RWM is coming to Austin, TX June 12th-14th‼️ @Downtown with more details⬇️Email us at info@ritholtzwealth.com subject line “Austin” to reserve a meeting slot! pic.twitter.com/9iSdG4HFf3 — Ritholtz Wealth (@RitholtzWealth) May 19, 2023   Hey Y’all! We’re coming to Texas to celebrate the opening of RWM Austin! We only have a few slots left to meet… Read More The post RWM is Austin Bound — Last Call! appeared first on The Big Picture.   RWM is coming to Austin, TX June 12th-14th @Downtown with more detailsEmail us at info@ritholtzwealth.com subject line “Austin” to reserve a meeting slot! pic.twitter.com/9iSdG4HFf3 — Ritholtz Wealth (@RitholtzWealth) May 19, 2023   Hey Y’all! We’re coming to Texas to celebrate the opening of RWM Austin! We only have a few slots left to meet with prospective clients — if you would like to learn more about being a client of Ritholtz Wealth Management, this is your chance. We will be in town next week to kick off our local Austin office. Meet my partners Joshg Brown, Kris Venne, and our new firm president Jay Tini, along with eight superstar financial planners and client service reps into town. To get on the calendar: info@ritholtzwealth.com subject line: Austin. Or, just call 212.625.1200 with any questions you may have. Similarly, if you’re a financial advisor in Texas and you’re looking to learn more about how we can take your career to the next level, be sure to get in touch.   (Here we are in 2019 raising a glass at the firm’s first offsite. Austinites will easily recognize this as the indoor / outdoor dining room at Lamberts on 2nd Street.) If you’d like to speak with us about your situation but you’re not from Texas, that’s cool too, we’re standing by: ritholtzwealth.com The post RWM is Austin Bound — Last Call! appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

   This week, we speak with entrepreneur Ramit Sethi, who is the founder and chief executive officer of the online education platform I Will Teach You to Be Rich (IWT), which attracts more than 1 million readers a month. Sethi is also the host of the Netflix series “How To Get Rich,” which is… Read More The post Ramit Sethi on Living Richly appeared first on The Big Picture.    This week, we speak with entrepreneur Ramit Sethi, who is the founder and chief executive officer of the online education platform I Will Teach You to Be Rich (IWT), which attracts more than 1 million readers a month. Sethi is also the host of the Netflix series “How To Get Rich,” which is based on his New York Times bestselling book “I Will Teach You to Be Rich“; he also hosts a podcast of the same name. His interest in the subject started in 2004, when he was studying technology and psychology at Stanford University. He explains how he began a blog in college out of frustration with his fellow student’s inability to manage their own finances. That blog eventually became a short e-book, the success of which led him to write a full-length book. We discuss how Netflix reached out to him about turning the book into a TV series, which has been a top 10 trending show since its launch last month. A list of his favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Bloomberg, Spotify, Stitcher, and YouTube. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Mathieu Chabran, Tikehau Capital A global alternative asset manager with $40B in assets. The firm is headquartered in Paris, and has offices in 13 countries, but primarily is run out of money centers in New York, London, and Singapore. He cofounded Tikehau in 2004 with Antoine Flamarion, a colleague at Deutsche Bank, and runs the US division. Chabran was named Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur by decree of the President of the French Republic in January 2022.     Ramit Sethi Authored Book I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. Just a 6-Week Program That Works by Ramit Sethi   Ramit Sethi Favorite Books The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara   The post Ramit Sethi on Living Richly appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

  When confronted by a problem or challenge, it is useful to try and change your perspective. Merely shifting your frame of view by a few degrees can reveal what you may have missed in your initial viewing. This is very easy to do when you are looking through the viewfinder of a camera, but… Read More The post Change Your Perspective appeared first on The Big Picture.   When confronted by a problem or challenge, it is useful to try and change your perspective. Merely shifting your frame of view by a few degrees can reveal what you may have missed in your initial viewing. This is very easy to do when you are looking through the viewfinder of a camera, but much more challenging when you are intellectually pondering a set of choices. The relevance of perspective to investing is self-evident. Here are a few of my favorite perspective-changers: Non-Farm Payroll: There are about 158.6 million people in the US labor market. Each month, about 1.5% of that labor pool, or a bit over 2 million people, leave their jobs. Sometimes it is due to retirement, death, sabbaticals, parental leave, but most often, it is to switch jobs and work for another firm or start their own business. Similarly, when you hear about those Non-Farm Payrolls jobs, some are new or returning entrants into the workforce, but most are those people exiting their old jobs and beginning a new one. Essentially, monthly Non-Farm Payrolls is the net difference between these two groups: The actual number is far smaller and less significant than gets played most publicly. The monthly number (May 2023 = 339,000) is a tenth or so of the ~1.5% of the 159m total. Hence, any given monthly NFP datapoint is a tiny, noisy, modeled number, filled with all manner of adjustments and revisions. What really matters is the series trend: Are we consistently creating jobs over time? Is that multi-month trend rising or falling? Monthly NFP is likely the single most overrated economic data point in the US, while the intermediate term employment trend is the most underrated. (When you have 14 straight upside surprises, perhaps somewthing is off in your model…) Traffic: I love getting a text from someone apologizing for getting stuck in rush hour traffic and they are going to be late. It’s fascinating how people see themselves apart from the crowd, their ego does not allow them to see themselves as ordinary member of the masses. It always reminds me of the scene from Life of Brian: “You are all individuals.” Here is the context shift: Driving at rush hour, you are not “stuck in traffic,” you ARE traffic. (Amazing how few people realize this). Inflation: Similar to traffic, when consumers have to pay up for scarce goods, it is often said they are suffering from inflation. While it may be painful, that oversimplifies what is actually happening: Purchasing discretionary goods at higher prices is a decision made by someone who has chosen to pay a higher price in order to obtain a good they desire. Bidding up prices for scarce goods? It is much more accurate to say consumers are not so much suffering from inflation as they are one of the primary causes of inflation. Analyst Estimates: Earnings never miss estimates. Rather, it is the estimates – the opinion of analysts – that were wrong. Morgan Housel loves pointing out that Earnings are whatever they are going to be as a function of a company’s revenues relative to its costs. Earnings are a fact, analysts’ earnings estimates are an opinion. If a company’s earnings are above or below consensus, it was the analysts who got it wrong and not vice versa. Fair Value: Valuation of equities is one of those things that seems to confuse so many. About half the time it will be above average and the other half of the time it will be below. By definition, average is not necessarily where you are going to spend most of your time. My colleague Ben Carlson likes to point out that average annual returns for the S&P500 is 8%, a number that market almost never returns on an annual basis. Fair value is that singular point in a cycle that equities race by in the early stages of a secular bull market to the upside; some years later, these same market averages will plummet past that spot as the bear market ramps up. It is a point in space and time that is incredibly brief. Stocks do not magically return to of historical average fair value as if they were a Roomba going back to their charging stations. ~~~ Those are some of my favorite perspective shifters, I hope you find them to be a useful way to reset your own perspectives.     Previously: NFP Day: The Most Over-Analyzed, Over-Emphasized, Least-Understood Data Point (February 4th, 2011) THE MOST IMPORTANT EVER NFP blah blah blah (June 7, 2013) Nobody Knows Nuthin’ (May 5, 2016) Who Is to Blame for Inflation, 1-15 (June 28, 2022) Forecasting & Prediction Discussions           The post Change Your Perspective appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

    “Tight labor markets have raised concerns about the role of labor costs in persistently high inflation readings. Analysis shows that higher labor costs are passed along to customers in the form of higher nonhousing services prices, however the effect on overall inflation is very small. Labor-cost growth has no meaningful effect on goods… Read More The post Are Labor Costs Driving Inflation? (No) appeared first on The Big Picture.     “Tight labor markets have raised concerns about the role of labor costs in persistently high inflation readings. Analysis shows that higher labor costs are passed along to customers in the form of higher nonhousing services prices, however the effect on overall inflation is very small. Labor-cost growth has no meaningful effect on goods or housing services inflation. Overall, labor-cost growth is responsible for only about 0.1 percentage point of recent core PCE inflation.” (emphasis added)   Fascinating research from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, pondering the impact of wage gains on inflation. Counterintuitively, they found that rising wages have a minimal impact on inflation. How little? The study found that a “1% point increase in labor costs causes only a 0.15% rise in core PCE inflation” over four years – an increase of less than 0.04% annually. There are several factors that explain this: First is productivity and efficiency gains; rising productivity is a large part of the reason why service-sector profits have been expanding over the past few decades. Second, In many services businesses wages are but one component of many that affect producer prices. Last, there are times when companies would rather retain market share, and occasionally allow higher wages to eat into margins. I would add a caveat about the unique impact of the pandemic: The shift to goods over services during the lockdowns – an enormous 20% surge – along with the massive fiscal stimulus of the three CARES Acts was also a driver of higher prices. Add to the mix shortages caused by broken supply chains. The sudden influx of cash to households combined with lots of pent-up demand created an inflation spike. This is important because Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell – incorrectly in my and others’ views – has stated his concerns over rising wages as a driver of inflation. The Fed Chair stated it “may be the most important category for understanding the future evolution of core inflation. Because wages make up the largest cost in delivering these services, the labor market holds the key to understanding inflation in this category.” The focus on rising wages has led to some policy decisions that have had all sorts of unintended consequences. Perhaps that’s why so few Fed economists boast about stagnant wages over the past 3decades contributing to deflation. Regardless, credit Adam Hale Shapiro, a senior economist in the Economic Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, for calling out that his boss is wrong about this issue…   Source: How Much Do Labor Costs Drive Inflation? (PDF) Adam Hale Shapiro FRBSF Economic Letter,  May 30, 2023   See also: Peter Coy: The Minimum Wage Is Pretty Minimal (March 31, 2023)   Previously: Generational Reset of Minimum Wage (November 30, 2021) Cutting Unemployment Benefits Does Not Increase Employment (September 1, 2021) Elvis (Your Waiter) Has Left the Building (July 9, 2021) America’s Corporate Welfare Queens (BloombergNovember 13, 2013) Wages in America Inflation   The post Are Labor Costs Driving Inflation? (No) appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

