investing Archives - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Pittsburgh Quarterly asked the region’s top experts to respond to these questions: As the U.S. economy gradually recovers from the pandemic, which sectors of the market do you like now? How are you positioning client portfolios? We thank them for giving readers their responses, which follow. Read part one and part two. Linda Duessel, Federated …

What a Year. What Now? Part III Read More »

Money

What a Year. What Now? Part II

by PQ Staff

What a Year. What Now? Part II Read More »

Money

What a Year. What Now? Part I

by PQ Staff

Pittsburgh Quarterly asked the region’s top experts to respond to these questions: As the U.S. economy gradually recovers from the pandemic, which sectors of the market do you like now? How are you positioning client portfolios? We thank them for giving readers their responses, which follow. Win Smathers, Shorebridge Wealth Management We manage diversified portfolios …

What a Year. What Now? Part I Read More »

Creative Capital

How Sharpe Is Your Ratio?

by Greg Curtis

“The Sharpe ratio is oversold.” — William F. Sharpe If the Sharpe ratio didn’t exist, I swear the financial industry would have to shut down. Originally developed by William F. Sharpe in the 1960s, he called it the “reward-to-variability ratio.” Sharpe first described the ratio in a paper published in the Journal of Business in …

How Sharpe Is Your Ratio? Read More »

Creative Capital

Taming Your Investment Committee

by Greg Curtis

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” —Hippocrates, writing almost 2,500 years ago About a million years ago—in 2003, to be exact—I wrote a long white paper called “Reinvigorating the Investment Committee” (available nowhere). In that paper I discussed the origin of the family investment committee and described a long and discouraging list of problems with …

Taming Your Investment Committee Read More »

Money

What’s the Best Financial Advice You Ever Received?

by PQ Staff

Joseph A. Scarpo, PWA Wealth Management At the age of 26, I was traveling to a conference in Chicago. The gentleman seated in the window seat informed me that most Americans never achieve financial security. He told me the story of his brother who had worked hard and spent hard. At age 65, his brother …

What’s the Best Financial Advice You Ever Received? Read More »

Money

Positioning Client Portfolios: Wentling Tarquinio Loughney, Greycourt & Co, Henry Armstrong Associates

by PQ Staff

Each year in the summer issue, we ask a group of Pittsburgh’s leading investment experts to answer a question for our readers in 250 words or less. This year’s question: “The coronavirus has led to the first bear market in more than a decade with widespread uncertainty remaining. How are you positioning your client portfolios …

Positioning Client Portfolios: Wentling Tarquinio Loughney, Greycourt & Co, Henry Armstrong Associates Read More »

Money

Positioning Client Portfolios: Fairview Capital, Shorebridge, PWA, WesBanco

by PQ Staff

Positioning Client Portfolios: Fairview Capital, Shorebridge, PWA, WesBanco Read More »

Money

Positioning Client Portfolios: PNC, Confluence Financial Partners, J.P. Morgan, Huntington

by PQ Staff

Positioning Client Portfolios: PNC, Confluence Financial Partners, J.P. Morgan, Huntington Read More »

Money

Positioning Client Portfolios: Federated Hermes, Northwestern Mutual, Bill Few Associates, Schenley Capital

by PQ Staff

Positioning Client Portfolios: Federated Hermes, Northwestern Mutual, Bill Few Associates, Schenley Capital Read More »

Money

Coronavirus Investing

by PQ Staff

Editor’s note: We’ve asked a group of the region’s leading wealth managers to respond to this question: “The coronavirus has led to the first bear market in more than a decade with widespread uncertainty remaining. How are you positioning client portfolios in this fraught environment?” In today’s online feature, a group of advisors give a …

Coronavirus Investing Read More »

Creative Capital

Viral Investing, Part II: What Should I Do Now?

by Greg Curtis

“Profit from folly rather than participating in it. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful. I prefer buying things. Otherwise, it’s a little like saving sex for your old age.” —Warren Buffett “The true contrarian only buys when it makes him feel physically sick to press the buy key.” …

