Ever since I devoured “The Success Equation” on a sun-drenched beach in Malaysia, I’ve eagerly anticipated every new piece from Michael Mauboussin. There’s something about his work that push the intellect, perhaps tinged with the nostalgia of that Malaysian coastline. Michael’s latest release, “Probabilities and Payoffs” delves into the nuanced Read more…
I wrote the below post more than 4 years ago. And it still feels super relevant. Ok, enough with the excuses. It is a busy period and it’s been two months at least I do not manage to stay healthy three days in a row. So I decided to do Read more…
As someone who runs (hahaha) a podcast, I am in awe of how the guys behind the Rational Reminder continue to find interesting topics to review after more than 300 episodes. Someone said that personal finance was a solved problem—sure. Or maybe, even in this small niche, we also amuse Read more…
I like David Dredge’s metaphor of a portfolio like a racing car: you do not need to reduce cruise speed when you have brakes. The 60/40 is a car moving always at the same speed, the one that would keep it on the track even on the nastiest turns (what Read more…
A few weeks ago The Rational Reminder podcast did an episode on the Lifecycle Model. The episode features Ben Matthew, an economist with a PhD from the University of Chicago, who has developed a financial planning tool based on the lifecycle model from economics. This model aims to optimize financial Read more…
Here at The Italian Leather Sofa I run a Model Portfolio, an empirical summary of all the concepts around asset allocation and diversification discussed on the blog. It is a short, and hopefully understandable, recap to the “ok, but how do I apply all the theories I read on the Read more…
“The question of whether, when, and how to hedge foreign exchange risk has been a vexing one for investors since the end of the Bretton Woods system in 1973.” Probably, if you do not live in the US 🙂 Anyhow, we don’t so yes, we care. That’s the incipit of Read more…
In April 2022, I introduced on this blog The Italian Leather Sofa Model Portfolio. As a reminder, here is the portfolio composition: The idea behind the portfolio is stolen from here. The link offers the best explanation to what I think is the most common question related to it, i.e. why Read more…
I have been in the investing world, in many different roles, for two decades. There has never been a single bloody year where people around me coming Christmas said “Next year will be easy, I know what to expect”. As every weekend, I am reading BankerOnWheels link-fest and I stumbled Read more…
When it comes to alternative lazy portfolios, I have two main sources of inspiration: Nomadic Samuel and Roger Nusbaum. Here Roger presents an alternative to the classic Permanent Portfolio (“PP”) that I found interesting. The concept behind the PP is simple and effective: This table from PortfolioCharts summarises well the Read more…