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The human brain is an inefficient device for noticing, selecting, categorizing, recording, retaining, and manipulating information for inferential purpose.- W.M. Grove and P.E. Meehl

If those are all the things that the human brain is inefficient with, what is left over? A lot, but there has to be focus on using the brain for the right problems and when to change the thinking process. 

What makes a good investment manager? One trait not often talked about is curiosity. You cannot find new or unique opportunities if you are not curious; however, the concept or meaning of curiosity for investment management may be hard to define.

The line between recent “exotic preferences” and “behavioral finance” is so blurred that it describes academic politics better than anything substantive.                                 – John Cochrane University of Chicago 

John Cochrane, as well as others in finance, has focused on the academic issue of defining preferences for investors at an abstract level, but the issue becomes a reality when trying to extract preferences from investors to help build a portfolios.

The Wall Street talk is that all markets are over-valued, yet any valuation has to be placed in context. For fixed income, this is not easy given you have to make a judgment on both the real rate of return and expected inflation. Additionally, there is a need to measure the term premium associated with bonds. The premium measures the compensation necessary for investors to hold longer duration bonds versus a series of successive short bonds given the volatility and uncertainty associated with real rates and inflation. The term premium is not directly observable and is difficult to measure but has intuitive appeal.

Barron’s published a provocative piece from my friend John Curran, The Coming Renaissance of Macro Investing: The petrodollar system is being undermined by exponential growth in technology and shifting geopolitics. Coming: a paradigm shift.  The concept behind this regime shift or dislocation ties together finance, technology, and global trade. Changes in the flow of trade based on shifting patterns of economic growth with disruptions in technology are going to spill-over to financial markets and prices.  Capital flows are reactive to broader movements in power, politics, economic growth, and trade.

You have heard of Yellen (Fed), Draghi (ECB), Kuroda (BoJ), and Carney (BOE), but most cannot name any China central banker, yet the moves of this bank may be more important than the four when thinking about the future of world currency hegemony. Zhou Xiaochuan has been in the news just before the Chinese Congress with a strong appeal for financial reform. This is reform for further ascent of China as a major financial player. He has followed this path across his central banking career, but he is set to retire in January.

We congratulate Richard Thaler on winning this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics. His relentless research on the failings of rational behavior in human decision-making has had a significant impact in finance and economics. His prolific work is the foundation for all of what we call behavioral economic and finance. Prior to Thaler, economist focused on Homo Economicus, the rational man that does not make mistakes or misjudgments. Thaler showed through test after test that we make mistakes and have biases. He did this albeit radical work not as an outsider to finance like Dan Kahneman but as a economist steeped in the neoclassical tradition.

There are many works on managed futures that explain the basics of this hedge fund strategy, but the characteristics need to be reinforced especially at current times when the strategy is underperforming other hedge fund strategies. The core reason for holding managed futures is that it provides useful diversification. This diversification is not available from other strategies and this diversification will be especially present during ‘bad times” of a equity decline. Don’t forget that those strategies that have more systematic risk will need to generate higher returns. Investors will be paid to hold them. On the flip-side, there will be a “payment” for managed futures which does well in “bad times”.

An investor can ask, “Find me the most intelligent hedge fund manager. Someone else may say, “I want the smartest manager in the hedge fund space”. Saying that you want an intelligent manager may not be the same as saying you want a smart manager. There is a difference between intelligence and smarts, so says, Heather Butler in the recent Scientific American article, “Why do smart do dumb things, Intelligence is not the same as critical thinking and the difference matters”.

September was a month of transition for many styles, sectors, and class returns. In the style sector, small cap, growth, and value benchmarks generated strong performance under higher expectations for the reflation trade. There was a rotation from safer fixed income to higher risk premium styles. We are a long way from tax reform or a cut, but the fiscal issue is back on the table and in the minds of investors who want to get ahead of any changes.