Marlena Lee: What a Nobel Prize Winner Taught Me About Beating the Market

In this episode of The Blunt Dollar, Ignacio sits down with Marlena Lee, Global Head of Investment Solutions at Dimensional Fund Advisors. 

Marlena leads a 70-person team that bridges deep academic research with practical client education, helping investors navigate the complexities of markets, factor investing, and long-term portfolio construction.

With a PhD from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and experience working alongside Nobel laureate Eugene Fama, Marlena shares her unique insights into translating rigorous research into real-world investment strategies. 

We dive into her career journey, her biggest lessons from Fama, and how she’s helping advisors and investors make smarter decisions today.

In this episode, we discuss:

🔹 Lessons from working with Eugene Fama and simplifying complex ideas
🔹 How Dimensional turns academic research into real-world investing strategies
🔹 The critical role of storytelling and empathy in finance communication
🔹 Redefining risk and the true meaning of diversification
🔹 Why preparation beats prediction when dealing with market uncertainty

If you're interested in market behavior, smart investing, or the art of financial storytelling, this episode is for you.

Oh, and if you haven't already... subscribe to The Blunt Dollar for more raw and honest finance conversations.

New episodes drop every other week! Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.

And last, but not least, don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignacio-ramirez-moreno-cfa/

Enjoy the episode!

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Listeners should consult a qualified financial professional before making any financial decisions.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you have that philosophy that the markets are
always going to be smarter thanany individual investor and this
idea that markets will alwaysbe priced to reward investors,
the combination of those twoideas is super powerful and
freeing Markets reward investorsover the long run.
I strongly believe that marketsdo a great job of getting

(00:20):
information into prices so thatyou should expect a positive
expected return every single day, every single moment that the
market is open.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Blunt Dollar
.
Today's guest is Marlena Lee,Global Head of Investment
Solutions at Dimensional FundAdvisors.
She studied and workedalongside Nobel laureate Eugene
Fama while earning her PhD atthe University of Chicago Booth
School of Business.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Bear markets, down markets they will happen.
You know there's different waysthat you can plan and prepare.
Financial plans shouldn't beset and forget Process of
updating the plan where it's hey, if things get tough for longer
, then maybe we need to savemore, maybe we need to cut back
on spending.
Those are the things that areunder our control.
So the only thing we can reallydo is plan for it.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
This is the Blonde Dollar with Ignacio Ramirez.
Quick disclaimer Gracias,ramírez.

(01:51):
Research and consult aqualified advisor before making
any financial decisions.
All investments involve risk,including the potential loss of
capital.
And now let's get started withthe episode.
Welcome everyone to a newepisode of the Blunt Dollar.
Today's guest is Marlena Lee,global Head of Investment
Solutions at Dimensional FundAdvisors.
Marlena leads a 70person teamthat sits at the intersection of
investment research and clienteducation, helping advisors and
institutions make sense ofmarkets, factor investing and

(02:12):
long-term portfolio construction.
Before stepping into hercurrent role, marlena co-led
Dimensional's research team andhelped set the firm's global
research agenda.
And, going even further back,she studied and worked alongside
none other than Nobel laureateEugene Fama while earning her
PhD at the University of ChicagoBooth School of Business.

(02:35):
Marlena has a deepunderstanding of academic
finance, but what really standsout is her ability to make those
concepts clear, practical andrelevant for investors.
Today, in this episode, we'lltalk about what it is to be
learning from Eugene Fama, whyinvestors struggle with

(02:56):
uncertainty, and how to thinkmore clearly about
diversification, fads and therole of value in a long-term
portfolio.
Marlena, it's absolutelyamazing to have you on the show.
Welcome to the Blunt Dollar.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Thanks, I'm super excited to be here.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
So, before we get things going, maybe a very quick
add.
The reason why Marlena and Iare talking today is because the
CFA Institute very kindly madean introduction.
Why?
Well, because both of us aregoing to be at the CFA Institute
Live 2025 Chicago conference.
It's taking place from the 4thtill the 7th of May.

(03:30):
There's going to be over 2,000investment professionals talking
about some of the major topicsshaping finance today.
Marlena is going to be there, Iam going to be there, and many,
many other people are going tobe there.
So if you're into finance, intomarkets, into networking, make
sure to attend.
This is going to be one of thecoolest events within finance

(03:51):
this year.
You can check out all theinformation and the agenda on
the CFA Institute's website, andyou will also see that Marlena
is going to be participating ina panel discussion called Data
Mastery Crafting InvestmentStories from Big Data.
I'm very, very excited aboutthat one.
I'll make sure to attend.
So, again, go and please checkout the CFA Institute live

(04:14):
website.
It's going to be absolutely ablast.
So, marlena, now that we havethat out of the way, let's get
things started and please tellus what is it that you do
exactly today?
Give us a little bit of anintroduction of your role at
Dimensional.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, sounds good.
So I run a team calledInvestment Solutions, as you
kind of mentioned.
I came out of the research sideof Dimensional and what I was
finding then was, you know,research at dimensional is is
pretty in depth, um, theresearch is done.
When it's done, we want to makesure that we don't leave any
stones unturned, um, and thatmeans it sometimes can be a

(04:55):
pretty lengthy process.
Um, and just the speed at whichpeople consume information
these days.
Right, it's so much, it's morebite-sized and it just I think
that there was a need forsomething to sit more in the
middle of.
Yes, let's still be true, to allof the rigor that we have in

(05:19):
our investments, a lot of itrequires a lot of technical
expertise, a lot of deep dive, alot of details.
But how can we elevate that soit can reach a broader audience?
How do we make sure that we aremeeting our clients like,
regardless of their level oftechnical expertise, where they
want to consume informationabout us?
Some of that might be analytics, some of it might be content

(05:42):
pieces, some of it might be aconversation analytics.
Some of it might be contentpieces, some of it might be a
conversation.
So the team really works hardon making sure that we have all
of the stuff, the information,but packaged in a way that it's
starting to really resonateacross a different segment of
clients.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
That's amazing.
We're going to be talking a lotabout exactly how you do all of
that at Dimensional, but beforewe dig into that, I suggest we
start talking a bit about youand your story.
I always like to start withthat part when I have guests
here in the show.
So I know that you pursued aPhD at the University of Chicago
Booth School and now obviouslyyou work in asset management and

(06:23):
obviously you're overlookingbillions of assets.
So can you maybe walk usthrough that journey from
academia and into assetmanagement and what motivated
the transition?

