Video: Nelson’s Active Management Theorem, Poker and “High Society,” Inertia and the Value-Growth Conundrum

President of Investment Research Brian Nelson details his simple new theorem of the stock market that may change everything you believe. Nelson explains using poker as an example, and he goes on to caution about the concept of inertia, and how investing has somehow transformed into a “game” — if investors truly believe there are ‘value’ and ‘growth’ stocks. A must-watch intrigue. Running time: ~11 minutes.

Nobel Prize-Winning Economist Robert Shiller On Indexing

Robert Shiller on what worries him about passive investing from CNBC. “The problem is that if you are talking about passive indexing, that is something that is really free-riding on other people’s work. So people say, ‘I’m not going to try to beat the market. The market is all-knowing.’ But how in the world can the market be all-knowing, if nobody is trying — well, not as many people — are trying to beat it? … The strength of this country was built on people who watched individual companies. They had opinions about them. All this talk of indexes, it’s a little bit diluting of our intellect. It becomes more of a game. It’s a chaotic system. It’s kind of … Read more

Charting Cash Flow and Net Debt — The Oil Majors

Traditional free cash flow generation has been strong for the oil majors through the first nine months of the year, but their balance sheets remain bloated with net debt. A few haven’t covered their cash dividends with free cash flow generation through the first nine months of 2017. Oil & Gas – Major: BP, COP, CVX, PTR, RDS, TOT, XOM

Will Texas Tea Hit $75 Per Barrel By Year’s End?

Image Shown: The performance of the VanEck Vectors Oil Refiners ETF (CRAK) since its launch in August 2015. We’ve witnessed our fair share of fits and starts from energy resource pricing during the past few years, but could the global crude markets finally be rebalancing? Let’s talk about our thoughts on whether the outlook for energy resource pricing is improving in a sustainable way. By Kris Rosemann and Brian Nelson, CFA It may have taken longer than we initially anticipated, but crude oil prices (USO) appear to be on the verge of making a sustained recovery, though we always caution that sentiment can change on a dime, especially in the speculation-heavy commodity price markets. If you recall, we thought the … Read more