The Meb Faber Show - Better Investing

Episode 105 is a wholly unique show. In this episode, we depart from traditional investment themes, and instead, bring you an episode featuring Meb’s second professional love, biology. Specifically, we welcome the renowned evolutionary biologist and writer, Olivia Judson. It turns out Olivia wrote for The Economist in her early years. Meb asks how a scientist got started writing for a business mag...

In Episode 104, we welcome the legendary, Ken Fisher. Meb starts with a quick word of congratulations to Ken, as his firm just passed $100B in assets under management. The guys then discuss Ken’s interest in fishing with a bow and arrow, which eventually morphs into a conversation about a millionaire who allegedly hid a million dollars somewhere in the Rockies, leaving clues to treasure-hunters se...

Episode 103 is a solo-Meb show. We just finished a short paper that references the old nutritional “Food Pyramid” published by the FDA a couple decades ago. Given what we’ve learned about health-conscious eating in the years since, that old guideline now seems a bit off-base. In the same way, the investing wisdom of yesteryear now seems similarly misguided. Meb walks us through the white paper tha...

Episode 102 has a radio show format. In this one, we cover Meb’s Tweets of the Week, some write-in questions, Twitter questions, and our first-ever call-in question. We discuss the “Stay Rich” portfolio, and the unfortunate reality that even the safest portfolios can suffer ~25% drawdowns. Next, there’s discussion of stock buybacks and a recent push from Senator Tammy Baldwin to introduce a bill t...

In Episode 101, we welcome the great educator, Paul Merriman. We start with Paul’s background; specifically, the story of an early trading experience with commodities. He doubled his money in days…and then lost everything on the very next trade. Then the guys dive in, with Meb bringing up something Paul wrote called “The Ultimate Buy & Hold Portfolio” and asking for more detail. Paul starts with t...

To celebrate the milestone of reaching 100 episodes, we’re thrilled to welcome Professor Elroy Dimson, author of Meb’s favorite investing book of all time, Triumph of the Optimists. Per Meb’s request, Elroy starts by giving us a summation of his research history which led to Triumph of the Optimists. He had a heritage in producing indexes and began reaching out to researchers across the globe in h...

Episode 99 is a radio show format. We start discussing some of Meb’s “Tweets of the Week.” The first involves a presentation from Rob Arnott at Research Affiliates, which Meb considered “required reading for financial advisors everywhere.” It involves the amount of extra alpha you’d need to generate in order to offset taxes given various market approaches. Next, we discuss another Tweet from Meb i...

In Episode 98, we welcome a true market veteran, Dr. Ed Yardeni. The episode starts with a fun story about Ed’s school days, studying off Janet Yellen’s notes in James Tobin’s class. But Meb soon brings up Ed’s new book, Predicting the Markets. In it, he writes that if books had theme songs, the appropriate song for his would be the 80s hit, “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” Ed explains this is because, whe...

In Episode 97, we welcome one of the most successful syndicate leads in angel investing, Phil Nadel (he also happens to be Meb’s favorite syndicate lead on Angel List). After Phil runs us through his background, Meb asks about Phil’s group, Forefront Venture Partners and its connection to Angel List. Phil gives us the run-through, noting how when Angel List announced its syndicate feature, he felt...

In Episode 96, we welcome two of the brightest guys in real estate, Craig Leupold and Jim Sullivan of Green Street. After touching on Craig’s and Jim’s backgrounds, the guys jump into real estate, with Meb asking about Green Street’s approach to the real estate markets (public and private) and how they think about valuation. Craig gives us an overview, referencing Green Street’s REIT research (foc...

Episode 95 is a radio show format. We start with a recap of Meb’s recent travels to Nicaragua and San Francisco, but then dive into a discussion about volatility. With the VIX spiking at the beginning of the month, some short-vol funds suffered massive losses. We discuss the short-vol trade, then the long-vol trade. Next up, Meb gives us a quick (overdue) update on his trip to see Van Simmons, inc...

In Episode 94, we welcome entrepreneur, author, and SEC filings expert, Michelle Leder. We start with Michelle’s background. She was a business journalist – a self-professed “document geek.” She wrote the book Financial Fine Print: Uncovering a Company's True Value and decided to launch a website as an accompaniment to the book. Here we are, 15 years later. Meb asks Michelle to give an overview of...

