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Nov. 26, 2024

E115: Is the 60/40 Portfolio Outdated? w/James Langer

E115: Is the 60/40 Portfolio Outdated? w/James Langer
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James Langer, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer at Redmont Wealth Advisors sits down with David Weisburd to discuss how Reason small cap stocks are crushing large caps, the academic approach to outperforming with small cap strategies, and the history of top stocks since 1926.

Our Podcast now receives more than 200,000 downloads a month. Are you interested in sponsoring an episode? Please email me at David@10xcapital.com.

X / Twitter: @dweisburd (David Weisburd)

LinkedIn:

David Weisburd: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dweisburd/
James Langer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-langer-65072b260/

Links: Redmont Wealth Advisors: https://www.redmontwealth.com/

Questions or topics you want us to discuss on The 10X Capital Podcast? Email us at david@10xcapital.com

TIMESTAMPS:

(0:00) Episode Preview (1:04) Eugene Fama's influence and the Fama-French three-factor model (3:14) Impact of the Fama-French model on investment strategy (6:28) Intuition behind small cap value outperformance (8:48) Practical application of theoretical investment strategies (10:32) Indexing approaches: Equally weighted vs. market capitalization (12:06) James Langer's experience and Redmond's investment strategy (16:35) Comparing active management and indexing across market segments (22:06) Indexing tools and active investing impacts (24:59) Effective investment through management alignment (28:03) Portfolio analysis and proprietary tools (29:41) Closing remarks
Transcript
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Going back to 1926 where the database starts,
just invested purely on a quantitative basis

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00:00:06,879 --> 00:00:12,419
without any qualitative overlay and small
stocks with low price to book values.

3
00:00:12,835 --> 00:00:14,214
Today, you would have $491,000.

4
00:00:16,274 --> 00:00:20,135
And that annualizes out to a 14.3% return.

5
00:00:20,355 --> 00:00:26,370
If you compare that to large cap growth, the
exact same analysis investing in large

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00:00:26,370 --> 00:00:33,729
companies with high price to book values or
growth stocks, you'd have $13,900 and about a

7
00:00:33,729 --> 00:00:35,090
10.2% return.

8
00:00:35,090 --> 00:00:42,655
So you have over a 400 basis point spread
between small cap value and large cap growth

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00:00:42,714 --> 00:00:43,934
going back to 1926.

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00:00:46,155 --> 00:00:51,689
Why is this strategy not more widely accepted
or implemented in investment management?

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00:00:52,170 --> 00:00:57,449
If you're a multi $1,000,000,000 family office
or institution, typically, you'll just have

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00:00:58,409 --> 00:01:00,429
James, welcome to the Tenex Capital podcast.

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00:01:01,210 --> 00:01:03,129
David, thank you so much for having me here.

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00:01:03,129 --> 00:01:04,454
I'm so excited for today.

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00:01:04,615 --> 00:01:08,454
So you worked with Nobel Laureate Eugene Fama
at the University of Chicago.

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00:01:08,454 --> 00:01:09,355
Tell me about that.

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He was a really tough guy to work for, very
demanding.

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Essentially, what I did for him is I helped him
assemble a database of information on publicly

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traded stocks.

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So I would go into the depths of the Regenstein
library and grab the Moody's manuals and

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Wiesenberg manuals and manually enter stock
prices, income statements, balance sheets into

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00:01:33,465 --> 00:01:41,924
a database that was used to produce his three
factor model that was published in in 1992.

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Since Harry Markowitz published his CAPM study
in in 1959, there really hadn't been any

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00:01:47,905 --> 00:01:51,959
updates to that work to describe what exactly
moves prices.

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And the Markowitz model explained about 70% of
stock price variation.

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And, the FAMA French three factor model
described 90% of it.

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So using 2 different factors.

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The work that I did still carries forward to
everything that I do today, 30 plus years

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later.

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Is it overly simplistic to say that Eugene Fama
and Ken French developed a market to better

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explain the efficient market hypothesis?

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Essentially,

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the Markowitz model, the CAPM model, there was
really 2 factors, one being beta and the other

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one being alpha to describe the difference
between the variation in stock price returns.

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So what FAMA and French did is they added size,
what the market capitalization is of a company,

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a publicly traded company at that point in
time, and what the price to book ratio is for

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that business.

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What the data found, which had never been
looked at this closely before, is that the

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smaller a stock is, the better it tends to
perform.

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And the more book value a company has relative
to its market capitalization, to better

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perform.

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So combining those two factors, small stocks
that are value oriented historically have

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provided excess returns to investors.

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Eugene Fama is an academic.

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Ken French is an academic.

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Is this a purely academic insight?

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How How much of a difference does this actually
make in returns?

