Lots of readers emailing in this chart from Bianco (via Ritholtz). I’m not going to comment on the validity of the data, but rather, the conclusions. If you look at all the comments it appears people think the chart shows how there has been massive inflation over the centuries. But if you do the math, at least eyeballing it, it turns out there is <1% inflation over the past 500 or so years (the sharp uptick in the past 60 years as the possible exception).
Anyone know of where I can find a historical Japanese Real Estate Index?
There are some exciting developments coming down the pipe at Cambria. One of them was prompted by the daily requests over email and phone that ask me what I am reading or what information I find useful.
Starting next week (probably), I’ll be sending out a daily email with the one best paper/article/book/etc that I’m reading that day. The archives will be found on the Cambria website, and to subscribe you simply edit your email preferences for our mailing lists. If you haven’t signed up you can do so either on World Beta (Timing Monthly Newsletter) or on the Cambria website (Performance Updates).
The first note that goes out will be a link to my new paper. A sample note is below:
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State Street Global Advisors: Quant Strategies Can Succeed in Inflationary Times PDF (link fixed).
This paper looks at the returns of value and momentum during low/medium/high inflationary episodes in the US back to the 1920s. Value does better during low or falling inflation while momentum does much better during rising and high inflation.
I thought I was going to get to some reading over the long weekend but it was not to be.
New read just arrived from some investment heavyweights: The Endowment Model of Investing: Return, Risk, and Diversification.
2nd on the list after Drobny’s new book.
I started the website Hedge Fund Letters because I love reading manager commentary and there wasn’t a good rescource for finding the letters other than to Google search for them (although Market Folly does a fantastic job finding them). I started the site anonymously in the beginning as I didn’t know how the hedge fund community would respond.
However, we have only had one hedge fund ever email us to take down their letter. I think the site is pretty cool but don’t have much bandwith to devote to it (I have one very fantastic friend helping out on it).
There are over 100 profiles on there, and while some are sparse I’d like to see them get built out more like the Baupost page here.
I was thinking about turning it into more of a UGC site where users could upload media and content (maybe Wiki-style), but so far have yet to decide on the best way to do it.
My questions to you:
1. Do you find the site useful?
2. What would you do to improve the site?
If you want to help out feel free to drop me an email as well.
Make sure to sign up to get a first peak at my new paper coming next week!
