YouSaid · the spoken record

Jay Bowen

lines on the record: 112
first: 2024-09-01
most recent: 2024-09-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Book. I mean, I'm completely the opposite. I'm just, it's got to be, I mean, it's got to be really dead, dead, dead quiet for me to, and it's just great that I'm able to structure my environment like that. I'm very fortunate and lucky because a lot of people don't have that luxury.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I'm so lucky that I can structure, I'm so fortunate. I mean, I can structure my day. You know, a lot of people don't have that luxury. I can structure my day that will allow me to absolutely optimize my performance. And that's unconventional and it's a little bit quirky. My wife will tell you. And it's, you know, it's sometimes strange meal times and late night work times and it's just different. It's completely different, but it for me anyway, it's what works for me. And it took me a while to realize that. I mean, I was remote way before, I mean, the COVID, I didn't blink it high because I'd been doing that kind of thing forever because I'm so distractible and I need to be able to hear a pin drop to do. I mean, I just, my father was exactly the opposite. He could sit in a room and there could be a party going on. He could read.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Put my finger on it. But in a strange way, I think it actually, yeah, you're missing, you're going to miss some stuff. You're going to miss reading this research report or that annual report. But in some ways, I think it makes you a better investor and a better thinker having more diversified and you're coming at it from different angles and you're absorbing different stories and different lessons and just maybe even subconsciously it's going to impact the way that you think critically and maybe the way that you manage money. You know, it's hard to articulate exactly, but that's been important for me.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, from a critical thinking standpoint, whether it's focusing on other literature or other writing or reading or totally unrelated to investments in a strange kind of way, I think that actually makes you a better investor because you come at it, I think you don't have this feeling of burnout and I think you come at it somewhere rejuvenated So I think it's really important for me to explore these other areas and completely leave the other stuff you just leave it and sometimes it's impossible to completely abandon it but you know you leave it and you've got your mind going in all these other interesting and fascinating areas from a Whether it's literature or history or writing, I've really enjoyed writing short stories and I'm working on a novel. And I just think that I can't really”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Point, but just I think it's important to tell you that I made a decision a while ago that I like literature and history and reading. And so I think I become a better investor by, you know, when the week's over, it's over. I mean, I don't do investment books. I don't do annual reports. I don't do research reports on the weekends. I mean, I can remember initially it was like, yeah, there'd be a stack of annual reports. And I think there's something to be said for absolutely clearing your brain.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am a big Anglophile, I'll say. I'm a major Anglophile, particularly on the antiquarian front and on the historical front and on the literature front. And yeah, I mean, you've got these, it's amazing truth. The reason I love biography and I love fiction also, I love the classic English fiction, I love James Joyce and Judge of Conrad and D.H. Lawrence just absolutely spectacular. I mean, I love fiction also, but history, the truth is truth really is stranger than fiction. I mean, some of these stories are just so tremendous and they're so inspiring in terms of what one person can accomplish and what it can mean to his country or to the world in terms of Winston Churchill or T. Lawrence, of course, is just so fascinating on a variety of fronts that these stories are just, I'm just so captivated. And this is a little bit off.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and again, I hate to keep harpy on this, but it's so important. We just, our client and clients, plural, I mean, most of them have been with us 20, 25, 30, 40. And of course, for Tampa 50 years, we just have this luxury. It's a real luxury of being able to take a long-term approach. And before we bring a client on board, I think it's very important to make sure that we're compatible. It's hard for brand new money to agree to a 20-year approach to some extent, but at least we do have a track record that we can show. That's for sure.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My father is never going to say that about me. I know my father likes even if you were wrong, he wanted somebody that was decisive and he had a heart attack in 1990 and I was kind of thrown into the mix sooner than probably I should have been in terms of day-to-day responsibility on some of this stuff. And I can just remember writing up these tickets and thinking, you know what, I might be wrong, but he is not going to say I was indexing. You know, I'm making decisions. And so we actually didn't have an intermediary, which is very unusual. I mean, it just never could find the right person.