White Paper
Diversifying Alternatives and the Rearview Mirror
November 3, 2025
Part 10: This paper examines how investor biases and performance-chasing behaviors can undermine the benefits of long/short diversifying alternatives. We explore why such strategies often feel disappointing in bull markets, yet remain vital for long-term portfolio resilience.
Perspective
There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
August 11, 2025
Our latest piece on Buffer Funds appears in the current issue of the Journal of Portfolio Management. Once again, and with more analysis (and co-authors) than our two previous posts on the topic, we find these products don’t hold up to scrutiny, either empirically or theoretically. Buffer funds by and large have sold investors the promise of comfort, cloaked in complexity, at the cost of risk-adjusted returns. Our paper shows there are simpler, less expensive, and more effective ways to deal with the risk of equity markets.
Journal Article
Rebuffed: An Empirical Review of Buffer Funds
August 11, 2025
Equity investing is hard: volatility can be high, returns are unpredictable, and drawdowns can be painful. “Defined outcome” strategies such as buffer funds are the latest in a decades-long lineage of products promising equity-like returns with less downside risk. Like their predecessors, a closer look at these strategies reveals they fall short both empirically and theoretically.
White Paper
Diversifiers Forever
July 31, 2025
In a portfolio whose investment horizon is forever, do diversifying investments add any value? In this short paper, we illustrate the surprising power of diversification for ultra-long-term investors.
White Paper
How Did We Get Here? A Brief History of Expected Returns Formation
June 20, 2025
Part 4: We present our history of expectation formation: How have investors formed long-run return expectations over time, and how have academics perceived that investors do it, or ought to do it?
Data Set
Commodities for the Long Run: Index Level Data, Monthly
May 30, 2025
We have updated the data set for the paper “Commodities for the Long Run”, in which we analyze a novel data set of commodity futures prices going back to 1877, allowing us to show that returns of commodity futures indices have, on average, been positive over the long run. We update the data monthly.
White Paper
Exceptional Expectations: U.S. vs. Non-U.S. Equities
May 9, 2025
Part 2: We analyze the persistent outperformance of US equities compared to non-US equities, focusing on the drivers of relative performance, including fundamentals and valuations. We examine historical data, valuation trends, and the implications for future returns, highlighting the potential for mean reversion and the benefits of global diversification.
Perspective
Buffer Madness
May 8, 2025
Last month, we posted a short piece critical of options-based strategies such as “defined outcome funds” and “buffered ETFs”. It showed that the vast majority of them failed to deliver either better returns or less-severe drawdowns than a simple combination of passive equities + cash. Since then, we’ve gotten quite a bit of—let’s call it—feedback. My partner Dan, who wrote the original, now writes the devastating response to his predictable critics. My only criticism is he is too kind.
White Paper
How Do Investors Form Long-Run Return Expectations?
April 28, 2025
Part 1: We provide an overview of the contrasting ways investors form long-run return expectations and examine the tensions between "objective" yield-based expected returns and "subjective" rearview-mirror expectations. We also discuss the dangers of a rearview-mirror mindset and emphasize the importance of forward-looking measures.
Perspective
Should Hedge Funds Hedge?: Why Some Alts Should Have a Beta of 1.0
March 28, 2025
While uncorrelated alternatives can be beneficial, they often fail to significantly impact the overall portfolio. Here, I argue that adding beta to these alternatives can enhance capital efficiency and improve long-term returns. Ultimately, there is a need for a balanced approach to investing in alternatives, including a combination of aggressive and equitized strategies.