Return of the Active Manager: How to apply behavioral finance to renew and improve investment management

Emotional behavior and biases run throughout financial markets. This is the diagnosis of behavioral fianance. But it is not enough to know that investors make biased decisions. What do we do about it? How do we move beyond diagnosis, to prescription? In this groundbreaking new book, investing and behavioural finance experts Thomas Howard and Jason A. Voss plug this void and show the new way ahead for investment managers and advisors. Return of the Active Manager provides a set of tools for investment professionals to overcome and take advantage of behavioral biases. Across seven compelling chapters, Return of the Active Manager details actionable advice on topics such as behaviourally-enhanced fundamental analysis, active equity fund evaluation and selection, harnessing big data, and investment firm structure. You learn how to exploit behavioural price distortions, how to recognise and avoid behavioural biases (in both yourself and clients), how to extract behavioral insights from the executives of prospective investments, and how manager behaviour can be used to predict future fund performance. An indispensable tool for research analysts, portfolio managers, private wealth advisors and manager search consultants, Return of the Active Manager rationalises the financial markets and prescribes actionable strategies that build on the lessons of behavioural finance.

About the Author :
C. Thomas Howard, Ph.D. is CEO and Chief Investment Officer at AthenaInvest, Inc. Tom is also Professor Emeritus at the Reiman School of Finance, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. There he taught courses and published articles for over 30 years in the areas of investment management and international finance. Tom began as am MPT believer and a non-believer in active equity management. Now, due to his academic research, and professional success as an active equity manager, he is a believer in both behavioral finance and active management. As his academic colleagues say, he has turned to the dark side! Tom is a frequent speaker and author for organizations such as the CFA Institute and Investment & Wealth Institute and for publications such as the Financial Times, Advisor Perspectives, and ThinkAdvisor. Tom earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Idaho, a Masters in Management Science from Oregon State University, and PhD in Finance from the University of Washington. Jason A. Voss, CFA, is the CEO of Active Investment Management (AIM) Consulting, a firm dedicated to helping small- and medium-sized active investment managers to deliver alpha for the benefit of their end clients. He is the retired co-portfolio manager of the Davis Appreciation and Income Fund. During his tenure the Fund bested the S&P 500 by 49.1%, was Lipper #1, a Morningstar Analyst Pick, and one of the first ten funds awarded Morningstar’s Stewardship Grade “A.” Jason also served as the Director of Content for CFA Institute, the world’s largest organization of financial professionals. He is a frequent go-to interview for the likes of the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Marketplace Morning Report, the BBC’s Today Programme, and many others. Jason earned his BA in Economics and MBA from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Review :
Wow! I expected a terrific book from Howard and Voss, but ROAM knocked me back. It’s a once-a-decade genre-defining must-have-on-every-investor’s-bookshelf type of book. Read this and your wealth (and life!) will be wiser and smoother for it. Advisors – drop everything and read this book! Voss and Howard shine a practical light on the massive opportunity that exists for truly active fund managers in this day and age – if they are willing to focus on identifying and mitigating their own behavioral biases, in addition to exploiting those of other market participants. It's a must-read for all next-generation fund managers. The book offers a convincing alternate view to look at active investment management and is a must for asset owners, irrespective of asset class, and wealth professionals. Even as a decades-long trend toward passive investing continues without any signs of slowing, mounting evidence shows many active fund managers have superior performance that will likely improve as indexation increases. This book provides the very timely service to readers of synthesizing several of the key insights and findings from this recent evidence and providing actionable principles for identifying profitable investments in the actively-managed fund space. The book Return of the Active Manager: How to apply behavioral finance to renew and improve investment management, puts forth fresh ways in which investment managers can use behavioral principles to push the envelope in active portfolio management. Tom and Jason have combined their extensive knowledge and direct experience to create a standout. Managers and advisors should delight in the fact this exceptionally capable duo has written a comprehensive book about behavioral investment management specifically for them. If you do not believe in active management, please read this book, it will challenge you to think differently about it. If you are a believer, please read this book, it will provide you with entirely new insights to work with. I just wish this book had been written 20 years ago, I may have had a more successful career in investment management.