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he couldn't, he just couldn't find the right person. He had some funny, you know, he would come in and he would say, well, so-and-so, you know, this guy, extremely articulate. He'll talk 30 minutes on why we should buy this and 30 minutes on why we should sell this and write up these incredible reports, but could never move. He couldn't make a move. He just was, for one reason or another just was so gun shy. I remember when my father told me that thinking, okay.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is and if they needed to make a move, the quality nature of the portfolio would give them time to do that. In terms of future generations, it's something that I've got to think about. I mean, I'm going to always be doing this through family office and a handful of clients, including Tampa. I'm going to always be doing this. But if something does happen, yeah, the next the next generation is something that we've got to grapple with. It's tough though because it's so, you know, my father is funny. My father tried to build a bridge between himself and me, and it just didn't work. But one reason or another, he couldn't find the right. You know, he thought it was very important to have somebody between us, the generation between us, before it was handed off to me.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that does come up. And as I tell the board, if something happened to me, if a shark got me at Alcatraz, I mean, nothing happens to their position in Apple or Nvidia or Honeywell. You know, that's still there. And the portfolio is so high quality just because something happens to me. Their portfolio doesn't evaporate also. That's number one. It's amazing how many people even don't think of it that way. They would have plenty of time to make a move if they wanted. And now we do have four senior professionals. And so if something happened to me, hopefully we would continue on. I mean, I'm obviously living and breathing it. That's all, that's my day is totally consumed with the Tampa portfolio. And that would shift. But I think that the board realizes that they would have, we would hopefully continue on.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Again, getting back to this conservative defined benefit plan with taxpayer money involved. I mean, this is the way to go, I think, and it's proven to be correct. And it's just, to me, it's just tragic that all so many other municipal funds have gone the other way with it.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and again, you know what? It really goes back to we have such a luxury of having this client. And because of my father from the very beginning, the way that he educated those trustees and these trustees pass it down to other trustees and they take pride in the long-term approach and they know it emboldens them and the Tampa model is validated when they look at these long-term results. It's really a shame to me that there's so many municipal funds, and this is applicable to individual investors also that for one reason or another, they're just not, they just don't buy in to the long-term approach. And they try and trade it and they try and time it. And yeah, some people can do that. There's some enormously successful people that can operate like that.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got the biggest kick out of somebody from Fideli wrote in and said, You know what? The best account I've ever had was somebody that forgot he had the account. The best performing account you ever had, which I thought really encapsulated the whole concept of taking a long-term approach. I mean, this Fideli broker had a client and he never heard from him and he forgot he had the account. I don't know how big it was, but it was the best performing account he ever had. Because there was no activity.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you're an individual investor or an institutional investor and you're looking at that, this is a great way to think of it. One of those op-eds I did with Barrons, somebody from Fideli wrote in and it was an article called Investing with Rip Van Winkle and it was on the 20-year approach and how if you woke up in 2014, 94 through 2014, if you'd been awake, you would be an emotional wreck. I mean, you had the tech mobile, the corporate scandals, the great financial crisis. There's no way you hung in there. There's no telling what you did with your portfolio, but it was just an incredible 20-year period from an emotional standpoint. If you were an investor, but if you were asleep and you woke up on December 31st, 2014, your stocks were up almost 10%. And think of the blood toil tears and sweat that you saved yourself by being asleep.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what I always like to say in that situation, and this would be valid for individual investors also, is that, listen, these losses, if you haven't realized them, they're not losses. You know, they're on paper. You've got this loss on paper. But if you can have the endurance and focus on the long term, that paper loss, as long as the fundamentals are good with the company, that paper loss is going to be a paper gain. I think the problem comes emotionally. People are just so anxious that they realize the loss. You know, they realize it. Then it's a loss. Okay, well, then what are you going to do with that money? You gotta, are you going to time it? Is it going to be so magical that you reinvest it right at the right time? I mean, it really is an endurance equation.