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It's truly incredible.

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$1 going back to 1926, where the database
starts, just invested purely on a quantitative

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00:03:31,879 --> 00:03:40,145
basis without any qualitative overlay in small
stocks with low price to book values, today you

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00:03:40,145 --> 00:03:47,045
would have $491,000 And that annualizes out to
a 14.3% return.

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If you compare that to large cap growth, the
exact same analysis investing in large

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companies with high price to book values or
growth stocks, you'd have $13,900 so and about

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a 10.2% return.

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00:04:03,219 --> 00:04:10,685
So you have over a 400 basis point spread
between small cap value and large cap growth

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00:04:10,824 --> 00:04:12,125
going back to 1926.

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If you fast forward to where we are today, when
you look at a declining interest rate

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environment, historically, small cap value has
produced almost a 20% return annually when

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interest rates fall for 6 months.

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And that compares to the overall equity markets
at about 15.5%.

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So you're getting once again over 400 basis
points of alpha in a declining interest rate

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environment.

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So as we sit here today, it's a very good time
to be looking at small cap value as an asset

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class.

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So going back to 1926, which is where this data
was, almost a 100 years, you have a 400 basis

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outperformance for small cap value versus large
cap growth.

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On top of that, you also have this 20% return
going back to 1976 in terms of in a declining

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interest rate environment, small cap value
doing 200%.

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So double the returns.

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Why is this strategy not more widely accepted
or implemented in investment management?

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The reason why everybody's not doing it is is
primarily due to scale.

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It's very difficult for a large institutional
investor with 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000

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of dollars to deploy the amount of capital
necessary to take a meaningful position in the

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asset class.

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So if you're a multibillion dollar family
office or institution, typically, you'll just

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have a couple percent allocated in the public
markets into small cap stocks.

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And the best way to achieve that allocation
typically would be through an index fund that's

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diversified over 100 of companies.

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If you took a more concentrated position, you
would end up owning very large positions in

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these individual companies 2%, 3%, 4%, which
makes it difficult to get in and out of that

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position as you see fit.

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For example, the fund that I ran at advisory
research, we capped it at $1,000,000,000 and

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had that money spread across 40 stocks because
that was enough money for us to have a

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meaningful position in individual companies,
but not get to the level that we were

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extraordinarily affecting what the stock price
did relative to our allocation.

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Talk to me about the intuition behind why small
cap value investments outperform large growth

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investments.

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There's several reasons that would explain that
dynamic.

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The first one is the higher risk premium
associated with small cap stocks.

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So historically, small cap stocks have been
slightly more volatile or have a standard

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higher standard deviation of return pattern
than large cap stocks.

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So in order to be fairly compensated for that,
you need a higher expected return.

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So the risk premium would kind of be the first
reason.

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The second reason was would be that there's
very, very little analyst coverage, if any, on

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these stocks.

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And what that does is it creates inefficiencies
in terms of information knowledge, as well as

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earnings expectations and how a company is
performing relative to those.

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So you can really find stocks that are
mispriced because they're overlooked and

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they're under followed by other institutional
investors as well as the street.

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The third reason would be that typically what
happens with any publicly traded company, if

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you have underappreciated fundamentals relative
to where averages should be, there's a mean

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reversion that takes place.

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So by definition, a value stock will have
fundamentals that don't match where the market

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is at.

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And typically, what happens is you have that
reversion back to the mean, and you have a

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higher return in the stock price.

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The last thing that I would mention that I
think is a driver for this phenomenon is that

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00:08:04,449 --> 00:08:06,629
you're operating off of a lower base.

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00:08:06,769 --> 00:08:12,930
And typically in periods of economic expansion,
smaller stocks tend to do better than larger

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stocks.

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And if you go back over the last 100 years,
we've been in economic expansion periods many,

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many more times than we've been in depressed
economic periods or recessionary periods.

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So I think once again, if you take a long term
horizon on that, all of these phenomenon

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combined explain why small cap value tends to
outperform.

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00:08:35,330 --> 00:08:39,250
So when you're talking to clients or for
institutional investors listening to this

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podcast, they should essentially sell their
large growth and invest in small cap value.

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How do you take the theoretical strategy and
turn into practical advice?

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Sure.

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So we certainly advocate having exposure across
the capitalization spectrum.

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We take a very academic and mathematical and
thoughtful approach to those allocations on the

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larger cap side.

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For example, we don't think that having the S
and P 500 as a market capitalization weighted

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00:09:06,889 --> 00:09:09,209
index makes a tremendous amount of sense.

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It actually is counterintuitive because what
that implies is that the larger a company is,

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the better it will perform relative to other
companies.

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So if that continues, if that phenomenon
continues in the future, those large companies

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will keep getting larger within the index, and
then the concentration will be untenable.

