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What I’m Reading: Momentum Investing & Hedge Fund Strategies

This week I did some research program planning on hedge funds as strategic subcultures. Some recent material:

 

1. AQR Capital Management focuses on the momentum anomaly as an investment strategy (PDF).

 

2. The investor information for Goldman Sachs Asset Management LP contains some useful information (PDF).

 

3. AQR’s Cliff Asness and index fund pioneer Jack Bogle have a great discussion on active / passive management and pension fund investing.

 

4. BlackRock’s guide to Absolute Return investment strategies (PDF).

 

5. Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks with James Altucher about anti-fragility and uncertainty.

 

6. Slate’s John Swansburg dissects the American myth of the self-made man.

 

7. Wagner Award 2014 submissions to the National Association of Active Index Managers.

 

8. Trend-follower Michael Covel asks: Does momentum investing work?

 

9. Patrick O’Shaughnessy on two ways to improve the momentum strategy.

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2nd July 2013: Financial Bloggers vs. Bank Fees

I left freelance journalism in 2004 after a decade of work. My last piece filed was a preview of Google’s initial public offering. I could already see freelance rates were falling: they are now $US12.50 an hour or less. I learned whilst editing and writing for the alternative news website Disinformation about commitment bias, and paid my dues in deliberate practice (or: expectation, framing, hindsight, and outcome biases).

 

So, I was amused this week to read about how two of my favourite financial bloggers — Slate‘s Matthew Yglesias and Reuters’ Felix Salmon — dealt with ATM fees and cheque account overdrafts. Salmon goes into detail about Citibank and transatlantic differences in bank account management. It’s an elegy for retail banking’s demise. Yglesias and Salmon also illustrate that these little details are important to bloggers and freelance writers who make small incomes from writing. Retail bank fees can detrimentally impact or even wipe out a publisher’s payment.

 

Keep an eye on your bank account fees. Keep your financial affairs in order. You’ll write more. You’ll feel happier. (Thanks, James Altucher.)

 

Or, if you’re the Winklevoss twins, you’ll waste investors’ money on a Bitcoin trust fund (belief, hot-hand, irrational escalation and optimism biases). Their SEC filing.