A new edition of Richard Oldfield’s popular guide to investment continues to fly the flag for active management and the value style — Simple But Not Easy by veteran fund manager Richard Oldfield has achieved something like cult status since it was first published in 2007. Distilling a lifetime’s investment experience at a series of established funds and the author’s own, the book offers hard-won advice on what investors can realistically hope to…

A new book by Yale scholar Matthew Rose is a rare detailed study of the intellectual roots of today’s conservative nationalist movements. — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has supercharged the already well established debate on whether the world is entering a new Cold War, the division drawn this time not between competing economic systems but liberalism and conservative authoritarian nationalism. Nationalisms of various kinds and degrees have come to power and in some…

A new book by Jim Cullen, founder of New York-based Schafer Cullen Capital Management, restates the case for classic value investment principles — Over the past decade as — until very recently — growth stocks have surged ahead, the financial press has conducted regular post-mortems for value investing, an investment strategy deemed to be terminally out of fashion. It might be more interesting, however, to ask whether it has ever actually been in…

A new book by MoneyWeek editor Merryn Somerset Webb argues we can assert agency over companies through truly representative share ownership — Since the banking crisis the rumbling dissatisfaction with capitalism that always contributes to the ambience of our political and economic debates has grown louder than at any time since the 1970s. There is widespread frustration that we lack agency over the system in which we must make our lives: a…

A new book by Holly Jean Buck exposes the common assumption that a commitment to net zero implies a commitment to end the fossil fuel industry. Is another way possible? — The term ‘net zero’ has become so ubiquitous that it now seems synonymous with the imperative to transition to a sustainable, low carbon economy. A commitment to net zero implies a commitment to winding down the fossil fuel industry — doesn’t it?

Theories of efficient markets mislead because they seek to explain market behaviour according to the laws of physics rather than biology, says Adaptive Market Hypothesis proponent Andrew Lo — The finance books I’ve been reviewing here make it clear I’m a fan of the passive investment philosophy. …

A new book by Financial Times journalist Robin Wigglesworth surveys the history of index funds and considers their increasingly significant implications for the global economy. — There are plenty of academic papers and specialist investment books setting out the theory behind passive investment, and innumerable articles scattered across the business press telling the story of the rise of index fund giants like Vanguard and BlackRock.

A book by hedge fund manager Paul Marshall takes on the sector’s critics to argue it is possible to beat the market — The active versus passive debate, the impact of new quant technology, and the trade-off concentration and diversification, are some of the issues discussed in 10 1/2 Lessons from Experience (2020), an accessible and concise tour d’horizon of the contemporary investment landscape by Paul Marshall, co-founder of one of London’s first…

A new book by Andrew W Lo and Stephen R Foerster profiling key figures in the development of modern portfolio theory offers a fresh perspective on the active versus passive debate — Investment is at least as old as the stone tablets of ancient Mesopotamia, the art and science of making money work for itself evolving from the commerce of the ancient world, the development of the banking system in the Italian city states of the late Middle Ages, the emergence of…