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A great example would be at the beginning of
this year, you had, 10 stocks that represented

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about 35% of the S and P 500.

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That concentration was unfathomable.

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And then what happens eventually is the
government stops in and says, you're too large.

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You have too much power.

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We're going to break you up.

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And that just happened to Google 2 days ago.

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The government came out and said, we are going
to challenge your status as a non monopoly and

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advocate some sort of breaking up of your
company.

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So having an equally weighted approach, taking
all 500 stocks that are in the S and P 500,

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investing the same dollar amount in those
companies, historically, gives you 2% more

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00:10:13,544 --> 00:10:18,825
annually in excess return just simply by
investing in the same stocks in a different

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proportion.

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00:10:19,700 --> 00:10:21,779
Which sounds intuitively like the wrong
strategy.

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00:10:21,779 --> 00:10:23,799
It sounds like you're using a blunt instrument.

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Where does the 2% come from?

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Is that the fact that you're not selecting for
monopolistic companies?

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And talk to me about that 2%.

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00:10:32,674 --> 00:10:36,995
It really comes from the fact that small
stocks, as we've talked about, do better than

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large stocks.

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So you have the stocks that are smaller
weighted in the index that are outperforming

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00:10:42,914 --> 00:10:45,814
over long periods of time, the larger stocks in
the index.

150
00:10:46,289 --> 00:10:51,589
Why not take that to a more extreme and do a
total equally weighted stock index?

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00:10:51,970 --> 00:10:55,409
Why actually invest in the top 500 biggest
companies?

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That's a good idea in theory, a very difficult
idea to implement in reality.

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00:10:59,889 --> 00:11:05,434
So if you take the universe of if you just take
the Russell 2,000, for example, you're

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investing in 2,000 stocks.

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Some of them trade by appointment only.

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So even investing on an equally weighted
fashion in those less liquid stocks becomes

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very difficult.

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There have been some people that have used kind
of a sampling approach in order to to get close

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00:11:24,889 --> 00:11:29,629
to an equally weighted Russell 2,000, but still
it hasn't been widely accepted.

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00:11:30,235 --> 00:11:35,514
Really the best way to approach it, once again,
because there are so many inefficiently priced

161
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stocks within the small cap universe is to roll
up your sleeves to do the work that nobody else

162
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is doing on the financial statements to drill
down with management teams to find out exactly

163
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what their strategy is to unlock value and
establish positions in those.

164
00:11:51,389 --> 00:11:57,949
So having an active strategy within the small
cap universe really, really works over time if

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you do your homework.

166
00:11:59,105 --> 00:12:03,105
And that's what you did at advisory research
investment management for 24 years.

167
00:12:03,105 --> 00:12:04,565
So walk me through that.

168
00:12:04,625 --> 00:12:05,925
Talk to me about that strategy.

169
00:12:06,785 --> 00:12:11,365
Yeah, so I had an absolutely fantastic
experience at advisory research.

170
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Started there in my early twenties as a
research analyst.

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Once again, I had small cap value running
through my veins, and the firm was dedicated to

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00:12:21,250 --> 00:12:23,350
a small cap value strategy.

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At the time, we had individual investors.

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Some of them might have had 10 stocks in the
port their portfolio.

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Some of them might have had 25 stocks.

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So we institutionalized the product.

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In other words, we kind of got all portfolios
to be homogeneous.

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And at that point, we're able to create a track
record and start to build alpha, put it in the

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institutional databases.

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00:12:50,169 --> 00:12:55,575
And we are very fortunate that we did our
homework extraordinarily well and created a

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00:12:55,575 --> 00:13:02,855
tremendous amount of alpha and grew the small
cap product from a $100,000,000 or so, once

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00:13:02,855 --> 00:13:07,514
again, up to over a little bit over a
$1,000,000,000 over about a 6 year period.

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00:13:07,790 --> 00:13:12,129
After that, the natural progression is to go up
in market capital a little bit.

184
00:13:12,190 --> 00:13:18,850
So we created a SMID cap value product from
scratch and got that up to about $5,000,000,000

185
00:13:19,550 --> 00:13:24,475
So I I was one of the portfolio managers making
decisions on which stocks to buy, how we're

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positioned from a sector allocation standpoint,
and talking to management teams on a daily

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basis.

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00:13:31,595 --> 00:13:34,495
And you continue to do this strategy at Renbon.

189
00:13:34,790 --> 00:13:39,830
To play devil's advocate, your active
management of portfolios does not not really

190
00:13:39,830 --> 00:13:43,129
take away the, you know, 200 basis points of
performance.

