Blog

Frank Martin

Buffett And Inverse Emotionalism

On Friday, May 11, 2007, Jason Zweig—who pens the “Intelligent Investor” column for the Wall Street Journal—was interviewed by my friend and former Barron’s editor, Kate Welling.[1]

Coincidentally, on the preceding Saturday, I was in Nebraska, packed in among the thousands drawn to figuratively sit at the feet of the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett, and his taciturn partner, Charlie Munger. Unlike most everyone else at the Berkshire Annual Meeting, my presence was not entirely as a spectator. Having written my firm’s annual report in February, I was looking for confirmation of my conviction that risks were proliferating throughout the capital markets. So, in the company of a packed house of my fellow shareholders, I asked Warren the following question.[2]

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Frank Martin

Modern Monetary Theory: Flying in Under the Radar

The full-scale assault on the Federal Reserve System is something to behold. On Sunday, April 14, the president tweeted: “If the Fed had done its job properly, which it has not, the Stock Market would have been up 5,000 to 10,000 additional points, and GDP would have been well over 4% instead of 3% … with almost no inflation. Quantitative tightening was a killer, should have done the exact opposite!”

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Frank Martin

Moore of the Same at the Fed

In June 2011 an op-ed titled “When a Nobel Prize Isn’t Enough” appeared in the pages of the New York Times. In it MIT professor Peter Diamond—who had won the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on unemployment and the labor market—pled his case. The Obama nominee chastised partisan Republican senators who had thwarted his confirmation. He simultaneously argued that sound analysis of unemployment is crucial to conducting monetary policy.

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Frank Martin

Thoughts on Ocasio-Cortez and Inequality

Newly elected U.S. representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) has a point. At a recent Austin, Texas, Democratic Party confab she launched directly into one of her rallying cries: “While America is wealthier than ever, wealth is enjoyed by fewer than ever.” When Ocasio-Cortez went on to lament “an increase in homelessness in New York City among veterans and the elderly while penthouses sit empty,” I couldn’t help but reflect on the recent purchase of a $238 million penthouse condominium overlooking Central Park. In all likelihood, it often sits unoccupied. Could it be that she had the billionaire hedge fund manager and trophy-property collector in mind?

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Frank Martin

A 300-year lesson in bubble inflation

This guest post is courtesy of my friend Edward Chancellor and was originally published on Breakingviews.com.

Just over 300 years ago, in early December 1718, a Parisian bank was nationalised by the French state. This marked the beginning of the Mississippi Bubble, which captivated France over the following couple of years. The aristocratic world of the “ancien regime” may seem impossibly distant to modern minds. Yet there are parallels between this saga and the modern age of quantitative easing, ultra-low interest rates and highly valued asset prices. As central bankers struggle to reverse their post-crisis monetary measures, the lessons imparted by the Mississippi Bubble are more relevant than ever.

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Frank Martin

Reflections On Cash As An Option

We keynoted our first blog post on May 31, 2017 with an inauspicious title, An Enterprising Thought: Cash Is an Option. From that point, the S&P 500 continued its seemingly endless advance, finishing the year up 10.8%. In May, the two-year treasury was yielding a middling 2.2%. Ever since the Great Recession, cash has been a dirty word. As a result, money flowed into every other asset class, with equities being the best-performing over the last 10 years.

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Frank Martin

‘Tell Me What I Wanna Hear’

Paraphrasing a refreshingly perceptive Ben Sasse, first-term senator from Nebraska: Those of us in the investment management profession know people who appear to sincerely want our advice, but then resist when we tell them something they don’t want to hear. In all candor, I must admit to being on the receiving end as well. I have rejected sound advice from time to time, and I suspect you have too.[i] Such is the result of bias. 

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