Thomas Idzorek: How to Future-Proof Your Money in the Age of Uncertainty

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
AI has kind of blown my mind in terms of how fast we
can evolve.
Ai's ability to communicatecomplicated topics are just
amazing.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Blonde
Dollar.
Today we have a guest who hassignificantly shaped the way we
think about investment strategy,financial planning and the
future of retirement ThomasItzerec, cfa.
Tom is the Chief InvestmentOfficer Retirement at
Morningstar and has played apivotal role in redefining how
investors think about financialplanning over lifetime.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Good things happen, bad things happen Along the way.
We need to make these microfine-tuning adjustments and if
we can do that, we're going tobe in a much better position to
maximize our level ofconsumption and or utility or
joy that we have throughout ourlives.
Just keep learning.
It's so hard at the moment withhow fast AI is changing and

(00:50):
what AI technologies you need tobe up to speed on as
individuals.
The world is changing and weneed to be flexible.
Knowledge is power.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Just keep learning, keep improving your skill set,
your skill set.
This is the Bl informationaland educational purposes only
and should not be relied upon asa substitute for professional
advice.
Always do your own research andconsult a qualified advisor
before making any financialdecisions.
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 Blonde Dollar.

(01:42):
Today we have a guest who hassignificantly shaped the way we
think about investment strategy,financial planning and the
future of retirement ThomasItzerec, cfa.
Tom is the Chief InvestmentOfficer Retirement at
Morningstar and has played apivotal role in redefining how
investors think about financialplanning over a lifetime.
With an extensive background inmulti-asset allocation, human

(02:06):
capital-based investing andretirement income solutions, his
research has challengedtraditional models, advocating
for a more personalized, dynamicand behaviorally aware approach
to financial decision-making.
He's been recognized withmultiple industry awards,
including the Graham and DotAward of Excellence and two
Harry Markowitz SpecialDistinction Awards for his

(02:27):
contributions to portfoliotheory and financial innovation.
He is also the author of a bookthat he co-authored with the
CFA Institute ResearchFoundation, released last year,
called Lifetime Financial Advice.
We're going to be talking a lotabout that, of course, and
today we'll be diving into hisresearch of yeah, exactly that
lifetime financial advice.
We're going to be talking a lotabout that, of course, and today

(02:47):
we'll be diving into hisresearch of yeah, exactly that
lifetime financial planning whyhuman capital is an investor's
most overlooked asset and howasset allocation should evolve
over time.
We'll also explore howbehavioral finance influences
investors' decisions, the futureof personalized investing, and
whether AI and robo-advisorswill reshape financial advice as
we know it.
So, whether you're a financeprofessional, an investor or

(03:09):
just someone thinking about thefuture of wealth management and
retirement, this episode, I canguarantee you, is going to be
packed with high-value insights.
Thomas, it's amazing to haveyou here.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
I'm super excited today.
We have so many interestingtopics to touch upon.

(03:30):
But before we dig into all ofthat, can you maybe tell us in a
couple of minutes what is itthat you're doing exactly today
as the Chief Investment Officerof Retirement at Morningstar?

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Sure.
So within the retirement areaof Morningstar, I would say I
kind of oversee a giantrobo-advisor.
That robo-advisor is oftenwhite-labeled by kind of
partners, and so firms that youwould have heard of are
white-labeling.
I'd say our advice systems.
I would say these are more,these are not just like

(04:03):
robo-advices.
You know what I think of asbeing kind of focused on the
investment part, that investorserving as their advisor, making
financial planning decisionsand then, in a corresponding way
, investing those assets.
And I don't think the worldknows this, but I guess we do

(04:35):
this for a little bit more than2 million people.
I think that would make us thelargest robo-advisor in the
world.
Oh, wow.
So I oversee that system.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
So for those listeners that are not super
familiarized with what arobo-advisor is, is it like
self-explanatory, so an actualadvisor that is fully a machine,
or is it like some sort ofhybrid?

Speaker 1 (04:57):
So there's different deployment models.
Again, I mentioned that we wereworking with a number of, you
know, kind of mainstream firmsthat people would have heard of,
where we are the engines thatare making those decisions.
Those decisions can kind oflive in a complete robo world
where there would not be aphysical person or advisor or
call center rep, but many ofthem choose to make that

(05:20):
available, for when somebodywants to, you know, speak to
somebody, they might have accessto some sort of chat bot.
Initially They'd be able tomaybe ask some questions.
Again, it's a little bitdifferent at different firms,
but they would be able to try toget their question answered and
if they needed to speak tosomebody, they would in many
instances perhaps all instanceshave the ability to talk to a
live human.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
So we're going to be talking a lot about
robo-advisory today.
It's no coincidence that Thomasis on this episode why?
Well, because Thomas is goingto be coming to Chicago in May,
from the 4th to the 7th of May,to the CFA Live Summit, to the
panel I'll be moderating.
It's going to be called theRobo-Advisory Evolution, and if

(06:02):
you are into that topic or ifyou work in the finance industry
at all, I would 100% recommendyou to come.
It's going to be absolutelyamazing.
Thomas is going to be there, Iam going to be there, many other
people are going to be there,and it's an excellent
opportunity to network withother finance professionals and
discuss about some of thebiggest topics shaping the
finance industry today.

(06:23):
So if you haven't checked itout, make sure to attend, or at
least to look online at the CFALive Summit happening in Chicago
.
But so before we dig deep intothis whole robo-advisory topic,
there's another topic I want totouch, which is your book and
this whole concept of rethinkinglifetime planning.
So a lot of people think offinancial planning as a one-time

(06:45):
exercise.
You set a budget, you invest ina 60-40 portfolio and you hope
for the best, but in your work,you emphasize that financial
planning is a continuousevolving and dynamic process
that should adapt to life stages.
Why is it so important toapproach financial planning as a
lifelong process rather thanjust a one-time decision?

