The periods of pain in equities

 This chart from Exponential Wealth: Centuries of Stock and Bond Returns shows significant, long periods of pain for US stocks. There has been a long drought since our last pain period. Should you be worried about this? We may not be at an inflection point, but history suggests the current path won't last forever. 

The historical great divide in the bond market

I like the following graphic from Exponential Wealth: Centuries of Stock and Bond Returns. It makes clear that we were in two great bond environments: pre-1981 and post-1981. The high-inflation period reversed between 1981 and 2020. The real question is whether we are now in a new third regime. The big fixed-income bet is on what this new regime will be. 

 

Asset management business - all about scale

McKinsey & Company has issued its report "Asset Management 2026: Plenty for the Few," which shows that the asset management business is about scale and increasing concentration. It is about gathering assets to improve operating margins in a world of falling fees. 

The families of quantitative signals

 

The paper, "A Taxonomy of Quantitative Signals: One Normalization, Many Mechanisms" by SQV3 is an interesting way to place the type of quant signals used into some type of context. It is not yet posted on ssrn, but it is worthy of a discussion.