Top Podcasts of the Week

Below is our “Top Podcast” list with our curator, Colby Donovan!

Today we have former Enron CFO Andy Fastow on legal fraud occurring in corporate America, Bill Bernstein’s thoughts on the current state of the market, two must-listens from Meb Faber, and a great conversation with Robert Sapolsky.

Investing

• Real Vision: Finance, Business & The Global Economy: White Collar Crime Part 3 — Former Enron CFO Andy Fastow on the Problem of “Legal Fraud.” Former Enron CFO Andy Fastow looks back on his mishaps at Enron and why most corporate disasters feature people who are trying to utilize loopholes to get around rules (what he calls “legal fraud”). He highlights some of the ways executives are able to mislead investors by manipulating financial statements, including what he did at Enron, and explains why he doesn’t believe Arthur Andersen did anything illegal (minus the paper shredding). He finishes by explaining how a company he recently invested in, Keen Corp, is using natural language processing to detect problems before they can take a company down. If you enjoy this, check out the old Odd Lots podcast with the CFO of Crazy Eddie, who pursued his CPA designation knowing he would use it to commit accounting fraud. [March 8, 2021–1 hour, 33 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

• The Long View: Bill Bernstein: We’re Starting to See all of the Signs of a Bubble. Bill Bernstein is a neurologist turned financial advisor and author, and he’s one of the most rational people you can listen to on the markets. He covers current market conditions — why he thinks we’re in a bubble, how investors should position their portfolios with bonds yielding nothing, and what he thinks about Robinhood and the rise of non trading costs. [March 10, 2021–41 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

• The Compound Show with Downtown Josh Brown: Stack the Odds in Your Favor (with Rich Bernstein), Dow Jones new high, measuring happiness (with Tony Isola). Brown first talks about the breadth of the market and debunks the idea that only tech stocks are leading the market to all-time highs. Then he’s joined by another Ritholtz employee, Tony Isola, about how he works with clients to help them utilize their wealth to achieve happiness, which frequently includes convincing them to spend their money. Then he’s joined by Rich Bernstein of Richard Bernstein Advisors to talk about how he works with clients to help them stay the course and build wealth over the long-term. He talks about why clients trading for short-term gains is a waste, how he works with clients during drawdowns so they remain invested, and how his firm uses top-down economic themes when constructing portfolios. [March 12, 2021–1 hour, 15 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

• Money For the Rest of Us: Should You Invest in Farmland? This is a great overview of investing in farmland, covering what drives returns, how much the asset class relies on commodity price appreciation, the biggest risks, and how to invest in farmland if you wish to. [March 10, 2021–29 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

The Rest

• People I (Mostly) Admore: 18. Robert Sapolsky: “I Don’t Think We Have Any Free Will Whatsoever.” There are few people I’d rather listen to than Sapolsky, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, who focuses on the impact of stress. He’s also the author of two phenomenal books: Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. The first half of the episode is on his research into monkeys in the early part of his career and what he learned about the human-animal relationship. The second half is how stress changes us physiologically, to what extent he thinks our genes and environment shape our day, and how he’d reform the criminal justice system based on his research into the brains of convicted individuals. [March 5, 2021–41 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

• The Daily Stoic: James Clear On Getting 1% Better Every Day. Clear is the author of the best-seller, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, and joins Ryan Holiday for an hour-long conversation covering a wide-range of topics. They discuss ways to help ensure you maintain an internal locus of control, the danger of setting goals, how to keep control of your time, and of course, best practices to establish long-term habits. [February 17, 2021–1 hour, 4 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

The Meb Faber Show

• **Must Listen*** The Meb Faber Show: #292 — Tom Barton, White Rock Capital — I Just Thought, Well, This Is The Dumbest Short Of All-Time. Tom Barton is a famed-short seller and founder and President of White Rock Capital. He joins Meb for the second time (first episode can be heard here). The episode starts with taking a look back at one of Tom’s tweets from September, which said that GameStop was a misunderstood short, and hear why he thought so back then. Tom and Meb also touch on the differences between shorting based on valuation versus because the company is a fraud. Then they turn to what he mostly focuses on these days: biotech and gene-therapy companies. Tom talks about about his brutal two-year experience as an activist and what he learned from the experience. The episode finishes with Tom walking through some companies he likes in the biotech space, and even shares a SPAC that looks attractive to him at the moment. [March 8, 2021–1 hour, 33 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

• ***Must Listen*** The Meb Faber Show: #293 — Ted Seides, Capital Allocators — I Want To Compound My Capital…But I Want To Do It Alongside Of People That I Respect And Trust. Ted Seides is the host of the Capital Allocators podcast and author of Capital Allocators: How the world’s elite money managers lead and invest.The episode begins by going back to Ted’s early days working under the great David Swensen at Yale to hear what makes him one of the most respected Chief Investment Officer’s in the world. Then they move on to his famous bet with Warren Buffett and hear how the real winner of the bet was the collateral set aside for the duration of the bet. After touching on what the Chief Investment Officer job entails and sharing the insights he’s learned from speaking with some of the top managers in the world, Ted shares how he invests his own money, covering Bill Ackman’s fund, SPACs, and even some crypto. [March 10, 2021–1 hour, 16 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Google | Breaker | Website Link

Recommendations

 Books 

Daniel Ek (CEO, Spotify):

1. Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts

Bill Bernstein (Retired Neuroscientist, Principal at Efficient Frontier Advisors):

1. Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees

2. The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich

3. Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? by Philip Tetlock

Barry Ritholtz (CIO, Ritholtz Wealth Management):

1. Pop!: Why Bubbles Are Great For The Economy by Dan Gross

Good investing,Meb Fabertheideafarm.com