     The transcript from this week’s, MiB: John Hope Bryant, Operation Hope, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. ~~~ ANNOUNCER: This is Masters in… Read More The post Transcript: John Hope Bryant appeared first on The Big Picture.      The transcript from this week’s, MiB: John Hope Bryant, Operation Hope, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. ~~~ ANNOUNCER: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ritholtz on Bloomberg Radio. BARRY RITHOLTZ, HOST, MASTERS IN BUSINESS: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest. John Hope Bryant is a fascinating entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the founder of Operation HOPE and one of the leading voices for financial literacy. In America, he was vice chair of President Bush’s Council on Financial Literacy and sat on a similar council on financial capability for President Obama. He has written five books with more coming. Really a fascinating person who operates in a realm that I think a lot of people in finance overlook. And he’s really moving the needle in terms of having people take control of their own financial life in a way that benefits not just them but the entire economy and all of society. I found our conversation to be just compelling and fascinating and I think you will also. So with no further ado, my conversation with Operation HOPE’s John Hope Bryant. JOHN HOPE BRYANT, FOUNDER, OPERATION HOPE: Thank you for having me. I’m honored to be here. By the way, my last book is “Up From Nothing.” That’s my favorite one. That’s my story of my failures, not my successes. RITHOLTZ: I like that, I like a tale, we tend to learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes, but we’ll circle back to that in a bit. Let’s start a little bit with your background. You tell a story in one of your books of a banker who shows up at your elementary school class and that kick-started your interest in finance? BRYANT: Yes, it was a transformational experience to have this banker come in my classroom on several levels. I had an economics lesson, I had a life lesson, I had an epiphany, I had a race relations lesson, I had a self-esteem and confidence lesson. Those two things finally came together. I had an a-ha about how the world really works. I figured out how to keep my friends from getting murdered in the streets because when I was 9-years-old, a year before this class, actually the same year as this class, my best friend George was murdered on a street in Compton with my next door neighbor, Tweep (ph), selling drugs. Even though he was an A student, he hung out with the wrong character, the wrong kids. And character’s not the most important thing in business or whatever, it’s the only thing really in culture. Culture then informs character. So culture, in my neighborhood was a thug culture. You were respected if you were hard — RITHOLTZ: Tough guy. BRYANT: A tough guy. And so my friend, my best friend who was very, very smart did not have good parents like I had who told me I could do anything I wanted to do and who loved me and told me, my mother, she told me she loved me every day of my life. So there’s a difference, Barry, between being broke and being poor. Being broke is economic, but being poor is a disabling frame of mind, a depressed condition of your spirit. You must vow never to be poor again. So because I had this self-esteem based on my mother’s love, and I had love, which is not self-confidence, my next door neighbor, well, my best friend had self-confidence, but did not have self-esteem. So he was influenced by those around him. He was murdered. Then, when I was 7-years-old, the guy who saved my life, because long story short, my mother moved away from my father, arguments over money, domestic abuse involving money. When I was 5-years-old, they fought, she moved. We were staying with her relative to save some money for her first home. The guy who was dating, OC, dating my mother’s cousin saved my life on the front porch when I was swallowing my tongue. And I just idolized this guy. What I didn’t realize was he was ashamed to admit that he could not afford to float the expenses of his immediate family and ours. So he went to go sell drugs also part-time. And he was murdered by the drug dealers for whom this was their territory. They came around the corner in a truck, Barry. I’m sitting on the porch waiting for him to come home. I’m 7-years-old. This is my idol. He saved my life. They hit him in the truck on a bicycle. I can see it in my mind’s eye. They dragged him down the street in front of me until he was dead. They did it in front of our house to send a message. And so these were two stories, maybe three, before I’m 9-years-old of bad economics, bad culture, and a bad business plan. So now I’m 9-years-old, Barry, and this banker comes in my classroom. It’s home economics class, doesn’t exist anymore. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: He’s white, he has a blue suit, a white shirt, a red tie, he’s 6’2”. And he starts talking about money and free enterprise and capitalism and ownership and balance sheets and all this stuff and I’m sitting there mesmerized. RITHOLTZ: You’re 9-years-old at the time. BRYANT: I’m nine and I’m completely entranced and I remember probably the second or third class because by the third class I was actually wearing a suit, the only suit I had, which was my Sunday suit, to school trying to emulate the suit that I saw this guy in. By the way, this was a crushed velvet, three piece suit with a ruffle shirt and a big bow tie. So you can imagine I got beat up when I went to school. So I raised my hand, Barry, and I said, “Excuse me, sir.” I had enough courage to ask this question. “What do you do for a living? “And how’d you get rich legally?” And Barry, I was dead serious. Like, I was just completely, It was to me a common sense question because everybody in my neighborhood was a thug, a drug dealer, a criminal. Nobody had legit wealth. RITHOLTZ: So this guy’s a banker talking to a room full of 9 and 10-year-olds. How does he answer the question, what do you do for a living and how do you get rich legally? BRYANT: He said I’m a banker and I finance entrepreneurs. And I said, what’s an entrepreneur? I never heard that word my entire life, French word, build something out of nothing. Create value, what’s an entrepreneur? I mean, no one’s ever taught me that. So I went home to the dictionary, for those in the current generation, it’s a Google search, and I opened the dictionary to the word entrepreneur and my whole life changed. And when I came back to school, one more thing, what’s a banker and how many of them are you? And did you say one more time that your job is to lend people like me to be an entrepreneur of money? I can’t place that. I need to get this whole script straight because here my friends were getting murdered and jailed and shot and all this kind of, over economics, over some, trying to sell drugs or sell a TV set or whatever it is in the hood. RITHOLTZ: Hustle up some money instead of launching something, that was very foreign to that part of the world. BRYANT: And so when this guy told me that we’re, at that time, 10,000 banks, hundreds of thousands of bankers, 100,000 banks. RITHOLTZ: Were there banks in your neighborhood or were you an unbanked … BRYANT: Well, I mean, it was so few you knew where they were, put it that way, right? RITHOLTZ: Okay. BRYANT: And this guy was a banker, to be full disclosure, it was a banker for Bank of America. So I knew what Bank of America was because my mother, it was a big deal to go to the bank and open a passport account, or to go there with my mother every couple weeks, and have, or my dad to make an appointment with a local, the local branch banker might have been the mayor, I mean, he was a very important guy back in those days. But it was a pretty rare occurrence. So, one, I was shocked that there was an industry whose job it was to lend a risk taker money. Two, I was shocked that it was legal. Three, I was shocked that it was an actual occupation for a guy who was a legitimate hustler. And my whole life changed and I left there. I went, as I said, opened the dictionary. I started seeing the muffler shop as a business. By the way, there’s a difference between an entrepreneur and a businessman or a business woman. Those things are different. Different risk tolerance and different business plan. But I started seeing the nail salon as a business. I started seeing the barbershop, all these things were businesses. I’d never seen it that way before. And I went back to school, Barry. “Sir, your business card, can I have one?” Okay. What’s a 16th floor thing? You know there’s no floor above the sixth floor in Compton and that’s a courthouse. What’s on the 16th floor and where is that at? And by the way, how can you show up coming here in the middle of the day? My mother is in an hourly job at McDonnell Douglas Aircraft. She’s got two 15 minute breaks in lunch. How is it that you’re here in the middle of the day? It’s called a salary. You have a white shirt. My father wore a blue shirt. How do you keep this shirt clean? Oh, you just do work with mathematics and intellectual activities. You don’t do any dirty work. And how is it that you, what’s this car that’s in the parking lot, it’s got plates on it and a tag and it’s brand new. Translation, it’s not hot, right? RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: I mean, and it’s beautiful. What do you do? And this world opened up to me, man, and I was done. And so Mr. Mack, Mack’s Liquor Store, 6’2”, also 6’2”, black man, owned Mack’s Liquor Store. And I realized for the first time, Barry, this was a businessman. And I went to Mr. Mack. So first of all, I didn’t know there was a black businessman in Compton, so congratulations, “Mr. Mack. You’re selling the wrong kind of candy.” He said, “Excuse me?” I said, “You have a liquor store, you’re probably good at liquor, but you have a candy rack in the liquor store “and you’re selling the wrong kind of candy.” “Go away little boy, I’ve got a college degree.” “That’s nice, I’ve got cavities. You’re selling the wrong kind of candy. I’m nine.” At that point I was 10. So he said, “Look, you’ve got a lot of chutzpah.” RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: I’ll hire you, I’m going to put you at the counter. I want you… RITHOLTZ: You’re in charge of the candy. BRYANT: Right. I said, “No.” I declined the offer. He said, “I’m going to pay you top dollar for, you come after school, I’m going to pay you. You’ll be paid more than any of your friends.” I didn’t want to do it. And by the way, Barry, this is analogous today to the basketball player with a contract, to the rapper who can sing really well and is rocking the mic, to a baseball player or anybody who is performing at top dollar but they’re cashing a check, they’re not writing it. And if you’re a great performer, no matter what your industry is, you’ll get paid a lot. You may not build wealth, but you’ll get a lot of income. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: I didn’t realize what I was doing back then, but I was making a choice. I was like, I don’t want to be a performer. I don’t want to be your performer. You’re the owner and I get to perform, I don’t want that. Tell you what I want. “Make me a box boy.” “Excuse me?” “Yes, I want to do the stocking.” He says “it’s the worst job I got.” “That’s the one I want.” I worked there for three weeks and quit. Because then I knew what the wholesale rate was and the retail rate. I knew what the markup was. I knew what supply and demand looked like, what things were moving, what wasn’t. I quit. Once I knew where he bought his inventory, he was on the side of the box. I went home, got my mother, I sold my mother on making a $40 investment. She made me pay her back by the way, in my new business and went to Smart and Final, an Irish food store was where he bought his inventory and got put up in business. I actually put him out of the candy business not soon after that. I made $300 a week on a $40 investment. RITHOLTZ: Wow, that’s amazing. So let’s talk a little bit about a quote of yours that’s very relevant to this. “Persistence and resilience are more powerful than pedigree and raw intelligence.” Explain what you mean by that. Although I think I have a suspicion as to where that came from. BRYANT: I think that ties directly into what I said about self-esteem and confidence and the difference. It also ties into the race relations lesson that I got by meeting this white banker who was actually helping me to understand the free enterprise system. So my experience with a white person was different than my — the folks growing up. My folks growing up, my friends growing up, they’d get hit over the head by a police officer pulling them over. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: It was a negative experience. As a result of that, they didn’t like white people. They didn’t trust white people. They didn’t want to talk to white people. My experience was this banker who basically opened my head up to a whole new world. And so I wasn’t intimidated by him. I actually found an affinity with him. I didn’t want to be him, I wanted to be me, but I was neither reposed or, you know, I wasn’t trying to be him, nor was I trying to avoid him. I thought he was useful and he had a place in my world. So that then relates to self-esteem. If I don’t like me, I’m not going to like you. If I don’t feel good about me, I’m not going to feel good about you. If I don’t respect me, then how can I ever respect you? If I don’t have a purpose in my life, I’ll make your life a living hell, whatever goes around comes around. That’s self-esteem. Self-confidence is competence put into action. So if I’m competent and I execute on that, then I have confidence, and that is where my hustle comes from. That’s where my resiliency comes from. That self-esteem applied with a skill in the marketplace. Over time, you start taking no for vitamins. You start becoming incredibly resilient, hard to hit. It’s hard to hit a moving target, as I said earlier. And if I don’t give up, you can’t beat me. When you’re asleep, I’m working. When you get up, I’m already prepared for the day. When you’re going to chill in the evening, I’m preparing my next business plan. I didn’t have compounded capital, I had compounded hustle. And so I had time, I didn’t have money, and I decided to use that time in a way that made me bulletproof or harder to compete with because I was going to be smarter than anybody else in the room and I was going to work harder. So I think that resiliency piece, never giving up, never giving in, redefining, Barry, success as going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm, I think that’s everything. RITHOLTZ: Let’s take the reverse of that, because I think this other quote is so telling. “The most dangerous person in the world is the one with no hope.” That’s the flip side of resiliency and persistency. What is the challenge when you encounter either a person or an entire region where there’s no hope? BRYANT: Man, I really wish we had three hours versus 30 minutes to talk about this one topic, because it’s everything, Barry. I won’t go down this rabbit hole, but at another time we should talk about why African American experience is different in this country from even Afro-Caribbean, from those from Africa, or other dark people from around the world. Why is the African American experience different? It was how we were treated. And that treatment messed up our head, our psyche, which is where real wealth sits. RITHOLTZ: I really like that insight, that your psyche is where real wealth resides. BRYANT: Yes, I mean… RITHOLTZ: I’ve never heard it quite phrased that way. BRYANT: I’ll be even more blunt. Poverty, sustenance poverty is a roof over your head, food on your table, reasonable healthcare, it’s a sustenance, the ability to sustain yourself. All other forms of poverty are mindset based. So whether I believe I can or whether I believe I can’t, I’m right. Is the glass half full or is it half empty? Depends who’s looking at the glass. So when you tell people for 200, when you enslave them for 270 years, you destroy their family structures so they have nothing to believe in. You destroy the ability to protect their mate from harm. So you destroy their self-esteem and their sense of independent, you know. RITHOLTZ: Agency, sense of agency. BRYANT: Agency, there you go. You don’t give them education, so they don’t know any, they can’t only have a skillset. You don’t teach them about the free enterprise system. You basically want to use their body and their mind, their body because they’re agricultural geniuses from Africa, they want them to work this land in the South, but you don’t want them thinking, and you certainly don’t want them believing. And you do that for 300 years plus, really, two thirds of American experience, it doesn’t, you can’t help but have a depressed group of people who have low faith, low confidence, low trust, who are cynical, not skeptical, and as a result of that, and who have crappy role models. And if you hang around nine broke people, You’ll be the 10th. So now you have a group of people who don’t know, who are smart, brilliant, amazing. When the rules are published and the playing field is level, they excel, think about the arts, think about professional sports, think about politics. Rules are published, playing field is level. African Americans in this example kill it. But in capitalism and free enterprise, there is no rule book. And we were denied that whole lesson. And the best we were taught was how to make the dollar, not to how to build it. And so this hopelessness you talk about comes easily from the population that has that experience and who has descendants who are now looking at parents unsuccessful commercially or economically who did not get a chance or a shot, whose mother was not called “Missus” whose dad was never called “Mister” or “Doctor” or whatever. And so you have these kids who wake up on a scale of one to 10 on anxiety nine. And they’re on edge, and you do something to that kid, tap him on the shoulder, he may swing on you, now the kid’s in jail, okay? And so the energy’s used for all the wrong stuff. And now you start becoming an expert at things that are going to get you locked up, drug dealing, and underground. So you have genius, you have brilliant, I mean what’s a drug dealer, Barry, if not, I mean, it’s an illegal unethical entrepreneur or business person, you understand? Import, export, finance, marketing, wholesale, retail, customer service, security, territory, logistics. These are not dumb people. They have a dumb business plan. They’re an underground economy because they don’t trust the mainstream economy. So this hopelessness that you just mentioned is everything for repressing the human spirit. We’ve got to turn that around. My whole life’s work is really summarized in one sentence. To unleash untapped human potential at scale. And you think about if this issue, is racism real? Of course it is. But if the issue — RITHOLTZ: Is that really a question? I mean, come on. BRYANT: No, no, no, no. But let’s, no, let’s, no. But here’s a twist, and you may probably never heard this one, African American. But is race the only issue? No. In fact, I’d argue race is not the primary issue today. Not 100 years ago, not 50 years ago. If it was, Barry, you wouldn’t have poor whites, poor whites who are segregated from wealthy whites economically. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: You would not have African Caribbeans and Africans from Africa who actually do better in some ways than African Americans on ownership issues. If the issues was just race, all whites would be immensely successful. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: all blacks would be immensely repressed. you have the sub-sectors because mindset hasn’t provided a differentiated path. So what I am saying is you can level the playing field with a business plan based on hope. (ADVERTISEMENT) RITHOLTZ: Let’s talk a little bit about what Operation HOPE does, but I want to start by asking, why don’t we teach financial literacy in school? Why isn’t this a core course offering across the entire country? BRYANT: A couple of very practical reasons. Number one, a school district is a business. And like every business, they want revenue and they’d like to have a surplus profit. What they don’t want is an unfunded mandate. And as well-meaning as financial literacy is, it’s got two problems. One, it doesn’t have a budget allocation from Congress. And the Department of Education does not set curriculum. They’re a budget, they’re a check writing organization. They give you criteria at the state and local level and they give you money, they incentivize you with grant payments from the federal government to meet that criteria. There’s no funding base for financial literacy. I got President Bush, George W. Bush, to make financial literacy the policy of the US federal government. I was naive, Barry, because I thought, I didn’t realize that when he inserted the word federal government, that just meant government employees. That meant the federal government. I also was naive by thinking that if I wrote a letter, which he allowed me to do, with Charles Schwab, we wrote a letter, he was, Charles Schwab was chairman, I was vice chairman, to everyone in the 14,000 school district superintendents that was around in 2000, I think it was nine or 10, that the school districts would just see the White House letterhead and understand the nobleness of this work. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: Oh my God, of course — RITHOLTZ: You better get on this right away. BRYANT: Crickets, I got not, we got not one response. RITHOLTZ: Really? BRYANT: Yes, not one response. RITHOLTZ: Zero, a letter goes to every school district on White House Stationary. BRYANT: On White House Stationary signed by the chairman and vice chairman of the President’s Council on Financial Literacy, Crickets, because it was an unfunded mandate in their view. And they’re shaking the paper going… RITHOLTZ: “Hey, this is nice, but where’s the cash?” BRYANT: Where’s the check? Is there a check attached to this? And number two, and I think that they were like, I’m sure there’s a note coming after this with a congressional allocation, and it never came. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: Number two, money is emotional. RITHOLTZ: Yes. BRYANT: So money, unlike math, money is highly emotional. And people want to spend money, they don’t want to talk about it. Including teachers, superintendents, school board members, city council people, members of Congress, people are, most people have too much month at the end of their money. RITHOLTZ: Too much month at the end of their money. BRYANT: Yes sir. RITHOLTZ: Yes, that makes sense. BRYANT: They’re living from paycheck to paycheck, 70% of the US economy. It’s been recently shown, I think it was a Bloomberg report, actually that half of all people in this country making $100,000 a year paycheck to paycheck, a third of those making a quarter million dollars a year living from paycheck to paycheck. So this is not just poor people, it’s now almost everybody is struggling with cash flow, but they want to look good, they want to look successful, they want to go on a vacation, they want to go shopping. So people think, they’d like to think that credit cards are cash, and they don’t want anybody to disavow them with that belief. I can’t be broke, I still have checks left. RITHOLTZ: Right, right. BRYANT: They want to be able to say yes to their children, yes to their wives or spouse. That insecurity, if you will, of wanting to say yes and live the life conflicts with a budget, conflicts with a limit, conflicts with having to sit down and understand if your outflow exceeds your inflow then your overhead will be your downfall. This was my dad’s problem. My dad thought that cash flow was profit. He had a construction company and he’d bid a job at $1,000, it cost $1,200, but he’d outbid the other guy who was bidding the job at $1,400. He thought he was successful. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: Well, the more you, if you live that way, you make a dollar, spend a dollar 50, the more money you make, the broker you get. So by the end of my dad’s life, I was taking care of a man who had a gas station, an eight unit apartment building, our own home, a nursery business, a cement contracting business, I probably missed a couple, but he lost it all, all of our generational wealth, because when you don’t know better, you can’t do better. And my dad didn’t know what he didn’t know. Goes back to what I was saying earlier, about that slave experience. My dad’s dad was a sharecropper, probably born into slavery in 1871 in Mississippi, was certainly a sharecropper. My dad was a businessman, I’m an entrepreneur. I’m obsessed with financial literacy because I think it’s the civil rights issue of this generation. – RITHOLTZ: Say that again, financial literacy is the civil rights issue of this generation. That’s a fascinating take on that. Go into more detail about that because I’ve never, again, I’ve never heard anyone quite hone in just that way. – BRYANT: Look at where we are right now. RITHOLTZ: In the center of one of the wealthiest cities in the wealthiest country in the world. BRYANT: And in the center of a studio made by an entrepreneur. RITHOLTZ: Right. BRYANT: And this whole thing works on money. This whole city works on money. It sets public policy in many ways in the world because it’s the cent.....»»

