Blog Posts

Diversification is one of the most valuable things you can have as a trader or investor. It increases your ability to keep things chugging along without suffering unacceptable losses and underwater periods. Even if you buy a bunch of stocks, they mostly move up and down together. You can go into other things like bonds […]

We’re going to look at the highest SEC Yield ETFs on the market. Our criteria: At least 3 years of history. (The ETF space exploded in the mid-2020s and many funds have short histories where it’s hard to judge their performance.) SEC yield of at least 5% or so. We’ll start with the highest yields […]

In this article, we provide a framework of income-based alternatives to trading, with brief discussions of their cash-flow mechanics, skill intensity, and scalability.  This is geared toward those who want predictable income, lower variance than trading, or complementary/diversified streams that don’t rely on market whims.   Key Takeaways – Income-Based Alternatives to Trading Yield-based income […]

Factor investing is a strategy that focuses on selecting securities based on certain characteristics – known as factors – that have been proven to drive investment returns over time. They exist, and aren’t arbitraged out of market, because they represent a form of risk compensation, not inefficiencies built into markets (which tend to be discovered […]

Stocks are often grouped by size because market capitalization fundamentally shapes liquidity, information flow, and who can participate. Large-cap stocks are heavily researched by institutional investors, sell-side research, retail investors, and are known globally.  They’re highly liquid and inefficiencies are stripped away by institutional and systematic capital. Alpha is difficult in large caps because most […]

Stocks are roughly divided into three camps when it comes to size. Large-cap stocks are heavily researched, highly liquid, and dominated by institutional and systematic capital. Because they’re so heavily picked over and covered, persistent alpha can be difficult to extract. (It’s not easy to have a unique insight on the world’s most covered stocks.) […]

Large caps are often highly picked over by human traders, systematic traders, and large institutions of all kinds. As a result, they’re among the hardest markets to generate alpha in. If you go down to small caps and micro caps, there’s often an issue with a lack of ideal liquidity and information dispersion. Options traders […]

A curve steepener is used to express the view that the spread between long-term and short-term rates will widen. (As opposed to a curve flattener, which is a view that the spread between long-term and short-term rates will compress.) That widening can occur because: a) long rates rise faster than short rates, or b) because […]

How do you turn data and frameworks into trading decisions? This is where models and equations come in. This moves raw inputs into outputs that you can logically use to make decisions to help you achieve your goals. We’re going to cover the main categories of macroeconomic models used and the main models within each. […]

Preferred stock is a type of equity that typically pays fixed dividends and has priority over common stock in the event of a liquidation. In short, they sit in between common stock and bonds in the capital structure of a company. Most companies don’t issue preferred shares, but some do. In terms of discussions on […]