191
00:13:43,509 --> 00:13:47,350
That's kind of always been the criticism of
active management is yes, maybe there's a

192
00:13:47,350 --> 00:13:49,455
little bit alpha, but isn't that?

193
00:13:49,595 --> 00:13:51,054
Aren't you losing that in fees?

194
00:13:52,315 --> 00:14:02,420
I know, historically, you know, we've been able
to add 3 or 4 percent in terms of alpha to a

195
00:14:02,420 --> 00:14:07,700
client's portfolio, not only in the small cap
side, but also in the way that we position in a

196
00:14:07,700 --> 00:14:12,600
more thoughtful way, the way large cap stocks
are weighted and positioned.

197
00:14:13,540 --> 00:14:16,920
We also charge an extraordinarily reasonable
fee.

198
00:14:17,845 --> 00:14:23,065
So net of fees are we've been very, very lucky
in our alpha generation capabilities.

199
00:14:23,764 --> 00:14:25,845
So tell me more about Redmond, your CEO.

200
00:14:25,845 --> 00:14:27,465
Tell me about the firm's strategy.

201
00:14:27,684 --> 00:14:33,950
So really, the firm's strategy is to provide
individual investors with an institutional

202
00:14:34,169 --> 00:14:36,909
framework for investing in.

203
00:14:37,129 --> 00:14:42,250
So when we build portfolios, we want to take an
individual and provide them access to

204
00:14:42,250 --> 00:14:46,184
institutional level and quality of investment.

205
00:14:46,184 --> 00:14:51,144
So if we talk about the publicly traded
markets, typically, and obviously from this

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podcast, investors tend to be very
underweighted in the small cap space and

207
00:14:56,345 --> 00:14:59,884
they're not utilizing active management to a
high enough degree.

208
00:15:00,470 --> 00:15:06,149
So we wanna make sure that we have a target
allocation that's very appropriate for each one

209
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of our investors.

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Tell me what you think the ideal profile should
be for a liquid institutional public book.

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Assuming that you have unlimited time horizon
associated with your investment portfolio, I

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would say probably 40% of your portfolio on the
public side in small cap stocks that are

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actively managed, 40% in mid and large cap
stocks and then 40% in non US stocks, both in

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developed markets as well as emerging markets.

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And you mean sorry, 20%?

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20%.

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Yes.

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20% in non US stocks, both in the developed
markets as well as the emerging markets.

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So that's on the public side.

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It seems to be the appropriate way that I would
think about structuring asset allocation for,

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once again, wealth or an endowment that has no
time horizon associated with it.

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Also value?

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TILT?

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On the

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The large cap.

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On the large cap side?

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Not necessarily.

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I think you get most of your alpha from small
cap stocks.

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So we're trying to get beta on the large cap
stocks, but once again, using an academic

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approach.

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So when we look at most portfolios that come
into us, and we do portfolio analysis on a

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complementary basis for prospective clients,
almost every single one is overweighted to

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large cap growth.

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00:16:35,409 --> 00:16:38,654
And certainly that has worked for the last year
and a half.

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In 2022, it didn't work at all.

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People have short memories.

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I think a lot of people forgot the Nasdaq was
down around 40% during that period.

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The entire market was down.

239
00:16:50,014 --> 00:16:52,435
Our small cap strategy was out about 5%.

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So we looked like we were super smart in 2022,
roll into 2023.

241
00:16:57,649 --> 00:16:59,669
It's why don't you own Nvidia?

242
00:16:59,809 --> 00:17:01,830
Why don't you own Microsoft?

243
00:17:01,970 --> 00:17:03,269
Why don't you own Tesla?

244
00:17:03,570 --> 00:17:09,184
And the reason is we do own those stocks, but
we're not weighting them in an aggressive

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manner because we don't understand those
businesses.

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And we don't have a crystal ball that gives us
a clear vision into what those companies are

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00:17:18,144 --> 00:17:20,119
going to look like 10 years from now.

248
00:17:20,119 --> 00:17:23,960
Why put 20% of your liquid portfolio in
developed and emerging markets?

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The rationale is it provides you with
diversification.

250
00:17:26,599 --> 00:17:32,380
So there are a lot of economies, emerging
economies that are going to do extraordinary

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00:17:32,679 --> 00:17:35,465
things from at a company level perspective.

252
00:17:35,684 --> 00:17:40,265
And having an allocation to those businesses
just makes a lot of sense.

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There certainly are times that when the pistons
are firing overseas and they're not necessarily

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firing over here, So having that
diversification worldwide and globally just

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makes sense to us.

256
00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:56,940
And the 40% in small stocks, you believe in
active management.

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00:17:57,079 --> 00:18:02,865
On the 60% of large stocks and developed and
emerging markets, Do you believe in indexing?