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This fund really does take a 20 year approach. Quarter to quarter, year to year. I mean, of course, it's built on itself because every year when we're able to show another 20-year rolling, it just makes it, it's like this spiral upward. I mean, it reinforces how valid our approach is. Of course, if we were brand new, and this was year one and we were saying, hey, you need to take a 20 year approach. I mean, that might be a little bit different cell. So we have the luxury of having the record, the track record, and being able to show the data. So when we have the inevitable, and we listen, we've had some bloody periods. I mean, you know the great financial crisis and the tech bubble. I mean, just some really bad, really bad back-to-back years that have really...”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it really is. I mean, I do love the Virgil. I love the Virgil quote. All calamities can be overcome with endurance. I mean, it's just a classic if you're involved in one of these long races. I mean, my God, what you go through mentally and physically and even spiritually, I mean, it's just over several hours. And yes, then you're looking at this portfolio. And again, it really makes you want to focus on the long term and you know going in when you're constructing this portfolio that look as I said earlier. I mean, it's going to hit the fan at some point. We know that every 10 to 15 years, it always does. But if you have the mental strength to realize that and to focus on the long term and most importantly, and this is where we have the luxury, most money managers don't have this luxury. I mean, this is really unheard of.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's such a drilling rush, that one. I mean, it's kind of a quirky distance and not one of your traditional distant triathlons, you know, the Iron Man half Iron Man Olympic distance. This is kind of a quirky distance, but yeah, it's legit. That's for sure. I just love it. I mean, I love the adrenaline, and I hope I can stay at it. But you're right. I mean, there are parallels during those hours of racing from a mental and even spiritual standpoint. There's some parallels with that in investing. Definitely in terms of what you need to be focused on.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“iPad. I mean, it's just been dramatic for me. So I'm doing all that for mental and physical health. And I felt like, well, gosh, I might as well race if I'm doing all this. I might as well race. And so I really love triathlon racing. Yeah, I just did my 14th escape from Alcatraz triathlon. And yeah, I mean, there are a lot of lessons, parallels in terms of, you know, you got to focus on the long term and you're going to be faced with stumbles and hardships and challenges and you got your eye on that horizon long term. And so yeah, there are some parallels, but that's been an extremely important part of my work life being able to structure my work life in a way to optimize my day-to-day performance. It's been really important.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the A and the D and all of that. And I didn't realize I was self medicating. I would come home and just run and run and run. And it was so great. And so I realized, particularly when I had the luxury of doing it, structuring my day to optimize my performance, I could do it in a way, you know, I can pretty much be anywhere. I can really, the rhythms of my day revolve around physical activity because it had such a, for me, probably more than most people. It has such a dramatic neurotransmitter effect. It turned me from a kind of an average student into a really good student. I could just see it in my own life and my own ability to focus and concentrate and think and write. I mean, some of the best sessions I've ever had have been like a corner of a pool parking lot after a morning workout in my car with black coffee and”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's funny. I did a lot of very active from a physical fitness standpoint, a lot of cycling and running and swimming. And I was doing it initially for mental and physical health and well-being because I didn't realize it, but I had been self-medicating for decades in terms of the powerful neurotransmitter effects of physical activity. And then, of course, I found out later in looking into it that brain science does show that physical activity has a dramatic neurotransmitter effect, increases gray matter in the frontal lobes of the brain. It raises levels of serotonin and endorphins and dopamine, leading to higher levels of focus and concentration and working memory and executive function. I mean, all of that, I mean, I would be one of those that years ago I would have been the ADH, all of them.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just think these other, a lot of these other municipal funds, for one reason or another, have just dug themselves into a hole and they're forced to reach for return to get out of it.