February 2009 - Finance -

Financial Ramblings

I’m OFF!!! I survive my first RRSP campaign as a financial planner. It was a lot of work this year since I am still working out my book in order to gain client’s trust. Nonetheless, it was a great campaign and I am quite ahead in my numbers. I can’t wait...

Published 02-28-2009 12:56 PM by The Financial Blogger

Filed under: Financial Rambling

How NOT to treat customers – Lesson from Baton Rouge restaurant in Laval

I’m always amazed when businesses don’t treat their customers with the best possible care and it happened to me last weekend while I was having dinner at Baton Rouge, an excellent steakhouse that has a few restaurants. I personally had a reservation for...

Published 02-27-2009 10:00 AM by The Financial Blogger

Filed under: Miscellaneous

For a Better Diversification in my Smith Manoeuvre Strategy

I have not been writing much about The Smith Manoeuvre Strategy for the past months because I was simply too lazy to make some modifications to my investment portfolio. I was aware that I had to do some tweaking for my investments strategy. I am heavily...

Published 02-26-2009 10:00 AM by The Financial Blogger

Filed under: Smith Manoeuvre

What You Need For A Job In Investment Management

When this commercial came out, I thought it was great. The fact that it starred the king of the B-Movies, Bruce Campbell (a.k.a. "The Chin") was just icing on the cake. But it's the sort of conundrum that's faced by almost every undergrad...

Published 02-25-2009 2:52 PM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: Careers, Attitude

4 Reasons Why Money Brings Happiness

I have had this discussion several times with several people. Especially in our province, we have strong culture roots that let older generations to believe that money was the fruit of evil and that if you make money, you obviously screw people or exclude...

Published 02-25-2009 10:00 AM by The Financial Blogger

Filed under: Personal Finance

If Dogbert Was a Bailed Out CEO

Some of the political theater surrounding the auto bailouts was pretty ridiculous. In particular, the kerfuffle about them taking corporate jets vs. driving vs. flying coach was a bit much. So I thought this Dilbert cartoon was pretty good:

Published 02-25-2009 5:22 AM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: Cartoons, Humor

The Danger of Rationality

When I was in college, I took a lot of psychology classes since I wanted to understand what people think and what lead them to think this way. Later on, I did my bachelor degree in finance and marketing because I really enjoyed marketing classes such...

Published 02-24-2009 10:00 AM by The Financial Blogger

Filed under: Investment, Market and Risk

Diversification Across Risk Premiums

Things have been crazy lately - we have two speakers this week at Unknown University's College of Business, and I'm involved in both visits. In addition, I'm getting ready for my CFA prep class and trying to get a paper out for a conference...

Published 02-24-2009 5:34 AM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: Investments

UCONN Basketball Coach Explains Basic Economics to Reporter

It's not that often that I get to see two of my favorite topics (UCONN basketball and executive compensation) collide (and on Youtube, yet). After a recent game, during the press conference, UCONN coach Jim Calhouh was asked a question by "freelance...

Published 02-22-2009 1:27 PM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: UConn Basketball, Executive Compensation

A Quantitative Approach to Tactical Asset Allocation

I'm not a big fan of market timing and/or technical trading rules. From what I've seen, the empirical evidence casts a lot of doubt on their effectiveness. But I just read a very interesting paper titled "A Quantitative Approach to Tactical...

Published 02-20-2009 11:51 AM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: Investments, NAREIT, GSCI

The Slings and Arrows of Research

Sometimes research is not for the faint of heart. Yesterday, I got a rejection letter on a piece I'd done with a former student. I sat on her doctoral committee (not her chair- just a member) , and this was one of her essays. It had already been rejected...

Published 02-20-2009 6:34 AM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: A Day In The Life, Academic Research, Rejections

Our New Travel Plan

Unknown University is going through some budget cuts. Since I'm planning on going to the upcoming Eastern Finance Association meeting in April, I checked out our university's current travel plan. It didn't look too good: Ah well - everything...

Published 02-17-2009 10:16 PM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: Humor

Finance Profesors' Salaries?

One of the most common questions people email me is "how much do finance professors make? The Annual AACSB salary survey is the definitive source for business school faculty salaries. Here's the most important table from the report - it shows...

Published 02-16-2009 1:05 PM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: A Day In The Life, Salaries, Academic Careers

A Collection Of Study Tips For The CFA Level 2 Exam

We're now well into the countdown for the CFA Level 2 exam in June. In fact, I'm about to teach a few sections of the CFA prep class I teach in a nearby city. So, the exam (and the preparations for it) have been on my mind. So, I thought I'd...

Published 02-16-2009 7:07 AM by Financial Rounds

Filed under: CFA, Study Tips

The Graduate Assisitant

In my darker moments, I'd like to put one of these on MY grad assistant. But then, I had a similar idea back in graduate school. Back then, we still worked on an IBM mainframe, and I thought these would be good fit for the computer operators who often...

Published 02-15-2009 7:13 AM by Financial Rounds