Speaker 1 (07:07):
So I feel like the question itself kind of is
somewhat equating investing withfinancial planning and I guess
I feel like when you say set itand forget it, or investing in,
say, a 60-40, I think that'swhat maybe people are doing with
their investment plan.
And again, I guess I would arguethat financial planning is a

(07:28):
larger umbrella that shouldencompass that investment plan.
And, of course, I think it'sjust common sense that people's
circumstances evolve throughouttheir lifetime.
They need to update theirfinancial plan.
Again, your circumstances at 20, when you're coming out of
maybe school, are different thanthey're going to be when you're
30, when you're 40, when you're65, maybe when you're 85.

(07:52):
It's going to be very different.
And again, I think the commonrecommendation is that for those
that do work with, let's say, ahuman financial advisor, is
that at least on an annual basisyou would go back to your
financial advisor, update themon their circumstances.
They would update presumablyyour financial plan and to the

(08:15):
degree that your investmentsneed to involve that would be
contemplated, but as part of thebroader umbrella of an overall
financial plan.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, it's true, definitely.
Maybe that's a mistake most ofus do, but when we think about
lifetime planning, I think wepivot automatically at least in
my case towards financialplanning, but I know there's
many other variables in there.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
For sure, I think both of us have gone through the
CFA curriculum.
A number of us go on and get anMBA or something like that.
In my opinion, the way financeis taught, it's really taught
from the investment-orientedperspective, and when we move

(08:57):
over into people, humans, we'removing into financial planning.
We're moving into financialplanning and a lot of the
financial planning decisions are, I would argue, an order of
magnitude more important thanthose actual investment
decisions.
So again, I guess I feel likewe should be emphasizing
financial planning overinvestments.

(09:19):
That does not say thatinvestment decisions aren't
important.
Decisions aren't important.
I guess it was in Septemberthat Paul Kaplan, one of my
frequent co-authors we wrote aperspectives piece in the
Financial Analyst Journal,really kind of arguing that as
an industry we're putting toomuch emphasis on the investment
piece and then really not enoughemphasis on the financial

(09:42):
planning piece really not enoughemphasis on the financial
planning piece.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, I think that touches upon a very interesting
point.
I mean, from what you'retelling me and from what I've
seen in your book, you'rebasically challenging a lot of
these traditional ideas thatmany people have about personal
finance guidelines.
If I could ask you what's maybeone of the biggest myths in
financial planning that youthink people need to unlearn or

(10:12):
at least revisit or think aboutdifferently, what would it be?

Speaker 1 (10:19):
You say myth.
I guess I wonder if I mightcall that more of a mystery than
a myth.
I guess I wonder if I mightcall that more of a mystery than
a myth.
And to me, the mystery isreally that within the world of
kind of financial economics,there's two giant theories in
which numerous Nobel Prizeprizes have been awarded, and

(10:40):
I'll start with modern portfoliotheory, or mean variance
optimization.
You know so, this is the workof Harry Markowitz.
This is the efficient frontier.
And everyone that goes throughthe CFA program, everyone that
you know, pursues an investmentsclass, whether it's at the, you
know, undergraduate or graduatelevel.
You know this is going to befront and center as part of that

(11:00):
curriculum and they're allfamiliar with that.
And there's another branch offinancial economics which is
really kind of the life cyclehypothesis, or life cycle
finance.
And I'm going to say close to10 Nobel Prize winners have done
critical work in the field oflife cycle finance, and

(11:24):
sometimes people say that lifecycle finance is the way an
economist would really approachfinancial planning.
And yet, you know so youstarted with the myth and I'm
turning this into a mystery tome.
The mystery is is that how canthis fantastic body of knowledge
, life cycle finance almost beunknown by the practitioner

(11:46):
community, and so to me that's abit of a mystery.
And I might pile on there andsay a secondary mystery to me is
that there's this wonderfulbody of lifecycle finance.
Again, numerous Nobel Prizeshave been awarded in this area,
and we've gone nearly 75 years,and that type of theory for

(12:09):
helping investors has not been,let's say, joined with modern
portfolio theory or meanvariance optimization, if you
like to call it that.
And so to me again, what dopeople need to do?

Speaker 2 (12:39):
To me again what do people need to do?
I think that we need to thinkabout these great theories from
financial economics, one ofwhich, again, is lifecycle
finance, and then maybe asecondary question is how do we
join that with the part offinance that so many of you know
?
There's this gap you werealluding to in the finance
professionals communityregarding lifecycle finance,
that it's something that is notbeing taught at schools.
You know, in our earliest yearslike I'm talking about
teenagers and so on and onlypeople start to learn about

(13:00):
these very much later in theirlife and careers.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Absolutely, I guess, to me, how do we improve
financial literacy?
That's a big question.
Again, I don't know quite howto fix that, but at least as
within, say, the CFA curriculum,maybe the CFP-oriented
curriculum at graduate andundergraduate levels, to me

(13:26):
people are learning investmentsand that's great and important.
But so often there's this, inmy opinion, this gap where the
elements of financial planningto bringing in kind of the human
challenges that we face whenplanning and working with people
that have different behavioralbiases.

(13:48):
How do you help them throughouttheir lifetime, where
presumably the goal is somelevel of relatively smooth, real
consumption throughout theirlifetime consumption throughout
their lifetime.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Well, a big part of it, of course, will come from
being proactive and looking forquality readings out there, and,
of course, your book issomething that comes to mind.
By the way, we will put a linkto Thomas's book in the
description of the show, in caseyou want to give it a look
afterwards.
But precisely in your book, youemphasize that financial
planning needs to be adaptiverather than rigid, and my

(14:33):
question for you is how shouldpeople think about this whole
financial planning thing when somuch of life is so
unpredictable?

Speaker 1 (14:42):
of life is so unpredictable.
Well, unpredictability,uncertainty.
Again, going back to lifecyclefinance and I guess my
assumption is that not manypeople are familiar with it, but
there's a giant body ofeconomics that is all about how
do you attempt to make optimaldecisions in the presence of

(15:03):
uncertainty.
And again, the area where thisis is kind of expected utility
theory, and I guess I sometimesthink of lifecycle models as
being kind of like the IBM BigBlue, perhaps a little bit like

(15:24):
an AI supercomputer with thisability to kind of think about
all the possible outcomes thatcould occur and, in light of
that uncertainty, make theappropriate decisions at that
moment in time.
And then life happens right.
We you know, good things happen, bad things happen, the market
goes up, the market goes down,interest rates change, et cetera

(15:45):
, and along the way we need tomake these micro fine-tuning
adjustments and if we can dothat, we're going to be in a
much better position to, let'ssay, maximize our level of
consumption and or utility orjoy that we have throughout our
lives.