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“20 year rolling period has really done well, and it really shows them how much the equity side of the portfolio is added value, how that's been the driver, the equity side, and how that's done better in each of those 30-year rolling periods, how that's done better than the indexes. And it also shows how much better stocks have done than bonds, because we've got that chart on there too. So it gives them a snapshot of these 20-year rolling periods of how their total fund did, how their equities did, how the S&P did, and how the bond market did. And I think they look at that and they think, wow, you know what? We might get ridiculed for having one manager and everybody might tell us we're fiduciarily irresponsible. When we go to these conferences, but you know what? The job's getting done in a high quality way.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Went to year rolling periods. We've got every September 30, another fiscal year ends, and every October when I go down, I put another set of 20-year rolling data out for the board to see. You know, the next one will be 2004 through 2024. And what that shows them, I think it really emboldens them in terms of what they're doing with this high quality conservative vanilla boring approach, they are able to, number one, most importantly, is meet their objectives. They're able to meet their objectives. We're not trying to, we're really not trying to hit it out of the park every day. We just want to meet their objectives, provide a good retirement for these public safety employees. And when they look at these 30 separate 20-year rolling increments, what they see is that they've hit their objectives. The total fund over these 30 separate”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think it needs to really err on the side of caution. And the good news is it can be done with a really high quality long-term conservative approach. These other plans, they've dug themselves in a hole in the get out, they've had to reach for return and reach for yield. But often what they don't realize is commensurate with that, they're increasing their risk. And so then when you have an event, a liquidity event or an interest rate event or a recess, It exacerbates the situation. And then they're deeper into the hole. And then they got to reach for yield again. And it just goes on and on. Whereas if they adjust out of the gate taken a more simple vanilla, high quality long-term approach, they wouldn't be in this mess. And it's really, really hit. It really hits home for me when I look at our 30 separate.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a really boring approach. I mean, we say that we're unconventionally conventional. I mean, it's like a throwback and it's not, yeah, there's nothing. I wish I could offer a more dynamic tale, but it's very boring. And it's just what you're saying. I mean, these, unfortunately, here's what happened to these plants, these reason we have a liability, unfunded liability crisis, so many of them became unfunded for a variety of reasons. And they felt like they had to reach for return. And so they're sold these idea that, okay, well, you can get a higher return here, or you can get a higher return there, whatever the deal of the day is, you know, private equity or hedge funds or private credit. And I'm not disparaging those investments. They've been wonderful for a lot of people. I'm just saying for a conservative, high quality, taxpayer-funded defined benefit plan.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think. And of course, nobody can be dead. There's only one. There's only one John Templeton, there's only one more, but there's only one David. I mean, but everybody, all of these municipal funds were all the consultants, they wanted these funds to pile into private equity. And man, when it hit the fan during the great financial crisis, you know, it was years before they could even mark to market some of those holdings. And I've seen that a lot in the municipal fund arena that just at the wrong time and oftentimes it will revolve around a financial crisis. The asset allocation decisions, a decision is made to move out of stocks into other asset classes. Whereas what we did in Tampa during those periods was exploit what we thought were really cheap prices and build some significant positions in stocks that over the next 10, 15, 20 years became really some of our largest.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“20 years, it's going to really pay off. That's made a big difference. And I think a lot of municipal funds, because of the consultant-driven nature of it, just at the wrong time, they will make asset allocation decisions that are wrong. They'll shift out of stocks into bonds. They'll shift out of stocks into private equity and hedge funds because they're looking in the rearview mirror and they think that the outperformance is going to continue in those asset classes. I'll never forget the, you know, everybody wanted to be Yale. Everybody wanted to be David.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you can see that after all of these really financial shocks to the system, whether it's the great financial crisis after that, where you had strong double digit returns for the next decade. So I think a valuable lesson is now, granted, this is assuming that you don't think it's over and we're just going to, it's just over, you know, and that you need to never buy another but if you think that as Virgil said, every calamity can be overcome with endurance. If you think that if you have the power to take a long-term approach, it's what you do during those dramatic and traumatic periods, what you're buying, the positions you're building, and then you just with confidence that over the next 10, particularly.