#91: Radio Show: Meb's Most Popular Tweet of All Time... Signs of the Top... Listener Q&A

Episode 91 is a radio show format.

We bounce around a bit in this one, starting with Meb’s most popular Tweet of all time. It involves a market record that people decided to politicize.

Next are some “signs of the top.” We discuss various indicators that support the general takeaway that (to no one’s surprise) we’re in a frothy market: US investor stock allocations are approaching the highest levels since 2000… Stocks as a percentage of household assets adjust for pensions funds are now the 2nd highest ever… The average expected return of state and local pension funds is 7.5%... The number of days the VIX has spent below “10” in 2017 was 52 (the combined amount for all years dating back to 1999? Less than “10”)…

We then discuss Meb’s upcoming personal portfolio rebalance. He publishes this each year, and he gives us the preview. Then there’s a discussion of Bitcoin, and Meb’s thoughts on how an investor might reasonably participate if so desired.

Then we hop into some listener/Twitter questions:

• Is there a broad asset class that appears especially attractive right now? Emerging Markets seems to have gone to a case-by-case situation. Is there an entire asset class you like?
• Why does value investing works?
• If you had to buy one country and hold it for 10 years, which one would it be?
• Have you ever done a back-test combining a simple moving average timing strategy overlaid with a value approach? For instance, going long an asset class when it’s above its SMA, but below a historical multiple?
• What changed in your investing philosophy in the last year?
• Value factors been out of favor for a decade or however long. At what point can we say they've been arbed out and not coming back…ever?
• What is the long term mean or hurdle for real US Treasury rates?

Plus, Meb is about to do some traveling overseas. Where’s he headed this time? Find out in Episode 91.