Practical analysis for investment professionals

Alternative Investments


Book Review: Plunder

Brendan Ballou presents a meta-analysis of the worst of private equity investment practices, thus compelling investors to take a deeper look into their illiquid private equity commitments.

Book Review: These Are the Plunderers

The PE playbook is always the same: Borrow money to acquire the firm, saddle it with debt, and extract exorbitant management fees.

The Innovation Advantage: Private Market Investing

The potential advantages of private market investments, specifically venture equity and venture debt investing, extend to five dimensions of performance.

Portfolio Confidential: Five Common Client Concerns

What are the five most common client concerns and how can we address them?

Private Capital: Lessons from the Conglomerate Era

With their sprawling empires, the largest alternative asset managers have adopted strategies that borrow extensively from the octopus-like corporate conglomerate business model.

The Alpha Capture Ratio: Rising Interest Rates Mean Pricier Alpha

What can hedge fund investors do to optimize the price they pay for alpha?

Small Caps: Party Like It’s 2000?

The legendary musician Prince exhorted us to “Party like it’s 1999,” but today, as a small-cap stock investor, I’d flip the calendar one year ahead, to 2000.

Myron Scholes on Black–Scholes, Decarbonization, AI, and Parenting

"If life were unchanging, then options would not be as valuable, but life is always changing, which makes options and the ability to deal with uncertainties very precious." — Myron Scholes

The Trouble with Forecasting Home Prices

Mortgage rates have doubled and tripled in some countries since 2021. So why aren't residential real estate markets more distressed?

Crypto’s Unanswered Question: At What Price?

How do you make buy and sell decisions with cryptoassets? The answer remains elusive.