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I feel like I've become over the years somewhat seasoned because I've seen so many of them and I've been ready. And what I saw my father do then has really influenced me because he said, and it made me realize what you do during those periods, I would argue is almost more important than how your position going in to the event. When I look at particularly with Tampa, It's the moves that we made after the 87 crash and after the tech bubble and after the great financial crisis with the luxury of being able to take a long-term approach and being wrong for a few years maybe, but it's the moves we made then in terms of really building some significant positions in stocks that had been, I think, unfairly punished. For instance, after looking at the 10 years after the 87 crash, the market compounded at 18%.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Advent of portfolio insurance. And that was also when program trading was computerized trading was starting to kick off and it was all exacerbated when you had that crash, but quickly over the years realized and mentally became my mental framework was geared towards, okay, let's face it, it is going to hit the fan every 10 to 15 years. It's just automatic. I mean, you can go through financial history. You know, you had the whatever, the nifty 50 and then the great inflation of the 70s and then the 87 stock market crash and then the tech bubble and then the corporate scandals and the great financial crisis and then COVID. I mean, it's really, you just got to accept that every 10, 12, 15 years, you're going to have a dramatic event and it's really going to be unpleasant and it's really going to impact financial assets in an exceedingly negative way. I mean, I just know that.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know what? That brings up a really good point that I think is important for individual investors particularly. And I think it's really, really a big reason the plan has been so successful over the last 50 years. And it's funny because I determined fairly early on, I mean, the 87 crash hit very soon after I came on board. And it was just dizzying. I mean, I think it was 22%. On the Dow in one day, I mean, can you imagine coming in and seeing the Dow off 8,000 points? I mean, it was just, it was a stunner. And I didn't know. I thought, gosh, I mean, this is a very short career for me. I thought it might be over. I mean, I just, it was so dramatic. And it was, gosh, it was just a strange feeling. But my father was always adamant that he always thought it was a technical issue, a technical correction that really didn't involve fundamentals, that it was, you know, the...”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“the spending side to i know that's easier said than done to get the trend moving in the right way it doesn't have to be done overnight i think the markets would be completely satisfied if they saw the trend moving moving in the right direction that's going to require a lot of heavy lifting obviously and it's going to require i mean entitlements have to be part of the equation and so it's it's somewhat complicated but it's not possible i mean it's it's certainly doable and As you know, I mean, It just doesn't seem to matter right now to the markets. The dollars reserve currency status, the level of debt right now is not that there's no, I think it's one of those situations where it's not going to matter until it matters.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The national debt needs to be, we need to, it needs to immediately be reduced by 10% a year. I mean, to me, it's really the glide path. If you can just get on a, if a plan can be developed that just puts the country on a glide path where it's moving in the right direction, particularly as just as a metric, you can look at it as a percent of our GDP, the debt. And then the other part of that equation, of course, is growth. I mean, that's such a wonderful elixir. If you're growing it in real terms at 4% or 5% instead of one or two percent, I mean, that means trillions of dollars into the treasury, trillions of dollars of more revenue over these 10-year time period. So it's really a matter of growth-oriented policy to allow us to grow above trend along with Type of plan.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's funny because you've seen this situation before where you've had a really big increase and for one reason or another, maybe war or national emergency where you've had a big increase in the federal debt. But gosh, I mean, these numbers today, I think they used to call it mega numbers, MEGA, my eyes glaze over mega numbers. It's just because it's so astounding, you know, a billion used to be alive, then it's a trillion, and then it's two trillion dollar annual deficits and $30 trillion of federal debt. And I mean, yeah, at some point, nobody knows when it's going to be an issue. I think the good news is that historically what you see, you know, if we can just, I think it's the path that's important. It's not, well, we need to cut the deficit in half in the next year or two, or we need, you know, the...”