258
00:18:02,924 --> 00:18:04,544
Do you believe in active management?

259
00:18:06,044 --> 00:18:11,964
Once again, we believe in indexing and large
cap stocks within the US equity market in a

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00:18:11,964 --> 00:18:12,944
thoughtful manner.

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00:18:13,085 --> 00:18:18,950
So not using market capitalization weighting,
using quality weighting or equally weighting or

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00:18:18,950 --> 00:18:22,950
some other more sensible way of weighting the
stocks.

263
00:18:22,950 --> 00:18:29,210
Once again, market capitalization way of
weighting stocks is completely arbitrary.

264
00:18:29,595 --> 00:18:35,595
If you talk to any active manager, probably in
the United States and ask them, do you weight

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00:18:35,595 --> 00:18:39,375
your portfolios actively managed based on
market capitalization?

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The answer will be no.

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00:18:41,434 --> 00:18:47,500
So the largest index that is investable in the
United States has that structure.

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00:18:47,500 --> 00:18:49,839
So there is this large disconnect.

269
00:18:49,900 --> 00:18:51,419
And that's almost a marketing thing.

270
00:18:51,419 --> 00:18:55,359
It sounds intuitive, but it's not actually
fundamentally sound.

271
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That's true.

272
00:18:56,934 --> 00:18:57,414
That's true.

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00:18:57,414 --> 00:19:02,075
I mean, I don't think there would be a big
difference between saying an index should be

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00:19:02,215 --> 00:19:03,355
alphabetically weighted.

275
00:19:03,734 --> 00:19:06,934
It's an arbitrary method, once again, of
weighting Well,

276
00:19:06,934 --> 00:19:12,140
isn't it a momentum trade that's saying that
the faster companies grow, the more you should

277
00:19:12,140 --> 00:19:12,960
wait for them?

278
00:19:13,660 --> 00:19:14,160
Exactly.

279
00:19:14,539 --> 00:19:20,220
And that momentum, once again mathematically,
cannot continue, or else you'll have a

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00:19:20,220 --> 00:19:20,460
situation

281
00:19:20,700 --> 00:19:25,384
To say that another way, since 1926, value has
actually outperformed growth, which is a

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00:19:25,384 --> 00:19:26,684
momentum trade of sorts.

283
00:19:26,984 --> 00:19:27,384
Right.

284
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Right.

285
00:19:27,545 --> 00:19:33,805
And a very interesting exercise that I didn't
do for this podcast, but it's very Google able,

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00:19:34,265 --> 00:19:38,765
is looking at the top 10 stocks in the S and P
500 kind of by decade.

287
00:19:39,839 --> 00:19:43,140
And it changes dramatically by decade.

288
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:52,335
There are very, very few companies that stay in
the top ten market capitalization of stocks for

289
00:19:52,335 --> 00:19:53,535
10 years in a row.

290
00:19:53,535 --> 00:20:00,494
I can remember when Exxon was the largest
capitalization company for 15 years in the

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00:20:00,494 --> 00:20:03,535
United States, and Apple was a mid cap stock.

292
00:20:03,535 --> 00:20:05,279
Which is pretty obvious if you zoom out.

293
00:20:05,279 --> 00:20:09,840
But everybody, to your point, has such a short
memory that they're only focused on the last 6

294
00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:11,200
months in terms of market cap.

295
00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:11,700
Exactly.

296
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:15,620
So going back to 1926, small value has
outperformed.

297
00:20:15,759 --> 00:20:19,595
But last 10 years, there's been large growth,
outperformance.

298
00:20:19,654 --> 00:20:23,255
Tell me how painful that is to portfolio and
walk me through the numbers of what happens

299
00:20:23,255 --> 00:20:25,355
when there's a different trend in the market.

300
00:20:25,414 --> 00:20:30,454
If you're diversified, once again, across the
entire market capitalization spectrum, you're

301
00:20:30,454 --> 00:20:34,890
not going to be hurt badly in those types of
situations.

302
00:20:35,190 --> 00:20:42,470
So most of our clients are focused on capital
preservation and participating in upward

303
00:20:42,470 --> 00:20:48,164
movements of the market and and really, once
again, preserving the capital that they've

304
00:20:48,325 --> 00:20:50,345
worked so hard to to earn.

305
00:20:51,605 --> 00:20:58,644
So if the market is up 35% in a very
concentrated fashion and you have 15 stocks or

306
00:20:58,644 --> 00:21:04,320
so that are responsible for half of that
return, our clients typically aren't going to

307
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:10,080
be disappointed with a 20% return that we can
provide them with in a diversified manner, once

308
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:15,434
again, in a thoughtful manner and not chasing
trends and not chasing stocks that look like

309
00:21:15,434 --> 00:21:19,054
they could be inappropriately valued based on
history.