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, sure.
So it actually started atChicago, so can't wait to be at
the CFA event in Chicago.
I love Chicago.
Spent five years of my lifethere, chicago, I love Chicago.
Spent five years of my lifethere and there I was.
As you mentioned, I was workingunder some of the greatest
minds of finance, includingProfessor Fama, and what I found

(06:58):
was through the process of thevery painful process of trying
to get through my dissertation.
I just didn't feel like academicresearch was right for me.
It felt a little bit toosolitary and I just, you know, I
feel I get energy talking aboutthese concepts to other people.
So it was.
It was actually while I wasfinishing up the PhD I went to,
you know, my advisors, of whichFama was one, and he connected

(07:21):
me to dimensional.
So I moved down to Austin, beenat Dimensional for my entire
postgraduate career.
Wow, because it's yeah, I mean,it was just the right transition
because I had, you know,trained and learned all of the
like, the really deep assetpricing and just kind of like

(07:42):
that Chicago perspective oninvesting, really influenced by
a lot of the research from Gene,and that perspective on markets
I think is very unique, twodimensional.
You don't really see it in verymany asset management places,
you know, if you on Wall Streetor or other places.
So this idea of I wasn't readyto completely jump ship off of

(08:06):
research and joining theresearch team at Dimensional was
kind of this perfect in between, because we take our research
very seriously.
It still has all of thatacademic rigor, we're really
building on the ideas of thesegiants, but to see it come to
life and, more importantly forme, especially where my role has

(08:29):
taken me, getting those ideasto people, where it can actually
change their investmentoutcomes, how they think about
investing, how they think aboutgetting to the best investment
experience they can have.
That, to me, is really what'srewarding for me and that's
something that I've really beenable to find at Dimensional.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
That's awesome and I love seeing that you've done all
your professional career in thesame place.
That's so rare nowadays, so ittruly means that you must love
what you're doing and thecolleagues and the culture over
there.
That's pretty cool.
So I'm sorry, because I'm sureyou get this question like a
thousand times a day, butobviously I think you're the

(09:13):
first person I know that workedso closely with Gene Gene Fama,
I mean, obviously.
I think all of the listeners tothe podcast of this podcast know
who he is.
He's considered one of thefathers of modern finance
because of his work on theefficient market hypothesis that
transformed the way we thinkabout investing, and he even

(09:34):
earned a Nobel Prize because ofthat work, I believe.
So for many he's like atheoretical giant, but for you
he was your professor, yourmentor, your advisor, you just
said, and you were his teachingassistant.
A theoretical giant, but foryou he was your professor, your
mentor, your advisor, you justsaid, and you were his teaching
assistant.
What was it like studying underGene Fama and working alongside

(09:55):
him on all this research?

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I mean I thought it was pretty intimidating dating.
He is just such a master ofmaking some ideas that are so,
so complex and simplifying itdown to its kind of core tenets

(10:19):
and the importance, especiallyin language, of that importance,
especially in language, of thatto me was something that I
really took appreciation forwhen I was taking his class of
kind of like what you may have avery complex idea, but you
really need to have asimplifying framework in order
to clarify what assumptionsyou're making, what assumptions

(10:50):
you're making, what are ways totest a hypothesis, and I think
it's really an art form to dothat.
And then, when I became histeaching assistant, I had a much
better appreciation for all ofthis because, as I'm correcting
the exams, you can tell, basedon how many words people use to

(11:20):
answer a question, how well theyactually understand it.
A perfectly crafted answer to alot of these questions would,
in order to teach it to someone,that really requires just such
a deeper understanding and justprecision and language and
precision and thought issomething that I've never seen
anyone quite master it like Jean.

(11:41):
Wow, so it was it.
Was it like Gene?

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
So it was a fantastic experience.
I bring a lot of those lessonsto me every day.
You know we create content andthe goal is to try how do we get
to the most compelling argumentand how can we make that in the
shortest but still the mostcompelling way possible.
That's an art.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
It's not that easy to do?
No, 100%.
Particularly not in finance,where we have this tendency to
overcomplicate things.
So, would you say, that's yourmain learning from your peer
over there the realization ofthe importance of being able to
simplify complex terms andexplain them in plain vanilla

(12:28):
words and really going straightto the point.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, absolutely being straight to the point,
being able to connect just theflow of an argument.
So I was always.
There's one thing that Genesaid and this is when he was
teaching his first year PhDcourse and we're going through,
in my opinion, a lot of complexresearch but he was talking

(12:53):
about some of those very earlybut completely industry changing
papers cross -section ofexpected returns paper, the 1992
, the 1993 papers.
He said he didn't think thatthose papers were all that
groundbreaking or revolutionaryand basically what they did was

(13:13):
gather up a whole bunch ofdisparate findings and put them
together in a way that peoplecould just see it Like it just
hit them over the head so thatthey couldn't ignore it anymore.
So he always described some ofthose successes as half
marketing, half research.
And coming from Gene, I don'tknow, he just doesn't really
strike me as a marketer, I don'tknow.

(13:35):
It's something that I've alwayscarried with me.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Wow, yeah, I wouldn't have thought about him neither
that way.
For me he's like thequintessential finance nerd.
I mean, if you build a modelthat shapes the whole finance
industry, you have to have thattitle.
But it's interesting whatyou're saying, because something

(14:00):
I noticed while I was doingresearch for this episode and
seeing the other interviewsyou've done is that you have
like a very unique profile.
You have a very technicalprofile on one side, but you're
an excellent communicator on theother and obviously it's not
easy to come by profiles likeyours profiles like yours.

(14:23):
So my question for you is howdo you approach translating all
these complex, deep, academicinsights into something real and
useful for advisors in such aclear way, and what role does
storytelling play in all of thisway, and what role does

(14:48):
storytelling play in all ofthese?

Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, I think that storytelling plays a really
important role.
So when I think about just howdo I go about crafting a story,
the first thing and this iswhere the technical background I
think helps is, for me, it'sreally important to first
understand what do the data say,and I can't craft a story until
I know what the data say.

