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The Permanent Portfolio: How an entrepreneur invests — with Craig Rowland

permanent portfolio

As a successful entrepreneur, Craig Rowland knew how to take measured risks.

He does the same now when investing his portfolio. In his recent book The Permanent Portfolio: Harry Browne’s Long-Term Investment Strategy, Rowland describes Harry Browne’s famous Permanent Portfolio strategy and why it’s so effective at helping him succeed in the market.

Please join us for an interesting discussion about managing money, taking risks, and Harry Browne’s famous easy-to-implement no-brainer investment strategy.

Listen to the FULL episode

About Craig Rowland

Craig Rowland -- author of Permanent PortfolioCraig Rowland is a software entrepreneur with multiple successful start-ups who sold his previous company to Cisco Systems, Inc. His company produced a real-time network attack response and analysis system. He has also worked for the Chief of Naval Operations – U.S. Pentagon, with a start-up founded by members of the Air Force Information Warfare Squadron (also acquired by Cisco).

More resources

Even More Resources

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The Investor’s Guide to the Low Volatility Anomaly

Kudos to Tadas (like how that sounds) at Abnormal Returns for his recent blogging and book about what’s know as the low volatility anomaly.

Simply, accepted theory is that higher volatility stocks (ie riskier) should perform better than lower volatility ones over time. You know, the old risk-return tradeoff.

The thing is that in practice, they don’t.

There’s been a growing body of research and interest into this phenomenon and I thought it would be worthwhile to make some order out of this.

The investor’s guide to the low volatility anomaly

Much of the interest into this curious fact has stemmed from academic research.

Academic Research on the low volatility anomaly

Reporting on the low risk volatility anomaly

Illustrations

dylan-grice on the low volatility anomaly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion

Video

Morningstar: When less risk equals more reward

Tools

Low volatility investment products

  • Russell Developed ex US Low Volatility ETF ($XLVO)
  • iShares MSCI USA Minimum Volatility ETF ($USMV)
  • PowerShares S&P Low Volatility Portfolio ($SPLV)
  • Russell 1000 Low Volatility ($LVOL)
  • Russell 2000 Low Volatility ($SLVY)
  • iShares MSCI All Country World Minimum Volatility Index ($ACWV)
  • Summit Global Investments Low Volatility Equity Fund ($SILVX)

What did I miss?

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Become an indomitable investor — with Steven Sears

future of financial services

To build and protect wealth, Investors don’t need another get-rich-quick scheme.

Instead, look at history’s best investors to understand the basics of investing, the players in the market and their different priorities, what works and what doesn’t, and how to manage volatility.by steven sears

Steven Sears, editor and columnist at Barron’s, has written just such a book. His writing has a lifetime of experience and advice witnessing what works for the best investors…and what doesn’t.

He joins us on Tradestreaming Radio to discuss his new book, The Indomitable Investor.

Listen to the FULL episode

Continue reading “Become an indomitable investor — with Steven Sears”

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[free webinar] Insider trading strategies: how to follow the smart money

I’m hosting a webinar tomorrow on insider trading strategies — following the corporate insider smart money.

You’ll learn about:

  • recent Harvard research that shows a new insider trading strategy produces 10% of abnormal returns — per year
  • how to identify the smart insiders (versus other noisy trading)
  • the methods to create a portfolio that mimics some of the best
  • other ways to play insider trading (funds, ETFs)
  • the best online tools and resources to bubble up insider trading that really means something

Interested in attending?

>>>Sign up here<<<

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How to piggyback top hedge funds more effectively (presentation)

In a recent webinar, I sat with Maz Jadallah, founder/CEO of AlphaClone, a software provider and investment manager enabling what I call “piggybacking strategies” of top hedge funds.

We discussed some of the objections investors have to creating strategies involving replicating hedge funds.  We also provided 5 tips to perform better using cloning strategies.  It was a intriguing session with some great questions from the audience — make sure you sign up to this blog to be notified of our next event.

5 Myths About Cloning Hedge Funds

View more presentations from AlphaClone

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Hedge fund index performance for December 2010

Final performance for the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index (“Broad Index”) is confirmed up 2.90% in December and up 10.95% YTD

Oliver Schupp, President of Credit Suisse Index Co., Inc., said, “The Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index rose 2.90% in December, with nine out of ten sectors posting positive performance for the month. Managed Futures was the best performing sector, finishing up 5.42%. Positive performance was also seen in the Event Driven sector, which finished up 3.93%, however Global Macro remains the strongest performing sector in 2010 after posting positive performance of 2.67% in December.”

Performance for the Broad Index and its ten sub-strategies is calculated monthly. December, November and year-to-date performance numbers are listed below and are available at www.hedgeindex.com.

Category Dec 2010 Nov 2010 YTD 10
Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index 2.90% -0.18% 10.95%
Convertible Arbitrage 1.16% 0.04% 10.95%
Dedicated Short Bias -5.86% -2.36% -22.47%
Emerging Markets 1.50% -0.38% 11.34%
Equity Market Neutral 1.74% -2.51% -0.85%
Event Driven 3.93% 0.15% 12.63%
Distressed 2.73% 0.33% 10.26%
Multi-Strategy 4.78% 0.04% 14.36%
Risk Arbitrage 1.14% -1.44% 3.17%
Fixed Income Arbitrage 0.61% 0.74% 12.51%
Global Macro 2.67% -0.52% 13.47%
Long/Short Equity 3.42% 0.46% 9.28%
Managed Futures 5.42% -4.11% 12.22%
Multi-Strategy 1.70% 0.30% 9.29%
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Preliminary hedge fund index performance for December 2010

Key highlights for the month:

  • Hedge Funds bounced back after muted performance in November, as the Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund index rose an estimated 3.01%. Nine out of ten sectors posted positive performance for the month. The industry is expected to finish up 11.07% for the year.
  • The Event Driven sector posted the strong performance in December due primarily to increased opportunities in the special situations arena. The largest gains were seen in the Distressed and Multi-Strategy sub-indices which were up 2.34% and 5.27% respectively.
  • Global Macro funds were also among the top performers for the month finishing up 2.75%. Managers found profitability in FX trades, where many shorted the USD against other emerging markets currencies. Managers also added alpha via commodities with long precious metal positions.
  • Managed Futures funds posted positive performance of 5.50%, helping the sector to recoup November losses. Performance was largely driven by gains from short term models, which were able to capture strong momentum in both equities and commodities.

Strategy Estimates

Index Dec-10 Nov-10 2010
Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index 3.01% -0.18% 11.07%
Convertible Arbitrage 1.14% 0.04% 10.95%
Dedicated Short Bias -5.94% -2.36% -22.52%
Emerging Markets 1.71% -0.38% 11.56%
Equity Market Neutral 2.22% -2.51% -0.37%
Event Driven 4.16% 0.15% 12.89%
Distressed 2.34% 0.33% 9.84%
Event Driven Multi-Strategy 5.27% 0.04% 14.90%
Risk Arbitrage 1.24% -1.44% 3.26%
Fixed Income Arbitrage 0.63% 0.74% 12.50%
Global Macro 2.75% -0.52% 13.54%
Long/Short Equity 3.41% 0.46% 9.26%
Managed Futures 5.50% -4.11% 12.28%
Multi-Strategy 1.79% 0.30% 9.38%
Dow Jones Global Index 7.38% -2.16% 11.89%
Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index 1.31% -3.81% 5.54%
DJ-UBS Total Return Commodities Index 10.69% -0.35% 16.83%

Source
Early View: Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index Estimated Up 3.01% in December