310
00:21:20,315 --> 00:21:26,494
The other side of the equation is when the
markets go down, they can fall very, very

311
00:21:26,634 --> 00:21:27,134
quickly.

312
00:21:27,835 --> 00:21:38,329
When the NASDAQ bubble burst in 1999, it took
20 years for it to get back to the levels it

313
00:21:38,329 --> 00:21:39,609
was before the bubble burst.

314
00:21:39,609 --> 00:21:41,884
The Nasdaq was down over 80%.

315
00:21:42,184 --> 00:21:46,424
I think a lot of people forgot about that too
when you look at returns now.

316
00:21:46,424 --> 00:21:50,585
So periods like that, we look pretty smart at
what we do.

317
00:21:50,585 --> 00:21:56,580
So in kind of down markets, sideways markets,
slightly up markets, we tend to do

318
00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:57,680
extraordinarily well.

319
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:02,559
But those markets that are very, very
concentrated in a handful of stocks or a

320
00:22:02,559 --> 00:22:06,180
particular sector, we tend to trail in those
environments.

321
00:22:06,559 --> 00:22:11,565
And for those who might not hit your minimums,
what's your favorite indexing tool for the

322
00:22:11,565 --> 00:22:13,025
large for large stocks?

323
00:22:13,565 --> 00:22:16,684
Do you like DFA over Vanguard or Fidelity?

324
00:22:16,684 --> 00:22:18,945
Talk to me about the differentiation in the
market.

325
00:22:19,005 --> 00:22:23,059
I like the RSP, which is the equally weighted S
and P 500.

326
00:22:23,119 --> 00:22:24,559
It's extraordinarily liquid.

327
00:22:24,559 --> 00:22:26,579
It's very easy to buy.

328
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:32,900
So having that at least as a complement to the
S and P 500 makes sense for most investors.

329
00:22:33,279 --> 00:22:38,494
DFA is a very good place to look at for small
cap index investing.

330
00:22:38,494 --> 00:22:43,634
It's passive investing, but they're more
mindful about the way that they construct their

331
00:22:43,934 --> 00:22:45,535
indexes that they're investing in.

332
00:22:45,535 --> 00:22:51,554
So it's purely quantitative, but it's based on
quality or other factors that have historically

333
00:22:51,694 --> 00:22:56,910
proven to be the things that tend to drive
alpha in the marketplace.

334
00:22:57,450 --> 00:23:00,570
So you take an active approach to your for your
clients.

335
00:23:00,570 --> 00:23:03,789
Talk to me about what it means to be an active
investor in the stock market.

336
00:23:03,930 --> 00:23:09,595
An active ist strategy in the market today is
something that we've looked at.

337
00:23:09,595 --> 00:23:10,734
It's something to consider.

338
00:23:10,875 --> 00:23:13,615
I kind of consider ourselves by activists.

339
00:23:13,994 --> 00:23:18,575
So when we take a position in a company, we
certainly want to communicate with management

340
00:23:19,029 --> 00:23:23,910
in terms of the strategy that they should be
looking at, the strategy that we're looking at,

341
00:23:23,910 --> 00:23:28,650
and hopefully we're aligned in our vision about
how to unlock value in a company.

342
00:23:29,109 --> 00:23:35,545
The differences between that and a true
activist investor is typically there is a large

343
00:23:35,605 --> 00:23:42,244
disconnect between the management team of a
company and the activist investor in terms of

344
00:23:42,244 --> 00:23:43,845
the direction of the business.

345
00:23:43,845 --> 00:23:46,884
So the activist investor agitates change.

346
00:23:46,884 --> 00:23:49,490
They try to get individuals on the board.

347
00:23:49,490 --> 00:23:54,049
They try to force sales of the company or
divisions of the company.

348
00:23:54,049 --> 00:23:58,950
And this can be a very successful strategy, but
it tends to be messy.

349
00:23:59,009 --> 00:24:01,589
It can be very litigious at times.

350
00:24:01,890 --> 00:24:08,454
Friend of the pod, Bill Ackman would say that
governance is the only true lever on investing

351
00:24:08,454 --> 00:24:12,214
and that if you have the same board, they're
unlikely to take different actions.

352
00:24:12,214 --> 00:24:13,194
Why is he wrong?

353
00:24:13,335 --> 00:24:17,974
I would hate to say that Bill Ackman is wrong
because he's he's right a lot more than he's

354
00:24:17,974 --> 00:24:18,474
wrong.

355
00:24:18,649 --> 00:24:23,450
But I think from a governance perspective,
sometimes a board needs to see things from an

356
00:24:23,450 --> 00:24:26,809
investor's perspective in order to open their
eyes.

