By: Matt Garrott The month of May marks the 7th anniversary of the first Bitcoin transaction, an exchange of 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 Papa Johns pizzas.  Reaction to the trade at the time was mixed.  There were many people who thought it was neat that someone finally bartered the digital currency for an actual item.  [...]

By: Matt Garrott Capital Group is pushing back hard against the passive investing crowd.  They make the case that some basic screens (low expenses, manager investing in their own fund, etc) can reveal good managers.  I agree with that.  The screens I use at Fairway are kind of hilariously basic relative to the universe of [...]

By: Matt Garrott No One Expects a 40% Return for the S&P 500 This Year I defy you to find a pundit optimistic about the stock market.  Is anyone predicting double digit returns?  Low to mid-single digits seems to be the popular view among those shouting the loudest.  Short term returns have been stellar as [...]

By: Matt Garrott As usual, Warren Buffett’s letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway is a must-read.  It is well known that he advocates low-fee indexing for most investors.  As his famous bet with a hedge fund of funds manager winds down, Buffett unleashed both barrels on high-fee money managers: “The underlying hedge-fund managers in our [...]

By: Matt Garrott Punxsutawney Phil practices accurate ambiguity. The vast majority of the time, he sees his shadow.  This portends 6 more weeks of winter, generally lining up with the Spring Equinox.  What a great strategy.  Winter usually lasts 6 more weeks so predict 6 more weeks of winter and most of the time you’ll [...]

By: Matt Garrott We’ve witnessed the peaceful exchange of power in the most powerful country on the planet.  Now, how do we create a “Trump Portfolio” of only the best, really the greatest, everybody says so securities?  Does it make sense to overweight small cap manufacturing stocks that might benefit from a strong dollar or perhaps bank [...]

By: Matt Garrott What Happened in 2016 The stock market started the year on the wrong foot with a 10% drawdown. It was the worst start to a calendar year ever and prompted knee-jerk reactions such as the RBS note for their clients to “sell everything”.  At the end of June, the UK [...]

By: Matt Garrott The S&P 500 is up over 3% since the election. I hesitate to call this a “Trump Rally”, especially as the election looms so large in recent memory.  For now, it seems prudent to recognize that the election has brought with it a reduction in uncertainty and a sigh of [...]

By: Matt Garrott As a whisky (whiskey here in the States) matures, it loses about 2% of its volume to evaporation each year.  Distilleries call this The Angels’ Share.  They fill oak casks with a precious liquid knowing that each year part of their hard work will simply disappear.  I can’t help but think of [...]

By: Matt Garrott The 2016 Harvard Management Company Annual Endowment Report is out.  What was once a great write-up about the cutting edge of investment management now serves as a warning that every investor can learn from.  The endowment’s fixation on keeping up with the Joneses (Yale and Stanford, especially) has led to [...]