Excess Returns

Where better questions lead to better decisions

Eleven shows dedicated to making you a better investor

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[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

An earnings beat isn't the same as pricing power.

Microsoft reports Wednesday. Adam Parker's earlier case for watching gross margins asks whether a company can charge more without losing customers.

"You wanna be toward the top of the income statement, not the bottom."

[Syzygy Asset Management @SyzygyAssetMgmt]

The 10 most valuable tech stocks of 2001: one has beaten the S&P 500 since. Four no longer exist.

Rob Arnott to @ckaiwu on AI leaders and the S&P 500: "Moats last until they don't. And often, it's shockingly short."

Watch the full conversation on The Intangible Economy from @excessreturnpod.

Disclosures: https://t.co/ETG9fxnywk

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#AssetManagement #ActiveManagement #SystematicInvesting #IndexInvesting #SP500

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"I'd have a lot more money."

Brian Portnoy has no mortgage, even though he thinks investing that money could have left him wealthier.

"I like having that sense of stability and security."

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

A rush of hot IPOs can mean selling stocks fund managers still love.

Ted Mortonson says managers he works with generally hold no more than 4% cash. New offerings can force them to "sell something they love to make room for some of these next generation companies."

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"Financial media does not encourage humility on the part of investors."

"You should be really good at risk management so that you don't allow your risk posture to overwhelm the skill that you do have."

Joe Gubler on the one lesson he would teach the average investor.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

AI can help an advisor remember a client's trip to France, a child's new job or an unresolved problem from two years ago.

"It makes us better at being humans."

Matt Zeigler on the client details that build trust, but are impossible to keep in your head.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

AI didn't make semiconductor stocks stop being cyclical.

"Maybe they actually are who they always have been."

Paisley Nardini argues that treating chipmakers as AI blue chips led investors to forget how volatile this part of the market can be.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"You have to be dumb on the way up, and you have to be smart on the way down."

Jared Dillian says bull markets can be easy if you play along. The warning sign: people making money far out of proportion to their intelligence or work ethic.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"Well, heck, I just got my statement, and it's bad."

Jim Paulsen on why a brighter outlook can be a hard sell to an investor staring at losses.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

Buying the S&P 500 is still a bet on a particular kind of stock.

"You're basically taking a huge bet into large cap, you could argue quality, maybe growth."

Wes Gray asks how much of your portfolio you want tied to that same risk profile.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"I keep a very detailed Excel spreadsheet that goes back years on all the mistakes I made."

Ted Mortonson feeds that history into an AI engine to flag patterns from past cycles: "You better pay attention."

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"If you look at your account every day, wait a week before you make a change."

Shannon Saccocia on the one lesson she would teach the average investor.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"We don't have 100 stocks that are all gonna be in trouble if interest rates go up."

Colin McQueen on why he handles macro risk through portfolio construction, rather than changing his stocks with every economic forecast.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

Tech giants building AI are expected to spend about $800 billion this year. Next week's earnings put the returns under scrutiny.

Edward Chancellor's earlier China example paired "very strong growth" with "absolutely miserable returns."

"You want to look at valuation and returns on capital."

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"I shouldn't be here."

"I thought it was over."

Ted Mortonson recalls three close calls during six years deployed with the Navy.

He explains what he learned from it.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"If I spend a million on R&D, it's treated like a bonfire."

Rob Arnott on why treating R&D as an expense can hide the value a business is building.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"I think the industry is so full of sh*t right now."

"In 50 chapters from 50 really sharp people, it's very rare that any of them devoted much time at all to non-traditional investments."

Brian Portnoy on the quality of products being pitched to investors today.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"JOMO, the joy of missing out."

"We're all programmed to chase. But you've just gotta sit back and just enjoy that missing out."

Rupert Mitchell on the one lesson he would teach the average investor.

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

Finding an investment edge can be like scouting baseball players in Japan or Korea: talent may be overlooked because finding it takes more work.

Alex Edmans:

"Go to the dusty corners of the market where you don't have the large sophisticated investors playing."

[Excess Returns @excessreturnpod]

"If we knew the future, then we'd only hold one security, but we don't."

Concentration can hurt even when nothing you own blows up.

Thursday's tech selloff, while the Dow was roughly flat, put portfolio concentration back in focus.

In an earlier conversation, Joe Wiggins highlighted the other side: missing the parts of the market that lead returns.