David Berns's guest appearances

David Berns

Flirting with Models

Resolve's Gestalt University

The Investors First Podcast

Wayne Himelsein

Michael Green

Benn Eifert

David Fauchier

Antti Ilmanen

Corey Hoffstein

Eric Crittenden

Meb Faber

Ben Carlson

Ted Seides

Jeff Snider

Julian Brigden

Alex Gurevich

Juliette Declercq

Steve Keen

OwlTail

Mike Taylor

Our guests today are David Berns &amp; Mike Taylor.  David Berns is Chief Investment Officer &amp; Co-Founder of Simplify Asset Management, which is focused on creating hedge fund and structured product strategies in a liquid, transparent, tax-efficient and low cost vehicle (ETF’s). David has a PhD in Physics from MIT in the field of Quantum Computation.  Mike Taylor is Portfolio Manager for the health care strategy at Simplify, which is one of the most unique strategies in the investment management industry, with all net profits donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. He has spent the last two decades managing hedge fund strategies at funds including Millennium, Citadel and Diamondback Capital. Mike holds advanced degrees in Science and Business from the Johns Hopkins University and the William E. Simon School of Business.  In today’s episode, we discuss how Simplify was created and how the idea for their health care strategy came together. We then discuss Mike’s hedge fund career, how managing a long only health care ETF differs from hedge fund investing and much more.  We recorded this episode in October for breast cancer awareness month and we wanted to highlight the great work Simplify is doing with Susan G. Komen, using finance as a cause for good. This is the first 100% pro bono ETF, with all net profits donated for the benefit of Susan G. Komen Foundation.  Our hosts today are Steve Curley, CFA, past President of CFA Society Orlando and co-founder of the Investors First Podcast, and Javier Perez, CFA, also a past President of CFA Society Orlando &amp; Director at Skyview Investment Advisors. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Our guests today are David Berns &amp; Mike Taylor. David Berns is Chief Investment Officer &amp; Co-Founder of Simplify Asset Management, which is focused on creating hedge fund and structured product strategies in a liquid, transparent, tax-efficient and low cost vehicle (ETF’s). David has a PhD in Physics from MIT in the field of Quantum Computation. Mike Taylor is Portfolio Manager for the health care strategy at Simplify, which is one of the most unique strategies in the investment management industry, with all net profits donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. He has spent the last two decades managing hedge fund strategies at funds including Millennium, Citadel and Diamondback Capital. Mike holds advanced degrees in Science and Business from the Johns Hopkins University and the William E. Simon School of Business. In today’s episode, we discuss how Simplify was created and how the idea for their health care strategy came together. We then discuss Mike’s hedge fund career, how managing a long only health care ETF differs from hedge fund investing and much more. We recorded this episode in October for breast cancer awareness month and we wanted to highlight the great work Simplify is doing with Susan G. Komen, using finance as a cause for good. This is the first 100% pro bono ETF, with all net profits donated for the benefit of Susan G. Komen Foundation. Our hosts today are <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephencurley/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Steve Curley, CFA</a>, past President of CFA Society Orlando and co-founder of the Investors First Podcast, and Javier Perez, CFA, also a past President of CFA Society Orlando &amp; Director at Skyview Investment Advisors. Follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cfaorlandofl" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/cfasocietyorlando/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>.

David Berns & Mike Taylor, Simplify: Finance for a Cure

In this episode I speak with David Berns, co-founder and CIO of Simplify ETFs and author of the book Modern Asset Allocation for Wealth Management. Our conversation centers around the idea of what it means to build a portfolio for a human being. This concept arises both technically and philosophically in David’s work, where he emphasizes the importance of higher return moments in portfolio optimization, but goes about achieving this end through more holistic risk preference analysis. David expands upon the ideas of risk aversion, loss aversion, reflection, and how both our personal balance sheets and our standard of living expectations impact the portfolio choices we should be making. While there is no straight forward prescription, David emphasizes that simply being aware of these different factors can help advisors select more appropriate portfolios. And, hopefully, as the toolkit of investment options expand, adopt exposures that can better shape investor return distributions. I hope you enjoy my conversation with David Berns.

In this episode I speak with David Berns, co-founder and CIO of Simplify ETFs and author of the book Modern Asset Allocation for Wealth Management. Our conversation centers around the idea of what it means to build a portfolio for a human being. This concept arises both technically and philosophically in David’s work, where he emphasizes the importance of higher return moments in portfolio optimization, but goes about achieving this end through more holistic risk preference analysis. David expands upon the ideas of risk aversion, loss aversion, reflection, and how both our personal balance sheets and our standard of living expectations impact the portfolio choices we should be making. While there is no straight forward prescription, David emphasizes that simply being aware of these different factors can help advisors select more appropriate portfolios. And, hopefully, as the toolkit of investment options expand, adopt exposures that can better shape investor return distributions. I hope you enjoy my conversation with David Berns.

David Berns - How do you build a portfolio for a human being? (S4E16)

Today’s conversation is with David Berns, an emerging thought leader in asset allocation and behavioral finance, who is pushing the boundaries on how to best measure real-world behavioral preferences and build optimal portfolios that actively incorporate this extra information. We open the conversation with a discussion of his involvement in the design and launch of three new ETFs, which seek to deliver an investment experience that addresses both traditional mean-variance preferences, and also accounts for real investor behavioural and cognitive biases. We then discuss core themes from his new book, “Modern Asset Allocation for Wealth Management”, which marries advances in portfolio optimization with a scientific approach to measuring real investment risk preferences. I was impressed with David’s thinking about fundamental investment principles and driving ambition to go beyond traditional portfolio formation techniques to account for loss aversion and reflection, and higher moments of the return distribution. It’s clear David genuinely cares about client satisfaction with their investment experience and is advocating for ways to treat clients as unique individuals with novel preferences and goals. This discussion has something for everyone from advisors to portfolio managers to planners and even for end investors.

Today’s conversation is with David Berns, an emerging thought leader in asset allocation and behavioral finance, who is pushing the boundaries on how to best measure real-world behavioral preferences and build optimal portfolios that actively incorporate this extra information. We open the conversation with a discussion of his involvement in the design and launch of three new ETFs, which seek to deliver an investment experience that addresses both traditional mean-variance preferences, and also accounts for real investor behavioural and cognitive biases. We then discuss core themes from his new book, “Modern Asset Allocation for Wealth Management”, which marries advances in portfolio optimization with a scientific approach to measuring real investment risk preferences. I was impressed with David’s thinking about fundamental investment principles and driving ambition to go beyond traditional portfolio formation techniques to account for loss aversion and reflection, and higher moments of the return distribution. It’s clear David genuinely cares about client satisfaction with their investment experience and is advocating for ways to treat clients as unique individuals with novel preferences and goals. This discussion has something for everyone from advisors to portfolio managers to planners and even for end investors.

David Berns: Modern Asset Allocation for Wealth Management