Hope Springs Eternal

I really hope that 2015 will be The Year Of Active Management. Because 2014 was supposed to be only it didn’t work out that way. Instead, it was the worst year for stock picking mutual fund managers in three decades, with only 10 percent exceeding their benchmarks (that’s a 90% rate of failure, in case…

QOTD: In praise of a little Organizational Dysfunction

The inimitable David Snowball looks ahead to 2015 and sees the potential for a new trend in mutual fund management – the need for a bit of friction within an organization to stand out… From the Mutual Fund Observer, January 1st 2015 edition: a lot of hedge funds folded in 2014, mainly for reasons of…

Cuba Muppet Follow-Up

On December 17th, when President Obama and Raoul Castro made their historic announcement about “normalizing relations” between Cuba and the US, I published a post about the most popular vehicle to play the event, a closed-end fund with the ticker symbol CUBA. The Herzfeld Caribbean Basin closed end fund, ticker symbol CUBA, was designed decades…

Good Times Teach Only Bad Lessons

I don’t mean to start 2015 off on a sour note, but there’s something I should say – particularly for the benefit of my younger readers and for those who are newer to investing. As the Howard Marks quote above illustrates, enduring pain in the markets provides the very best lessons we can learn as…

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit…

In 2014 I Learned That…

I can’t prove it scientifically, but I’m pretty sure the years are flying by faster now than ever before. Is everyone just so busy that the passage of time is occurring while we stare at our phones? Or are the events that shape each year simply playing out faster, from start to finish, because of…