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had a hint of that back in the 80s and 90s when I think Greenspan was basically operating off of an informal price rule that Manley Johnson and Wayne Angel had kind of developed where they were really looking at commodity prices and gold and the foreign exchange value of the dollar and the yield curve, kind of whether to gauge whether they were a commodity or restrictive. I mean, that's not a hard formal rule. I mean, maybe a nominal GDP target. I just think I would love to see a thorough I don't know whether you do it with a how you would go about, I mean, obviously it would probably take legislation, but I just, it would be great to really explore different alternatives to the current hyper discretionary system where they're able to blow their balance sheet up to $9 trillion. I don't know. Yeah, my concern now would be that they wait too long. But I've been hardened by the last couple of press conferences.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Instance, right now, right, that just as they were too easy for too long after the COVID situation. That maybe now they'll, you know, kind of rear view mirror optics where they might wait too long to start being more accommodative because I think they're restrictive right now on a variety of fronts, depending on the metric you're looking at, whether it's the inverted yield curve or the real Fed funds rate or money growth or depending on what the forward-looking inflation inflationary expectations are. But I'm hopeful because The last couple of pres, I know they want to, they're ready to move. They want to move. I think they're a little bit hesitant because of that 10-quarter overshoot they had on the inflation front. But my concern would be that they wait too long and then the horse is already out of the barn, so to speak. I mean, you would hope that they would be not just completely reactive. And in other words, once the numbers are clearly visible, then it's too late. I mean, they need to be, I think they need to be more forward-looking.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've had this, they inverted the yield curve before the great financial crisis because they were wedded to this Phillips curve model. And then, of course, the last few years, they had a 10-quarter overshoot on the inflation front. I mean, you had nine 10% nominal GDP growth and a zero-bound Fed funds rate. So I just, again, it's not that I, you know, listen, I have a lot of respect for the people in the institution. And I know they're trying to do great. I just I worry about the model, the discretionary monetary model. And I feel like we'd be better off with more of a rules-based approach maybe.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that the Fed is such the 800-pound gorilla. It's such the important entity in the investment equation, what the Fed is doing and what interest rates are doing and what the liquidity backdrop is. And my biggest concern is the Fed, they continue to be wetted to this model. Just in general, I'm not a big fan of discretionary monetary policy. I just think If you go back to the founding in 1913 of the Fed, I don't know how to say, I mean, I feel like the August reputation of the institution has belied somewhat by the facts. When you look at the record, I mean, let's face it, they oversaw a doubling of the price level in World War I. A lot of their actions led to the Great Depression, doubling of prices during World War II. They financed”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Several over the years, loctite was acquired by Hinkle, the German company, and Lubazal was acquired by Warren Buffett's Berkshire. We had CPC International, the food company acquired by Unilever. Warner Lambert was acquired by, I think, Pfizer. I mean, you've got, there's some great companies out there that are doing a wonderful job for their shareholders that don't get the publicity that the big ones do, but that's always been over the last 50 years. That's been a very important part of our portfolio, these smaller, what we call future blue chips.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if you look at the returns that that management has been able to generate over the last 10 to 20 years, it's not a high profile name, but they're just right in the heart of the infrastructure theme, which is another top-down theme of ours from a construction and engineering standpoint. Another one, Badger Meter, which is flow control and some other products like that, just a very powerful niche. Under a billion dollars in sales. But again, the management team over the last 10 and 20 years, the returns they produce for shareholders have just been tremendous. So that's always been a very important part of our portfolio, these companies that are smaller and for one reason or another, the technological niche and the management and the business plan. We think they're going to be multi-billion dollar companies looking out. Oftentimes these companies become acquired because a lot of the larger companies are looking at the same thing we're looking at, I can think of.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think this could continue, and it brings up another point, a very important part of our portfolios over the years have been what we call future blue chips. And these are companies that might be, you know, from a, we like to look at revenues more of the market cap, but they might be, say, a billion to $5 billion in revenues. But we think because of their leadership and vision and strategy and tactics and global business plan that they're going to be multi-billion dollar companies looking out, oftentimes these companies do represent intriguing long-term value. I'm glad you mentioned Tetratech because that would be one of these companies that I think it's been a very quiet situation, consulting and engineering. This would be what I would call an unsung CEO. You got these rock stars that get all this publicity, but there's some companies out there that are run by, they're just superbly run.