  I am moderating a fascinating panel today at Bloomberg’s Hedge Fund Start-Up Conference 2023. It is a great collection of newer hedge fund managers who have put up impressive numbers consistently over the past few years. The challenge for investors in alternatives is twofold: The first is identifying those managers who can consistently generate… Read More The post Identifying Emerging Managers appeared first on The Big Picture.   I am moderating a fascinating panel today at Bloomberg’s Hedge Fund Start-Up Conference 2023. It is a great collection of newer hedge fund managers who have put up impressive numbers consistently over the past few years. The challenge for investors in alternatives is twofold: The first is identifying those managers who can consistently generate alpha in excess of fees; and the second, is to find them early enough so they are still willing to accept your capital. This is not an easy task to accomplish. That challenge is what led to a great panel. I’ll make sure the audio goes up as a MIB Live in the near future. Masters in Business: The Emerging Manager Playbook Panelists: Brennan Diaz, Mike Rockefeller, Thomas Wagner, Ilana D. Weinstein Moderator: Barry Ritholtz This should be fun!   UPDATE: May 31 2023 Video is here The post Identifying Emerging Managers appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

   This week, we speak with entrepreneur John Hope Bryant, the founder and chief executive officer of Operation HOPE, which is the US’s largest not-for-profit provider of financial literacy and economic empowerment tools. Described as the “Conscience of Capitalism,” Bryant is also chairman and chief executive officer of John Hope Bryant Holdings, Bryant Group Ventures… Read More The post MiB: John Hope Bryant, Operation Hope appeared first on The Big Picture.    This week, we speak with entrepreneur John Hope Bryant, the founder and chief executive officer of Operation HOPE, which is the US’s largest not-for-profit provider of financial literacy and economic empowerment tools. Described as the “Conscience of Capitalism,” Bryant is also chairman and chief executive officer of John Hope Bryant Holdings, Bryant Group Ventures and The Promise Homes Company. Bryant’s founded organizations have provided more than $3.5 billion in capital for the underserved over the past 30 years. He discusses how he became interested in entrepreneurship when a white banker spoke to his third-grade class and explained how banking worked. He recalls being genuinely shocked to learn there was a job that involved providing funds to risk-takers. He describes the difference between being broke and being poor: Being poor is a disabling frame of mind and a depressed condition of your spirit. Bryant states that financial literacy is the most important Civil Rights issue of this generation. We also discuss the Promise Homes Company, one of the largest minority-owned managers of institutional-quality, single-family residential rental property in the United States. A list of his favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Ramit Sethi writes about money, business, and psychology. He is the author of NYT bestseller I Will Teach You to Be Rich and the host of the popular Netflix series “How to Get Rich.”     John Hope Bryant’s Authored Books       John Hope Bryant’s Favorite Books Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra Capitalism in America: A History by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge     The post MiB: John Hope Bryant, Operation Hope appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

Another spectacular day for top-down motoring. May I suggest a depression-era roadster, the Imperial? It was Chrysler’s attempt to compete with luxury rivals such as al Cadillac, Lincoln, Duesenberg, and  Pierce Arrow. The 1932 Chrysler CG Imperial below is a unique model, continually improved by its original owner. Mods are looked at differently today than… Read More The post 1932 Chrysler CG Imperial Custom Roadster appeared first on The Big Picture. Another spectacular day for top-down motoring. May I suggest a depression-era roadster, the Imperial? It was Chrysler’s attempt to compete with luxury rivals such as al Cadillac, Lincoln, Duesenberg, and  Pierce Arrow. The 1932 Chrysler CG Imperial below is a unique model, continually improved by its original owner. Mods are looked at differently today than century ago. The Custom Roadster below is the highest-ever selling Chrysler, going at auction earlier this year for $1.6 million.       Source: Classic Driver The post 1932 Chrysler CG Imperial Custom Roadster appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

    I joined Pete Dominick to discuss the Debt Ceiling, Inflation, markets, and more. I pop into the pod around the 30-minute mark. (Before that, Pete discusses how his teenage daughter got scammed out of $5k by a fake border police grift, and why there is a sort of happy ending). We also discuss… Read More The post SUPD: Debt Ceiling & Inflation appeared first on The Big Picture.     I joined Pete Dominick to discuss the Debt Ceiling, Inflation, markets, and more. I pop into the pod around the 30-minute mark. (Before that, Pete discusses how his teenage daughter got scammed out of $5k by a fake border police grift, and why there is a sort of happy ending). We also discuss my thesis of the “Disloyal Opposition” as it applies to Debt Ceilings, fiscal stimulus, and even vaccines. Politics used to stop at the water’s edge, and while we may have disagreed about how we were going to achieve those goals, everybody wanted what was best for the country. That is no longer true. Politics are now purely a blood sport — it’s just about power, not policy. And that desire to win power at any cost — regardless of whether it’s blood or treasure — is where we are today, and it’s more than a little sad.         The post SUPD: Debt Ceiling & Inflation appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

  This week saw the release of the Fed’s big annual research report, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2022. It’s chock full of great charts and analyses, covering everything from Income, Employment, Expenses, Banking and Credit, Housing, Student Loans, Retirement and Investments, and Overall Financial Well-Being. Peter Coy fleshes out lots of the details… Read More The post Foul Mood? appeared first on The Big Picture.   This week saw the release of the Fed’s big annual research report, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2022. It’s chock full of great charts and analyses, covering everything from Income, Employment, Expenses, Banking and Credit, Housing, Student Loans, Retirement and Investments, and Overall Financial Well-Being. Peter Coy fleshes out lots of the details here: “Unemployment Is Low, But So Is the National Mood.” He notes: “The Fed report is consistent with other recent surveys showing a pessimism that’s somewhat surprising, given the recent reduction in the (still high) inflation rate, as well as the continued strength of the job market. (The unemployment rate in April, 3.4 percent, tied for the lowest since 1969.)” It’s been a peeve of mine that partisanship has even infected the Michigan Sentiment surveys; the Fed survey shows a similar (but lesser) impact. I find it a great opportunity to exercise my confirmation bias; I saw lots of things I nodded my head yes to but also found myself vehemently disagreeing with. You may know the report for the annual media funfest over the question on Unexpected Expenses: “Could you cover a $400 emergency expense completely using cash?” (yes or no). The media loves this issue — I find it to be a fair question but I dislike how the Press simultaneously sensationalizes it, and yet never seems to address the underlying causes. Curious that medical expenses are the biggest driver of bankruptcy in the United States but not in other wealthy Democracies. But don’t get hung up on that, it is a big collection of sentiment surveys, and the Fed researchers do a nice dive sharing all of the details in a dry but useful fashion…     Previously: Is Partisanship Driving Consumer Sentiment? (August 9, 2022) WFH vs RTO (February 16, 2023) The Trouble with Consumer Sentiment (July 8, 2022) Sentiment LOL (May 17, 2022)   Source: Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2022 Federal Reserve, May 2023   See also: Unemployment Is Low, But So Is the National Mood Peter Coy NYT, May 24, 2023     The post Foul Mood? appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

  Of all the cognitive errors in behavioral finance and human psychology, the one that creates the most confusion is the Dunning-Kruger effect. (Perhaps its rise in pop culture is to blame). Regardless, I find DKE to be an incredibly useful tool that helps explain many of the individual errors we see in investing. It’s… Read More The post The First Rule of Dunning Kruger… appeared first on The Big Picture.   Of all the cognitive errors in behavioral finance and human psychology, the one that creates the most confusion is the Dunning-Kruger effect. (Perhaps its rise in pop culture is to blame). Regardless, I find DKE to be an incredibly useful tool that helps explain many of the individual errors we see in investing. It’s useful to think of Dunning Kruger in terms of metacognition: One’s ability to self-evaluate a particular skill set. Metacognition appears to be a discrete skill unto itself, one that unsurprisingly increases along with the underlying skill. As you improve at a thing, your ability to evaluate your skills at that thing also increases. Note that “Unskilled and unaware of it” is more than mere overconfidence, hubris or incompetence; it’s a very specific way to describe not just an overestimation of skills, but a way to framing that helps us understand why that error occurs, and how it manifests in human decision-making. Yes, the least competent suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect, but so too do those of average competency, albeit by a lesser degree. Even experts can show the effects of DKE, as their deep knowledge and awareness of difficulty may lead them to underestimate their own abilities. Metacognition is a tricky thing. There have been repeated attempts at debunking Dunning Kruger over the years, typically by mathematicians arguing a lack of statistical significance versus mere random noise. I remain unconvinced by those arguments, especially given that larger studies have confirmed the original underlying research. About those experts: It is a feature of the genre that some very smart people can suffer from “deformation professionnelle” – a DKE-related tendency to view the world through the lens of one’s own profession. Hence, we should not be surprised that a mathematician looks at a psychological phenomenon and sees only the statistics. “Does anyone know what Dunning Kruger actually is?” has a delightful recursive character – the first rule of DKE is you don’t know you are in DKE – and has a fractal-like character that mathematicians should appreciate. The all too obvious irony of a mathematician performing statistical analysis on psychology research unaware of potential error is his psychological analysis is from whence we get our title: The first rule of Dunning Kruger club is that you do not know you are in the Dunning Kruger club…   UPDATE: May 25th, Noon I reached out to Professor David Dunning, who adds: “One universal problem is we don’t know how shallow our understanding is. DKE critics construe the research as being one or two studies from 1999, hard stop. Either they do not realize the complex story that has emerged after 20+ years of research, and data contrary to their conclusions, or haven’t taken the pains to survey the current literature, whether about the specific DKE they critique or the trouble with knowing your ignorance in general. Consider in psychology the related phenomenon of the illusion of explanatory depth. Ask people if they can describe how a helicopter (or a bike, or zipper) works and they answer “Of course!” Then ask them to do so and they quickly realize the large gaps in their knowledge…” That really helps fill out the academic debate…   Previously: What if Dunning Kruger Explains Everything? (February 27, 2023) MiB: David Dunning on Metacognition (March 21, 2020)   Sources: Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999 Yes, The Dunning-Kruger Effect Really Is Real Stuart Vyse Rational Skeptic, April 7, 2022 The Dunning-Kruger effect revisited Matan Mazor & Stephen M. Fleming Research Department of Experimental Psychology, April 8, 2021 A rational model of the Dunning–Kruger effect supports insensitivity to evidence in low performers Rachel A. Jansen, Anna N. Rafferty & Thomas L. Griffiths Nature Human Behaviour, February 25 2021   See also: Debunking the Dunning-Kruger effect – the least skilled people know how much they don’t know, but everyone thinks they are better than average By Eric C. Gaze, The Conversation, May 23, 2023 Math Professor Debunks the Dunning-Kruger Effect By Eric C. Gaze SciTechDaily, MAY 9, 2023   The post The First Rule of Dunning Kruger… appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

POS Tip Demands Are Driving Inflation Higher.....»»