In Episode 93, we welcome entrepreneur, author, and quant investor, John Reese. We start with John’s background. When John was a child, his father was a subscriber to Value Line, and John related to the charts and numbers. Later, this love of numbers took him to MIT, where he researched how to take the wisdom from books and turn it into computer programs. Years later, when he sold his company to G...

In Episode 92, we welcome investor, author, and activist, Andrew Tobias. Meb starts by asking Andy about his background and introduction to investing. Andy gives us his origin story, with highlights including collecting stamps, an early introduction to the stock market, a trip behind the Iron Curtain which led to a brief dalliance with Communism, then his becoming a paper millionaire due to some c...

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Episode 91 is a radio show format. We bounce around a bit in this one, starting with Meb’s most popular Tweet of all time. It involves a market record that people decided to politicize. Next are some “signs of the top.” We discuss various indicators that support the general takeaway that (to no one’s surprise) we’re in a frothy market: US investor stock allocations are approaching the highest leve...

In Episode 90, we welcome Founder and Portfolio Manager of Verdad, Dan Rasmussen. We start with a brief walk-through of Dan’s background. It involves a Harvard education, a New York Times best-selling book, a stint at Bridgewater, consulting work with Bain, then his own foray into private equity. Turning to investments, Meb lays the groundwork by saying how many people misunderstand the private eq...

In Episode 89, we welcome legendary market veteran, Blair Hull. We start per usual, with our guest’s background. In this case, long-time Meb Faber Show listeners may think they’ve heard it before. That’s because Blair’s background shares an interesting similarity with that of Ed Thorp – the card game, Blackjack. It turns out Blair made a considerable sum of money playing Blackjack after reading Ed...

In Episode 88, we welcome portfolio manager, Eric Clark. As usual, we start with Eric’s background, which spans 25 years in the investment industry. After working for an asset manager, Eric realized he wanted to do something passion-based – a “timeless equity strategy.” So, when he felt he had the answer, he created a suite of consumption-based brand strategies. Meb asks about these brands and how...

In Episode 87, we welcome market veteran and ETF expert, Mike Venuto. Mike briefly walks us through his background, which includes a fun story about a baffling situation years ago when the gold mining company, Newmont Mining, was falling in price despite gold rising in price. Mike tells us the culprit turned out to be the new ETF “GLD” – Mike realized he needed to learn far more about ETFs. Next,...

Episode 86 is a solo-Meb show. It’s been 10 years since Meb wrote “A Quantitative Approach to Tactical Asset Allocation” which is the top-downloaded paper of all time on SSRN. In the coming weeks, we’re going to publish a retrospective on that paper in the Journal of Portfolio Management. So Meb thought this episode would be a good opportunity to revisit the original paper and perform his 10-year...

Episode 85 is a radio show format. Meb starts with a recap of his latest travels – this time he was off to New York then Europe. Then, it’s onto Q&A. Some of the questions and topics you’ll hear are: To what extent do economic indicators have any effect on Meb’s view of the markets? Bitcoin has been on a meteoric rise recently in advance of the introduction of Bitcoin futures on Sunday 12/10. What...

In Episode 84, we welcome investor and entrepreneur, Howard Lindzon. Howard starts by giving us his background. He was a broker who felt the pain of the ’87 crash. In the aftermath, he got the angel investing and entrepreneurial bugs. He’s currently an investor in Robinhood, and he started StockTwits – which you might think of as Twitter-for-finance. He also runs a fund, Social Leverage. Given tha...

In Episode 83, we welcome fund manager, Randy Swan, who’s calling in from the Bahamas after being displaced from Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. The guys start with Randy’s backstory, which leads into why he started Swan Global Investments. In part due to his background in managing liability risk at KPMG, Randy was interested in a way to diversify away market risk. This led him to develop an optio...

In Episode 82, we welcome trader, fund manager, and author, Vineer Bhansali. Per usual, we start with Vineer’s backstory. It involves his physicist-origins, an unexpected move to an assortment of trading desks, and a run-in with the great, Fischer Black. Meb soon dives in, asking about main strategies Vineer uses with his group, Longtail Alpha. Meb reads a quote from LongTail’s website… “LongTail...