Biography
David Larrabee, CFA, was director of member and corporate products at CFA Institute and served as the subject matter expert in portfolio management and equity investments. Previously, he spent two decades in the asset management industry as a portfolio manager and analyst. He holds a BA in economics from Colgate University and an MBA in finance from Fordham University. Topical Expertise: Equity Investments · Portfolio Management
Investment strategist Michael Mauboussin explains how investors could generate more accurate valuations and improve their investment decision making by avoiding common behavioral pitfalls.
Elizabeth Corley described 2017 as a year of transition as she shared her outlook on the economy, geopolitics, fiscal and monetary policy, and their implications for global investors. And while she characterized the environment as challenging and struck a cautious tone, she also offered hope and some words of advice for beleaguered active managers.
The finance industry, long plagued by public distrust, has reached a tipping point, says Stephen Davis. The public’s anger, fueled by a belief that investors have been unjustly “separated from their money,” has helped to usher in a new “discipline of ownership.”
For Andy Acker, CFA, portfolio manager of the Janus Global Life Sciences Fund, these are especially exciting times for investors in the health care sector. Opportunities abound, as significant advances in understanding the genetic causes of disease have resulted in a surge in new and more effective treatments. At the same time, risks remain and a disciplined approach to stock selection and portfolio construction is imperative for success.
It's more a less a certainty that, net of fees, the average active investor will underperform the stock market. Yet empirical data also suggest that there are a number of market anomalies that have persisted over time, and disciplined investors can exploit them to generate outsized returns. Peter Berezin highlights some of the most compelling ones.
Keith P. Ambachtsheer, long an outspoken advocate for pension reform, gave a sober assessment of the state of the world’s workplace retirement plans, praising the relative strength of plans in northern Europe while declaring those in southern Europe to be a “disaster.”
At the recent CFA Institute Equity Research and Valuation Conference in Philadelphia, Fidelity fund manager Chuck Myers, CFA, drew on his experiences as a value investor and shared some of the lessons he learned along the way that have come to shape his investing philosophy.
It has been nearly a decade since the US Federal Reserve last raised its Fed Funds rate, which may help to explain the apprehension among financial market participants who wonder how markets will react when the Fed finally decides to move its benchmark rate up from the current 0% to 0.25% range. Earlier this week, we asked CFA Institute Financial NewsBrief readers when they expect the Fed to hike interest rates. Not surprisingly, opinions were divided.
Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig recently wrote of a truism that is rarely acknowledged within the investment industry: Wall Street market forecasts offer little to no value. While it may be a fruitless exercise, hearing the prognostications of acknowledged market experts remains a guilty pleasure of many investment professionals, which may explain why nearly 1,000 of them turned out last week for CFA Society Toronto’s 58th Annual Forecast Dinner.
Most studies of the impact of family ownership indicate that, on balance, family control is a good thing for stockholders. Family-controlled firms typically maintain a long-term perspective and strong balance sheets, and boast corporate cultures that have won the admiration of Warren Buffett. Credit Suisse has added to the body of research on family-controlled firms with the recent release of The Family Business Model, a global study which sought to better understand why family-run businesses outperform.