Author Archives: philosophicalecon@gmail.com

I just published a new long-form piece through OSAM entitled “Upside-Down Markets: Profits, Inflation and Equity Valuation in Fiscal Policy Regimes.” In the piece, I explore the stock market implications of fiscal policy. Focusing specifically on the COVID-19 pandemic, I attempt … Continue reading →

I just published a new long-form piece through OSAM Research Partners entitled “The Earnings Mirage: Why Corporate Profits are Overstated and What it Means for Investors.” In the piece, I describe a new methodology for measuring the profitability and valuation … Continue reading →

I recently co-wrote a piece with Chris Meredith @chrismeredith23 and Patrick O’Shaughnessy @patrick_oshag of O’Shaughnessy Asset Management. We take a deep dive into the fundamentals of Value and Momentum to understand how these factors work. Link below, hope you enjoy! … Continue reading →

The following chart shows the distribution of future return assumptions that state and local pension funds were using to value their liabilities as of February 2017: The average expected return was around 7.5%. How can any large fund, much less … Continue reading →

It’s the fall of 2011. Investors are caught up in fears of another 2008-style financial crisis, this time arising out of schisms in the Eurozone. The S&P 500 is trading at 1200, the same price it traded at in 1998, … Continue reading →

In this piece, I’m going to share a mental exercise that we can use to increase the truthfulness of our thinking. The exercise is intended primarily for traders and investors, given their obvious (financial) reasons for wanting to think more … Continue reading →

Looking back at asset class performance over the course of market history, we notice a hierarchy of excess returns.  Small caps generated excess returns over broad equities, which generated excess returns over corporate bonds, which generated excess returns over treasury … Continue reading →

The current market environment is made difficult by the fact that investors have nowhere that they can go to confidently earn a decent return.  There are no good deals to be found anywhere, in any area of the investment universe. … Continue reading →

Let’s suppose that you have money on deposit in a bank, in some kind of checking or savings account.  It’s paying you 2.5% per year, which isn’t something you can easily get in 2017, but something that would have been … Continue reading →

In this piece, I’m going to introduce a simplified model of a fund market, and then use the model to illustrate certain important concepts related to the impact of the market’s ongoing transition from active to passive management.  Some of … Continue reading →