The Black Swans Podcast

When it comes to building investment portfolios, there are a lot of considerations. Passive vs. active, performance, fees, the list goes on. As an industry, we have become hyper focused on fees. Large passive asset managers like Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street have risen to dominate the ETF market. Are fees really the cornerstone for which investors should build their portfolios? Live from The Exchange ETF Conference in Miami Beach, Florida. Cinthia Murphy, joins host Shana Orczyk Sissel to discuss why fund selection is more nuanced than many think.  Cinthia Murphy is the Director of Research for the ETF Think Tank. She is a financial journalist specializing in ETFs and investing for more than a decade. Her previous experience includes building a Digital team at ETF.com, and serving as managing editor for the media platform, as well as time at Dow Jones and former BridgeNews, covering commodity futures markets in Chicago and Brazil equities in Sao Paulo.  Learn More About ETF Think Tank : ETF Think Tank Follow Cinthia on Twitter: @MurphyCinthia Follow Shana on Twitter: @shanas621  

Live from the ETF Exchange Conference at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach Joy Yang discusses her journey from Chinese immigrant to a sought after quantitative research analyst. Joy walks us through how John Bogle's little idea of index investing became a multi-trillion dollar business & why indexing is more than passive exposure to the S&P 500. Joy Yang is Global Head of Index Product Management at MV Index Solutions (MVIS). She is responsible for managing MVIS products and services to accelerate innovation in financial index design and adoption. Joy brings more than 25 years of investment experience, having led teams delivering index and quantitative active investment solutions at Arabesque Asset Management, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Vanguard, Aberdeen Standard Investments, AXA Rosenberg and Blackrock. Joy has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cooper Union's Albert Nerken School of Engineering.

Shortly after first discovering her passion for day trading, Frances Newton Stacy was among the few to predict and trade the 2007 stock market crash. Today, she regularly appears on Fox Business News and CNBC and is the Director of Portfolio Strategy at Optimal Capital. On this episode, hear the finance wonk discuss her work bringing an institutional model to retail traders, modern portfolio theory, staying "apolitical," how markets are gauging inflation in the coming months, and much more. Frances started her broadcasting career appearing weekly on the Gerry V show on the Rush Radio Network from 2008-2010.  There she gained wide appeal and honed her skills for being able to explain a very complex subject matter in simple terms. She then began appearing on the local Fox 5 in Las Vegas. From there in 2010 Frances branched out to appearing regularly on Fox Business News. She has also appeared on CNBC.  Frances grew up in Colorado, where she attended the University of Denver. She discovered her passion for technical analysis and trading various markets in 2007. She has blogged for traders to help them see key cycles and key numbers of support and resistance. She has also spoken on the subject and taught a number of private trading students.  Frances perfectly predicted on the stock market crash, which began in October 2007 and is amongst the very few who successfully traded the downturn. She got out of stocks a month before the all time high and simultaneously got into the historic gold trade. Frances also called the market bottom on the Gerry V show in March of 2009 when she warned his audience that the market would go up for a while.  Wanting to be able to predict and time the next credit crisis has become Frances' passion of study. On this journey she studied the banking and credit systems in depth. Frances discovered what has to be present in order to have a credit crisis. She also enjoyed studying the underlying algorithm of our banking system, which has an undeniable mathematical structure that regardless of the market swings is always present and has predictable implications.   

While Dr. Nicole Boyson didn't come from a family of academics, she found an interest in studying investments and corporate finance, which led her to become a professor of finance at  Northeastern University. On this episode, hear Dr. Boyson discuss "hedge fund activism" - a relevant academic interest on which she has extensive knowledge - and what it means to teach students about an industry undergoing several paradigm shifts at once, from cryptocurrency to retail trading. Professor Boyson's research and teaching interests fall in the area of investments and corporate finance, with a focus on regulatory arbitrage, hedge fund management, and hedge fund activism. Prior to joining the D'Amore-McKim faculty in 2004, Professor Boyson was an Assistant Professor at Purdue University. Prior to joining Purdue, Professor Boyson was a manager for Ernst & Young, the VP of Investments for Pension Consulting Services, an analyst for Third Federal Savings and Loan, and a senior accounting at KPMG Peat Marwick. A Certified Public Accountant, Professor Boyson has served on: the Editorial Board of the Financial Analysts Journal, the board of the Midwest Finance Association, and has been a member of numerous program committees of professional organizations. She acts as an ad-hoc referee for journals including The Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, and The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