(15:09):
I want to really be able tounderstand what are the things
that I can't infer from it?
What are the things I can?
Have I thought aboutcorrelation versus causation?
Have I thought about like,magnitudes of like?
Is this actually somethingimportant?
And once I feel like I have apretty good handle of what

(15:32):
actually is happening, then Ineed to figure out okay, well,
what is it that's important tothe audience, like what messages
will resonate?
And then thinking about likeyou know, data visualizations or
how to package it comes last.
I often see people make themistake of trying to do that in
reverse order of how do I make apretty chart?
Like no, no, no, you have tostart with what do you want to

(15:53):
say?
It seems obvious, but I see ittime and time again where it's
okay.
Well, let's look at this datavisualization.
It's so cool, like yeah, butit's just a lot of information.
I'm not sure what I'm supposedto take away from it.
It's actually really importantto think what is it that you
want to take away before I caneven decide, you know, should it

(16:14):
be a line chart or should it bea bar chart or whatever it is.
But that, I think, is the mostimportant.
Probably the harder thing to dois figure out what message does
your audience need to hear andhow can you best deliver it to
them, and that's going to bedifferent also for different

(16:36):
audiences.
So there's an element here of Iwould say it's almost empathy
or like there's some level ofhuman connection to and this is
why I think it's almost empathyor like there's some level of
human connection, and this iswhy I think it's actually really
important that for mepersonally, I meet with clients
all the time, so reallyunderstanding what is the
question behind the question,what is the goal that they are

(16:58):
trying to reach that they can'tcommunicate, and trying to
orient the information to reallyget to a place where it's
answering the underlying concernor the underlying goal that
they might not even know thatthey have.
So it's a little bit of an art.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
Associated with marrying the data work.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I love that part of answering the question behind
the question, like tryingsometimes to, yeah, to figure
out things that maybe theclients even haven't realized
themselves, and I guess thatcomes with experience.
Right, there's no other way ofputting it.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
It seems like from the research I've done about you
and your work, that curiosityhas always been pretty central
to your work.
From obviously researching howmarkets work to helping people
make better investment decisions.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Where does that huge intellectual curiosity,
particularly for financialmarkets, come from and how do
you keep it alive over time?
Yeah, I was trying to thinkabout this because I think in
order to be curious, you firsthave to be humble and you have
to realize that you don't knowanything like know everything,
and that just about everyone youcome in contact with they've

(18:27):
lived a different life, theyhave a different perspective.
There's probably something youcan learn from them, and I think
that that's one of the thingsthat have caused me to stay at
Dimensional.
It's just, there's always stuffto learn.
So it doesn't need to beentirely self-driven in my case,
because there's just so manyopportunities to learn from

(18:47):
someone else, but what it reallydoes take is just like knowing
that I don't need to be the oneto show someone here's all of
the information.
I know it's a much morerewarding conversation for me if
I can get someone talking aboutsomething that they're

(19:08):
interested, they're working on,they're passionate about, and
then just keep pulling on thatthread and eventually I'll find
I'll learn something new fromthem.
So it's a little bit of thathumility, it's a little bit of
just.
You know, I find connectionswith people, rewarding and
learning about them is part ofit, and that also leads to

(19:32):
opportunities to learn new stuff.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah, I think everyone has something to teach
us.
A lot of times I meet peoplethat tell me oh, but I'm not
interesting.
I'm like are you kidding?
I mean, you have so many thingsto share and so many things I'd
love to learn about, and a lotof times it's just to putting
them in the right frameworkstate of mind to be able to
share that knowledge and soak itin.

(19:58):
So I completely relate to whatyou're saying and all of that
has to come from, obviously, astate of mind of humbleness.
I wanted to ask you actually,before I ask you that, I wanted
to ask you something else, whichis what did you write your PhD
about?
Because I think we haven'ttalked about this yet.

(20:18):
What was the theme of yourthesis?
Hey there, quick favor to askIf you enjoy the blunt dollar,
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The easiest way to support theshow is by tapping that
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And here's my promise If you do, I'll keep bringing you honest
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(20:41):
finance talk that's engaging,insightful and worth your time.
Thanks so much for being hereand let's keep these great
finance conversations going.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Nacho, you're the first person to ask me that, I
think.
Ever, Ever In at least the lastdecade, because it wasn't really
that relevant to what I dotoday.
I was well earlier.
I was talking about correlationversus causation, so my
dissertation was on very boringhousing wealth effects so at

(21:17):
that point in time.
So I graduated in 2008.
So a lot of my PhD was duringhuh, yes, not yes, all of the
sarcasm, but yes, most of my PhDdissertation phase was written
during a time when, you know,the housing market was just

(21:39):
going bananas.
And at the time you know Fedmodels, economic prediction
models.
Try and figure out well, outwell, what's the wealth effect?
So if your house goes up by youknow $1,000, does that make you
feel richer and how much morewill you spend?
And at the time a lot of theestimates were about $0.03 to

(22:00):
$0.06 on the dollar and what Ikind of thought, that that was
more of a correlation than acausation.
So I showed that by comparingrenters and homeowners.
So renters, if they live in anarea with rising house prices,
they also tend to consume more.
But very clearly it cannot bebecause they feel richer.

(22:22):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
I love it, that's I mean.
It cannot be because they feelricher.
Wow, I love it.
I mean it's super interestinghonestly, oh, thanks, I don't
use it today, no, but I meanwith everything happening in
markets today.
I'm sure there's a couple ofthings in that thesis that we
could use to explain some of thethings happening in markets

(22:46):
nowadays.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
I do think this idea of correlation versus causation
is super important.
Yeah, and always having thatframe of mind of trying to
understand ways to tease thatout, that's always relevant.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, I'm very active on social media.
I follow a lot of financecreators and I think my most
common comment out there iscorrelation doesn't imply
causality, because so many timeswe tend to make that mistake.
I think we're pretty good atfinding correlations and

(23:25):
patterns across different datasets and things like that, but
obviously one thing doesn'tnecessarily explain the other.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
We're wired to see those correlations and we're
also because this is aboutstorytelling.
We're also very good at tellingstories to make it seem like
correlation could potentially becausation, and the reason why
it's so important to disentanglethe two is, if it's not
causation, there's not really agreat reason that you should
expect it on a go forward, sovery important.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, and I think it also has to do a lot with the
fact that we as humans need tofind explanations for everything
, which you know is the beautyand the curse of the finance
profession, I guess, becausesometimes you can find pretty
neat, you know, explanations andlogical, yeah explanations to

(24:19):
what's happening around us, butsometimes we make some weird
stuff up that doesn't make anysense, and differentiating
between the two is really,really important, especially
when you're talking aboutmanaging people's money.
So let's talk about dimensionalnow a little bit, because, yeah

(24:42):
, I think what you guys aredoing is pretty interesting.
So you are known for applyingvery rigorous academic research,
especially insights from Geneand Ken French, I believe to
real world investing, and Ithink that blend of theory and
execution to that extreme israre in the industry.
That extreme is rare in theindustry.