(16:06):
So basically being a little bitmore flexible in our approach
than what we used to be in thepast then, Again, I guess I have
no idea how flexible people areor not, but I think that having
a system that is constantlyupdating and making micro course
corrections to me is, again, Iguess, more flexible, more

(16:28):
dynamic.
I don't know if the peoplenecessarily have to be more
flexible, but again, rather thanmaking you know, kind of
reviewing something, say, onceevery five years and making
giant changes in my mind, mymind, it's much easier to have
essentially a live system thatis updating in real time and

(16:50):
making micro adjustments onbehalf of, let's say, a client
or investor throughout theirlifetime.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, for some reason , when you were talking about
that, the idea of of dollar costaveraging and compounding came
to my mind, like, uh, making theanalogy to investing like, if
you just make an investmentevery 10 years, there's a huge
difference compared to whether,every year, uh, you put a little

(17:15):
bit of money and and you letyou, you let that money compound
over the, over the decade, and,and I feel like, by doing what
you just said about having amore proactive, more dynamic
approach, uh, to your financialplanning, planning, the great
thing is that it compounds overthe years and that's how you can
reach better outcomes, I guess.

(17:35):
Yeah absolutely so.
Obviously, you've spent a lotof time researching the field,
and along the way, you probablycame across insights that
challenge even the way you sawthings in the past.
So what's one concept or aprinciple, a financial planning
principle that you used tobelieve in but that later

(17:58):
changed over the years, or atleast on which you changed your
opinion on?

Speaker 1 (18:05):
hmm, but now I'm going to switch from financial
planning maybe back to theinvestment world.
When I was first gettinginterested in finance I would go
to using I'm going to datemyself here and kind of an area
within AOL was the Motley Fooland I again reading the Motley

(18:36):
Fool helped educate me a lotabout finance and kind of
started my journey andexcitement around finance.
But I think one of the booksthat I had read that they would
have been associated with talkedabout kind of the dogs of the
Dow and how you can kind offilter the Dow 30 and then pick

(19:00):
just a handful of these Dow 30stocks and so again, I guess
probably when I was starting offkind of this idea that
individuals would be pickingindividual securities, ending up
with perhaps a highlyconcentrated portfolio.
I'd say when I first startedout that seemed like a very

(19:20):
reasonable way and perhaps a wayto make a lot of money.
But it's also a very riskystrategy and I'd say I probably
look down upon that type ofapproach at this point.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
That's a good one.
Yeah, the AOL times are longgone, but yeah, for sure like a
lot of us still remember that.
So a big part of lifecyclefinance has also to do, I
believe, with human capital.
So in traditional finance wetalk most about stocks, bonds,

(19:52):
portfol believe with humancapital.
So in traditional finance wetalk mostly about stocks, bonds,
portfolios and so on.
But in your research youhighlight often that human
capital, which is the presentvalue of your future earnings or
earning potential, I guess isoften a person's most valuable
asset.
But most investment strategies,as we know, ignore that.

(20:12):
I don't know if it's becauseit's hard to model or for
something else.
So why do you believe humancapital should be a key factor
in financial planning andinvestment decisions and how can
we really account for it?

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Right, there's a lot there.
So I mean I think you know,maybe temporarily just going
back to the end of the way ourcurriculum is structured.
Structured we're not taught inschools or in our curriculum
very much about human capitaland again, we don't have that
type of capstone class that issaying how do you bring all of

(20:46):
the different specialties thatyou've learned throughout your
education and put that into acohesive type of financial plan,
the notion of human capitalthis of course, isn't my idea.
This is attributed to many ofthe people who've won Nobel
Prizes and again, I think theywould correctly argue that it

(21:08):
really is this critical asset.
If you think about, why is itthat you know?
Critical asset, you know.
If you think about, you know,why is it that you're, you know,
as a young person, able to,perhaps, you know, take out a
loan to purchase a car or, maybe, you know, apply for a mortgage
and buy that first house, youknow?
Why is it that that can evenhappen?
Well, it's because you havehuman capital and that lender is

(21:32):
essentially recognizing thatyou have this lifetime of
earnings sitting in front of youand that ability to earn money
is what's going to enable you topay off that loan.
Again, often I encourage peopleto think about what are the cash
flows of their human capitallike?

(21:54):
Is that producing steady,bond-like income?
And for many people there mightbe a variable component, but
there's a pretty consistent,steady element to that and it
really serves as part of theirbroader we sometimes say total
wealth.
And they have this fantastichidden kind of off balance sheet

(22:18):
, although I think they shouldput it onto their balance sheet
asset.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
So, for our listeners , what are the practical ways
one can encode?
Well, one, first of all how canwe measure this human capital?
Are there any tools?
Is it something that we canread on your book, or how on
earth does it work?
And two, how can we incorporatethis into our financial
decision making?

Speaker 1 (23:08):
That inability to say tell me about how.
But if you go to the CFAwebsite, you know where there's
kind of the homepage for ourbook.
There's different materials andsome of them are videos on,
just you know, trying to teachthe material in the book.
But there actually is aspreadsheet, you know, so a
little tool that for people thatwere really interested in this,
could download this Excelspreadsheet and put in a few

(23:31):
numbers and they'd be able toget to see kind of a capitalized
value of somebody's humancapital.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Oh, I love spreadsheets and I didn't see
the Excel, so I'm definitelyrushing to the website after
this conversation and I'll tryit.
I'll let you know how that goes.
So how does career risk reallyimpact this human capital?
Because I guess if an investoris in a stable industry, like

(23:57):
being a public servant or inhealthcare, they might be able
to take more investment risk,but if they're in more volatile
industries, like tech, forexample, you might need to think
about this whole thingdifferently.
You might need to think aboutthis whole thing differently.
How should someone's careerstability and earning potential

(24:19):
and the industry they work oninfluence their choices?
Then?
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(24:41):
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finance conversations going.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Sure, we're kind of in this area.
If you dig into anything, right, there's always more to read
about something.
So a great book and one of myfavorite you know kind of
researchers in the space is aguy out of York University,
moshe Malevsky.
Perhaps you've heard of him.
He wrote a book and it's in thetitle of the book I think it's
are you aer, are you a Bond?