 The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Robyn Grew, Man Group CEO, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes Stitcher, Bloomberg, Spotify, Google, and YouTube. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. ~~~ ANNOUNCER: This is Masters in Business… Read More The post Transcript: Robyn Grew appeared first on The Big Picture.  The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Robyn Grew, Man Group CEO, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes Stitcher, Bloomberg, Spotify, Google, and YouTube. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. ~~~ ANNOUNCER: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ritholtz on Bloomberg Radio. BARRY RITHOLTZ, HOST, MASTERS IN BUSINESS: This week on the podcast, another extra special guest, Robin Grew, President of Man Group, $145 billion publicly traded hedge fund in the UK, and soon to be Man Group’s CEO. This is a fascinating conversation about business growth and leadership and management and how to run a team. How to recruit and retain the best people and how to use technology as a tool to give you an edge, not just in investing but in the ability to offer clients various solutions improving your efficiency, effectiveness and productivity as a company. I — I found this to just be a fascinating masterclass in running a giant financial organization. And I think you will also. So with no further ado, my conversation with Man Group’s incoming CEO, Robyn Grew. ROBYN GREW, PRESIDENT, MAN GROUP: Thank you for having me, Barry. RITHOLTZ: I — I have been looking forward to this for a while. And when we first booked you, you were like a junior analyst. Then suddenly in the ensuing weeks, you get tagged to be CEO. That has to be a little bit of a surreal experience. GREW: It is nothing short of surreal. This is obviously new news for this particular podcast, and it is — you hear the words that people say, you know, it’s an honor and it’s a privilege. And it sounds a little trite. I mean you find yourself in one of these rare positions where somebody is asking you to take on the CEO. And I have to tell you, I mean it very authentically, it’s an honor and it’s a privilege. And it is slightly surreal. RITHOLTZ: And — and to — for a little context, maybe for some of the audience in America who may not be that familiar with Man Group, this isn’t like a startup. This traces its roots back to 18th century sugar trading, right? How old is Man Group? GREW: Well, it’s 240 years old. Put it that way, 1783. And you’re right, it traces its way back to sugar trading and at one point being the monopolistic supplier of rum to the Royal Navy, which — and in those days, that was important because everybody had a ration in the Royal Navy, and everybody wanted to use it. And it’s the journey isn’t’ it? It’s the journey of organizations to continue to be relevant. So, 240 years ago, there’s a conversation I have with people which is, if we didn’t keep changing, we’d still be making barrels on the side of the River Thames and trading sugar and hoping that the Royal Navy still needed a lot of rum. So that’s not where we are today. But the roots are deep. And now we, you know, we’re just shy of $145 billion of assets on the management across the entire credit curve. Trading through our CTAS and Quant and discretionary and private markets, reaching investors all over the world. RITHOLTZ: So, we’re going to spend a little more time delving deep into Man Group’s practice. Let’s start with your background. GREW: Sure. RITHOLTZ: Which doesn’t quite go back 274 — GREW: Thank — thank you very much for that. RITHOLTZ: You went to law school. Were the plans to become a solicitor or a barrister? That’s not the thought process of someone who wants to go into finance. GREW: You — you’re spot on. I actually qualified as a barrister, which is the fun words of I went to the bar. People use that all the time to describe me. And you’re right, I had thought I was going to be an advocate, quite frankly, a barrister, you know the one with the wigs and gowns, that you see on TV. My — my roots were very more reasonably humble. My dad was a public GP, you know, in the National Health Service in England and my mom was a public school teacher. And quite frankly, I didn’t know what financial services was. It was this — this thing that existed somewhere else. And so, when I went to law school and went to the bar, I had every — every thought that I was just going to be a barrister and be another vocational professional in my family. RITHOLTZ: When did it enter your mind that, hey, this finance stuff looks kind of interesting? GREW: It entered my mind when very early on I found myself in a position where I was looking at brief that had come to me. And it was yet another sort of sketchy criminal defense piece, where I had to go and interview a client who had been arrested because he had been out on bail and escaped bail. And I went to a very old magistrates’ court in London, at Bow Street. It’s very close to Covent Garden and very old cells. And the doors of these cells were built for men. And you — you, Barry, you have the benefit of seeing how short I am or tall I am. RITHOLTZ: You’re five foot nothing, right? GREW: I’m five foot nothing. And so I couldn’t see through the little window. I just couldn’t reach it. Right, I just wasn’t able. So, the guards had to actually stand, sort of open the door and stand on either side of me. And they were worried about me because my client was so out of his head on whatever it was he had taken, that they were actually worried for my safety. And I went home that night, and I went, do you know what, I might not want to do this forever. This might not be — this might not be a good idea. And I thought, I know what I’ll do, I will go into commerce. That’s what I thought. I’ll go into commerce. I’ll go into business. And then I will go back, and I will be a commercial barrister where they don’t have to get this into cells and see whether — RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: — I’d be worried about the safety that have to do with people like me now. So that’s — that’s what the plan was. And so, it was a plan to get into this space, get experience from being an insider, in business and go back. And I got hooked. I just never went back. RITHOLTZ: What — what was the first job in — in commerce, so to speak? GREW: In commerce? So, there was an advertisement in the newspaper. That’s a thing. That’s how old I am. There was an advertisement in the newspaper for Fidelity. And I thought, well, that sounds interesting. They wanted — they wanted to have new kind of graduates, postgraduates type people to come and do a round robin. And that’s also an expression that gets used with me a lot. And so I applied and I sent in a letter and I said yes, it sounds terribly interesting. Can you give me a shot at this? And I got invited to this interview thing. And it was a thing. So I turned up, and there are 150 people in a room. RITHOLTZ: Right. Cattle call. GREW: It was a cattle call. And I – totally new to me and I had no idea that this is what happened. So I just chatted to everybody I met. I just chatted — RITHOLTZ: Online while you’re waiting to go for the interview. GREW: Yeah, you just — you don’t know when you’re being interviewed or when you’re not being interviewed quite frankly. RITHOLTZ: Oh. Okay. GREW: I was one of the come and meet these people. And it was, I had a great time. I’m a chatty kind of individual. And off I went round the room, chatted for a couple of hours and then left and, you know, drove home. And I was rung the next day, and they said we really — really — would you like to come and join us and I said, well, yes, for sure. Let’s do that then. And I bounced around. Yes, I did some legal stuff and rank stuff but I, you know, I went in on the weekends when we did the stock certificate count. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: And counted share certificates, that it was that long ago. And I did early tech kind of pieces. I manned client call phones. I did everything. And it was a bit of a blast. It was this kind of thing of being in the center of Fidelity’s brokerage arm at that point. Not its asset management, its brokerage piece. And then — RITHOLTZ: This — this is late ‘80s or early ‘90s? GREW: Yeah, and — and then I was, necessarily (inaudible) — and I was called into — I was called in ’91 so – in that ‘90s period. And then I was called by a headhunter, by a recruiter, who said, listen, there’s this — spent a couple years at Fidelity by this time — there’s a role at this thing called LIFFE or LIFFE. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: Um, and they really need somebody who understands a criminal law. And they need it because when they conduct interviews, it’s undertaken under this police and criminal evidence act (ph) thing. We — in other words it’s done in a way that whatever is said in that interview could be brought as evidence in a court. And I said, well, I know — I know that bit of it. I’ve done — I’ve done that bit. And so I turned up to LIFFE. RITHOLTZ: What was the commerce side of LIFFE? GREW: So, it’s an exchange. It’s an open outcry exchange. In fact, at that time, the biggest open outcry exchange in Europe and we had — it was a time when LIFFE was biggest in the bond contract (ph). RITHOLTZ: So, I have to ask, why the concern about future criminal evidence? It seems sort of at odds. GREW: I know, right. So, what happens is, when you work in an open outcry (ph) environment, there are trade practices — RITHOLTZ: Okay. GREW: — that get investigated. And those trading practices are quite — they’re fun. They’re interesting and they’re complex because it’s all about hand signals. RITHOLTZ: Right. And everybody’s word is their bond or their gestures, their bond. GREW: Exactly right. And so, you’re looking at, at that point, very forward thinking videotaped evidence. RITHOLTZ: Mm-hmm. GREW: You’ve got pit observers. And you are trying to piece if there are malpractices or going on, you need to piece that all together. And so, at that point, you are building a case. You are running a market (ph) investigations team, which is looking at ensuring proper conduct. From a regulatory perspective, you are the regulator. You are managing the efficacy of those markets, and across futures and options. And so, I went to an interview. And they said how much do you know about futures and options? And I said, not a lot. In fact, I said, and there’s a chap who I’m still in touch with who repeats this at regular intervals to my embarrassment, he says, you said you know a postage stamp and you know really large writing. That’s how much I know. But I’m a super quick learner. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: And, for good or for bad and for my benefit, they hired me. RITHOLTZ: How long did you stay with LIFFE? Or LIFFE as in — GREW: LIFFE — a couple of years, just over again. And then I got another call. RITHOLTZ: Uh-oh. GREW: I know, this seems to be a process. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: So, I got a call and this one was ultimately from a recruiter who’s working for Lehman Brothers, an investment bank, a bond house. RITHOLTZ: Another one that’s a few hundred years old as well. GREW: Another one that — RITHOLTZ: At least was. GREW: Was a few hundred years old. Again, set up by, you now, brothers and all the rest of it. So, and that was another conversation where they were looking for somebody, quite frankly, who had some sort of futures, options, star LIFFE (ph) experience, because they wanted somebody to go and sit on a fixed income floor. RITHOLTZ: Right. And I want to say the criminal background turned out not to hurt either. GREW: No, they — thanks for that. We’ll talk about that later, Barry. So, the — so the sense of again, another opportunity just sort of thrown in my way. And as I joined Lehman Brothers, it was the first time that Russia had a — had a little bit of a crisis. RITHOLTZ: ’98, something like that. GREW: Correct. Correct, spot on. And I was thrown at a, okay, we now need to know what have we got in Russia, what’s our exposure, what are our legal contracts, how does this work? And I was one of many, many people. But it — it talked about landing and the rubber hitting the road. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: And at that point Lehman share price had its first sort of crumbs moment. And that was fascinating to just be in the inner workings. Baptisms by fire, I sort of enjoy — I shouldn’t probably admit that. RITHOLTZ: That’s the phrase that popped into my head as soon as you described — GREW: It is — it is sort of baptism of fire. And it was something which was phenomenal to actually be part of but for the fact that you’re living it. Does that make sense? RITHOLTZ: Sure. GREW: As an academic exercise, marvelous. When you’re in the middle of it, you – you’re kind of so caught in it. And I ended up on working on the fixed income floors until — RITHOLTZ: You’re working in London not in New York at the time. GREW: Correct, working in London. And again, the first time I’d worked in the South Side. And that’s where I sort of feel I had my biggest growth and my growing up was in that Lehman Brothers phase. In part because I again benefited from being in the mix when we were the second bank that was raided by the Japanese regulators after they’d gone into Credit Suisse. And the Japanese regulators were having a tough time with cross collateralization and issues about whether there were balance sheet accounting issues. RITHOLTZ: Is this how you ended up living in uh, Tokyo? Is that right? GREW: It is — it is. RITHOLTZ: And how long were you there for? GREW: So, well, for the year of the first year of the investigation, I flew back and forth to London. This is becoming a theme with me, flying back and forth to London. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: And then after that another two and a half years where we actually lived in Japan. Fabulous. RITHOLTZ: Tokyo, it’s supposed to be an amazing city. GREW: It was extraordinary and brilliant. And the things you learn when you live overseas, I’m not sure I can ever really put on value on those experiences. Being responsible for a region in which you are very much alien in that space. RITHOLTZ: Mm-hmm. GREW: Where you have to learn cultural cues in ways that you’ve never had to understand it before. Where you’re navigating different countries and different relationships between those countries, which — all so tricky. Lehman had its headquarters for AsiaPac unusually in Tokyo. RITHOLTZ: Mm-hmm. GREW: Most of us had a kind of Hong Kong piece — RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: — or Singapore piece and then ex-Japan piece of it. That wasn’t how Lehman did it. So being responsible for AsiaPac was — from a Tokyo base, was brilliant. RITHOLTZ: Huh, quite fascinating. (BREAK) RITHOLTZ: So, you were very successful at Lehman. You kind of worked your way up the ranks there. What else did you focus on outside of putting out fires in Japan? GREW: Well, after running and building up that, sort of, that team, I hired my successor. By the way, fabulous thing to do, I suggest everybody does that actually. I mean genuinely, we can talk about it later. But that ability to hire tremendously strong, quality people around you, is I think been an enormous opportunity to provide you with opportunity to move on and do more. So, I got a call. I got a call from the U.S. who said, hey, how do you fancy coming to the U.S.? And that again was to work at Lehman’s headquarters — fabulous opportunity. So off we went from Japan to — to New York. That was a cultural change. RITHOLTZ: Yeah, to say the very least. Lehman was very much a hyper aggressive, macho culture, Dick Fuld’s nickname was the “Gorilla.” GREW: It was. RITHOLTZ: What was it like working in that sort of, you know, very much bro culture? GREW: And I’m — and I’m slightly worried I’m going to disappoint you with this answer. But it was fabulous. I had the best time. And I never encountered that sense of being overwhelmed by a — a masculine overtly bullying kind of culture. In fact, some of the early work that I did on diversity and inclusion was at Lehman in New York. RITHOLTZ: Huh. GREW: And was sponsored by people like Joe Gregory, who was just a real champion of that — of that content. So that, maybe I’m — maybe I’m thick skinned or something. But the truth of the matter is I loved it. I enjoyed it. And I think Lehman was — I owe a lot to my experiences in that organization. RITHOLTZ: As much as Lehman spectacularly crashed and burned in the financial crisis, everybody I know who worked there really liked it. It was a pure meritocracy. GREW: Absolutely. RITHOLTZ: They didn’t care if you made money, it didn’t matter. GREW: That’s right. RITHOLTZ: And, yeah, it was a little sharp elbowed. It was a tough place to work. But people who came through that said it was the best experience professionally of their lives. GREW: Absolutely right. And you know, they had a phrase. which I still use. You know when you get to that point in — in investment banking, you ended up with those loose sites, with, you know, various things that you’re supposed to, you know, mouse (ph) match with something as well. RITHOLTZ: Sure, all the little banking things, yeah. GREW: All the little banking things from whatever. And they had one phrase, and I — I still use it which is be smart, be dumb. And it’s kind of a curious — RITHOLTZ: Be smart, be dumb. GREW: Be smart, be dumb. And what that retranslated into was, if you don’t understand something that is going on, if you’re in a meeting and you don’t get it, if you’re outside of the meeting and don’t get it, say something. Actually, ask the question. Because you’d be surprised how many people can answer the question by the way. RITHOLTZ: Uh-huh. GREW: But also, it’s okay not to know everything. It’s the only way you learn. And I still use that. I might have it — I don’t quite have it on a Lucite anymore, but I absolutely believe that to be the case. If you don’t get it ask the question. I’m not supposed to know everything in the room, that’s not the point. But I would like to understand what’s going on. RITHOLTZ: Huh. Really, really intriguing. So, let’s talk a little bit about the history for those listening who might not be familiar with uh, Man Group. What is its focus and specialties? Who are its clients? GREW: So, Man is a — as you said hundred million – 145-billion-dollar hedge fund. It’s there to –to and loan only (ph). It’s not just a hedge fund, it’s not just doing long shortcuts (ph) or loan only (ph). It’s got private markets, it’s through the credit curve it has core business engines which are driven by styles. So, we have large comp businesses. CTA and um, equity comp businesses. We have a discretionary business, what some of you might have already been familiar with in GOG, we have private markets business which is focused really on real estate. And the — that — that — the single family real estate ownership piece. Um, and community housing, and then we have something called solutions. And the solutions piece is the piece where we work with in effect our institutional clients or institutional client business, but those institutional clients are pension funds, their endowments, they are looking after the pensions and the savings of real individuals. The individuals that might — mom and dad right. The doctors, the teachers, the metal workers in Holland, wherever they may be. And we partner with those institutions to return value. And that’s our early goal. When we come in, in the morning, we think about who the real underlying clients are here. And how we partner and make sure that we’re returning Alpha. We’re an active manager and that solutions piece is how we create the spoke solution. So, we’ll take elements or particular strategies from each part of our discretionary strategy and match it with con strategy and return it to clients because we understand and we work with them on their portfolio, the exposure, what they need to achieve, their risk management to create something that is a spoke for them. RITHOLTZ: So that’s very interesting because the typical funds is this is our strategy — GREW: Take it or leave it. RITHOLTZ: Right, that’s pretty much it. You sort of have a one foot in the um, financial planning, asset management side and another side in actual fund management. What are the advantages of marrying those two together? GREW: I think the reality for me is that more and more institutional clients need something in a separate managed account. They want something that’s bespoke to them, and the portfolio risk or construction that they need answers to. These are long strategic relationships where we are investing time and effort in partnership within these institutions to understand what their portfolio construction needs to look like or what they want to achieve. And then we are part of helping them understand that. And helping them deliver a solution that we can provide to them to address certain issues. And maybe it’s the combination of strategies, maybe it’s a combination of strategies with additional transparency or additional liquidity? Maybe it’s leverage, maybe it’s a tele protection, maybe it’s an overlay hedge, maybe it’s any number of these things. The capability that Man has to do that, is what we have spent time and energy and money on. And technology on. Let’s be clear, we talk about tech and I’m sure we’ll cover it later, we talk about how we deploy tech, and we think about tech within that quant space. But we deploy technology throughout the organization to give us scale and capability, that we use to service our clients. RITHOLTZ: So, let’s stay with that, before we get to the tech side of it, all the entities that you referred to various uh, foundations and institutions and pensions, many of them have a future liability. Meaning they have an obligation to pay out a certain amount of money to a certain class of beneficiaries at some point in the future. So, when you’re describing bespoke strategies, I’m assuming your targeting those future liabilities for each of those — those entities? GREW: It can be that it can be anything that they want in reality. We are much more about understanding client needs. And remember they have, as you know, vast portfolios. Trillions of dollars that they are putting into that. We’re part of that and doing it abs — understanding what they’re trying to achieve, is less efficient potentially for them. So, let me give you an example of what I mean by this. I was um, speaking to a couple clients, in the last couple of days and they were talking to me and they say listen, what we would really like to do is sit down with you and there are two or three areas and I was like terrific, what do you want to talk about? And they said, well, first of all we’d like to understand data and how you manage data and how you manage your technology in that? I said great. And then they said the second thing is, we’d really like your help in understanding our portfolio construction and whether what we think it’s doing is what it’s doing or whether we’ve got correlation where we didn’t think we’d have correlation. Or how we’re positioned. And I said sure, we’ve got tools that can help you do that. And then the third thing they said, I really want to talk to you about how you’re achieving diversity and equity and inclusion. RITHOLTZ: Really? GREW: And I was like — RITHOLTZ: That comes up in these conversations? GREW: And so, I was like, okay, we can talk to you about that too. The point is, it’s not just about delivering a fund, here’s a product let me flog it to you. It’s about a much deeper relationship for us and it’s about delivering all of the firm, not just part of the firm. And that is important to us because I think we do a better job. And by the way, I’ll put this in there as well, we believe in making our, you know, our clients smarter and better because they make us smarter and better in return. There’s a – there’s an interesting piece on a Podcast listening to Fran Lebowitz actually the other day and she was talking about the massive loss we had in the ‘80’s with the AIDS crisis of artists. And she made this really great point which is, it wasn’t just the artists we lost, we lost the audience. We lost the decerning audience in that process too. And I — it resonated with me about how we think about Man. We want our clients to be smarter and better, and equipped with what we can give them because they hold us as we hold ourselves accountable. They’re the better audience that makes the better performance. RITHOLTZ: Huh, really quite interesting. So we’ll circle back to diversity, inclusion, ESG a little later. Let’s stay with technology for a minute. How is Man deploying new technologies, what are you using in your quant work, in your — your trading and how does this, um, infiltrate the entire organization? GREW: Well, it – it’s a similar one, let me say, you know we view technology and the adoption of AI technology as a fundamental part of innovation. And it’s useful across our entire organization, in the investment process, but also through trading and execution. It’s used in every single juncture. We’re constantly looking to align the latest technology and latest techniques with our underlying investment for philosophies, not the other way around. Does that make sense. So, it’s one of the tools that make us better at delivering what we do. And new technologies aren’t replacement. They’re for me — they’re rather a compliment to what we are trying to achieve. And we are never going to be reliant on one technology. This space is moving so quickly. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: It’s about adopting the new, finding its application, seeing whether we can gain alpha from it whether it makes us smarter, allows us to monetize something which reduces cost, whatever it may be and making that happen. I think AI can do much for example, then just automate. Um, it — it’s innovative, it can increase productivity, we use it as part of our processing of data of our large data, of looking at our models, looking at portfolio construction. Um, it — we have used it for example for ESG prediction metrics. Let’s look about whether where we see weather cycles. Where we look at it um, use it in your linguistic programing to look at — to make sense of sentiment in um, annual reporting from example. RITHOLTZ: Mm-hmm. GREW: So many different applications by nature, as you know Barry, we are open source, um, space, we love it. Our developers love it. I mean I wish I was as smart as a developer, but our developers love open source. It makes them better. When you look at GitUp — RITHOLTZ: Sure. GREW: Which is one of these mechanisms which I’m sure most people know, I think we’re number two on GitUp, but it’s this sense of open-source technology um, where we use it as much as we can or we — we withing the organization but we’re always interested in what else is out there. So, we’re not frightened by tech development, we want to use it, but we don’t depart from philosophically where we start and what we need it for. RITHOLTZ: Yeah there — there’s been a little bit of a backlash against things like various AI and – and chatbots etcetera. To me it’s always been a tool, all this technology is a tool that makes people more productive, more effective, more efficient. Uh, I’ve never thought hey, ChatGPT is going to put all of us out of business it — it’s something that can be used to the betterment of our work product, and it sounds like that’s integral to Man’s philosophy. GREW: I kind of agree. ChatGPT is clearly the greatest disruptor we’ve had in the last year. I mean, it’s been — it’s been given some really quite momentous uh, bylines as well. But it’s certainly a massive disruptor from my perspective, if you think about it negatively, you’re missing the mark. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: It’s — it’s — RITHOLTZ: I’m sure it hallucinates occasionally, but — GREW: But — but, well I was going to say something, who doesn’t, but that’s not true. Um, but it’s also not going to be the first or the last piece of AI technology. This isn’t well, I’ve got ChatGPT, therefore we’re done. RITHOLTZ: We’re done. Right. GREW: That’s not going to happen, this sort of semi-hysterical fear of it, I think is all wrong. There is — there are undoubtedly going to be benefits for us being able to use technology to capture large data sources, look at what we’ve done and I, you know, I’m talking to a man at Bloomberg’s so you will know this. We talked about open architecture a minute ago, and look at what we’ve done with this ArcticDB. So, this is a piece of technology that was developed at Man Group, which in effect is a super charged database. You know, it’s able to process large chunks of data which we’re all trying to deal with in a much more efficient and effective way. We actually open sourced it back in 2015, um, it’s first version, but in one of those moments where you’ve got to be careful you’re not drinking your own Kool-aid a little bit. RITHOLTZ: Uh-huh. GREW: We – I mean we talk about tech all the time, we went to Bloomberg and said we have this cool piece of kit, um, would you like to take a look at it? And we came to Bloomberg because if there’s one place that has a phenomenal tech — RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: Space and a Ka trillion developers, and all the rest of it, it’s Bloomberg. So we came here and we were testing ourselves. Back to that audience thing. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: show me how, whether we can be better at this and show me where we’ve kidded ourselves, is this really – is this really the thing? RITHOLTZ: Mm-hmm. GREW: And after months and months it’s now in the hands of Bloomberg and it’s being — RITHOLTZ: Oh really? GREW: Endorsed as that as a program that is in the mix and is part of the Bloomberg offering in that space. So, we — we checked our audience. We worked out we weren’t drinking the Kool-Aid. But it shows you sort of the way that we think about tech. and how we think about it as something that makes us all better, but I will be super clear, it’s only part of what we have. We have a million models, we have our own technology, we have our own philosophical investment ideas within each of our engines and we use tech to make us better at that. RITHOLTZ: Huh. That sounds quite fascinating. Let’s discuss the major divisions at Man Group. I want to try and wrap my arms around, first what is Man AHL? GREW: Okay. So, think of, we have two, let me do it a slightly different way. We have two quant engines. One is numeric and one is AHL. CTA, macro, big trading hub. RITHOLTZ: When I hear CTA, I hear commodity trading. GREW: Right. RITHOLTZ: Okay. GREW: That’s where it’s originally coming at, from, but it’s much more than that. And then equities, resprimia (ph), Maloney (ph), piece and numeric which is also quant. GOG, third engine. Discretionary, human beings, people like you and me and by the way, the way I started at the firm was through GOG. That was an acquisition which is something that we — you know is part and parcel of how Man has grown over the years. So, GOG, discretionary portfolio management. Um, then you have what is FRM MSL. So that’s that solutions piece, we talked about earlier, although FRM was, and you’ve spoken to Luke before, so the fund to funds business. Um, which was also an acquisition, but that’s rolled into lucia (ph) as well and we have still got a fund to fund business where people might have thought in the past that that was a dying part, not so much, people need some help when it comes to their selection also of uh, managers that are out there and that is still something that we are part and part of. And then the fifth piece is that private market space where we have that real estate piece that we talked about earlier and we within each of those engines we also have credit offerings as part of that. RITHOLTZ: Huh, really quite fascinating. (BREAK) RITHOLTZ: So — so let’s talk a little bit about your approach to leadership. You’ve managed to distinguish yourself in a very competitive field. Tell — tell us how. GREW: Here’s the answer everyone, it’s not true. Um, I — I tell you and perhaps this is a way of thinking about it, what I have done perhaps is the better way of saying, do I and how I distinguish myself. What I’ve done is taken every single opportunity, that has come my way. And I — RITHOLTZ: So, no master plan and this just, you just stumbled blindly from one gig to the next, is that — GREW: I mean — I mean that’s the perfect way of summing it up. The um, the way of summing it up is this, if you’d have asked me 25 years ago, do you think you’ll be the CEO of an investment management company, I would have laughed. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: I would have laughed. I didn’t have a grand master plan. What I did have was a somewhat insatiable desire to learn and have some fun doing so that I loved being a fixer, I loved being put on planes, or being sent into areas to solve things. I have innately hired people around me and built teams of highly credible quality people, um, who I have empowered and who I have loved to partner in achieving whatever it was that we needed to achieve better, faster, smarter than before. And that — that empowerment piece is huge. The ability to not have to be the smartest, in fact, let me do it a different way. If I am the smartest person in the room — RITHOLTZ: You’ve done something wrong. GREW: I — I worry, I mean that’s not okay. Um, so on that basis, leadership style, hire brilliant people, put great minds around you. Put people around you who are willing to disagree with you or better still stop you from careening off a cliff. If you’re headed in the wrong direction, I can’t tell you how many times that, that is just as important as sort of the rugby tackle TE’s bit. If you’ve suddenly got yourself into a frame of this is where we’re going and I have enormously benefited from that style of management which is inclusive, it’s about delegation, it’s about empowering people to sometimes be really horrible. RITHOLTZ: So, let’s stick with the delegation and the empowerment because those are key themes. You don’t sound like you’re a micromanager, you sound like you tell people this is what we want you to do, tell us what you need to get it done and now go do it. GREW: That’s our job. As great leaders I — I — that sounded arrogant. I don’t mean — RITHOLTZ: Any leader. GREW: Any leaders — RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: I think any great leader, any capable leader, maybe that’s a better way of phrasing it, any capable leader, that’s one of the hallmarks it feels to me. Migrate people, empower them. If they can’t deliver, if you’ve got the wrong person, change the person. Don’t micromanage. Don’t find the fix in making it, you do the job or somebody else. RITHOLTZ: Swap the people on board. GREW: That’s right. And so that has always been — I always find that really smart people want that. They want to be given the keys, they want to run these things and the smartest people know when they don’t know. The most frightening person is the person who doesn’t know that they don’t know. The best person who works for you is the one who goes, yep, don’t know the answer to this, leave it with me or we got to find the best solution here, not the perfect solution here. You’ve got to be able to move dynamically. You have to be able to think. You have to be able to find solutions and it be execution divine if you’re working with me. RITHOLTZ: So, you clearly have great insights and leadership skills, but you’ve said you’re surprised that you got named CEO of this large financial firm. Why the surprise? GREW: I was — RITHOLTZ: By the way I’m calling you out for a little false humility here. Defend yourself. GREW: Defend, excellent here I go – on goes the Barrister — RITHOLTZ: Barrister. GREW: Making cracks so we can get on. Let me say I — I think there are tremendously strong people. We have a great bench of senior management at Man Group. It is a bit of a privilege, and it sounds a bit trite, just happens to be true that we have a phenomenal bench of high-quality people. I don’t want to assume and didn’t want to assume that I’d be named the CEO. I am thrilled, let me tell you that I am going to be the CEO for the first of September. But it’s — there are so many capable individuals that it doesn’t do you any harm to step back and recognize the skills and the qualities of those people who you have worked with and who you want to work with going forward. So, that was, that has been something that I think has held me in good stead actually to have perspective and to keep my feet very firmly grounded. I think what perhaps surprised me in reality and yet it shouldn’t have done was the press coverage that the announcement garnered — RITHOLTZ: Meaning, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I’ve read everything you’ve written. You were genuinely surprised people focused on you as a woman taking the CEO. I mean this is still a pretty — especially in finance, look there is a gender parody in business, generally and finance lags business and hedge funds lag finance. So why so surprised? GREW: At this point, I think this is where I call myself out and say why — you can’t go well obviously when you put it like that. I think perhaps I was so focused on the job. I was so focused on this being something that I looked at internally rather than I perhaps focused on the external ramification or impact of it. And it’s humbling when that happens, and it’s been heartening and, in some ways, overwhelming, and brilliant all at the same time. And of course, you get — one gets a thousand emails and a thousand messages and all of those things and some of the most touching are those from people who — who are really just saying, you know thanks — thank you Robyn but thank you Man for breaking that. For giving us somebody who is underrepresented, and it means that we all think we now, we’ve got more people, one more person sorry to — that’s broken through that barrier. Whatever that barrier may look like. And that was — that was touching I have to say. RITHOLTZ: It — it’s also when you’re on the inside, you see the changes that others won’t see manifest for years or decades, so you’re aware that things might be a little better than they appear from the outside. So maybe there’s a little surprise there. I have to mention at this point, that by the time you become CEO on September first, the Chairman replacing John Cryan, uh, will be Ann Wade. You’ll be not only led by women, the firm will be led by two women. There — there’s nothing like that in the hedge fund universe at all. GREW: It’s phenomenal, um, and Ann is a superstar. I’m very, very lucky to also work with board, we’re very luck to work with a board at Man that is — that is brilliant and engaged and highly qualified. And that with Ann has been, again, the master of transition, the master of how we think of succession at Man has been very deep in the way that the board has thought about the succession of the chair has also been a very, very in-depth, assessment and analysis. Buy happens stance we are in this position with Ann and myself, I’ve got to tell you it’s going to be brilliant, but it’s not because we’re women, it’s because we’re the best people to take these roles. RITHOLTZ: So, let’s talk about the best people, the firm is 144.7 billion in assets. Let’s round it up to 145 as much as my compliance people hate when I do that. How do you guys’ plan on growing the assets, do you have any targets in mind? Do you want to get to 200 billion. Is it a trillion-dollar firm a decade from now. What are you thinking about? GREW: And it’s — it’s a great question, it’s also an early question let’s be clear. So um, I’m going to perhaps not give you the satisfactory answer you want. Nevertheless, you’d expect me to do exactly just what I’m about to do. The firm is brilliant, I mean it has a cracking core business and my number one job apart from anything is not to break that because that is value and it’s real and it will continue to grow. We will continue to see the value of technology and we have 35 years, 40 years of quant and data and tech behind us and we will continue to invest in that space. We will continue to look for opportunities in an MLA format. We’ve made it very clear to the market. Um, can’t guess what they’re going to be. Couldn’t tell you if I did know. But I can’t guess what that’s going to be. What I will tell you is it will additive, and it will be additive for our clients. Ultimately this is about having deeper and better client offerings. It’s that piece about the solutions that we talked about earlier. How do I ensure that I’ve got each of the components that can provide a better offering for our institutional clients. And we’ll grow that. U.S. massively important to us. Deep capitol market, you’ll absolutely see us putting effort and time into building our presence here too. RITHOLTZ: Looking forward to that. Tell us a little bit about your background in environmental, social and governance-based investing. GREW: It certainly has become a little bit controversial here but yes, so let me talk — let me talk about our background. We — in the early 2000’s we had our first sort of um, involvement in creating on thinking about climate and signing up to various supplies of information when it came to climate data. Um, and but it really, let’s be clear, it’s ESG as a concept has really hotted up, if I’m allowed to use that phrase. RITHOLTZ: Sure. GREW: With ESG. In the last — RITHOLTZ: No pun intended? GREW: No pun intended, maybe a tiny pun intended. In the last five years or so, where you see the massive change in the European regulatory environment. We have these article eight and article nine funds which are responsible investing funds, you know, you have to have a certain percentage of responsive investing and um, investments within them that can differ between article nine and article eight. Um, where we’ve moved away from exclusionness where things are becoming more complex and where data points are becoming more interesting and where um, drive investment decisions. We have certainly seen an uptick of investment interest in RI in Europe. There’s almost a point where you can’t have a conversation with somebody in Europe without the client, without there being an RI piece to it. RITHOLTZ: RI meaning? GREW: Responsible Investing. RITHOLTZ: Okay. GREW: My apologies. And so ESG RI interchangeable in this space. Um, but — but a comment I would say more generally is, since when didn’t we take into account governance and risk in investment decision making? That’s — that’s the bit that I find quite interesting here. So when I answer your questions, I answered in the format of what you’re really asking me which is the ESG kind of concept. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: When actually, you extract governance, and you say do we look like a governance of issuers. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: Who doesn’t? RITHOLTZ: It’s a risk screen if any. GREW: It’s a risk screen. And so, the way that we think about ESG at Man, is not as an evangelical point where I soap box you into saying what is right and wrong. That’s not what we’re here to do. We’re here as product providers, solution providers to our clients. And so, if a client comes to us and says I want to have a portfolio which has – which uses its impact. If I want to look at biodiversity, if I want to invest in, and his has not happened by the way, but you know, it only boards which, I only want to invest in publicly listed companies where 50 percent of the boards are made up of diverse candidates. Doesn’t happen, but these criteria, that’s where we are placed. Now, the difference that Man has is that what is happening is that there is a chunk of data out there that is holy inconsistent, highly complex, multiply sourced, and damn right contradictory. And what we can do with that is apply those 35-40 years of data science, quants and tech capability. I can throw 500 people at that if I wanted to. Well, we don’t need to, to understand what the signals are in that space. But it isn’t that everything that we do at Man Group is now, has to be ESG, it’s what do clients want. And we certainly have clients who will only want something that is responsibly invested in some format, and we have a lot of clients who don’t. RITHOLTZ: When you say the data is contradictory, there’s been some studies that have shown that ESG doesn’t generate any form of alpha or alphaperformance, very often tied to how well oil companies are doing because if you pull those out it’s a major component. And there’s others that say we’ve mentioned the risk component, hey, if you have a lot of companies with bad governance, they have a disconcerting tendency to blow up and crash. Uh, how do you reconcile these different data points or is it all in the framing and the definition of what ESG is or, what diversity and inclusion means? GREW: Well, it — it great question Barry. I think what you are pulling out there is the complexity of the questions let alone the answer. So, fundamentally, yes it has something to do with strategy. If you were in a growth strategy last year that had ESG — RITHOLTZ: Didn’t matter. GREW: Didn’t matter. If right, so, some of this is also about extracting the ESG factor not just understanding and understanding it as against the strategy that ESG was attached to. Absolutely, you’re finding, if you’re a hydroelectric company, and where your hydroelectric base is, is now suffering from drought, every year. If you are a wind company and wind patterns for the last few years have been off considerably. These are climate change, but they take into account effectively the effectiveness of your business. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: Now, so — so how do you — how do you extract the various points of that to make it a decent thesis. And the argument is what is it that you want to achieve as a client? What are you after? And are you willing, and some points of this, is the discussion out there that happens with some clients, is — is it all about P&L? Is it about alpha capture or is there a willingness here to actually say, actually, I’m more interested in, I want P & L, I want alpha capture and I actually want social impact. Or I want climate impact, or I want decarbonization. The other piece of this is, there are absolute strategies which are about transition. And transition is about recognizing the journey, between where we are between carbon and greenhouse gas vs. where a company might be going. So, you will have, and we have had clients who say I am interested in, I still want to look at all the gas and fossil fuels, but I’m interested in the transition. I’m interested in who is really putting money to work to transition from those fossil fuels into radiopuls (ph) for example. So, a complex question which then begets some fortunately, a complex answer. RITHOLTZ: Let’s talk a little bit about diversity and inclusion. How do you think about that as a manager and then how do you think about that as an investor? GREW: We turn a mirror on ourselves, let’s be clear. You know that — that’s important, we continue to put every effort into seeking and having difference in our organization. I mean real difference as well. I think this piece about, I’m not really interested in the person who is different on the outside but actually went through all the same educational processes and the same training. I think we need difference — RITHOLTZ: By the way, it’s funny you mention that. But there was just a study recently and I don’t remember if it was the Times or Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg, that had the story, the vast majority of economists were working in finance, went to the same six grad schools. So, what does it matter how they look, it’s the same widget coming out of the same factory. GREW: And we’ve got to get comfortable as well, let’s be clear. We have to be comfortable with discomfort. If you want real diversity — RITHOLTZ: Say that again, comfortable with discomfort. GREW: Comfortable with discomfort. When you are in a room and you can connect over your whatever it may be, it doesn’t really matter what your connections, your school or your experience in life, where you, your football team, your and by that I meant — RITHOLTZ: Soccer. GREW: Soccer. Anyway, that thing, that — that’s what we do as human beings. As human beings we try to connect with each other, that is how we smooth the conversations and how we move things forward. Actually, when you have real difference in the room it feels kind of uncomfortable. It feels a little bit jarring from time to time. Well, what do you mean you don’t understand, or you don’t get that or that wasn’t an easy conversation. We gravitate as human beings towards easier conversations where we find commonality. And what we’re asking of our organizations is to make it a little bit more friction full not friction less in that space. But I am 1,000 percent, I shouldn’t say that I know it’s a bad phrase, I’m 100 percent — RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: Um — RITHOLTZ: Thank you so much for that by the way, because my question is always, why 1,000, why not 2,000? GREW: Why not 2,000. 100 percent sure that we need, and there is a war for the best talent. And if we think, if the premise that — that only the best people come from um, certain demographics. RITHOLTZ: Your tribe. GREW: Your tribe. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: Is when you say it out loud, nonsense. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: So, how we get people into our organizations that feel, look and have difference and how we ensure that we give them the space to be that different in our organizations that’s the criticality to it. That bit of, yeah — yeah, it’s okay, we’ll have you and then please can you be like us. You’ve got to know how to create an organization which actually gives people the space to be different, because that’s what you’re getting them for. It’s a bit like an acquisition where you understand the commercial reality of it, you buy something because of its commercial differentiation and then you bring it in, and you try to squish it into something that degrades that commercial benefit. It’s the same with people, we’ve got to bring people in, you’ve got to let them fly and you’ve got to be comfortable, perhaps being a little bit more uncomfortable than you were before. RITHOLTZ: All the academic studies say if you want to avoid group thinking, if you want better decisions, the more diverse the group the more likely you are to — to reach a better decision. So even that discomfort, there’s some academic research that supports it right? GREW: Absolutely, over and over again you see the academic research and yet, it think there’s an arrogance that we’ve had in our industry a little bit, which has been that great people will come to us. And then we suddenly woke up a little while ago, especially as tech became so incredibly important to all of us, that there were other options for these very smart people. That they didn’t have to come and work at hedge funds, or maybe they weren’t interested in finance, what? How could that possibly, what, how could that be Barry? You and I — RITHOLTZ: Shocking. GREW: Shocking right? RITHOLTZ: I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m a recovering attorney myself, so I — I get it. GREW: Right? So, it was attorney’s anonymous where you go to, anyway that aside. The so — so we suddenly found ourselves believing that we are great, therefore great people will come. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: And actually, not so much. The — the — that — those new generations have many more choices on how to deploy that expertise and actually, they look at us and they say why would I come and work for an organization where you don’t look like me, you don’t feel like me, you don’t understand me, and you’ll make me do stuff I don’t want to do. And by the way I’ve watched billions and I’m – I’m this is the difficult part of the podcast, I just made a funny face, but the point being, we have to do, and we’ve had to do a much better job I think in — in joining up the dots for that brilliant talent that’s coming through. About what we do and why we’re valuable and why it matters that we do what we do and why they are important part of ensuring financial security for millions of people who have worked very, very hard their whole lives and deserve a high-quality return on their pension. RITHOLTZ: So, I’ve always imagined the competition for the best talent is between financial companies. What you’re really saying is finance is an entity collectively has to compete against other — GREW: Absolutely. RITHOLTZ: Fields and institutions. GREW: Every day of the week. Every day of the week and maybe it’s startups, maybe that piece or maybe its Tesla or maybe it’s Facebook or maybe it’s Google, maybe it’s any number of these other spaces that are tech enabled and where their doing this their — their PR — their PR is better, has been smarter than ours and you know that piece where we use — where people skate board in the office bit, you know and I think we’ve had to be a little bit smarter and a little less scathing and a little more humble to ensure that we really are the employer or the industry or version of that choice for the best and brightest. And that includes people who are different, and they look at financial services and they don’t see difference. (BREAK) RITHOLTZ: So let me dredge up a quote of yours. GREW: Uh-oh. RITHOLTZ: That I thought was quite fascinating. You told somebody recently and I believe it was after you were named incoming CEO, “I’ve never been in the majority, whether because I was a woman, and or someone who proudly identifies as part of the LGBTQ community and that can create challenges and means that prejudice has been in a reality for me at different points in my career.” How does that affect how you run a company, how you engage in recruitment and how you think about diversity and inclusion? GREW: I think it’s given me insight. I think when you live it, when it’s your lived experience, you know it and you feel it. I think also I am now in a position and have been, I guess, for the last few years of being proof positive that people who are different can — can be in senior positions and can now run companies. I think that the prejudice for me, just kind of made me more punchy and made me more determined to succeed. So I think it makes me better at understanding what it feels like when you don’t belong. When you’re on the outside of conversation. When the culture of an organization genuinely isn’t inclusive. And that it’s not about checking boxes, it’s about investing in your culture and your organization in a way that’s very, very authentic. I — I’m lucky in many ways, I never struggled with the I shouldn’t be this, this isn’t what society wants, I’m never going to succeed. I don’t know what happened, but that bypassed me. Luckily. And so I’ve always been the way I really am today and that has been extraordinarily good for me in large part, but it’s not been without issue. I just think that I’ve overcome those issues which makes them something that I’m alive for other people. That in my organization and beyond, those struggles are still real. RITHOLTZ: Huh, really, really quite fascinating. Let’s jump to our favorite questions that we ask all of our guests, starting with what have you been entertaining yourself with, what are you listening to or watching or streaming? GREW: So, what I — I — Guilty — Guilty, what I’m watching. I have — I love Ted Lasso. RITHOLTZ: What’s not to love, it’s a delightful show. GREW: It’s a brilliant show and I think that it — it seems to, it’s the feel-good thing we kind of all need at t the moment, it feels to me as well. So, Ted Lasso — RITHOLTZ: I don’t even think that’s a guilty pleasure, the acting is great, the writing is so sharp. GREW: It’s fabulous. So sharp. RITHOLTZ: And people who like it are embarrassed, and go I like Ted Lasso. Why shouldn’t you like it, it’s fantastic. GREW: I find myself quoting Ted Lasso. What — perhaps not Ted Lasso himself but there are definitely points where I may be channeling some of the other characters. Definitely. Podcasts, I — I — well, obviously it would be wrong, Barry for me to not say you. RITHOLTZ: Stop. GREW: Stop — stop. But — but I — I do find — some of the series very useful. I find some of the Goldman stuff very useful. RITHOLTZ: Yeah. GREW: But I also find when I dip into, you know, Talk Easy, or I’ll dip into Dark Shepherd from time to time because it’s really interesting, hearing some of that sort of outside (inaudible). You’re finding yourself with somebody different, asking people like us different questions. RITHOLTZ: Really intriguing. Tell us about your mentors who helped shape your career. GREW: Goodness. This isn’t an exception speech. But I’ve been super lucky through every part from — from my university days through here’s — here’s something I’ll admit to. There is not one company that I have worked for or regulator that I worked for where I’m not still in touch with, my old bosses. And that is because they took the time to work at who I was and then they put me to work. And I will forever be grateful for that willingness to step back, not take a box, but invest in me as an individual and then work at what I was good at and then make it better. And so, there’s not one person through any part, you know, but I would say one of the most transformational mentors or allies or sponsors or whatever, is Luke. I have had enormous benefit from having his confidence and he has pushed me like no one else. RITHOLTZ: Huh. Really — really quite intriguing. I very much enjoyed my conversation with him also, fascinating person. GREW: He is, he’s — RITHOLTZ: Really fascinating. GREW: He’s everything and more. RITHOLTZ: Huh. Let’s talk about some of your favorite books and what you’re reading lately. GREW: So, living in Japan, gives you a bit of an insight on many things so, any Japanese author, um, Murakami, anytime Murakami puts anything out I read it then I read it again. RITHOLTZ: I’m assuming you’re reading the translated version in English not in the original. GREW: You know, I wish I was that smart. I tell you something actually about it, really good point. The translators of these books, aren’t they gifted? RITHOLTZ: Really. GREW: I mean, because it’s not just a word – it’s not like put it into Google and see what you get. It’s — RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: It’s everything and that is fine. That is just an extraordinary capability. So anything in that sort of Murakami space. What’s open on my bedside table right now, is the I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read it. But is Orlando. And — RITHOLTZ: Really. GREW: There is something extraordinary about that transformational through time, through gender, through experience. There’s something that’s really quite fascinating. I’m not saying it’s an easy book to read, I’m just saying it just happens to be the one I reopened a month ago and I’m still going through. RITHOLTZ: Interesting. And now we’re down to our final two questions. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad who was thinking about a career in finance. GREW: Do it. I would — I mean — I think if, don’t expect it to be what you think it is. experience it without any form of prejudice in some ways or without any form of expectation. I would also say go for it in a take the opportunities. What finance does which is I had not anticipated, but is why I’m still in it, is it’s fast, it’s intellectually demanding, it has reached beyond its real estate footprint, it has impact, it is topical, it covers geopolitical risk. There isn’t a part of the world or society it doesn’t impact and if you embrace it, on that basis, the opportunities are actually endless. So, be yourself, go for it, don’t think too much about ladders and what your next title is or whatever that stuff is. Just immerse yourself in it and take every opportunity that is given to you. RITHOLTZ: Really interesting advice. And our final question, what do you know about the world of investing and finance and hedge funds for that matter that you wish you knew 25-30 years ago when you were first starting out? GREW: I don’t think I wish I’d known anything. I think that my slightly wide eyed, slightly intrigued, slightly uneducated start point in finance was almost a gift. Because my expectations weren’t there, because I didn’t need to know because I just was hungry to learn. Because I didn’t really think about corporate structure or what my next job was. RITHOLTZ: Right. GREW: And it was freeing, and I look back on my career and I look back on the experiences and I look back on the people, some of whom still work for me. And I — I’m not sure I’d change that. And so I’m okay with where I was. RITHOLTZ: Quite fascinating. Robyn, thank you for being so generous with your time. This has been absolutely intriguing. We have been speaking with Robyn Grew. She is the incoming Chief Executive Officer at Man Group. If you enjoyed this conversation, well, be sure and check out any of the other 500 or so we’ve done over the past eight years. You can find those at Spotify, iTunes, YouTube or wherever you find your favorite Podcast. Be sure and sign up for our daily reads at Ritholtz.com. Follow me on Twitter @ritholtz. Follow all of the fine family of Bloomberg podcasts at Podcasts. I would be remiss if I did not thank the crack team that helps with these conversations together each week. Bob Bragg is my audio engineer, Atika Valbrun is my project manager, Paris Wald is our Producer, Sean Russo is my head of research. I’m Barry Ritholtz, you’ve been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. END   ~~~   The post Transcript: Robyn Grew appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