(25:03):
So, in practice, what does itmean to translate all this
academic research into portfolioconstruction and how?

Speaker 1 (25:16):
does that show up in the way you folks are building
strategies?
Yeah, well, how?

Speaker 2 (25:19):
much time do you have as?

Speaker 1 (25:21):
long as you need, because I would say a lot of,
yeah, a lot, of the insightsthat we use to build, to manage,
to execute these portfolios.
It does come from academicresearch, but the academic, you
know, an academic paper, I think, would only get you about 10%
of the way, percent of the wayyou really actually have to like

(25:48):
for us, and we have a very deepinternal research team where
really understanding what theimplications are of a particular
research paper takes a lot morevetting, right.
So you need to first make sureyou're not chasing something
that's data-mined.
You need to make sure that it'ssomething that you can actually
implement in a real worldportfolio, right, because paper

(26:09):
profits in a simulation is notthe same thing as managing money
to it.
You have to make sure thatsomething you're looking at is
additive, right, it's not just arecreation of something that
you're already pursuing and allof those things.
Like there's differenttechniques that you can do to

(26:31):
resolve all of those concerns.
But that takes a lot ofadditional research beyond what
you might just read about inthat initial publication, and I
think that once you get pastsome of those things and you
momentum or so, this is gettinga little bit in the weeds, but

(27:13):
one you can put into a portfolioand not result in a lot a lot
of turnover and one results in alot of trading and a lot of
churn.
So you have to also justunderstand how these premiums
behave in markets in order tostart constructing a portfolio
where you're thinking about howthese premiums interact with

(27:38):
each other, how they wouldimpact things like turnover,
which is super important because, in the end, turnover means
costs potentially, and so if thepremium isn't big enough to
offset any kind of additionalcosts and it wasn't worth it.
So there's a lot of, there'sbasically a lot.
There's a lot of additionalwork to translate these into

(28:00):
something that you can actuallyuse to confidently add value in
terms of net of trading costs orjust net return.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
So you were talking about factors like value and
profitability.
How do you decide which factorsmatter and when they should be
emphasized more or less?
I mean, obviously, I guessthere's a part of this that you
cannot disclose.
But yeah, how do you do this?
Because it looks like rocketscience to me.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Well, you have to.
I think that there's a fewthings.
So the major ones that I thinkan advisor or someone who's
putting together an overallportfolio can really pay
attention to are, in our view,would be size, so smaller

(28:52):
companies tend to have higherreturns than larger value, so
lower priced companies versushigher priced.
And then profitability, so moreprofitable companies tend to
have higher returns than lowprofitable ones, and there's
really good reasons why youshould expect that to be the
case.
And then, on top of thosereasons, then you also have, you

(29:16):
know, data from all around theworld spanning decades that
support this.
So I would say the first thingyou have to do is how confident
are you in any given factor?
So those are three that we'repretty confident in.
The second is are you confidentthat you can pursue them after
costs?
So those three you can run inportfolios with very low

(29:40):
turnover.
So we have, you know, thingsthat are like market-wide
portfolios with kind of highsingle-digit annual turnover, so
very, very low, index-liketurnover, pursuing those types
of factors.
And then and then how do theylike?
Play with each other, augmenteach other.

(30:00):
So, for example, profitabilityis a very good compliment for
value.
Pursuing both of thosesimultaneously helps you get to
a like, basically a smootherride, helps you pursue
outperformance with lowertracking error.
So those are all good things.
How does size fit into the mix?
Well, we know that a lot ofthese premiums tend to show up

(30:25):
more in small caps.
So paying attention to howyou're kind of pushing on all of
these different dimensions in aportfolio all simultaneously is
, you know, it's kind of the artin our mind how do you push on
or how do you determine what'sthe most important one?
From our perspective, all threeof those are important, and

(30:51):
there is a trade-off, though ofwe often have clients ask okay,
well, how much of each do I putin?
I would say you probably wantall three, but I can't tell you
if you want a light dose of themor a really heavy dose, because
in the end, that goes to howtolerant are you to looking
different from the market, tohaving the potential to

(31:13):
underperform the market inperiods where those premiums are
not showing up, and then, ofcourse, there's a lot of other
things.
So those are, I would say, thethree main ones, and then I just
mentioned things like pricemomentum.
There's reversals, so pricemomentum is the tendency for a
stock that has been doingrelatively well to continue to

(31:33):
do relatively well in the nextsix to 12 months.
Reversals is basically theopposite, but at a much shorter
term frequency.
So you know, over the next dayor week, something that has done
really well tends tounderperform.
So those now we're talkinginstead of having portfolios
that can have, let's just say,anywhere between 10 to 30%

(31:58):
turnover to pursue.
Now we're talking aboutportfolios.
In simulations they can havemultiple hundreds percent return
.
It's a very different type ofinformation about expected
returns that decays reallyquickly.
So how you use that needs to bedifferent if you don't want to

(32:19):
have a portfolio that's going toturn over a lot.
So I would say that there's alot of different.
Whether you want to call themfactors or dimensions, premiums,
whatever it is, you want tomake sure that first you believe
it, that it's not justsomething that's data mined.
For that you want to look atall of the data you can get.
We have far more confidence insomething that usually gets

(32:41):
found first in the US and thenyou want to take it to markets
outside of the US.
Do you see the same thing?
If yes, that gives usconfidence.
Okay, it wasn't just somethingthat we data mined out of the US
data, is there a good reason toexpect it.
That's, you know, just like wewere saying, causation versus

(33:03):
correlation.
If there's a mechanism thathelps you give you more
confidence that this is a causalrelationship, then it's
something that you should expectto continue in the future.
So those kinds of things Ithink are all really important
to everything we put into theportfolios.
And then you also want to bepretty flexible and thinking and
being smart about how youactually apply it.
So whether we're going to tilta portfolio, so in other words,

