Top Podcasts of the Week

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

We have Professor Jeremy Siegel’s thoughts on the economy and stock market, a great episode on alternative investments, the co-founder of Kickstarter on the next generation of capitalism, and economist Tim Hartford on the need to think about the long-term consequences of immediate policy decisions when handling an urgent danger (COVID-19).

Business

  • ***Must Listen*** Masters in Business: Jeremy Siegel on the Stock Market Under COVID-19. Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel joins Ritholtz for a great episode on the current state of the market and economy and what he thinks may be in store for the future. Siegel notes that until this year, the increase in the Fed’s balance sheet was staying with the banks and not reaching the economy, but this time it is going straight to people and businesses like he’s never seen before. He thinks this liquidity will cause a massive spending boom once we have a vaccine and that will finally result in inflation. He also thinks the bond lows in March mark the end of the 40 year bull market we’ve seen in bonds. He finishes by covering what the real impact from losing a year of earnings is on the stock market’s valuations, the impact of the retail traders in the market (doesn’t think it’s anywhere near 1999), why he takes issue with CAPE, and why top-tier universities will be fine after COVID is behind us but others may not. [June 19, 2020–1 hour, 7 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

Those accounts (M1 & M2) in the eight weeks after the virus hit, increased by 25%. In the entire year after the Lehman crisis, the increase in the M1 money supply was 15–20%.

  • The Meb Faber Show: #231 — Julian Klymochko, Accelerate Financial Technologies — “The Democratization Of Alternatives, It’s Happening But It Doesn’t Happen Overnight.” This was a great episode all about alternative investing. The guest is the founder and CEO of Accelerate Financial Technologies, a firm delivering hedge fund and private equity ETFs. His thesis is that with stocks at or near all-time highs and bonds yielding almost nothing, investors need to look elsewhere to increase returns, which alternatives offer. He talks about merger arbitrage, private equity, hedge funds, and SPAC’s, providing an update on each asset class and and what he expects going forward. [June 24, 2020–1 hour, 13 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

Assuming stocks and bonds have low or even negative correlation, if you add additional uncorrelated assets on top of that, you’ll only improve the risk adjusted returns.

  • Excess Returns: Interview: Timeless Investing and Life Lessons with Jim O’Shaughnessy. O’Shaughnessy is the CIO and founder of O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, a quantitative money management firm. Jim always does a great job of putting current events into historical perspective and does so with our current situation with COVID-19 and the Fed, and while we may not have experienced a situation exactly like this, human nature and how we handle extreme events never will change. He talks about how the market is the best vehicle to generate long-term wealth, why small cap value stocks offer an attractive risk/return right now (see OSAM’s paper on that here), why his current hope about the retail involvement in the market is that they learn to be invested over the long-term, and what he thinks the permanent effects of COVID-19 will be (mainly an increase in people working from home). [June 21, 2020–1 hour, 10 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

A diversified global equity portfolio is still the champion for the long term saver and investor.

  • Venture Stories: This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World with Yancey Strickler. Yancey Strickler is the co-founder of Kickstarter and author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World. He talks about capitalism and the trade-off companies make between creating “value” and having “values,” and makes the argument that the future of capitalism will utilize AI and technology to help companies do more than create financial gains. He talks about his own push/pull at Kickstarter between helping improve the world and also make a profit, which led him to his idea for the book. He gives the example of Adele using an algorithm to learn who her super fans were and sell tickets to them instead of selling to intermediaries and resellers who would increase prices substantially for her real fans. Situations like that should be more prevalent as we more forward. [June 23, 2020–55 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

  • What Goes Up: Pin the Tail Risk on the Quant. This episode is with Meb Faber and covers a lot of different topics, including tail risk, asset allocation, and value investing. He starts by discussing his $TAIL fund, which provides downside protection and is a great way to help people remain invested in the market during drawdowns. He also puts the March drawdown and current valuations in perspective historically. Then he talks about the importance of emerging markets and small cap value, why trend following is better than buy and hold because you remain in up-trending markets but have protection by getting out of markets when markets enter a down-trend, why he has farmland in his portfolio, and why investing at all-time highs isa good idea (see his paper on it here). [June 19, 2020–36 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

  • Infinite Loops: Chris Sommers — Adventures at Sea. This episode is an incredibly fun listen about someone taking a step back in life and having an incredible journey. Sommerstalks about his experience shorting Lehman’s stock at Greenlight Capital in 2008. Soon after the crisis he decided he was burnt out and needed a break, choosing to sail from NYC all around the world over a four year span (without knowing how to sail). He lived in the Bahamas for a while, sailed with a homeless guy he randomly met, found his future wife, went to the Dominican Republic, and had countless adventures that I could write about on his journey. While not really a finance episode, it’s a great listen. [June 18, 2020–1 hour, 15 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker

  • The Meb Faber Show: #230 — Ryan Lupberger, Cleancult — There’s No Other Brand On The Market That Can Sit On Shelves And Be Zero Waste. This is a great episode on the journey of an entrepreneur and having great highs and surviving the lows. Lupberger is the founder of Cleancult, a startup delivering effective, natural cleaning products in sustainable packaging through a revolutionary refill model. He talks about his journey with the company — going through seven iterations to get where the company is today with a macaroni milk carton which is surprisingly game-changing, participating in two accelerators, have a presence in Puerto Rico and dealing with the hurricane in 2017, and eventually getting an investment from the founder of Bombas Socks due to a connection of being Babson College alum’s. [June 22, 2020–48 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

The Rest

  • ***Must Listen*** Cautionary Tales: A Tsunami of Misery. This is a must-listen on the trade-off we are now facing with COVID-19 on how to prevent immediate deaths due to the virus, while also avoiding decisions that have long-term effects that may be worse than if we let the immediate issue run its course. There is no right answer, but we have to be cognizant we are making a trade-off, and Hartford does a phenomenal job explaining that. Economist Tim Hartford walks us through the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 as an example of this trade-off, why the identifiable victim effectcontributes to this, and why some of the long-term issues that had appeared because of policy decisions, including increased rates of suicide, domestic violence, and depression, took two years after the tsunami to come to fruition. [June 19, 2020–21 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

  • The Daily Stoic: Ryan and UT Basketball Coach Shaka Smart Talk Self-Control and Using Your Time Wisely. University of Texas basketball coach Shaka Smart talks a lot about his mental approach to life and self-improvement, especially during the chaotic times of today. He talks about trying to continue to improve even as he’s stuck at home, the importance of being present and not succumbing to human nature’s negative thought pattern, and his focus on growing spiritually and coming closer to an elevated state of consciousness during the past few months. Holiday and Smart both talk about how some of the most important people’s to-do lists typically include onething a day.The episode finishes with Smart talking about having a growth mindset himself and not just telling his players to live that way, and why he is trying to appreciate hard times since they give you the gift of humility. [June 13, 2020–41 minutes] iTunes Podcast | Spotify | Overcast |Google | Breaker | Website Link

Simplicity is the ultimate level of sophistication.

RECOMMENDATIONS
Books

Scott Boras (MLB Agent):

Arjun Sethi (Co-founder, Tribe Capital):

Jeremy Siegel (Professor of Finance, University of Pennsylvania): 

Larry Swedroe (Chief Research Officer at Buckingham Wealth Partners):

Paul Dejoria (Founder, Patron Spirits Company and Paul Mitchell): 

Good investing,Meb Fabertheideafarm.com