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We kick off today’s episode of the Rational Reminder by discussing when Ben will be publishing his new model portfolios and a quick look at some of our upcoming guests and resources you might want to take a look at.

Who better to have on the 100th episode of the Rational Reminder Podcast than Professor Ken French? Ken has been a massive inspiration to us and has remained a guiding light for sensible, evidence-based investors over the last few decades! His work with Eugene Fama stands as the seminal work on the subject of passive investment portfolios and we are so delighted to have him on the show today as we talk through some of his thoughts on a variety of subjects.

A recent article in the Globe and Mail forcefully made the case that the huge growth of passive investing is distorting markets and creating unintended risks for investors.

We often talk about better planning, reduced spending and a consistent long-term strategy on the show and today we have a guest who not only gives that advice himself but clearly lives it too! Andrew Hallam is the author of the new book Millionaire Expat in which he details some strategies for what has been called geographic arbitrage, or moving to another part of the world in order to maximize your financial independence!

We spend the bulk of today’s episode considering whether Wealthsimple’s use of long bonds and low volatility stocks is really protecting their clients’ downside, and summing up recent arguments by Cliff Asness and AQR levelled against critiques on value investing.

Since hitting lows in mid-March, most stock markets have regained about half of what they lost from their peak in mid-February. That’s led many people to wonder why the markets have come back so far, so fast, given the severity of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today on the Rational Reminder Podcast we interview a seasoned journalist from The Wall Street Journal, Greg Zuckerman. With 23 years of experience with the media outlet, Greg has written extensively about the most prominent figures in the world of investing, including Jim Simons, John Paulson and Carl Icahn, generally focusing his attention on significant trades, traders and fund managers.

In a recent blog we discussed how a fall in market prices today leads to an expectation of higher returns tomorrow. We explore this in more detail by considering the impact of the fall in portfolio values at the end of March and the revised expected returns on investors in different stage of their lives.

In case you’ve been feeling a little cooped up lately, what better time to press our Spaceballs-inspired accelerator past Light and Ridiculous, and into a Ludicrous level of model portfolio complexity?

A client recently contacted me about the possibility of a surge in inflation due to massive government spending in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.