(33:25):
overweight certain stocks versusthe market, that's one
mechanism For things that arevery high turnover we may just
say, well, let's actually slowdown the turnover and say,
rather than buy or sellsomething today, I'm going to
wait a little bit.
So how that looks is, let's justsay I have a portfolio that

(33:45):
wants to sell something, but italso has up momentum.
Up momentum tells me, well,it's going to continue to
outperform for a few months.
Then maybe I just want to letthat momentum kind of peter out.
I'll basically hold back myturnover, wait to sell it, as
opposed to selling it today.
Just as an example of howthere's lots of different ways

(34:07):
you can express the informationthat we find in academic
research depending on how itbehaves in markets academic
research depending on how itbehaves in markets.
Another thing that we might dois we just exclude certain
things from the portfolios.
So there are segments of, forexample, the small cap market
which just have such poorreturns.
We can completely exclude thoseif we think it's not going to

(34:30):
be that detrimental todiversification.
So having like a lot ofdifferent ways to implement
these different researchfindings is part of the art, and
what I see often in otherapproaches that may try to do
like a factor-based approach isokay, let's treat all of the

(34:50):
factors the same.
Right, we have our value factor, momentum factor and we're
going to treat them the same.
That doesn't really reflect thenuance that you see in how
these premiums behave.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Wow, I feel I just had an MBA about factor
investing in like five minutes.
Thanks for that.
I'm going to be re-listening tothat section and taking a bunch
of notes, but thanks for thecall.
Yeah, it's super interesting,and you were talking about
implementation a moment ago.
I know that you've emphasizedimplementation as a source of

(35:24):
edge in the past.
How trades are executed, howtaxes are managed, how
portfolios adjust in real timeCan the implementation ever be
as important as the investmentstrategy itself?
You think?

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Oh, I think the two are.
They go hand in hand,absolutely hand in hand.
So there, in the end, a lot oflike the premiums will drive
kind of the high level returns.
But let's just say we'relooking at, yeah, there's a

(36:01):
whole Morningstar category, forexample, of value funds, a whole
category of small cap funds.
Yet within each of thosecategories you still see a lot
of return dispersion.
So that's where I thinkdifferent managers, different
portfolios will have differentways of pursuing those premiums.
We'll certainly have differentways of implementing it.

(36:23):
Even if you look at, like themost plain vanilla examples like
let's just say I want to lookat just overall market
portfolios, like think veryplain vanilla, no factor tilts,
none of those things.
And I take index funds thattrack those you still see

(36:45):
tracking differences across justplain vanilla indices.
Of course, like you're going tosee a lot more if you're
looking at small cap indices.
But so there is basically a lotof potential dispersion in
returns just because returns areso noisy.
But then what we do find arethings like if you have more

(37:09):
turnover, those portfolios areless likely to outperform their
benchmarks.
Why?
Probably because they havehigher trading costs.
So I do think it's one of thosethings that it's important to
pay attention to.
I think every part of theinvestment process Understanding

(37:29):
what premiums or factors onewants to pursue is definitely
important.
But then how they pursue it, isthere flexibility in the
process so you're not losingreturns at the point of the
trade?
That's where I think indexfunds potentially kind of fall
and where I would absolutelyrecommend any listeners or

(37:52):
investors that you have to payattention to more than just the
headline expense ratio.
Those keep coming down.
You can get an index fund forvery cheap but you have to ask
yourself what are the additionalcosts associated with that that
you don't get to see in thatexpense ratio?
And I would say a primary onewould be trading costs.

(38:14):
Or, if they're rebalancinginfrequently, did they miss out
on some of the premiums becausethey only look, you know, once
or four times a year and thinkabout rebalancing their
portfolio so that you might havesome style drift and some
opportunity costs associatedwith that.
With that, all of those thingsresult in, I would say, a

(38:36):
potential for a lower expectedreturn but it does take more to
evaluate those things.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
And something I wanted to ask you about related
to all of that is that obviouslythere's all the theory and what
you see in your models and soon, and then you have like real
world behavior, which is alwaysespecially when emotions kick in
, and how do you reconcile whatyou have in your Excel
spreadsheets with the messinessof real life investors, advisors

(39:13):
and human behavior and all thebiases we're subject to?

Speaker 1 (39:19):
It's one of the reasons why we really focus on
working with financialprofessionals and because I
think the answer it's not asilver bullet but, I think, one
of the most powerful tools wehave to dealing with investor
behavior or biases or, you know,letting emotions dictate what

(39:39):
happens in their investmentportfolios, like we want to
remove all of that because whatwe know is that markets reward
investors over the long run andthat I strongly believe that.
You know, markets do a greatjob of getting information into
prices so that you should expecta positive expected return
every single day, every singlemoment that the market is open.

(40:01):
So if you start with thatpremise and can get people to
stick with their investments forthe long run, then they're not
going to harm themselves by, youknow, getting in the market or
out of the market at the worstpossible times.
And a big part of that iseducation.

(40:23):
It's setting expectations on.
This is how markets work.
First of all, because if youhave that philosophy that the
markets are always going to besmarter than any individual
investor, then and this ideathat markets will always be
priced to reward investors thecombination of those two ideas

(40:47):
is super powerful and freeing.
It means you don't have to payattention to what's happening in
the headlines and freak out andsay like I need to get out of
my stocks because of all of themarket volatility, and then when
are you going to get back in?
You know there's.
We need to have kind of aphilosophy and framework to get
us to be that discipline,long-term investor that doesn't

(41:14):
freak out when we see marketvolatility or freak out when we
see negative headlines.
So for us, that's education andalso working with financial
professionals, because in theend, where does that discipline
come from?
Or we're like we're not goingto in the end.
I know, like all of thefinancial I, you know I.
I know, like all of thefinancial research stuff, you

(41:36):
know, I know all of the studiesabout, you know, active
management doesn't win.
And and still I, sometimes I'mlike oh gosh, markets are really
volatile right now.
But having an advisor to kind ofhelp you stay the course is so
important.
So for us, that layer of havingbasically a coach right, it's

(41:58):
just like you'd hire a coach tohelp you work out at the gym.
Our financial picture is one ofthose areas where I think for
us at Dimensional, it's reallyimportant for us to always
remember all of those dollarsreflect sacrifices People had to

(42:21):
save.
They had to sacrifice in orderto have that money to save and
it reflects a hope or a goal forthem in the future.
There are very tangible livesbehind all of the assets that we
manage and I think that alwaysremembering that is very