(25:13):
And you know he tells all sortsof great you know stories in
there and kind of gives examples.
And so to me, if you're, say, agovernment employee maybe not
these days, historically, if youwere a government employee,
you're at least in the UnitedStates your job was, you know,
quite safe.
At least in the United States,your job was quite safe.

(25:34):
Maybe another example would beif you were a professor like he
is a tenured universityprofessor, no matter what's
going on in the economy, yourjob is quite safe.
And if you think about again,think about your paycheck, how
stable are those cash flows?
What interrupts them?
Do they vary over time?
Well, if they're super stable,you're probably more like a bond

(25:57):
.
If you are, again, I think aquintessential example is are
you an investment banker or astockbroker where your earnings
are really kind of moving up anddown with the stock market.
The nature of your humancapital might be that you might
be more stock-like In terms ofaverage people.

(26:22):
I worked for Ibbotson Associates, which was a leading asset
allocation shop.
It was acquired a long time agonow I guess 2006 by Morningstar
.
That's how I came to work atMorningstar and when we were
first working on this kind ofrobo-advisor system it actually
predated me.
It was in the late 1990s thatthey started building the system

(26:46):
.
They had this kind of outsideadvisory group that contained
Harry Markowitz, dick Thaler,danny Kahneman, and they were
trying to really decide for thefirst time how should this robo
work and how does it incorporatekind of human capital into how

(27:06):
somebody's financial capitalperhaps should evolve over time?
And they said, kind what cameout of that conversation was
that people a lot of times havehuman capital.
That's a bit like a junk bond.
When things are going well,your career is producing very
steady, safe, bond-like assets,and then when there's some sort

(27:28):
of interruption, if you thinkabout how a junk bond or
high-yield bond trades, all of asudden it gets more volatile
and it's a little bit more likean equity.
Nobody likes to be told hey,you're like a junk bond.
Something that came out of thatis that the average or the
typical person is frequentlymodeled as being some

(27:49):
combination of stocks and bonds,where it's more bonds than
stocks.
But again, you don't need tomodel necessarily human capital
as a singular asset.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
I wouldn't mind being called Mr Bond, but Mr Junk
Bond.
That's a whole different story,but I will not take it.
But I will not take it.
So, talking about the people'sjobs and the industry they work

(28:25):
in.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
What's your take on investing too heavily in the
industry you work in?
So, from a human capitalperspective, maybe I should bet.
If you think about your totalwealth, what is your economic
worth?
Again, to me, you have yourfinancial assets, and then you
also have this again, the hiddenasset of human capital that
we've been talking about, andagain, everybody's familiar with
that kind of investment story.

(28:46):
Well, within investments, we'relooking to add uncorrelated
assets or we want to diversifyour portfolio, and so for you as
an individual, you want todiversify your total wealth,
where your total wealth again isyour financial capital and your
human capital, and so for manypeople, you should not be

(29:09):
investing in, you should nothave company stock in your
employer.
I think the quintessentialexample is like Enron employees.
So Enron ends up collapsing,people lose the source of their
human capital and have to gofind a new job, and many Enron
employees were actually in theirretirement plan investing in

(29:34):
Enron stock, and so at themoment Enron collapses, their
financial assets take a gianthit because their Enron stock
went to zero and then all of asudden they were out of a job.
So the basic concept ofdiversify, diversify, diversify
holds true.
And when we think about, youknow, our human capital and our

(29:56):
financial capital.
You know we can't really changethe nature of our human capital
very easily, but we cancertainly change how we're
investing our financial capital,and we'd want to do that in
such a way where we are notinvesting, let's say, in our
employer or perhaps even thesector in which we're working in
our employer or perhaps eventhe sector in which we're
working.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
And is there a magic formula to maximize, I'd say, or
find the right allocationbetween maximizing the human
capital and the financialcapital, because a lot of young
investors particularly focus ongetting the highest return
possible on portfolios, butinvesting in your own skills,
education and things like thatoften provides greater returns
over a lifetime.
I think that it was BenjaminFranklin that once said an
investment in education pays thebest interest.

(30:40):
I'm not sure if it was him, butI always thought it was a good
quote.
So how should investors, andparticularly young investors,
think about balancingtraditional investing with
investing in yourself and yourhuman capital?

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh, that's a great question and I don't know that I
have a great answer Again.
You know, I know that, like foryourself and myself.
You know we've both beenthrough the CFA program and so
we were investing in ourselves.
That took time and again and atleast I'd like to think in my
case and I'm assuming in manycases that has kind of paid off.
So, getting an education,having that ability, capital

(31:18):
Again, is it more stock-like orbond-like?
You can't really change thatAgain.
Maybe you could, but most of usare kind of we're going down a

(31:40):
particular career path and theway in which we're compensated
is either nice, safe, steadycash flows or perhaps it's more
volatile.
And given that we can't changethat, really the lever for how
we should adjust our totalportfolio a total portfolio that
includes human capital andfinancial capital is to adjust

(32:03):
how we're investing ourfinancial capital in light of
the nature of our human capitalcapital.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
So you were comparing you know our jobs and even,
like I could argue,personalities to different asset
classes before, but how doesall of this also link to life
stages, and how should assetallocation and risk management
evolve, as a person, mostthrough different life stages?
Could it be that, yeah, humancapital is something that we
should do earlier in our careers, because the compounding effect

(32:38):
is maybe going to be greaterthan just the pure traditional
financial type of investment?

