Is It Really “Different This Time?” “Value investors have bored momentum investors for decades by trotting out the axiom that the four most dangerous words are, “This time is different.” For 2017 I would like, however, to add to this warning: ‘Conversely, it can be very dangerous indeed to assume that things are never different.'”...Read More
From “Reinvesting When Terrified” to Investing Purgatory Investing expert Jeremy Grantham’s market calls have a funny way of being vindicated. In the 1990’s, he was early to sound the alarm about frothy tech and internet stocks. Too early. As a result, Grantham’s money management firm, GMO, hemorrhaged billions in investor withdrawals. What happened next? All the...Read More
Negative Interest Rates as “Black Hole Experiment” If somebody else thinks what you think, you can’t be crazy, right? Explanation #2: you’re both suffering from exactly the same malady. Either way, it’s reassuring to read famed investor Jeremy Grantham’s latest thoughts on today’s bizarro world of negative interest rates and inflated asset prices, courtesy of...Read More
A Brit With Backbone “I would put a requirement for backbone ï¬rst along with the ability to think for yourself and stand ï¬rm. We have little to lose by taking a different course, and much to gain. “Relevant experience” is difficult to appraise in dealing with a Fed boss, and previous proven excellence has anyway not...Read More
Rationally Assessing an Irrational Event “The current situation is not supposed to happen, which makes it tricky for us to understand exactly when it will end.” –Ben Inker, GMO Quarterly Newsletter (Q1 2013) Investing guru and resident elder Jeremy Grantham’s latest quarterly newsletter is out, and the surprise — at least to me — is...Read More
Grantham Embraces “Accounting for Earth” “The full replacement of our resources is somewhere between very expensive and impossible, so our measurement system simplified the issue by ignoring it completely.” –Jeremy Grantham I couldn’t have said it better myself. But I came close, in this post three years ago: “Just consider how GDP now accounts for...Read More
