Ben Inker — Jeremy Grantham’s Heir Apparent on the Future of Asset Allocation

Published on
September 24th, 2020
Duration
64 minutes

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24

Ben Inker — Jeremy Grantham’s Heir Apparent on the Future of Asset Allocation

The Interview ·
Featuring Ben Inker

Published on: September 24th, 2020 • Duration: 64 minutes

Everyone knows Jeremy Grantham as the face of GMO, the behemoth money manager that has become legendary for its work on asset allocation, but Ben Inker, head of asset allocation at GMO since 1998, seems to be next in line for the throne. In this interview with Ed Harrison, Inker helps viewers make sense of the post-COVID investment landscape from the perspective of a major asset allocator. Together they discuss everything from the future of the 60/40 portfolio to bonds as an asset class in this new low rate world. They also dig in to US vs. non-US assets, the trouble with popular ex-post facto explanations for FAANG outperformance and narrative bubbles like Tesla, and why the financial sector can be so difficult to value. Filmed on September 21, 2020.

Comments

Transcript

Chapters

  1. 00:01:55
    Intro to GMO: Asset Allocation and Beyond
  2. 00:05:07
    Has Everything Changed for Asset Allocators?
  3. 00:10:25
    Making Sense of FAANG Dominance
  4. 00:15:47
    Speculative Fervor and Narrative Bubbles
  5. 00:22:28
    Valuations and Bonds in Today's Low Rate World
  6. 00:31:56
    7-Year Outlook and Return Forecasting
  7. 00:47:02
    The Biggest Changes Coming Out of COVID
  8. 00:52:18
    US vs. Non-US Assets
  9. 00:56:35
    The Trouble with Valuing the Financial Services Sector

Mark Yusko

Morgan Creek Capital Management, Co- Founder, CEO, & CIO

Mark Yusko is the Founder, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management. He is also the Managing Partner of Morgan Creek Digital Assets.

Morgan Creek Capital Management was founded in 2004 and currently manages close to $2 billion in discretionary and non-discretionary assets. Prior to founding Morgan Creek, Mr. Yusko was CIO and Founder of UNC Management Company (UNCMC), the Endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before that, he was Senior Investment Director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office. Mr. Yusko has been at the forefront of institutional investing throughout his career. An early investor in alternative asset classes at Notre Dame, he brought the Endowment Model of investing to UNC, which contributed to significant performance gains for the Endowment. The Endowment Model is the cornerstone philosophy of Morgan Creek, as is the mandate to Invest in Innovation.

Mr. Yusko is again at the forefront of investing through Morgan Creek Digital Assets, which was formed in 2018. Morgan Creek Digital is an early stage investor in blockchain technology, digital currency and digital assets through the firm’s Venture Capital and Digital Asset Index Fund.

Mr. Yusko received a BA with Honors from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA in Accounting and Finance from the University of Chicago.

Anthony Scaramucci

SkyBridge Capital, Founder & Co-Managing Partner

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Michael Saylor

MicroStrategy, Co-Founder

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Mr. Saylor attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving an S.B. in Aeronautics and Astronautics and an S.B. in Science, Technology, and Society.

Alex Saunders

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James Putra

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Other stop-off points on the way were NatWest Markets and HSBC, although he began his career by training traders in technical analysis.

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Peter McCormack is a full time journalist/podcaster covering topics such as Freedom, Human Rights, Censorship and Bitcoin. Peter created and hosts the What Bitcoin Did Podcast, a twice-weekly Bitcoin podcast where he interviews experts in the world of Bitcoin development, privacy, investment and adoption. Launched in November of 2017, the podcast has grown to over 100 episodes with a guest list that is a testament to the diversity of knowledge and opinions that represent the broader Bitcoin community. Expanding his growing list of human interest recordings, documentaries and films Peter has recently launched the Defiance podcast and DefianceTV.

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22-year Wall Street veteran who has been active in bitcoin and blockchain since 2012. In 2018-20 she led the charge to make her native state of Wyoming an oasis for blockchain companies in the US, where she helped Wyoming enact 20 blockchain-enabling laws. From 2016-18 she jointly spearheaded a blockchain project for delivering market index data to Vanguard as chairman and president of Symbiont, an enterprise blockchain start-up. Caitlin ran Morgan Stanley’s pension solutions business (2007-2016), heldsenior roles at Credit Suisse (1997-2007) and began her career at Salomon Brothers (1994-1997). She is a graduate of Harvard Law School (JD, 1994), the Kennedy School of Government (MPP, 1994) and the University of Wyoming (BA, 1990).

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Bitwise Asset Management, CEO

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Luke Gromen has 25 years of experience in equity research, equity research sales, and as a macro/thematic analyst. He is the founder and president of macro/thematic research firm FFTT, LLC, which he founded in early 2014 to address and leverage the opportunity he saw created by applying what clients and former colleagues consistently described as a “unique ability to connect the dots” during a time when he saw an increasing “silo-ing” of perspectives occurring on Wall Street and in corporate America.

FFTT caters to institutions and sophisticated individuals by aggregating a wide variety of macroeconomic, thematic and sector trends in an unconventional manner to identify investable developing economic bottlenecks for his clients. Prior to founding FFTT, Luke was a founding partner of Cleveland Research Company, where he worked from 2006-14. At CRC, Luke worked in sales and edited CRC’s flagship weekly thematic research summary piece (“Straight from the Source”) for the firm’s clients. Prior to that, Luke was a partner at Midwest Research, where he worked in equity research and sales from 1996-2006. While in sales, Luke was a founding editor of Midwest’s widely-read weekly thematic summary (“Heard in the Midwest”) for the firm’s clients, in which he aggregated and combined proprietary research from Midwest with inputs from other sources.

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Meltem Demirors

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