What 200+ Years of Data Teaches About Market Concentration
With markets at or near all-time highs for most of 2024, we are consistently asked questions about valuation, market divergences, and other factors that may portend the end of the bull market. One of the most pervasive questions lately has been about market concentration. As a fewer number of stocks continue to dominate markets and…
Read MoreHow Trend Following Handles Market Shocks & Drawdowns
When we travel by air, my wife usually points out that she thinks it would be better if people by windows boarded first; that way, anyone in an aisle or middle seat wouldn’t have to keep standing up. Meanwhile, I think the Southwest Airlines style of pick-any-open-seat is optimal. Our gut feelings were recently rendered…
Read MoreFamous Strawmen: The Scarecrow & The Best 10 Days Rule
My mother has always been a big fan of Victor Fleming’s “The Wizard of Oz.” When I was a kid, it would be on TV at least once a year, and mom always made a point to watch it. I usually joined her…up until the part where the witch and her creepy troop of flying…
Read MoreTrend Following: An Exit on the Highway to the Danger Zone
A financial media headline with the word “trend” usually jumps off the page at you when you’re an asset manager, like Blueprint Investment Partners, that attempts to generate alpha through trend following. This happened to me earlier this year when I saw this one: “Why trends are so intoxicating for investors – and dangerous.” I clicked…
Read MoreHope Is a Strategy (Just Not a Good One)
“Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” –Red, “The Shawshank Redemption” If you ask my wife what puzzles her most about me, I imagine the short list would include my near-compulsion to stop on certain movies while channel surfing. I mean, I get it. How many times does one person really…
Read MoreWebinar Highlights: Building An Elite Culture For Your Wealth Practice
Many people within financial services like to think this industry is unique. Like on a faraway island, you-just-could-not-possibly-understand-us kind of unique. In my opinion, thinking like this helps explain why we see so much insular recruiting of talent, bespoke tech stack building, and overly complex investment models. While there certainly are unique attributes about our…
Read MoreTrend Following: Weed Control for Portfolios
A powerful motivator for many parents is a desire to have their children’s upbringing to be better than their own. Better schools, a nicer house, more toys, and better vacations are all things many of us wish for our kids to experience – especially if we didn’t have these things in our own childhood. I…
Read MoreRadical Transparency is Good for Business
Celebrating Blueprint Investment Partners’ 10-year milestone late last year gave me an opportunity to reflect on two conflicting realities: One of the areas I reflected on was the topic of radical transparency, something that 10 years ago was uncommon in financial services but today seems to be accepted as good for business – regardless of…
Read MoreInflation Autopsy Report
Back in 2021, as inflation rates broke out from their long-term range, we discussed a study by the Man Institute about strategies for inflationary times. Now that prices appear to be stabilizing, we can look back and ask, “How did these assets do?” In Theory, These Are The Best Strategies for Inflationary Times Commodities: In the…
Read MoreBut The Market Always Comes Back…Right?
A common argument used against tactical asset management in favor of more passive approaches is that the market always comes back. We applaud the optimism. However, we believe building an investment portfolio that assumes the market will always come back is like putting all the chips on black in a game of roulette. It’s also…
Read More