(42:41):
important so that you don't justkind of lapse into it's just
numbers, it's just basis pointsis always really important to
remember and empathize, so thatyou can kind of have this like
foundational ground of like Iget you, I see you, but still

(43:04):
you can't let your fear takeover.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
I think all of that's really important.
These deep partnerships thatyou've established with advisors
, not only as a distributionchannel, but as collaborators in
, as you were saying, education,and even like the way that you
shape your strategy.
That's pretty unique, I'd say.
And yeah, I think a part of thesuccess of this formula is

(43:31):
obviously that a lot of theseadvisors are professionals and
very good investmentcommunicators.
So I wanted to ask you aquestion about that In your view
, what separates greatinvestment communicators from
the average ones?
Hey there, quick ad break.
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely

(43:54):
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table.
Or maybe you know someone witha story worth telling?
Please put us in touch.
You can reach out to medirectly via LinkedIn.
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
Oh, I think, having a point of view and a philosophy.
So one of the and the financialadvisors we work with they're
all independent, so they don'thave to work with dimensional

(44:40):
that they determine that we'retheir best solution or that we
want to be that.
But it is our job to continuebeing kind of on the cutting
edge, continuing to push theenvelope and get better so that
they want to select us.
So I think that that's reallyimportant and a part of that is
this idea that we don't thinkwe're the smartest out there.

(45:04):
We actually think that themarket does a fantastic job of
pricing news as it comes out.
We're kind of seeing the marketdo a really good job of pricing
information as it comes out.
Right Like market volatility ispart of a well-functioning
market and that I think if wehave that as our cornerstone,

(45:25):
from that you can branch offinto how do we communicate to
whether it's helping advisorscommunicate to their clients or
communicating to investorseverywhere that while the
headlines or whatever it is,there's always the economic

(45:47):
implications of of anything,even though those are still down
the road, still unfolding.
This idea that markets havealready incorporated that and
they move first is such animportant concept and I think
that any kind of investmentcommunicator that gets that and

(46:09):
that embeds that and how theycommunicate.
It's so freeing to have kind oflike that touch point that you
come back to time and time again.
Kind of like that touch pointthat you come back to time and
time again and working withinvestors and being able to kind
of modify whatever you'resaying to what they're feeling

(46:30):
at that moment.
But having that base of aninvestment message that is
consistent, I think actually isreally important for any
communicator.
It's not just the communication, it's how do you work with
clients.
And when it comes to investing,I think people want peace of
mind and having a story that isnot changing, that you're not

(46:56):
making excuses about.
You know, gosh, I got thatinvestment call wrong and here
you know I'm going to do betternext time, or whatever it is.
Instead, to have something thatis like a cornerstone, I think
is one of the key ways to givepeace of mind.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Fun fact.
Storytelling that you werealluding to is my number one
objective for 2025, gettingbetter at telling stories this
year, I think, is going to be mypriority, because I think it's
one of the most underratedskills for finance professionals
, One of those things thateveryone talks about but no one

(47:35):
really takes it too seriously ornot many people and the more I
think about it and the moreyears I spend in the industry,
the more I realize that it'sclearly one of the most
important things out there.
So if you master that, you havevery high chances of becoming a

(47:57):
better finance profession, inmy opinion.
I'll let you know how thatjourney goes Good luck, nacho,
it's a good goal.
Yeah, yeah, I think it'ssomething that it's going to
take several years, but I thinkI'm into something I'll let you
know.
So I want to shift now to acompletely different topic,

(48:17):
which is risk.
Obviously, in everyday language, people use risk as a measure
of danger or loss, but infinance, obviously, the
definition is a little bit morenuanced.
It can refer to differentthings.
So I wanted to ask you how doyou refine risk at Dimensional
in the context of long-terminvesting, and why do you think

(48:40):
that risk is such an importantfactor?

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Yeah, so I'll kind of almost start at the end.
Which is what should risk be toan investor?
And there's some very easydefinitions and I think
therefore the easy ones areoverused, like volatility.
You can calculate volatilityvery easily.
You have a return stream, youpop it into Excel.

(49:07):
It's reported everywhere.
Volatility probably isn't thebest measure of risk for an end
client, or at least I wouldargue that a more relevant
measure of risk is are you ontrack for your goals?
If we're talking about someonewho's saving for retirement, I

(49:29):
would say the measure of risk isare you going to run out of
money?
Can you support the spendinglevel that you want?
Are you going to outlive yoursavings?
That that, to me, is.
It makes so much more sense asthe correct measure of risk, but
it's a harder one becausethere's so many uncertainties

(49:51):
there and sometimes those twothings they can contend against
each other, right?
Because if I talk aboutvolatility and like I don't want
to take any risk and I'mmeasuring it as volatility, then
maybe I put everything in.
You know uber, safe bonds or CD, you know T-bills and that's
going to have lower volatility.
But it also heightens the riskthat you will not meet your

(50:18):
investment goals or that you'llrun out of money because those
are not high expected returnassets.
The volatile stuff is right.
We know that, at leasthistorically, what grows wealth
are volatile assets likeequities.
I think another more financial,professional angle on that is

(50:40):
all of the boon privates, right.
Like just because you don't seeit getting repriced doesn't
mean there's not volatility.
And are you, you know, kind ofputting the the horse before the
cart?
No, the cart before the horse.
Oh gosh, I'm really bad withidioms, which is really funny,
but you know what I mean.

(51:01):
Where it's, I really worryabout people who may put things
into investment options, almostbecause they can cop out of
seeing the risk in it, andthat's awesome.
You know that's.
There are two different takes onit, but really identifying how

(51:23):
do you define risk?
And switching the narrative toeven if it's the harder one to
measure how do we, how it'sworthwhile thinking about.
And then it also helps reframewhat, um, how to put together a
portfolio.
So let's just use the runningout of money example where, if I

(51:46):
think, if you're sitting downfrom your advisor and you're
kind of nervous because there'sa lot of volatility out there
right now, right, if you'resaying markets are down, what
you know, what should I do, andyour advisor tells you we've
accounted for this, you're stillon track for your goals, you
still have decades ahead of you.

