Excess Returns

After years of struggle, it seemed like the big rebound value investors had been waiting for was upon us in the wake of the 2020 bear market. But recent months have seen a return to the dominance of growth, which has many investors believing value's rebound was nothing more than a head fake. This week, we are joined by GMO Head of Asset Allocation Ben Inker to discuss the recent quarterly letter he wrote to counter these arguments. We discuss the common arguments investors are making against value and why they may not hold up when subjected to scrutiny. We also get Ben's thoughts on a variety of other issues including factor timing, the future of the 60-40 portfolio and how the current period value compares to the period in the early 2000s.   We hope you enjoy the discussion.   ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

With bonds yields near all time lows and stock valuations near all time highs, the future returns of the 60/40 portfolio don't look promising. This has led many investors to move up the risk curve in an effort to boost their returns. But that increased risk also comes with an increased chance of significant problems in future market drawdowns.  This week, we talk to two guests who have come up with an interesting approach that attacks the problem of lower future expected returns in a very different way. We talk to Corey Hoffstein of Newfound Research and Rodrigo Gordillo of Resolve Asset Management about their new paper, Return Stacking: Strategies For Overcoming a Low Return Environment. We discuss how the combination of prudent leverage and uncorrelated return streams can potentially add return to a portfolio without a substantial increase in risk.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.  ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

Our guest in this episode is Gregg Fisher of Quent Capital. Gregg was a pioneer in factor investing and the founder of Gerstein Fisher, which he grew to over $5 billion in assets before selling it in 2016. We discuss Greg's current strategy, which seeks to bring a factor-based approach to investing in innovation. We also cover his extensive research on factor investing, including the future outlook for factor premiums, why dividend investing may be overrated and the importance of investor behavior.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.  MORE INFORMATION ON QUENT CAPITAL https://www.quentcapital.com/ ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

Buying stocks of high quality companies is something investors are almost universally attracted to. But the details of how to define quality, and the reasons why it works can be more complicated to understand. In this episode, we look at the different ways to define quality, the arguments for why it works, and how it can be incorporated into an investment strategy.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.  ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

Valuing factors can be a confusing process. Not only are there are different factors to look at, there are also many ways to define them and a variety of different approaches to look at their valuation. In this episode, we look at what factor valuation can tell us and examine our process for valuing factors in detail. We also look at the current valuation of all the major factors.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.  ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

When many investors think about dividend investing they think about buying the highest yielding stocks. But investing in quality companies that are growing their dividends can in many ways be a superior approach. This week, we talk to Ryan Kruger of Freedom Day Solutions about their approach for finding high quality dividend payers. We also cover a variety of other topics including the two most important questions investors need to answer, his advice for new financial planners, what he has learned as a small issuer running an ETF, and why investors may want to spend more time focusing on their human capital and less on their investment capital.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.   ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

Conviction is probably the most important thing in investing. Regardless of the investment strategy you utilize, the ability to stick with it during the challenging periods is required to achieve its potential. But conviction can also sometimes be a bad thing. It can lead us to see certainty where it doesn't exist. It can also lead us to discount valid arguments against our investment approach.  In this episode we discuss the downside of conviction and what investors can do to make sure it doesn't derail their investment plan.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.  ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

Many investors tend to think growth and momentum investing are highly aligned with each other. But as we have seen recently, with many momentum funds making an aggressive move into value, they also can be very different. In this episode, we talk to Randy Watts, Chief Investment Officer at O'Neil Global Advisors and Jeremy Schwartz, Global Head of Research at WisdomTree about an interesting strategy they have created to combine the two together.  We discuss the challenges of growth investing, the best ways to measure growth, and how to identify it in its early stages. And on the momentum side, we cover combining momentum with mean reversion, the importance of the right rebalancing time frame, and the benefits of momentum consistency.  Since we are both big fans of Jeremy's economic discussions with Jeremy Siegel on the Behind the Markets podcast, we also couldn't resist asking a couple of questions about the outlook for the economy and inflation.  We hope you enjoy the discussion.  ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

This week we bring back our first repeat guest on the podcast. And we can't think of a better person to have back than our good friend Tobias Carlisle. When Toby originally came on the podcast, we were in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis, the market was down, and value stocks were struggling badly. Since then, the situation has substantially improved both in the economy and in the stock market. We talk to Toby about the resurgence in value stocks and their outlook going forward, the changes in the market in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and what he has learned in his 2+ years managing a value ETF, among many other topics.   We hope you enjoy the discussion. ABOUT THE PODCAST Excess Returns is an investing podcast hosted by Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) and Justin Carbonneau (@jjcarbonneau), partners at Validea. Justin and Jack discuss a wide range of investing topics including factor investing, value investing, momentum investing, multi-factor investing, trend following, market valuation and more with the goal of helping those who watch and listen become better long term investors. SEE LATEST EPISODES https://www.validea.com/excess-returns-podcast FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA https://www.validea.com FOLLOW OUR BLOG https://blog.validea.com FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VALIDEA CAPITAL https://www.valideacapital.com FOLLOW JACK Twitter: https://twitter.com/practicalquant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-forehand-8015094 FOLLOW JUSTIN Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjcarbonneau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcarbonneau

In this insightful discussion, Matt Bartolini, Managing Director at State Street Global Advisors, dives into sector investing. He explains how this strategy blends passive and active approaches, enabling investors to focus on entire sectors instead of individual stocks. The conversation reveals the current dominance of healthcare and tech in the S&P 500 and the implications of sector rotation strategies. Bartolini also examines thematic ETFs, the evolving market dynamics, and the challenges of traditional investment strategies like the 60-40 portfolio.