Viral Investing, Part II: What Should I Do Now? Read More »

Creative Capital

Viral Investing

by Greg Curtis

“You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don’t realize it at the time.” —Shelby Cullom Davis Given the recent market volatility driven primarily by the outbreak of COVID-19, I thought I would share my current views. But first, a word about terminology. COVID-19 (coined, for reasons best known to them, …

Viral Investing Read More »

Creative Capital

Responsible Investing

by Greg Curtis

We are observing how one of the world’s most successful investors—the New Zealand Super Fund—manages its capital, and considering whether we might not mimic some of what the Fund has been doing. The idea is to improve our own returns both on an absolute basis and on a risk-adjusted basis. Here are two more strategies …

Responsible Investing Read More »

Creative Capital

Traps Awaiting Unsuspecting RI Investors

by Greg Curtis

Last week, we noted the tendency of the financial industry to take advantage of investors, including responsible investing (RI) investors. We also observed how this led to the epidemic of greenwashing: recharacterizing rather ordinary investments as RI investments. This week we’ll move beyond the greenwashing problem and look at other pitfalls for RI investors. Think …

Traps Awaiting Unsuspecting RI Investors Read More »

Creative Capital

Make your Plan Now (While You’re Calm)

by Greg Curtis

“Would I say there will never, ever be another financial crisis? I hope that it will not be in our lifetimes and I don’t believe it will be.” –Janet Yellen. Last week I suggested six steps we could take to prepare ourselves for the next market crisis—which, Janet Yellen notwithstanding, will in fact happen. This …

Make your Plan Now (While You’re Calm) Read More »

Creative Capital

What Will You Do in the Crisis? Part II

by Greg Curtis

“I’m less interested in the return on my money than in the return of my money.” –Mark Twain Whether the markets crash next week or years from now, it’s not too soon to be thinking about how we will navigate the next crisis. With asset prices as high as they are and investor complacency (measured by market volatility) as low …

What Will You Do in the Crisis? Part II Read More »

Creative Capital

Investing in a Rigged Market, Part IV

by Greg Curtis

If we care about the health of free market economies, then we need to care about how efficiently capital is allocated in those economies. And if we care about efficient capital allocation, then we need to care about the health and efficiency of capital markets, because those markets are the principal instruments we have for …

Investing in a Rigged Market, Part IV Read More »

Money

Seek, and You Shall Find… Conflicting Investment Advice

by Bruce Zewe

The run of this current Raging Bull of a stock market has been exceptionally long: eight-plus years. (The average bull market has lasted four years, nine months.) In response there has been great conjecture by investment firms, financial advisers, brokers, and market pundits in Pittsburgh about how much longer the market may rage. These opinions …

Seek, and You Shall Find… Conflicting Investment Advice Read More »

Creative Capital

Squeezing out the Investment Experts

by Greg Curtis

The core problems with central bankers, which have led directly to the catastrophes of the Tech Bust, the Financial Crisis, the pathetically weak recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09, and the near-destruction of the asset management business, are: groupthink, arising out of the fact that every central banker in the world went to the …

Squeezing out the Investment Experts Read More »

Creative Capital

The Fed and Friends

by Greg Curtis

We are talking about the traumatizing events that rocked the asset management business, to say nothing of the world, beginning in 2008, a calamity brought to us courtesy of the world’s central bankers. I’ve discussed elsewhere the bizarre strategies of the U.S. Fed and its various doppelgängen at other central banks around the world. But …

The Fed and Friends Read More »

Creative Capital

Investing in a Rigged Market

by Greg Curtis

The asset management business as we know it today got started in the mid-19th century. The impetus for investment management firms separate from banks arose out of the awkward fact that banks often fail, while asset management firms hardly ever do. According to Nigel Edward Morecroft, who has studied the history of asset management, firms …

Investing in a Rigged Market Read More »