  RWM is coming to Austin, TX June 12th-14th‼️ @Downtown with more details⬇️Email us at info@ritholtzwealth.com subject line “Austin” to reserve a meeting slot! pic.twitter.com/9iSdG4HFf3 — Ritholtz Wealth (@RitholtzWealth) May 19, 2023   Hey Y’all! We’re coming to Austin,Texas to celebrate the opening of RWM Austin! If you’ve always been curious about what it’s like… Read More The post RWM is Coming to Austin appeared first on The Big Picture.   RWM is coming to Austin, TX June 12th-14th @Downtown with more detailsEmail us at info@ritholtzwealth.com subject line “Austin” to reserve a meeting slot! pic.twitter.com/9iSdG4HFf3 — Ritholtz Wealth (@RitholtzWealth) May 19, 2023   Hey Y’all! We’re coming to Austin,Texas to celebrate the opening of RWM Austin! If you’ve always been curious about what it’s like to be a client of Ritholtz Wealth Management, this is your chance. This June 12th, 13th and 14th we will be in town to kick off our local Austin office. We’re have a few spots left to meet with prospective clients. In addition to our founding partner Kris Venne, and our new firm president Jay Tini, we are also bringing eight of superstar financial planners and client service reps into town. To get on the calendar: info@ritholtzwealth.com subject line: Austin. Or, just call 212.625.1200 with any questions you may have. Similarly, if you’re a financial advisor in Texas and you’re looking to learn more about how we can take your career to the next level, be sure to get in touch. (Here we are in 2019 raising a glass at the firm’s first offsite. Austinites will easily recognize this as the indoor / outdoor dining room at Lamberts on 2nd Street.) If you’d like to speak with us about your situation but you’re not from Texas, that’s cool too, we’re standing by: ritholtzwealth.com The post RWM is Coming to Austin appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

