scholar for a free market think tank, a Justice of the Peace, a Congressional candidate, and an award-winning journalist. Philip was a finalist for the 2010 Bastiat Prize for Online Journalism. He was awarded a Wolfram Innovator Award in 2015. He won the Wolfram Live Coding Challenge in 2016 and second place in 2018, and he won the Wolfram One-Liner Competition in 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019. He was a finalist for the Hackathon and won the Grand Prize for Best Research Paper at the 12th Annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in 2018, and won the Hackathon at the 14th Annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in 2020. His popular writings have been published in dozens of media outlets ranging from Bloomberg to Forbes to the New York Post to American Banker to regional newspapers, and his research has been profiled in dozens more, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Financial Times, Boston Globe, NPR, BBC, Guardian (UK), CNBC, Newsweek Poland, Financial Times Deutschland, and others. Maymin holds a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Chicago, a Master's in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, and a Bachelor's in Computer Science from Harvard University. He also holds a J.D. and is an attorney-at-law admitted to practice in California. Financial Thought Exchange is brought to you by the CFA Institute Research Foundation. If you would like to support the show and our work, please use the following donation link: https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/en/research-foundation/donate

In this episode, Prof. William Goetzmann joins host Larry Siegel to discuss financial archeology, and how the early history of financial institutions can inform modern practices. William N. Goetzmann is the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies at the Yale School of Management, and executive editor of the Financial Analysts Journal. He won the James R. Vertin Award from the CFA Institute for "research notable for its relevance and enduring value to investment professionals." He is author of the highly acclaimed book, Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible. Prior to his academic career, Goetzmann worked as an archaeologist, a writer and producer of PBS documentaries, and served as the director of the American Museum of Western Art in Denver, Colorado during 1984–85. Laurence B. Siegel is the Gary P. Brinson Director of Research at the CFA Institute Research Foundation and a writer, speaker, and consultant. He is the author of Fewer, Richer, Greener: Prospects for Humanity in an Age of Abundance and Unknown Knowns: On Economics, Investing, Progress, and Folly. He has also written or co-authored several CFA Institute Research Foundation monographs and briefs. Earlier in his career, Larry was director of research in the investment division of the Ford Foundation and, before that, Ibbotson Associates (now part of Morningstar). He holds BA (1975) and MBA (1977) degrees from the University of Chicago. His website is http://www.larrysiegel.org Financial Thought Exchange is brought to you by the CFA Institute Research Foundation. If you would like to support the show and our work, please use the following donation link: https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/en/research-foundation/donate