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What is evidence-based investing?

Nobody can establish who first used the phrase 'evidence-based investing', and no regulator defines it. Robin Powell, who was given the name by Larry Swedroe in 2015 and is sometimes wrongly credited with coining it, sets out what it actually means: four tests of what counts as evidence, borrowed from a medical parallel that hit the same crisis twelve years ago. Including where he goes further than a global tracker, and why he holds that position less firmly than he used to.

Robin Powell

A trading floor of identical desks and repeating market charts, illustrating hedge fund crowding in the same small group of stocks

Hedge fund crowding just hit a record. This is what it looks like

Hedge funds are sold on diversification, uncorrelated returns and capital preservation. Goldman Sachs publishes the 50 stocks that turn up most often among their largest long positions, and eight of the ten biggest make chips, memory or the machines that make chips. Most of what a hedge fund does never reaches a regulatory filing. The disclosed long book is the one part investors can inspect, and at the middle of this year it was almost 40 per cent technology.

TEBI

Aug 257 min read

Jenga tower with weight concentrated on a few coloured blocks at the base, illustrating S&P 500 concentration risk and the fragility of portfolios reliant on a small number of holdings.

S&P 500 concentration risk: is your portfolio really diversified?

S&P 500 concentration risk is at historic highs. If you own a global tracker, your portfolio may be far less diversified than you think. Here's what you can do about it.