  About 18 months ago, I became intrigued with the concept of electrifying an older car. I have a few oldies in the garage (Cars like this, this, this, and this) and those will remain in their pristine original forms. But the idea of finding an older, fun car (1960s-80s?) in good cosmetic shape but… Read More The post Update: Electrifying A Classic 911 appeared first on The Big Picture.   About 18 months ago, I became intrigued with the concept of electrifying an older car. I have a few oldies in the garage (Cars like this, this, this, and this) and those will remain in their pristine original forms. But the idea of finding an older, fun car (1960s-80s?) in good cosmetic shape but with questionable mechanical underpinnings and then modernizing it with an electric drivetrain fascinates me. After a bit of research, I decided on Moment Motors in Austin, Texas. I paid my deposit last June, knowing there was a full 12-month queue before they were ready to take your car. I was okay with the 1-year lead time, it gave me room to a) figure out which car I wanted to convert; 2) a few months to go down the rabbit hole and become well-steeped in that specific vehicle’s history; and iii)  Oh, and then a few months to find the actual donor car. Ultimately, I decided on an ‘80s-era Porsche 911. An unexpected choice from someone who was never much of a Porschephile (Why? Cause their engines are in the wrong place). I’ve always found the comparable era BMW M3s to be more visceral of a drive (especially on a track). Besides, I grew up a fan of big front-engine V8s: Mustangs, Corvettes, Camaros, Chargers, and in later years M5s and M6. My research led me to become more and more intrigued by the 911’s history. Light, nimble sports cars were mostly a rarity in the USA, at least when I was a kid, but the 911 was tossable, reliable, and relatively quick. They quickly became beloved by enthusiasts here. I dove into the research on various models: Carreras, G50s, Targas, Cabrios, and the nomenclature of 991, 993, 997, etc. I decided I wanted a Coupe (but didn’t love the shape of the Targa). I was not looking for a convertible; I kinda accidentally found a cheap Cabrio, which turned out to be a rare-ish car that was too valuable to electrify, so I am renovating it back to factory spec. That’s a story to be saved for another day. My favorite vehicle search tool is AutoTempest. It’s an Expedia-like site that lets you deeply refine and personalize exactly what you are searching for. My wife’s E-hybrid 4S in Amethyst Metallic over Chalk — that was the exact spec — would have been impossible to find without it. I decided on the 1984-89 G50 Carrera. Very retro, relatively inexpensive (as far as Porsches go), with literally 100s for sale. Look at enough of them and you can start to see what has good paint quality, what was well-maintained, where rust shows up, what needs work, etc. The more of them you look at, the better off you are. I didn’t want to do a six-figure frame-off restoration — half of that cost was the engine/transmission. My plan,: Yank out both and sell them to defray the total expense of the project. Priorities were based on expected costs of repairs: 1. Exterior:  Needed to be nice, with clean paint. Note that a full glass out paint job is $25-30k. And a good, rust-free body 2. Mechanicals:  I didn’t care about Engine/tranny but was concerned with suspension, brakes, and steering 3. Interior: Was the least of my concerns, as a full redo – seats, dash and carpet = $5-7k. I bid on numerous cars — the graphic at right is about a 10th of my bid history. I often came in 2nd, or sometimes I won an auction but the reserve price was not met. One of the fun things about Bring A Trailer, Cars & Bids, and PCAR is that you can see your own bidding history; there were literally dozens of cars I tried to buy within my budget. Then I met this lovely and unusual 1987 G50. A bit unusual and not often seen was the color: Lagoon Green Metallic (which as you can see reads closer to blue). It was also sunroof delete car with a rear wiper, also, unusual options. The prior owner had it for 20 years and had not only garaged her but rebuilt the engine (not sure if it was swapped) and repainted the exterior, adding the more modern teardrop side view mirrors and 1990s-era bucket sports seats. Carfax showed a minor accident; I am unsure if the doors are original — the paint doesn’t quite match. Oh, and it has 276,000 miles. So far, the Porsche crazies don’t seem to care if I do a heart transplant on this one. Again, high bidder RNM, but the seller in Connecticut is motivated, and everybody is happy with the final sale price of $59k. The car arrives and is even nicer than the photos suggested. The crew at Werks1 replaces brake lines, tires, and lots of little electrical items, fixes the rust spot behind the battery (a known bad spot), and generally gives her a clean bill of health. Next up: Cosmetic work. I detail and ceramic coat the exterior, shampoo carpets, replace interior floor mats, and then bring her to Autostrada187, where Chris’ team does a marvelous job adding Carrera script to the sides and double racing stripes right down the middle in a lovely soft creamy white aluminum. She looks just fantastic! In a few weeks, she goes to Austin to be electrified. I’ll include an update when that happens, with photos, and cost-tracking along the way. A place in the United Kingdom (with a shop in Calabasas, CA.) called Everrati does these frame-off for a total cost of about $295k. I am looking to spend a fraction of that. By the time this is done, I expect it will have cost (over 2 years) about the same as walking into the local Porsche dealer, finding a nicer middle-of-the-road 911, and saying, I’ll take that one. Only that would be one of the 1,000s of 911s in a 500-mile radius; this will truly be as one-off, and perhaps the first EV 911 in NYS. ~~~ Original pictures after the jump.     Carrera side graphic   Double racing strips    Original photos I based my purchase decision on:     The post Update: Electrifying A Classic 911 appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