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Well, I do think kind of what I sometimes call the
financial capital glide path.
So this would be almost likethink of a target date fund,
perhaps.
What you're doing in yourfinancial capital is largely
dictated by the ratio of humancapital to financial capital and
we don't, as individuals, wedon't have that much control

(33:09):
over the size of our humancapital.
So what is the mortalityweighted net present value of
all future earnings?
I guess, if you think about ayoung person 20, 25, just coming
out of school most 25-year-oldsthat I know they just haven't
had time to save much in therealm of financial capital.

(33:30):
In fact they probably aresaddled with student loans or
other forms of debt.
And so, if you think about theasset side of their balance
sheet, they almost have nofinancial assets, but they have
one giant asset, the one we'vebeen talking about, this hidden
asset of human capital, andagain, for most people the cash

(33:52):
flows that that's going toprovide are more bond-like than
stock-like.
So again, from a total economicworth perspective, they're not
particularly diversified, right?
They have this giant bond thatthey're sitting on and, luckily
for them, it's probably aninflation-adjusted bond because
salaries tend to go up withinflation and they have this

(34:14):
very small amount of financialcapital.
And so, to diversify betweenthis giant bond and your
financial capital, chances arethe vast majority of your
financial capital should beinvested in equities.
And then you're going to gothrough life and hopefully
people are disciplined savers insome portion of that paycheck

(34:37):
each month gets saved so thatyou will eventually be able to
pay for consumption inretirement.
At some point there'll be apoint of inflection in which,
hopefully, the amount offinancial capital that you have
will actually be much greaterthan your human capital.
And then, once in retirementand let's say that your human

(34:59):
capital is mostly depleted well,that's where you're going to
pay for your consumption, usingthe nest egg that you've built
up throughout your life.
Your financial capital andfrankly, that's what lifecycle
finance is all about is how doyou take your productive working
years in which you're able toearn an income and that helps

(35:21):
you buy things and pay forconsumption?
Convert that to a portfolio offinancial assets that can
eventually be used to smoothconsumption throughout your
unknown in terms of lengthretirement.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, I love that how to transform your brain into
actual, tangible money, but soclearly you spent so much time
thinking about this, researching, writing about it.
Why on earth are we not talkingmore about this concept of
human capital?
Quite frankly, I mean before,before you know this
conversation and doing myresearch and all of that I, I I

(35:59):
had the feeling I didn't knowenough about this and it feels
like really, really importantnow that I'm aware of it I think
it's super important and again,I think it's again like I said.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
It's again like I said, it's a mystery right that
this is not front and center inour education in terms of the
world of finance.
And my guess is there's acouple of reasons for that.
For so long we were in kind ofa defined benefit-oriented
system where you'd work for anemployer it could be the
government or a corporation andthey would offer a defined

(36:30):
benefit plan and as you workedyou would accrue a lifetime of
benefit and you didn't have theburden of having to invest on
your own.
It would be nice, of course, ifyou did, but at retirement you
would receive a pension, oftenwith a cost of living adjustment
.
And so you know, as we've kindof moved away from that DB

(36:55):
defined benefit system to adefined contribution system, you
know the risk of investing hasshifted from that employer to
the individual, making kind offinancial planning so much more
important, you know.
Maybe another thing is you knowthe Markowitz mean, variance,
optimization, optimization.

(37:15):
You know Markowitz, you know,created this in the 1950s, you
know it uses, you know,quadratic, you know programming
to solve that problem, and thatis something that you know early
on, you know whether it's 1960sor 1970s, as rudimentary as
computers were, it was a problemthat you could easily solve

(37:36):
right then and there it was inthe 1960s that people like
Milton Friedman, paul Samuelson,gene Fama, franco Modigliani et
cetera were working onlifecycle finance.
But the solving of thelifecycle finance problem
involves something calleddynamic programming and it

(37:59):
sounds similar but it'sdifferent.
And the solving of this issolving kind of the lifecycle
optimization problem with youknow the, you know millions of

(38:21):
you know possible outcomes andpermutations along the way.
It's a very difficult problemto solve, although I would argue
, you know, we've, you know,figured out different ways to
solve it, with perhapssimplifying assumptions in a
reasonable way.
But you know, you know, I thinkyou know it was kind of this two
part problem where you know theDB world, you know people just

(38:41):
weren't interested.
You didn't need to solve thistype of problem because the
pension was going to pay foryour retirement and then,
computationally, one you couldnot put.
You not put a desktop tool infront of an advisor and let them
unleash the power of lifecyclefinance.
And again, what's neat now isthat all of a sudden we've

(39:02):
arrived at a point where wereally can unleash the power of
lifecycle finance.
But we've forgotten about thisamazing body of knowledge from
financial economics and we needto bring that back front and
center into the curriculum.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
So how do you think, now that we are in the age of AI
, this whole field is going toevolve, because now it seems
like sky's the limit and reallycomputational resources, as you
were saying they're really not aconstraint anymore or we have a
lot more capabilities.
So do you expect academia tomake breakthrough discoveries

(39:39):
over the upcoming years, and arewe going to manage to make the
best fully personalized modelsand so on in the future, or is
that still just like a dream?

Speaker 1 (39:49):
just like a dream.
I mean, I think it's here andnow and again, in terms of the
degree to which financial advicewill be improving.
It's just amazing to thinkabout Again, I guess.
So I would just say, like youknow, ai has kind of blown my
mind in terms of how fast we canevolve and I think it's just,

(40:10):
you know, super exciting.
You know, if I think about whenI was, you know, super exciting.
You know, if I think about whenI was, you know, perhaps in my
20s.
You know, access to qualityfinancial planning, you know
that was of course.
You know one could go try to,you know, search the internet
and searching the internet atthat time, you know, google
wasn't the search engine ofchoice, didn't really exist.
You know it's much harder tofind, I'd say, curated advice,

(40:33):
especially personalized advice,and we are entering a world of
hyper-personalization withprobably fantastic advice.
Maybe at this moment theindustry has not quite evolved
or changed, but we you talkedabout academia.
Again, it seems to me that weare at the cusp of just giant

(40:54):
leaps forward in all sorts ofindustries, personal finance
being one of them.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
So the million dollar question, tom am I going to
lose my job in five or 10 yearsdown the road?
Is AI going to replace me?
Hey there, quick ad break.
Do you work in the financeindustry and have a genuinely
interesting story to share?
I'm always on the hunt forgreat guests who bring raw,
unfiltered insights to the table.

