SI24: Why Trend Following has "failed" to attract a lot of Assets ft. Meb Faber

Meb Faber joins the show to discuss his journey into Trend Following, where Trend Following funds have gone wrong in terms of attracting assets & growing AUM, why he started his company Cambria Investments and the difficulties that this involved, the perceived safety of US Treasuries, Mutual Funds vs ETFs, and a lot more.

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Episode TimeStamps:

00:00 – Intro

01:30 – Weekly review of performance

06:25 – Meb's backstory

10:15 – Jerry question: Why don’t CTAs have more AUM?

16:50 – Moritz question: When and why did you start your firm?

21:00 – Moritz question: Why do you think TF and value is a great blend?

28:00 – Niels question: Please talk about the perceived safety of US Treasuries (based on your research) and why you use a broader portfolio.

36:20 – Niels question: What needs to happen before Betterment (and others) embrace TF?

40:15 – Moritz question: Why did you set up an ETF vs a mutual fund or another vehicle?

50:00 – Jerry question: What needs to happen for mutual funds to be competitive with ETFs (tax wise)?

53:00 – Niels question: With ETFs do you have to disclose your trading methodology?

57:00 – Jerry question: What do you think of products designed for client desires/tolerances compared to optimally designed pure TF products?

01:02:30 – Jerry question: What is your opinion on active mgt = discretionary & index = systematic?

01:12:30 – Niels questions: What are your favorite factors? How is your competition going with Patrick O’Shaughnessy?

01:19:30 – Moritz question: Do you trade any vol products?

01:25:45 – Jerry question: Why isn’t there a distinction between the good (full trading systems) and bad (market timing indicators) parts of systems trading in articles?

01:30:45 – Benchmark performance update

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