Minsky cycles are a concept that has seen its star rise since the financial crisis.
The idea, often summarised as “stability breeds instability”, is now incorporated into policy maker playbooks around the world.
This was a brilliant piece bringing the concept to venture.
“The key Minsky idea is that increasing capital inflows reduce perceived risk“.
Venture is going through this, driven by “shortening time” which boosts IRR, and the key question is whether true risk has actually decreased, or, we are in classic cycle.
How did the model portfolios on which ETFs are built fare five years after launch when compared to three years before? measured relative to the benchmark selected by the managers themselves.
The results aren’t pretty.
Thematic strategies that added 3-5% a year pre-launch, lost 4-5% a year in the five years after.
It seems that hype in various areas, leads to a launch of ETFs which then don’t add any alpha.
So be careful when you invest in the next hot thing via ETF.
Note this is just the model portfolio performance (e.g. index) and NOT the ETF itself (though it should track very closely after costs).
Nice fun piece from the Guardian on 100 ways to easily slightly improve one’s life.
Highlights include:
“If you’re going less than a mile, walk or cycle. About half of car journeys are under two miles, yet these create more pollution than longer journeys as the engine isn’t warmed up yet.“
YouGov neatly demonstrate how Americans see small subgroups as much larger than they actually are, while large subgroups are systematically underestimated.
For example on average people thought that muslims made up 27% of Americans when the true proportion is 1% or that gays and lesbians made up 30%, when the true number is 3%.
On the other hand “we find that people underestimate the proportion of American adults who are Christian (estimate: 58%, true: 70%) and the proportion who have at least a high school degree (estimate: 65%, true: 89%).”
Nearly 7% of venture capitalists (VCs) were previously founders.
This paper, using the VentureSource database, asks if this group is any good at investing?
Successful founder-VCs have investment success rates that are 6.5% higher than professional VCs.
If you are an unsuccessful founder-VC your investment success is actually 4% lower than professionals.
The reason isn’t down to deal quality but value add – “Using an instrumental variables approach to separate unobservable deal quality from value-add, we find that the outperformance of successful founder VCs is consistent with them adding more value post investment.“
Chart below (from this paper) is a meta analysis of “globally reconciled and methodologically harmonized” data on the environmental impact (from GHG emissions to eutrophication) of 40 major foods.
What is interesting is the range – even the best meat farms still outweigh the worst grains.
Compounding is very difficult for human minds to comprehend.
As the famous riddle goes:
“Imagine it’s 10:00 AM on a small pond with a single lily pad. If the number of lily pads on the pond doubles every minute, and the entire pond is full of lily pads by 11:00 AM, at what time is the pond half full of lily pads?“
Morgen Housel brings this up in his conversation with Tim Ferriss (worth a full listen) when he talks about Warren Buffett who’s real talent, when compared to other greats like Jim Simons, was not the level of investment returns (Simons’ are much higher) but their longevity. As he says “if Buffett had retired at age 60, like a normal person might, no one would’ve ever heard of him” (transcript).