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, and here, just to give you an example, I think this is stunning. Some of these days we've had in the last few weeks, we had a day where the S&P, the market cap weighted S&P, was off over 1%. And I think 490 stocks were up. But because of the market cap nature, the handful that were down, it tanked the whole. That was a day where the equal weight S&P was up over a percent and the market cap S&P was off over a percent. And I think that we're going to start seeing not exactly that dramatic of a shift, but I do think you're going to start seeing at the headline level, it might not look like the market's doing much and it might look like it's turning a little bit. It might even be that the market cap waited the next might be moving down. But what's going on underneath the hood, I think, is really interesting.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it kind of shifts from a long-term value to just a situation that just doesn't make sense anymore from a valuation standpoint. I mean, with the NVIDIA and with a lot of these holdings, they've done so well, which is why they're sort of our largest, just they've just done so well. And we have taken an awful lot out of them from a profitability standpoint. I do think we're early in this AI situation. Just as in 1995, when Netscape had their IPO, that was early. I mean, you had years and years of capital investment and profits and good earnings from a variety of these companies before the whole thing careened out of control and you had the tech bubble. But it's something I think about a lot, that's for sure.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How It's really tough to gauge, okay, what is the market willing to pay if you have this company that is generating just consistently double-digit returns and profits year after year, okay? Well, is it 30 multiple? I mean, then you look at the peg ratio, you look at the P ratio to growth rate to kind of gauge it that way. And when you do that, something like an NVIDIA course does not look very expensive when you look at the PE relative to the growth rate, but something like a Costco, for instance, you just scratch your head and you think, gosh, I mean, okay, when is the multiple just, I know it's a fantastic company with great returns and profitability. I think that's the big, and I often wonder how my dad would have handled this environment in terms of trying to sort out when.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think he's the one that's such a great statement that he would rather own great companies at good prices than average companies at great prices or something like that. And I think the adaptation”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And I tell you, hardly a day doesn't go by when I wonder how my dad would have navigated this environment because he was much more of the graham and dyed, you know, the value line. All right, let's go look at this. Look at this sales per share. Look at this return on equity. Look at this free cash flow yield. Look at this balance sheet. Look at this dividend. Very, very much more on the value side, which was great in the 80s and 90s. He would have adapted. I know he would have. He would have come up with something, but it's such a different game now. It's so different. The traditional, I mean, you can put together this beautiful portfolio from a valuation standpoint and just get absolutely steamroll for 10 years, for 15 years, for, you know, so you really do have to adapt. And I think that this concept.”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you look at it in long 20 year rolling increments, I think that's a great way to measure. But in terms of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we're really after, from a top-down standpoint, after the companies, again, that had the vision strategy and tactics to exploit it, to exploit these new technologies that hopefully is going to help these companies from a profitability standpoint”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if you didn't own those stocks, you could forget it, very similar today to the magnificent five or six. We did not own the majority of those stocks. So we had a period of outperformance, excuse me, of underperformance back then. We just thought from evaluation standpoint they didn't, some of them looked a little, and we were wrong. I mean, we missed it with some of them. And that was a period where you had a lot of, like I say, different today, but still a lot of innovation, technological innovation that was flowing from the internet. And of course, you had the tech mobile. I'm off track here a little bit, but if you didn't own those four stocks, there was no way you kept up with the market. But benefit of the long-term approach is if you didn't own those stocks, when everything burst, then you did keep up with the market. So again,”
2024-09-01 · We Study Billionaires · RWH049: Crushing The Market Over 50 Years w/ Jay Bowen · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT