Joshua Brown
CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, CNBC's The Halftime Report, Author, The Reformed Broker
Discussion
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
Hi - my name is Downtown Josh Brown and I'm the CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and the author of The Reformed Broker blog. I've been commenting on markets and the investment advice industry for eight years on the web and on my CNBC show, The Halftime Report. I'm a big believer that technology is revolutionizing finance in many unexpected ways. I'm thrilled to be chatting with you, ask me anything!
Thanks everyone, this was fun!
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Andrew Ettinger
@andrewett · Product Marketing, Twitter (ex-PH)
As the Chairman of the Twitter Federal Reserve, are you long on Twitter?
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@andrewett I am, unfortunately, a shareholder, but have bought and sold a few times. I have no idea why.
J S
@whatdrexlersaid
@reformedbroker @andrewett I watched the last three seasons of Dexter.
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@simoncunningham
Do you believe that religion is an important part of being healthy and successful in your work?
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@simoncunningham the early settlers of America had this thing called Predestination as a big part of their religion (Protestantism, Calvinism). Basically, they believed that you could tell whether or not someone was destined for heaven by how successful and fruitful their labors were on earth. Farmers, merchants, builders, industrialists who began this nation were predominantly Puritan, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Quaker – all carrying an inherent desire to work hard and grow wealthy as a demonstration of piety and closeness to the lord. Calvinism came over on The Mayflower - was a big part of laying the foundation for American-style capitalism. There might be something to that. I'm not religious, myself but I do not think I have it all figured out.
Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi · a16z
Great to have you on PH Live 😸. I'm always fascinated by the rountables on CNBC and the challenges you face commenting on buy backs/dividends of public companies. It is easy to love these as shareholders simply because of math, the price goes up. And easy to be critical because it feels so Q over Q manipulative. Do you have an algorithm to decide when to be positive v. critical of these efforts?
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@stevesi the truth about buybacks is like the truth about everything - the answer is gray, not black or white. And everything in moderation is okay. Buybacks are not being done in moderation right now, they're being done in lieu of spending for the future. I heard a stat yesterday that buybacks / M&A last year cumulatively amounted to $750 billion vs only $250 billion in R&D / capital spending. Extrapolate that trend continuing for too many more years and we're in big trouble.
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@zerobeta can Charlie Munger be tagged in?
Dave Pinke
@davepinke · Director of Product, Stocktwits
What is your approach to idea generation? Do you mainly stick to sectors and companies you know and like?
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@davepinke I start with technicals and try to identify winning stocks. Then I look at fundamentals and try to understand why a company has momentum and make a judgement about whether or not it can continue. I don't want to get involved with names on the way down most of the time. But that's just trading. Longer term investing is a different story entirely
Stefan Cheplick
@scheplick
What's the first thing you look at when you go research a stock?
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@scheplick the chart, always the chart. Not that it's enough, but price and other people's sentiment is probably a good starting point.
Jordan Nietzel
@jnietzel
What's your advice for someone looking to get into finance/asset management? What skills will be most valuable as the industry changes?
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@jnietzel computer science / programming will be a key thing on a resume. my friends who are hiring at asset management firms get excited when they see someone who can write in Ruby or can do algo work. Bigger picture, I think creativity and a multi-discipline background are underrated. There are plenty of CFAs already. Social intelligence / emotional IQ also underrated
Steven Sinofsky
@stevesi · a16z
(One More) Where do you fall on the spectrum of the "reason why corporations exist"? Anywhere from serve customers, generate profit, enrich shareholders? Seems like this is even more unsettled than ever.
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@stevesi I think it should be all of these things. people have to have a purpose when they wake up every morning, having a job to support themselves and a family or future is part of the equation too. Companies may have forgotten that there are stakeholders that matter as much as shareholders / board members.
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@tdatvalane · VP Engineering at Emerio
You (RWM) are producing a wealth of information that from the outside feels like magic. How are you (and others at RWM) filtering through the vast array of data available today? Thank you.
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Downtown Josh Brown
@reformedbroker · CEO, Ritholtz Wealth Management
@tdatvalane we use Bloomberg, stockcharts.com, Returns 2.0 (via Dimensional Fund Advisors), and a host of other sources to build historical looks at the market. We're way more interested in probabilities than forecasting, so we tend not to get too far into the weeds with economic data or the news of the day. Everything has already happened before, with slight alterations in the names, places and products