Stephen Sexauer & Laurence Siegel on Remembering Harry Markowitz, the Father of Modern Finance
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
Release Date: 03/20/2024
David Booth on Founding a Firm Based On Revolutionary Academic Innovations (Part 2)
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
In Part 2, David Booth reflects on how Dimensional Fund Advisors expanded by partnering with fee-only financial advisors, helping to bring academic investing principles to individual clients. He emphasizes the importance of low fees both in appealing to personal investors and in delivering superior results to them. Booth discusses how his collaboration with leading finance professors led him to regard the University of Chicago as a business partner and describes his gift to the school as a “partnership distribution.”
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David Booth on Founding a Firm Based On Revolutionary Academic Innovations
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
David Booth, one of the best-known investors in the world, founded Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) along with Rex Sinquefield and brought asset-class investing, a description that embraces both index funds and the index-based but value-added strategy that DFA pursues, to individual investors as well as institutions. David, who received a PhD from the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, also made the largest donation in the University of Chicago’s history and, in recognition of that gift, the university renamed its business school the Booth School of Business. In...
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The Hidden Skeletons of Financial Reporting: Part 2
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,...
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The Hidden Skeletons of Financial Reporting: Part 1
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...
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Author Gregory Zuckerman on Jim Simons And His Unmatched Hedge Fund Returns
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
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, , Gregory Zuckerman, the Wall Street Journal who previously profiled John Paulson in , 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...
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Allison Schrager on Personal Risk: Big Wave Surfers, Tightrope Walkers, and Big Financial Losses
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
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.
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Cliff Asness Talks Quantitative Strategies and the Less Efficient Market Hypothesis
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
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...
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Roger Ibbotson on Stocks, Bonds, Bills, Inflation, and the Future of Finance and Humanity
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
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 . Ibbotson and Siegel discuss the driving factors behind long-term returns,...
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Lotta Moberg, CFA, and Brian Singer, CFA: Balancing Active and Passive Investment Horizons
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
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...
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William Hardin on Education in Finance
Financial Thought Exchange Podcast
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.
info_outlineStephen Sexauer is SDCERA’s Chief Investment Officer and oversees SDCERA’s $17 billion pension Trust Fund, investment team, and investment consultants. Sexauer graduated from the University of Illinois with a BS in Economics and from the University of Chicago with an MBA in Economics and Finance.
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.
Sexauer and Siegel describe the “bolt from the blue” represented by Harry Markowitz’s 1952 discovery of mean-variance optimization for investment portfolios. They indicate how optimization has been applied and misapplied, and suggest a new heuristic for combining optimizer outputs with other information.
Their published work on the topic can be found here: https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/en/research/financial-analysts-journal/2023/harry-markowitz-and-the-philosophers-stone
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