(52:06):
You don't have to worry aboutit.
To me, that reframes theproblem so that you can be more
disciplined, so that you knowyou don't have to freak out
because your advisor had alreadyplanned for this and most, I
think financial plans wouldincorporate lots of volatility
in it.
So that aspect of how to thinkabout risk, I think, is actually

(52:27):
a very important one, becauseit ties in and it marries to how
do we communicate investmentsso that we can encourage
discipline and long-termthinking In terms of how we
think about risk at dimensional,and long-term thinking In terms
of how we think about risk atdimensional.
There it's like it's so.
We have to think about it fromthat point of how do investors
think about it.
So we have to recognize thatit's not just about volatility

(52:50):
that investors also care about.
Well, like, how different do Ilook from the market?
So, thinking about things liketracking error, we also have to
think about just I would sayjust how do you build a really
robust, not frail, portfolio?
And from our perspective, thenumber one tool any investor has

(53:11):
for that is diversificationsector, any given country.
You know like as soon as youstart carving the market up and
holding subsets of it, you'readding additional potential
uncertainty, I think, as opposedto, you can hold the whole
market and not have to try andguess where returns are going to

(53:33):
come from.
And there, then, your premisefor why you should get positive
expected returns.
It's well, you know, there'salways innovation there's always
.
You know, I kind of think ofmarkets as like a huge ecosystem
with lots of competition anddifferent companies like
competing for resources, but inthe end you don't have to pick a

(53:56):
winner and loser because theoverall market system is fairly
resilient and we've seen itreward investors who can have
that broad framework.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
I loved how you were talking about volatility in
terms of having a plan and kindof sticking to it.
When you were talking aboutthat, it made me think about
that quote.
I think it's Mike Tyson thatsaid everyone has a plan until
you get punched in the face.
When you were talking aboutthat, it made me think about
that quote.
I think it's Mike Tyson thatsaid everyone has a plan until

(54:28):
you get punched in the face, andI guess, yeah, it's easy to
have long-term plans it soundsreasonable until downturns kick
in and difficult times come in.
And that's really, I guess andcoming back to what we were
talking about before, having aninvestment professional by your
side that has accounted forthese and communicates properly

(54:51):
is so important.
That's something I wanted tosay.
And the other thing, coming tothe concept of diversification
that you were just alluding to.
So I think everyone agrees thatdiversification is an excellent

(55:25):
idea, but I, in terms of thekind of exposures they get to,
or something completelydifferent.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Such a good question because I think that the wrong
question is how muchdiversification do I need, which
basically, I think, frames itas you know what's kind of I
don't know.
To me it's like do I need 30stocks?
Do I need 50 stocks?
Sometimes people point to youknow, just reduction in

(55:53):
volatility and say like, oh okay, well, it kind of plateaus
after you get to 50 or whatevernumber of stocks.
To me, that's the wrong way oflooking at it, but it's a very
common way To me.
I'd reframe it as I mean, atthis point you can get access to
global markets for not thathigh of expenses, Like the

(56:14):
expenses on building a globallydiversified portfolio is so low.
Now I think the question shouldbe why shouldn't I have all of
the diversification I can get?
It's not.
Do I need 50?
Do I need 100?
It's why shouldn't I have10,000?
And that, I think, is just areframing of the more the better

(56:37):
, and you might not see it interms of, like you know, as I
add, more the volatility, whathappens to that.
But what we know is is eventhinking about the US, right,
like I think a lot of peoplemight think, the S&P 500, you
have 500 or so number of names.
That should be plenty ofdiversification.

(56:59):
But on the other hand, whywouldn't you want global
diversification?
It's not always the case, eventhough the 15 years that we've
had recently has kind of made ithard to keep telling this story
because the US has been on sucha tear.
But if you go to the decade atthe start of this century, it
was the entirely reversedsituation, where it was

(57:21):
international markets that did alot better than US markets.
So the overall question, Ithink what's stopping people
from diversification is honestlylike a FOMO situation of why do
I want it all when these 10stocks or these MAG7 stocks are

(57:43):
doing so much better?
But on the other hand, thereare always going to be a handful
of stocks that are beatingeverything else.
That's just the nature of howmarkets work.
There's lots of dispersion, butunless you can identify those
in advance, then it's, and lotsof stuff says that's really hard

(58:04):
to do.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Yeah, then you want to hold it all.
Yeah, it's funny that you werealluding to the SMP, because
that's exactly the example thatI had in mind.
Like, a lot of people are notaware of the top heaviness of
the index.
They think they have, you know,equal exposure to 500 names,
when in reality, unless theybought the equally weighted
version of it, they have a hugeexposure to tech and it's that

(58:26):
kind of thing that I feelsometimes is a little bit
misunderstood.
And again we always come backto the same thing why it is so
important to have an investmentprofessional by your side.
I have a question regardinguncertainty.
So advisors and investmentprofessionals always feel the

(58:46):
pressure to forecast the future,but I believe your work
suggests that preparation oftenbeats prediction.
How should investment teamsprepare clients for an uncertain
world without over promising onthe precision part?

Speaker 1 (59:04):
Yeah, so that's where you know, we like to give
especially the financialprofessionals we work with like
lots and lots of data.
Where I actually do think aboutthere is a like returns are
noisy.
We're seeing this.
They have some years are reallygreat, some years are really
bad, and it all kind of averagesout, at least in the US over

(59:28):
the longest time period, toabout 10% annualized, you know.
But there's a lot of rangearound returns and, yeah, we
don't think that we can predictwhether it's going to be a good
year or a bad year.
Um, as soon as people find outthat I work in asset management,
they always ask oh, what is themarket going to do this year?

(59:49):
My answer is always the same.
I always say 10% plus or minus,20, um, which is actually, uh,
which is actually on the lowside in terms of the actual
volatility, and they don't seemto ever like that answer.
But I think it's a pretty youknow it's.
Basically, I don't have anyinformation that tells me the

(01:00:09):
distribution of returns.
What are the potential outcomesthat it should be any different
than it has been historicallyand it has been huge
historically.
So this is where this aspect ofworking with a financial
professional and understandingthat range of outcomes, that
markets, you know, bear markets,down markets they will happen

(01:00:31):
and they have happened and youcan plan for that right, like
you can.
If you have a long enoughholding period, you can.
If you have a long enoughholding period, then you know
you can modify how much youspend or save you can.
You know there's different waysthat you can plan and prepare

(01:00:52):
so that you're not drawing froma pile of, you know, your pool
of assets that are invested inreally volatile things if you
need it next year.
So I think that giving someunderstanding that these things
can happen, they will happen,like down markets will happen.
We've prepared for it.