    This week, we speak with Robyn Grew, currently, the President at Man Group, and effective September 1, the firm’s new CEO. The firm manages about $145 billion in client assets and is the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund. As president, she is responsible for corporate sustainability and responsible investing; Man Solutions and… Read More The post MiB: Robyn Grew, Man Group CEO appeared first on The Big Picture.     This week, we speak with Robyn Grew, currently, the President at Man Group, and effective September 1, the firm’s new CEO. The firm manages about $145 billion in client assets and is the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund. As president, she is responsible for corporate sustainability and responsible investing; Man Solutions and Man FRM; central trading, funds treasury and bank relationships; operations; financial crime; corporate real estate; and communications. She is also a member of Man Group’s senior executive governance committee. Previously she was COO, General Counsel, Chief Administrative Officer, and Global Head of Legal and Compliance. Before joining the firm in 2010 as Chief Compliance Officer for Man GLG, Robyn held Sr. positions at Barclays Capital and at Lehman Brothers and LIFFE. A qualified barrister in the UK, she has worked in the investment industry since 1994. Grew is set to become the first female CEO at the 240-year-old firm. She will succeed Luke Ellis (MiB here), where her biggest test on the job will be whether she can match or beat the firm’s performance under her predecessor. Her favorite learned phrase is: “Be smart, be dumb.” Meaning, if you are ever attending a meeting where you don’t understand something that’s going on, you should say so, and ask for an explanation. No pretending, no faking it til you make She notes “You’d be surprised how many people can’t answer the question. . . but also it’s it’s OK not to know everything, it’s the only way you learn.” A list of her favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Tuesday. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes Stitcher, Bloomberg, Spotify, Google, and YouTube. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Ramit Sethi writes about money, business, and psychology. He is the author of NYT bestseller I Will Teach You to Be Rich and the host of the popular Netflix series “How to Get Rich.”       Robyn Grew Favorite Books   Orlando by Virginia Woolf Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami     The post MiB: Robyn Grew, Man Group CEO appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