357
00:24:26,809 --> 00:24:33,315
Sometimes boards can be very insular in terms
of the paths that they're looking at once again

358
00:24:33,315 --> 00:24:36,914
to create value or governance issues or of the
like.

359
00:24:36,914 --> 00:24:40,934
But activists and investors coming in and
saying, have you thought about this?

360
00:24:41,394 --> 00:24:43,075
You might be better off doing this.

361
00:24:43,075 --> 00:24:44,375
This is better for shareholders.

362
00:24:44,970 --> 00:24:50,029
Sometimes open up opens board members' eyes up
to a different way of thinking.

363
00:24:50,169 --> 00:24:56,250
So I think, Ackman certainly introduces a
different way of thinking for board members and

364
00:24:56,250 --> 00:24:59,945
sometimes in aggressive fashion, And it tends
to work.

365
00:24:59,945 --> 00:25:04,525
Sometimes internal party just wants an outside
champion, wants a friendly investor.

366
00:25:04,664 --> 00:25:04,825
Correct.

367
00:25:04,825 --> 00:25:05,325
Exactly.

368
00:25:05,625 --> 00:25:11,485
Using our history as a guide, the most
successful investments that we've had have been

369
00:25:11,819 --> 00:25:14,319
assets that we bought at a significant
discount.

370
00:25:14,380 --> 00:25:21,119
The management team realizes the stock does not
reflect the net asset value of the business,

371
00:25:21,339 --> 00:25:25,019
and they have a specific plan to unlock that
value.

372
00:25:25,019 --> 00:25:26,934
It can be buying stock back.

373
00:25:26,934 --> 00:25:29,115
It could be selling a division.

374
00:25:29,174 --> 00:25:31,674
It can be putting the whole company up for
sale.

375
00:25:32,294 --> 00:25:40,009
So when we're aligned with the easiest way of
of approaching small cap value investing in

376
00:25:40,009 --> 00:25:44,569
terms of the way that we do it is having a
management team that says, yes, my stock is

377
00:25:44,569 --> 00:25:47,789
undervalued and here is what I'm going to do
about it.

378
00:25:47,929 --> 00:25:52,190
It's more difficult to say, well, why don't you
do this instead?

379
00:25:52,409 --> 00:25:57,544
Because you're going to get pushback from
management saying we've thought about this and

380
00:25:57,544 --> 00:26:01,085
this is the reason why we don't think that this
is the best idea.

381
00:26:01,224 --> 00:26:06,664
So once again, you create that contentious
relationship and then it's harder to work with

382
00:26:06,664 --> 00:26:07,724
management directly.

383
00:26:08,130 --> 00:26:13,430
And then the information flow and other side
effects of going activist on a company.

384
00:26:13,730 --> 00:26:14,230
Exactly.

385
00:26:14,289 --> 00:26:14,769
That's right.

386
00:26:14,769 --> 00:26:15,250
That's right.

387
00:26:15,250 --> 00:26:19,009
What would you like our listeners to know about
you, Redmond Wealth Advisors, or anything else

388
00:26:19,009 --> 00:26:19,890
you'd like to shine a light

389
00:26:19,890 --> 00:26:20,055
on?

390
00:26:20,455 --> 00:26:25,035
Being mindful of fees is one thing that's
exceptionally important.

391
00:26:25,575 --> 00:26:29,595
Having an appropriate asset allocation is
something that's exceptionally important.

392
00:26:30,055 --> 00:26:33,674
Having access to unique investments is
exceptionally important.

393
00:26:34,109 --> 00:26:38,289
Using an academic approach to the public
markets, also very important.

394
00:26:38,430 --> 00:26:43,470
And that's why we founded the firm in order to
achieve all of those different things as an

395
00:26:43,470 --> 00:26:44,690
independent firm.

396
00:26:44,829 --> 00:26:44,990
Yeah.

397
00:26:44,990 --> 00:26:50,605
And if anybody that's listening would like to
learn more about what they do or have us take a

398
00:26:50,605 --> 00:26:56,845
look at your portfolio, we do that for free,
kind of a a doctor's physical on what your

399
00:26:56,845 --> 00:26:59,725
investment strategy is, you know, reach out to
us.

400
00:26:59,725 --> 00:27:02,470
My personal email is jlanger@redmontwealth.com.

401
00:27:07,650 --> 00:27:09,650
I might actually have to take you off on it.

402
00:27:09,650 --> 00:27:13,430
I have an embarrassingly non reflective public
portfolio.

403
00:27:13,809 --> 00:27:20,005
My whole personal narrative has been spend 99%
of your time on alternatives, on alpha, etc.

404
00:27:20,065 --> 00:27:24,244
But I've embarrassingly not really been
introspective about my public portfolio.