(41:20):
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, andnow LinkedIn.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
I'd love to hear from you.
And now back to the show.
No, at least not five or 10years down the road, but you
know the need.
Again, my understanding I thinkyou're in financial.
You know advising and perhapsworking with clients to some

(41:54):
degree.
There is a group of people thatwill always feel more
comfortable talking to a humanNow the advisor that is advising
to the client.
My guess is that their relianceon AI-enabled advice systems is
going to come much higher.

(42:14):
So again, sometimes I thinkabout 20, 25 years ago, the
typical financial advisorthought of themselves as an
investment guru, and what'shappened over the last 25 years
is that many of these peoplehave begun to outsource, perhaps
to the dealer group, to thehome office.
You know kind of the heavylifting of the investment
decisions, and so we've beenkind of in this long drawn out.

(42:38):
You know kind of movement ofoutsourcing to other decision
makers and, of course, thatoutsourcing to systems AI,
expert systems, ai you knowgenerative AI oriented,
systemsoriented systems.
That's just going to continue.
But again, I don't think thatyou're going to be out of a job,
but the number of people thatare meeting with clients as a

(43:02):
financial advisor, I think thatthere's a time and I don't know
that it's five or 10 years fromnow, but 20 years from now where
I just think that there's lesspeople that are going to feel
the need to have to meet with anindividual I think about.
My kids are in their 20s.
They would prefer to work, toget almost advice from their

(43:25):
phone or from the computer thanto go speak to somebody, and I
think that that'll be indicativeof a lot of people you know 20,
25 years from now.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
So how do you imagine the financial advisor of the
future, like, is it going to besomeone that, yes, maintains a
part of that relationship withwith peers and clients, but has,
like, superpowers to do crazystuff in terms of, maybe, the
number of asset classes he orshe covers, the number of

(43:57):
research he or she's able towrite, or is it something else
completely?

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Well, I mean, I think that that's somewhat mixing.
You know, kind of, what aninvestment analyst, researcher
might do relative to, you know,a financial advisor.
I guess if we stick withfinancial advisors, you know
they're going to be empoweredwith wonderful technology.
You know, maybe they alreadyagain, relative to 25 years ago,
they have fantastic tools andthese tools that they have at

(44:25):
their disposal are going to be,you know, much better.
And if I think about kind of theevolution of where financial
advisors and financial plannersare, I think they've become more
of a coat, that they're nolonger thinking of themselves as
the true guru in terms of wheredid the advice come from?

(44:46):
They rely on the home office.
I think, moving forward,they're going to continue to
rely on the home office but relyon expert systems to help.
You know that's providing theadvice and they are kind of more
of the communicator of thatadvice.
Now I will say you know theAI's ability to communicate

(45:06):
complicated you know topics youknow are just amazing and will
be getting better.
So, again, overall, like interms of, like you know, a
career, you know, I don't knowthat I would choose financial
planning, you know, as somethingthat is probably going to exist
as we know it.
You know for the next.
You know, if I was juststarting out, I don't think that

(45:29):
I'd choose that as my job out.
I don't think that I'd choosethat as my job.
Again, in terms of designingthe systems that many millions
of people, perhaps billions ofpeople, will use, I find that
quite exciting.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
You know, I and you lost me when you said that my
job is safe for the next 15years.
I just started to think aboutthat.
I was like, okay, fantastic,I'm safe for the next decade,
but after that it's wide open.
I'm like, oh my God, what am Igoing to do with my life?

Speaker 1 (46:04):
then my job will be well, probably, maybe I'll be
just retired, but you know I ama big fan of you know just keep
learning, right.
You know so that, like it's sohard at the moment with you know
how fast AI is changing andwhat AI technologies you need to
be up to speed on.
But I think, as individuals,the world is changing and we

(46:32):
need to be flexible and you knowkind of knowledge is power and
so you know, my advice tolisteners is just keep learning,
keep improving your skillset.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
I'm 100% with you on that.
I mean, I was joking.
I'm very upbeat about thefuture.
Actually, I think I'm anoptimist.
I don't think AI is going toreplace us.
I think the nature of jobs isjust going to evolve, obviously.
I'm with you.
Also, I think some jobs aregoing to be more protected.
Everything related to empathy,obviously, is going to be easier

(46:57):
to.
Yeah, they're going to haveless issues competing with AI,
at least in the first stages.
We'll see how that evolves overthe next few decades in the
first stages.
We'll see how that evolves overthe next few decades.
But if you have an open mind andyou keep learning and trying
things and stay on top of all ofthese and become part of the

(47:17):
change rather than just stayingoblivious to it, there will be
one way or another for you touse this technology and find a
place in the future workplace.
I have no doubt about that.
At least, that's how I chose tothink, because otherwise I get
depressed.
So I'm I'm excited, uh, and Ithink it's going to be.
It's going to be really, reallyfun, uh, to see all of this

(47:38):
happening in real time reallyand that's also, by the way, one
of the reasons why I decided tolaunch this podcast um, keep
learning, keep acquiring newskills, keep meeting people, do
things that you're passionateabout, and and and.
Keep moving really, and and, andthings will naturally uh, you
know, get together.

(47:58):
I, I, I think.
Um, from a client perspective,though, how do you think this
whole AI uh wave is gonna, isgonna, materialize?
Do you think?
Uh?
Again, talking about financialadvisors from the client
perspective, is it going to bethat they receive more
information?
Is it going to be that theyreceive more personalized

(48:21):
outcomes, or is it going to besomething else?