10 Bad Takes On This Market.....»»

    At Barron’s Independent Advisor Conference held in Dallas in March, I got to sit down with Greg Bartalos to discuss the idea of how advisors can use content as a way to enhance their business. The tagline is “Want to create content, but not sure how to get started? The chairman and CIO… Read More The post Barron’s: How Advisors Can Create Killer Content appeared first on The Big Picture.     At Barron’s Independent Advisor Conference held in Dallas in March, I got to sit down with Greg Bartalos to discuss the idea of how advisors can use content as a way to enhance their business. The tagline is “Want to create content, but not sure how to get started? The chairman and CIO of Ritholtz Wealth Management tells all” but we really spend most of the time explaining why it doesn’t quite work the way people expect, and why it a  lot of work, and far less lucrative than many seem to imagine. Still, if you are interested in blogging, podcasting, or YouTubing as a way to enhance your brand and reputation, it’s a good place to start. Check it out at Barron’s, iTunes, and Spotify. ~~~ If I can get a transcript, I’ll post it later…     Previously: Crushing It With Content (February 6, 2022)   See also: Michael Batnick: Crushing It With Content By Steve Garmhausen Barron’s Feb. 4, 2022 The post Barron’s: How Advisors Can Create Killer Content appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

  Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve spend a lot of time worrying about Inflation Expectations. They shouldn’t. Sentiment surveys in general are mostly useless (except at the extremes). They aren’t merely lagging, backward-looking indicators, but instead, tell you what the public experienced 3- 6 months ago. Beyond short-term extrapolation, they have little to no… Read More The post Inflation Expectations Are Useless appeared first on The Big Picture.   Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve spend a lot of time worrying about Inflation Expectations. They shouldn’t. Sentiment surveys in general are mostly useless (except at the extremes). They aren’t merely lagging, backward-looking indicators, but instead, tell you what the public experienced 3- 6 months ago. Beyond short-term extrapolation, they have little to no ability to provide insight into intermediate-term (6-12 months) inflation. As to longer-term, 5-year inflation expectations, they are ridonkulously, hilariously wrong. Here is Brookings explaining inflation expectations origins: “Central bankers’ focus on inflation expectations reflects the emphasis that academic economists, beginning in the late 1960s (including Nobel laureates Edmund Phelps and Milton Friedman), put on inflation expectations as key to the relationship that ties inflation to unemployment.” So, the pre-globalization, pre-automation, and pre-behavioral finance analog era of the 1970s is the driver of this indicator. This explains in part why it is mostly useless. And yet, despite that, people with important jobs still give it weight. As the nearby charts make clear, they shouldn’t. We have discussed the problems of forecasting enough in the past that I won’t spend too much time here, other than to point out that humans as a species have no idea what is going to happen in a month or 3, much less 5 years hence. More specifically, as a group, people get things like inflation expectations precisely backward: Their expectations of inflation are at the very LOWEST right before a spike in inflation is about to occur. As if that wasn’t bad enough, their expectations of inflation are at the very HIGHEST right before inflation peaks and rolls over. The FRED chart at top shows the high and low of the University of Michigan Inflation Expectations Survey during the pre- and post-pandemic era (2018-2023). To make this clearer, let’s overlay year-over-year CPI changes1 on Inflation Expectations: As you can see, expectations bottomed in early 2020, just as CPI began its epic run-up into double digits about a year later. And as Inflation Expectations plateaued at the peak of inflation, guess what happened to CPI over the ensuing months? Annualized inflation: July 8.52% Aug 8.26% Sept 8.20% Oct 7.75% Nov 7.11% Dec 6.45% Jan 6.41% Feb 6.04% March 4.98% April 4.93%. As you would expect,2 expectations peaked, just before it began an epic collapse, especially in goods inflation. Anyone who wants to use Inflation Expectations as an indicator is welcome to — just so long as you recognize that they are a CONTRARY INDICATOR…     Previously: 2000: “No matter how you cut it, you’ve got to own Cisco” (May 15, 2023) Can Anyone Catch Nokia? (October 26, 2022) Gradually, Then Suddenly (October 1, 2021). Why the Apple Store Will Fail (May 20, 2021) Nobody Knows Nuthin’ (May 5, 2016) How News Looks When Its Old (October 29, 2021) Predictions and Forecasts     __________ 1. Because the CPI swing is so large, it compresses expectations) makes the expectations portion appear compressed 2. That list is via my colleague Ben Carlson     The post Inflation Expectations Are Useless appeared first on The Big Picture......»»

  The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Howard Lindzon, Social Leverage, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. ~~~ BARRY RITHOLTZ, HOST, MASTERS IN BUSINESS: This… Read More The post Transcript: Howard Lindzon appeared first on The Big Picture.   The transcript from this week’s, MiB: Howard Lindzon, Social Leverage, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, YouTube, and Bloomberg. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here. ~~~ BARRY RITHOLTZ, HOST, MASTERS IN BUSINESS: This week on the podcast, I have an extra, extra special guest. My friend Howard Lindzon is a guest. This is a little off of our regular format, only because Howard and I know each other for forever. And less than a guest doing a Q&A is just kind of me goofing around with Howard and having a conversation. Howard has had like really this shockingly blessed career. He launches Wallstrip in the early 2000s and before you know it, he’s in the middle of a bidding war with a bunch of different people, theStreet.com and CBS wanting to buy it. He rolls that cash into his next venture, which becomes a wildly successful angel fund, which now is in its fourth edition. He was a pre-IPO investor in companies like Facebook and Twitter. Literally the first check-in to Robinhood, which went public in 2021 at about a $34 billion valuation. So you can imagine that first check multiplied a little bit from 2014 or so. I know him from Lindzonpalooza from his early media work. So strap yourself in for a fun conversation about what it’s like to be at — “in the room where it’s happening” to quote Hamil.....»»