(01:01:12):
Your financial plan can survivemarket downturn and if things
look really bad relative to whatwe prepared, then we can modify
course.
I actually think that that'salso really important for to
work with an advisor, becausefinancial plans shouldn't be set
and forget right.
It should be.
We can make plans knowing therange and potential outcomes,

(01:01:38):
but as we progress through ourlives and through time, those
kind of expectations all of asudden become realized, right.
So at some point we don't needto guess what next year's return
is.
The year will be past us and wewill have known and we can
update our plan.
So that process of updating theplan, where it's hey, if things
get tough for longer, thenmaybe we need to save more,

(01:02:00):
maybe we need to cut back onspending, those are the things
that are under our control.
The things that aren't underour control is market movements.
So I think we should actuallygive up trying to.
Well, we definitely can'tcontrol markets.
I've not seen great evidencethat anyone can really predict
them in a useful way.
So the only thing we can reallydo is plan for it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
I love it.
I love it.
Yeah, 100%.
No one can predict it for sure.
Otherwise, yeah, they wouldhave their own hedge fund and
would be probably a billionaireby now, and the only thing that
most of us can do really is planand prepare and trying to stick
to the plan in the difficulttimes.
So, as we get close to the endof the interview, maybe a couple

(01:02:47):
of last questions regarding thefuture, where you see things
going.
So, regarding financial advice,obviously we've seen tons of
progress as of late better tools.
We've seen tons of progress asof late better tools, obviously,
the arrival of artificialintelligence.
That is shaking things up quitea lot.
Are you optimistic about thefuture of the finance industry

(01:03:13):
and of finance professionalsspecifically?
Do you think we're all going tolose our jobs in a couple of
years or are we still going tobe here 5, 10, 15 years down the
road?

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Gosh, I hope we're not all going to lose our job.
But yeah, no, I'm absolutelyoptimistic and there's a few
reasons for that.
So, first, we are seeing ashift in the industry from what
I would say kind of moretraditional pools of assets into
more of the wealth space.
Right, like, a lot ofworkplaces don't provide

(01:03:47):
pensions anymore and individualsare, you know, we're taking on
more and more responsibility forour own retirement planning,
our own savings, retirementplanning, our own savings.
And that shift, I think,requires the industry to

(01:04:08):
recognize that there are goingto be a lot more individuals
that need help, that needassistance in this, and that the
industry has some stepping upto do in terms of how do we get
kind of scalable but stillpersonalized advice?
And there's lots of, you know,different tools.

(01:04:28):
You know you mentioned AI,things like that.
I think that that's aninteresting area to kind of
watch.
I've, you know, I talked to alot of different advisors and it
always seems like the toolingis an area that can use
improvement.
So let's hope that we can havemore scalability in terms of the
tools so that advisors canspend the time where it's most

(01:04:51):
needed and I would say that's infront of a client.
It's communicating with clients.
It's and I would say it's alsoshifting the what is their role

(01:05:24):
and recognizing I think morepeople need to recognize that
the role really needs to be alittle bit part therapist, part
understanding people and whatthey want to do with that money
and being able to put togetherportfolios that first make sense
for what they need and thengetting them to stick with it
through good times and bad andreally only modifying when their
personal situation, theirpersonal goals, change.
So you know, I really lookforward to seeing that type of
model of financial advice whereit's really focused on the
individual and getting them totheir goals, as opposed to I'm

(01:05:44):
going to tinker with your assetallocation and tactically time
things Like I don't think thatthat's really where the value of
advice is.
So look forward to seeing a lotof the industry of advice kind
of shift in that direction andfor more people to realize that
they can benefit from having afinancial advisor.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
I love the optimism.
I'm with you.
I think the best years areahead and a lot of our listeners
are CFA candidates, a lot ofyoung people looking to enter
the industry in the upcomingyears.
What would your advice be interms of which skills or mindset
to develop to be relevant inthe finance industry tomorrow?

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Gosh, I can only.
It's a very good question.
Here's what I've experienced,which is, yeah, I was listening
to a podcast recently and it hadkind of this term, fail forward
, which I loved Because I thinkthat throughout my whether it be

(01:06:56):
education or career asopportunities have come up even
though they may not feel likethe right fit for me, I
basically always took them, evenif I, you know, was worried I
wasn't going to do a good job orany of these things, and, you
know, if I failed, then it wasstill a learning opportunity.

(01:07:17):
So this is a long winded way toto say I think having a very
balanced both like educationexperience, there's benefits to
having multiple perspectives andto being able to see common
threads across different silos,different silos, and that's

(01:07:47):
something that I think isgenuinely human, and I hope that
it would be harder for AI toreplace those types of functions
.
But that's where I, you know, Iwould just tell people just be
open-minded and kind of leaninto a lot of different
directions, because you neverknow which one is going to lead
you down down the long-termcareer path of success so stay
curious and, um, yeah, have anopen mindset.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
I really like that.
I think it's definitely a goodtip.
Um, marlena, it's been amazing.
Uh, you've shared so manyinsights today.
Um, for those of them that, um,for those, for those listeners
that want to stay in the loopwith what you're working on,
that want to follow yourresearch, your writing, your
speaking what's the best placeto keep up with you and

(01:08:32):
everything you produce?

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
I basically quit all social platforms.
So to follow my work, which ismostly the team's work, I would
suggest folks follow theDimensional corporate account on
YouTube, on LinkedIn, andyou'll see a lot of the stuff
that I'm doing or the team isdoing through there.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Fantastic, so we'll make sure to have a look at that
.
Marlena, thank you so much forcoming to the show.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
I really, really look forwardto meeting you in Chicago, and I
wish you a happy trading year.
Despite all the marketvolatility, I hope that you

(01:09:16):
manage to make the most out ofit and that 2025 is the year
where you bring Dimensional tonew heights.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Sounds great.
It's good to meet you, Nacho.
See you in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
The Blunt Dollar is written, produced, hosted and
edited by me, ignacio Ramirez.
Everything you hear concept,script, sound design and
production comes straight frommy desk and, occasionally, my
kitchen table.
Thank you so much for listeningand join me in the next episode
of the Blunt Dollar for moreraw, honest finance
conversations.