Speaker 1 (48:31):
I think it's all of those things.
It is something else.
It's perhaps better advice.
I do think it'll behyper-personalized, I think
it'll evolve more quickly ascircumstances change.
Again, just all around betteradvice.
So for the person that wantsmore information, they'll be
able to get more information.
It'll probably be theinformation that they're really

(48:51):
seeking.
You know.
So, again, like a lot of times,right, if you're searching, you
know, finding the rightdocument, finding the right
information, the answer to thespecific question that you have,
you know, has been hard.
I feel like getting you knowexactly the right answer that
you're seeking is getting somuch easier and so much faster.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah, I think the speed variable is definitely
going to get significantlybetter and I'm very, very
excited about that.
An important topic related toall of the things we've been
talking about since thebeginning, to all of the things
we've been talking about sincethe beginning so lifecycle
finance, human capital and evenAI and the future of the
industry is behavioral finance,which I believe touches upon

(49:38):
everything.
So I'd like to pivot a littlebit towards that theme now and
ask you a few questions aboutthat.
So traditional finance assumesthat investors are rational,
market-sufficient and so on, butyou said it at the beginning of
the conversation, things don'talways happen according to the
plan and real-world investorsmake emotional decisions, they

(50:01):
can chase trends, they can misspriorities and so on and so
forth.
So, in your opinion, why do youthink traditional finance
models fail to fully explain howinvestors actually behave?

Speaker 1 (50:19):
It's a good question.
I don't know that I'm the expertto talk about this, but so you
know, absolutely, people are not, you know, they're not
supercomputers all by themselves.
We all have biases and limits tothe quality of decisions that
we can make.
I think that's where kind ofthe role of the advisor is so

(50:43):
critical helping that individualto make rational decisions.
Helping that individual to makerational decisions and again, I
guess to me our book, we are,I'd say, creating a rational,
normative model for how aninvestor should behave to again

(51:05):
maximize kind of their joy,their happiness, through
financial planning and investing.
And so again, I guess to me, Ithink the two can coexist and at
some level they're coexistingkind of at war with each other.
We're our own worst enemy,we're in danger of shooting our

(51:25):
own foot off.
We're in danger of shooting ourown foot off and hopefully,
whether it's an actual advisoror an AI or an AI system helping
an advisor, you'll be able topredict when are investors
getting nervous, when are theyin danger of making a bad
decision and how do you coachthem through that.

(51:48):
So, just again, exciting times.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, 100%, and one of the reasons why I wanted to
get into this topic is because,while I was doing the research
for this episode, I discovered aterm that I never heard about.
So I knew about the CAPMcapital asset pricing models but
I didn't know about the I don'tknow how to call it PAPM, which
would be-.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Yeah, we call it.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
P right, PAPM PAPM Popularity Asset Pricing Model,
which basically tries to bridgethe gap between classical and
behavioral finance.
And, instead of assuming thatinvestors just care about risk
and return, this modelrecognizes that investors
actually have differentpreferences Some are more keen
to buy stocks, others not, andso on and so forth.

(52:35):
So can you tell us a little bitmore?
What is CAPM and how does itimprove the traditional asset
pricing models like CAPM?

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Right.
Well, so now we're definitelymoving away from kind of
financial planning, you know,and into you know.
Another area of economicsthat's very exciting is asset
pricing, and I would just saythe textbook asset pricing model
that we learned in the CFAcurriculum and it's in every
investments textbooks that I'veever seen is the capital asset

(53:03):
pricing model.
And for those that are going tofollow the capital asset
pricing model, there are peoplethat believe that it has a
number of shortcomings,agreement tastes in asset

(53:30):
pricing, in which they were kindof identifying what they
thought of as the two biggestweaknesses of the capital asset
pricing model, which is, fromtheir perspective, that it
doesn't account for disagreement.
So in the CAPM it is assumingkind of efficient markets and
that 100% of people agree onwhat those capital market
expectations should be, and ofcourse there's no way in the

(53:50):
real world that all of us agreeon what the expected returns and
risks and correlations of allthe different asset classes are
going to be.
That's just kind of a clearweakness.
And another element that Famaand French pointed out was that
investors have preferences ortastes that go beyond just risk

(54:11):
preference and as such, thatmoves asset prices Well.
So Fama and French didn'tcreate an actual equilibrium
asset pricing model.
They just highlighted these twoweaknesses of the capital asset
pricing model.
And so, along with RogerIbbotson, paul Kaplan and James

(54:32):
Zhang, we wrote another book andwe have different articles that
are published on this topic,which is how do you improve upon
the CAPM and that's with ourpopularity asset pricing model,
and it basically allows fordisagreement, as well as the
idea that people have tastes orpreferences, and those tastes

(54:54):
and preferences, if they'reshared by enough investors, they
begin to influence asset prices.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Keep an eye on Tom.
He might win the next NobelPrize of Economics, thanks to
the Papam.
I'll certainly do.
I'm excited.
Let's see if that happens.
You were highlighting some ofthe shortfalls of the CAPM.
Do you think it will ever bereplaced, or is it now just

(55:24):
going to be a part of financeeducation forever?

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Again, I think it's going to be part of finance
education forever, and so, eventhough I'm trying to write or
create models that improve uponthe CAPM, I do believe the CAPM
is, you know, it's beautiful,it's elegant, it's simple, it's
easy to apply.
It is kind of the baselinemodel and serves as it's a

(55:49):
wonderful baseline model, so Ithink it'll be here forever.
I so hope that again, you knowI'm always I guess a theme for
today is I'm wanting to changethe curriculum of this and that
I so hope that alongside inthese textbooks or curriculums,
that the, you know, popularityasset pricing model would become

(56:09):
, you know, the next chapter orpart of the same chapter and
part of the curriculum.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Well, let's keep us posted, because, yeah, I think
for sure.
Like I guess the beauty and thecurse of these type of models,
like the CAPM, is theirsimplicity.
So, as you say, very elegant,super cool to be able to learn
about it in a couple of hoursand you feel like that's it.
You understood how markets work.

(56:36):
But then you realize that theworld doesn't always behave the
way these models are telling youit should.
So I want to pivot now to adifferent part of the finance
industry.
I mean, you are the CIO ofMorningstand Retirement, so we

(57:00):
cannot have this conversationwithout talking about retirement
.
So let's dig a little bit intothat.
First question for you do youthink traditional retirement
planning models are outdated ordo you think they're still very
valid?

