By Vahan Janjigian - I'm finally back from the 16th Forbes Cruise for Investors. I got off the ship in Aruba on Sunday and took a long flight home. The Internet connection on the ship was not always reliable, so I did not get a chance until now to post my comments about Jack Ablin's presentation.
Jack is the Chief Investment Officer at Harris Private Bank. We first met in 1996 when I was on the faculty at Northeastern University. I signed up for a course to prepare for the Level II Chartered Financial Analyst exam and Jack was one of my instructors. He was an excellent lecturer.
It was nice to see that he hasn't lost his presentation skills. Jack is a quantitative analyst. One of his comments should give college students majoring in business something to think about. He said he only hires people with strong quantitative skills. He especially likes engineering majors. This is because he finds it easier to teach an engineer how to do finance than to teach a business major how to do quantitative analysis.
Jack is fond of using a momentum approach to investing. There are plenty of investors who are skeptical of this approach, but it really does work. Sheridan Titman, now a professor at the University of Texas, was one of the first to document that stocks exhibit momentum. One approach Jack relies on is to compare an index or sector to its moving average. In general, he avoids buying stocks until they start moving up. He is happy to miss the opportunity to buy at the bottom until he is confident that an upward trend has begun.
Jack believes the market is currently at a fair to full valuation. He thinks inflation will eventually become a problem, but says we will have about two to three years to prepare for it. He expects the Fed to sit tight through much of 2010. He mentioned two ETFs he currently likes: The S&P International Small Cap (GWX) and the WisdomTree International Small Cap Dividend (DLS).
Jack recently authored a book: Reading Minds and Markets: Minimizing Risk and Maximizing Returns in a Volatile Global Marketplace. He gave a copy to all attendees. I am putting it on my reading list.