Not only is Velera Wilson a strategic driver for top brands worldwide and the founder of Positive Identity, a company inspires and equips women to own their greatness; she's also the author of a new book, "You're Absolutely Worth It", which continues her mission of teaching women to succeed without hesitation. On this episode, hear the global speaker discuss writing the book and the experiences that created it, as well as its many themes: taking risks, mentorship, faith, overcoming failure, and more. After listening, make sure to purchase the book for yourself on her website! Confidence, self-worth, imposter syndrome, women in leadership. Velera Wilson is a global speaker, author, and consultant that unravels and addresses these topics head-on with inspirational and transformative messages for ambitious women. Having led marketing strategy and driving revenue for Fortune 100 and 500 brands for almost twenty years, Velera is recognized as a female leader in the tech industry, being selected in 2019 as the U.S. Ambassador for Money 20/20 Rise Up, a global accelerator program for women, and in 2020 named to the Fiserv Leading Women cohort. From her acclaimed book, "You're Absolutely Worth It," to being a contributing writer for Thrive Global on women's issues, to publishing guides including "Six Steps to Negotiate the Salary You Deserve Without Letting Fear Override," Velera leverages her insight to challenge and inspire women to own their voice to thrive. Follow Velera on Twitter @VeleraWilson https://www.velerawilson.com/ Buy "You're Absolutely Worth It"

Beginning the new season of The Black Swans podcast is Megan Gorman, who breaks down the latest tax proposals in Biden's American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, which cover child tax credits, capital gains rates, and more. Gorman found her passion for taxes after leaving her small hometown in New Jersey for college; today, she's a founder and managing partner of Chequers Financial Management in San Francisco, with clientele ranging from entrepreneurs to those with inherited family wealth. Hear her also explain the ins and outs of a career in estate planning in this episode.  Megan Gorman is the founder and managing partner of Chequers Financial Management, a female owned high net worth tax and financial planning firm in San Francisco, California. Megan's clientele ranges from entrepreneurs to corporate executives to inherited family wealth. An attorney by training, she is passionate about the problem-solving required to work in the world of complex financial planning. Megan spent the first part of her career as a Vice-President at Ayco, A Goldman Sachs Company and BNY Mellon Wealth Management. She has a B.A. in History from Bryn Mawr College and a JD from Rutgers School of Law. She is a Senior Contributor at Forbes and writes on personal finance and income tax. She is frequently quoted across prominent financial media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNBC and US News. Megan also speaks on topics including taxes, retirement and estate planning. Her recent engagements include Schwab Impact, Tory Burch Foundation, Chief and Better Place Forests. She can be heard weekly on the panel of the Money Tree Investing Podcast discussing trending topics in the investment world. She is also appearing regularly on WealthManagement.com's Celebrity Estates: Wills of the Rich and Famous Podcast where recent episodes include discussions on the estate plans of Tom Petty, Prince and Luke Perry. Megan is currently serving on the Rutgers Law School Alumni Board and on the Board of Trustees for the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE). She is an adjunct professor of law at Golden Gate School of Law. Connect with Megan on Twitter @megan_e_gorman  https://www.thewealthintersection.com/

Dominique Mielle is a former partner and senior portfolio manager at hedge fund Canyon Capital, is currently a full-time corporate board director, and ws named as Ernst & Young's 2017 "Top 50 Women in Hedge Funds." In this episode, Mielle discusses changes in the financial industry, retail investing and the ongoing GameStop phenomenon, and her forthcoming book, Damsel in Distressed. Also, the experienced investor talks about women in the industry, arguing that women shouldn't be ashamed to aspire toward wealth and success and should also enter the investment side for the fun of it.  Dominique Mielle is a Wall Street veteran with a comprehensive knowledge of corporate finance, capital markets, and the bankruptcy process.  She was a partner and senior portfolio manager at Canyon Capital, a $25 billion hedge fund, where she worked from 1998 to 2018. In 2017, she was named one of the "Top 50 Women in Hedge Funds" by the Hedge Fund Journal and E&Y.  After retiring in 2018 she started writing. Her book, Damsel in Distressed: My life in the golden age of hedge funds, will be released in August 2021. It is a humorous account of her career as a female investor in the male-dominated investment world. She is a Forbes contributor on hedge funds, distressed investing and women in finance. Her column is meant for both dilettantes and practitioners, with a loosely-inspired Sex and The City tone. One of the only senior women in the hedge fund business, she played key roles in complicated bankruptcies, serving as a leading creditors' committee member for Puerto Rico, and as a restructuring committee member for U.S. airlines in the wake of the September 11 attacks. She was a director of the board and the audit committee chair for PG&E during its fifteen-month bankruptcy process and emergence, and now serves on several corporate boards: Digicel Group, Anworth, Tiptree and Studio City.  Follow Dominique on Twitter: @DominiqueMielle Damsel in Distressed Pre-Order