405
00:27:24,704 --> 00:27:26,278
So I might actually take you off mute.

406
00:27:26,491 --> 00:27:27,904
Very, very happy to do it.

407
00:27:27,904 --> 00:27:35,339
We break down how you're allocated by sector,
by market cap, by biases on the growth side,

408
00:27:35,339 --> 00:27:36,319
the value side.

409
00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:41,819
And, it's it's a really interesting way, once
again, to be introspective about the way that

410
00:27:41,819 --> 00:27:42,779
you're currently positioned.

411
00:27:42,779 --> 00:27:48,545
Whether or not you you work with us, we provide
that service to be helpful to the greater

412
00:27:48,545 --> 00:27:49,565
community and

413
00:27:49,585 --> 00:27:50,144
build that up.

414
00:27:50,144 --> 00:27:51,505
Essentially, you're buying an index.

415
00:27:51,505 --> 00:27:54,164
You just see the ticker, but the ticker is
underlying companies.

416
00:27:54,304 --> 00:27:58,224
And then you have to take that pooled
underlying companies against your other indexes

417
00:27:58,224 --> 00:27:59,940
and actually have a holistic view on it.

418
00:28:00,339 --> 00:28:01,399
That's exactly right.

419
00:28:01,779 --> 00:28:03,220
What tools do you use for that?

420
00:28:03,220 --> 00:28:10,019
We actually have a proprietary tool that we
have built out that we load tickers up, load

421
00:28:10,019 --> 00:28:15,734
number of shares in, and it will spit out an
analysis, providing us once again with

422
00:28:15,734 --> 00:28:22,954
everything that we've talked about, breakdowns
on market capitalization, exposures, sectors,

423
00:28:23,654 --> 00:28:25,355
industries, biases.

424
00:28:26,750 --> 00:28:28,829
Fee analysis also comes into play.

425
00:28:28,829 --> 00:28:34,450
And then we overlay that with our practical
investment experience and provide meaningful

426
00:28:34,509 --> 00:28:34,990
advice.

427
00:28:34,990 --> 00:28:39,230
We've never had a client come to us and say,
can you take a look at my portfolio and say,

428
00:28:39,230 --> 00:28:40,575
yeah, that didn't help us at all.

429
00:28:40,575 --> 00:28:41,855
It's like going to the doctor.

430
00:28:41,855 --> 00:28:45,934
You're gonna hear something you might not like,
but it's gonna be helpful in the long run.

431
00:28:45,934 --> 00:28:50,034
I also wanted to dedicate this episode to Ken
French, who is my business school professor.

432
00:28:50,174 --> 00:28:54,369
He was very formative in the way that I look at
the public markets, although he would be

433
00:28:54,369 --> 00:28:56,549
embarrassed by my my lack of sophistication.

434
00:28:56,690 --> 00:29:02,289
But, you know, when Eugene Fama won the Nobel
Prize in 2013, a lot of people believe that Ken

435
00:29:02,289 --> 00:29:06,230
French also deserved that, due to them working
together.

436
00:29:06,769 --> 00:29:11,654
So it's it's a bit of a shame, but, I just
wanted to dedicate this to Ken French.

437
00:29:12,194 --> 00:29:13,154
Yeah, that's amazing.

438
00:29:13,154 --> 00:29:18,034
And, you know, certainly I worked with Ken
French and remember when I was 21 years old,

439
00:29:18,034 --> 00:29:22,934
putting floppy disks in envelopes and, and
sending them off to Dartmouth.

440
00:29:22,994 --> 00:29:32,350
So, you know, a really special individual, and
he was very important in the analysis and the

441
00:29:32,350 --> 00:29:32,590
work.

442
00:29:32,590 --> 00:29:38,954
And I think Gene Fama would certainly agree
that there should have been a shared prize to

443
00:29:38,954 --> 00:29:41,275
to honor the work that he did as well.

444
00:29:41,275 --> 00:29:44,234
Well, James, I've enjoyed really learning about
the public markets.

445
00:29:44,234 --> 00:29:45,615
Thank you for jumping on podcast.

446
00:29:45,674 --> 00:29:45,914
Yeah.

447
00:29:45,914 --> 00:29:47,035
Thank you very much, David.

448
00:29:47,035 --> 00:29:48,494
I really appreciate the opportunity.

449
00:29:48,555 --> 00:29:49,095
Thank you.

450
00:29:49,494 --> 00:29:50,554
Thank you for listening.

451
00:29:50,615 --> 00:29:55,275
The 10x Capital podcast now receives more than
a 170,000 downloads per month.

452
00:29:55,335 --> 00:29:58,315
If you are interested in sponsoring, please
email me at david@10xcapital.com.