My company, Newfound Research, turned 15 today. Coming up on this anniversary, I reflected quite a bit on my career.  I’m not sure why, but this milestone feels larger than I would've expected. So I decided to write something. 15 Ideas, Frameworks, and Lessons from 15 Years

Someone please tell me why LLM text structure is always so obvious. The same phrases and structural patterns all the time. "is the tell" "It isn't X it's Y" "X is Y; Z isn't"

RAFI Indices selling for 10x revenue ($490mm valuation on $49mm revenue). But here's the wild part: they have $182 billion in AUI. Which implies an average indexing fee of 2.9bp. tmx.com/en/newsroom/press-re…

what if I told you that the role of bonds in a portfolio was never about diversifying the path, but always about diversifying the destination...

I really don't get this fear mongering coming from ETF folks. In mutual fund world, Schwab Mutual Fund OneSource is Schwab's no-load, no-transaction-fee fund service. Most NTF funds pay Schwab 40bp per year. Now, this can theoretically get passed onto mutual fund investors in three ways: 1. A higher management fee 2. 12b-1 fees (max 25bp) 3. In sub-TA fees But all of that rolls up into the stated gross expense ratio. There's nothing hidden. In the ETF world we charge unitary fees. There is no 12b-1 (technically it can be adopted, but who does?). There is no sub-TA fees or "Other Expenses" line. Unless we raise our management fees (good luck), the issuers simply end up less profitable. Which I think is what everyone is actually upset about?

is it too much to ask for my wife to coordinate a year long, recorded series of absurd yet earnest tasks – a la taskmaster – for my friends and family to perform, all to be revealed and judged by me on my 40th birthday?

☠️ death to dad bod feeling like I can't buy the time for a workout lately... 25 strict pushups 🚣‍♂️ 10 minutes @ 20 s/m 25 strict pushups 🚣‍♂️ 2x 4 min @ 22 s/m 1 min @ 26 s/m 25 strict pushups 🚣‍♂️ 2 min @ 22 s/m 2x 1 min @ 28 s/m 1 min @ 22 s/m 4x 30s @ 30 s/m 30s @ 22 s/m 25 strict pushups

Bet you didn't expect to see @RodGordilloP headlining his local Hamilton product

"You're not supposed to hold levered ETFs for the long run!" Depends how you're using them. A nice exploration of a roll-your-own return stacked portfolio. In this case, 100% equities 50% diversified alternatives stack. Leverage for multiplication vs leverage for addition.

We're back with an absolutely stacked line-up! 📆🥞

someone call Dan Brown

Sometimes I think I deserve the block. Othertimes, I'm confused by the Internet.

Some Saturday musings on turnkey return stacking / portable alpha solutions... Consider two fund choices: 100% S&P 500 100% Managed Futures or 100% US Bonds 100% Managed Futures At the portfolio level, both allow you to do the same thing: stack managed futures. But there are some very important trade-offs. Let's assume that both implement their beta with 75% cash securities 25% futures. Right now, the financing in S&P 500 futures is approximately SOFR 88bp while in US Treasuries it is approximately SOFR. That means implementing the structure on top of equity beta has an invisible 22bp drag (88bp x 25%). In fact, S&P 500 futures are almost always more expensive than Treasury futures and have traded substantially over the SOFR 30-50bp historical average for the last several years. Furthermore, if you ask people outright which structure is "riskier" (e.g. which one is more likely to face a substantial margin call), almost everyone will say the equity plus managed futures approach. And yet equity plus managed futures seems to absolute dominate bonds plus managed futures in sales. Why? I'd argue it's all about the perceived line item risk. Equities are already risky... so what if we add something else on top? And when you combine stocks managed futures, neither dominates the return. Bonds on the other hand are supposed to be safe and steady. Adding managed futures on top adds substantial volatility. Plus the managed futures dominate the variance, making the alternative return really stand out. That line-item risk has an increasingly costly trade-off though (especially if you're implementing the beta only with futures...)

US 100% Equity 100% Trend funds... Return Stacked (Sep 6, 2023) → AQR – QCFIX (Jun 18, 2025) → Simplify – CTAP (Dec 8, 2025) → Man Group – MATE (Dec 17, 2025) → JPMorgan – JPFP (May 28, 2026) I bet we'll see more...