Speaker 1 (57:23):
See, I don't even know that.
I know what the traditionalretirement planning systems are,
so it's hard for me to say thatthey're outdated per se.
My guess is that we'refrequently guided by heuristics
or other items where, in myopinion, we really need rich

(57:45):
theoretical models to base ourdecisions on.
And again I will point back tolife cycle finance, which isn't
just about accumulating assets,but it's about retiring and
having smooth consumption for aslong as one lives.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
So maybe let me get a bit more specific.
Most retirement planningfollows the 4% rule, assumes a
fixed retirement age, relies onstatic asset allocation.
But now people are livinglonger, they're working longer,
they're facing more financialuncertainty than ever before.
So with those in mind, do youthink, yeah, the whole way we

(58:23):
think about retirement planninghas to change too, or not?

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Well, does it have to change?
I don't know that it has tochange, but we could definitely
do better than the static 4%rule.
And again, I would argue thatthe types of systems that we're
promoting in methodologies, thatwe're promoting in our book is
one in which people are arguablymore flexible.

(58:50):
Again, I described, you know,kind of IBM big blue, thinking
about all circumstances as theworld evolves, in updating you
know what is, you know, areasonable amount for somebody
to spend, given these exactcircumstances?
It's hyper personalized, and sothe idea that we can have

(59:10):
dynamic or evolvingrecommendations related to
spending.
Those systems exist and peopleshould be absolutely moving away
from the 4% rule, and arguablythere's that kind of transition
from human capital to financialcapital, and then that evolution

(59:33):
continues even after retirement.
And so to me, human capitaldoesn't just disappear at age 65
.
We have deferred labor incomein the form of Social Security
or some sort of social insurance, depending on where you live,
and a number of people.
Again, if you're retiring today, you may still have access to a

(59:55):
defined benefit plan, and soyou do have sources of
guaranteed income, and that's awonderful thing.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
So, in terms of related to that 4% rule, which
is basically that you can take4% of your pension savings per
year before you die, right,there's the concept of longevity
risk, and now people are livinglonger than ever, which is
great, but many retirement planson the downside don't account
for longevity risk properly.

(01:00:25):
So how should people thinkabout this risk and what's the
best way to deal with it?

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Sure Again.
I guess I might describelongevity risk.
This is the risk of outlivingyour assets and, again,
conditional on the idea thatyou're age 65, a typical life
expectancy amount might be to,say 85, so a 20-year type
retirement.

(01:00:52):
But the number of centurions isincreasing all the time, so
people are living to 100 to 105.
And if you did retire at 65,some will retire earlier, some
will retire later.
But now you need to plan for 40years possibly of expenses, so
that's something to take intoconsideration.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
So you talked earlier in this conversation about
retirement glide path.
So many advisors use this glidepath strategy, where people
move from stocks to bonds asthey age, but this approach
might not work for everyone,especially in worlds where
interest rates are low, I guess,or going lower.

(01:01:35):
So does this traditional glidepath strategy still make sense,
or should investors be thinkingabout risk differently in
retirement?

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
So when it comes to glide paths, at least in the,
let's say maybe the target datefund world, there's kind of a
group of sometimes referred toas two glide paths where people
they stop gliding at retirement.
There's kind of anothercategory or grouping of kind of

(01:02:11):
philosophies around glide pathsafter retirement.
You know, one one's assetallocation should continue to
evolve, and I'm in this lattercap camp of you know that as
circumstances evolve.
You know we need to continue toevolve.
You know how we're investingour financial capital.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
And one last question regarding retirement, as we get
closer to the end of theconversation and maybe making a
link with what we talked aboutbefore about psychology and be
favorable finance.
Um, what are the the biggestpsychological challenges that,
in your view, people face inretirement and how can we
prepare for them?

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
ah, you know, I again .
I guess maybe there's a groupof people that spend way too
less.
They spend enough in retirement, right they're.
Just they're so worried aboutspending their money and
depleting it that they don'tlive nicely enough no-transcript

(01:03:29):
to professionals.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
That's wise advice, I would say so maybe a couple of
questions to wrap this up.
More personal, Thomas, what'snext for you?
What are your plans for thenext few years?

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Well, again I'm very happy at Morningstar.
Again I'll just say it's justwonderful to work at like a
mission-driven company where youknow there's this supporting of
research and then you knowbehind you know the kind of the
real mission is to helpinvestors.
You know I'm not quite surewhat it'd be like to work for a
traditional asset manager.

(01:04:04):
Again, I feel very lucky towork for Morningstar and so
working away at trying to createthe best kind of methodologies
and then bring thosemethodologies to life in
scalable systems that networksof financial advisors can

(01:04:25):
license or use from Morningstarto create better outcomes for
their clients.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
That's definitely an exciting project to work on, so
I'm very happy for you.
And one last question, iflisteners have to take away just
one key lesson from theconversation we've just had.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
what do you hope it is?
Well, I think I said keeplearning earlier.
So again, I think you know it'sa changing world.
Please just keep learning.
If you're bored and havetrouble sleeping, our book is a
wonderful sleep aid, so check itout.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
And I'll add a second one On top of that.
Make sure you check out thebook that Tom has co-authored
with the CFA Institute ResearchFoundation Lifetime Financial
Advice.
We'll have the link in thedescription of the show.
Tom, it's been absolutelyamazing to have you.
Thank you for sharing so muchwisdom.
I'm very excited to see you inChicago very, very soon.

(01:05:26):
We're going to be talking aboutthe future of the profession
and robo advisory in the age ofAI.
I know you're going to haveincredible insights, so if you
have the possibility, make sureto come to listen to Tom live
and.
Thank you very much, tom, foryour time and I wish you all the
best for those excitingprojects you have.

(01:05:47):
Hey, thanks for having me.
The Blunt Dollar is written,produced, hosted and edited by
me, ignacio Ramirez.
Everything you hear concept,script, sound, design and
production come straight from mydesk and, occasionally, my
kitchen table.
Thank you so much for listeningand join me in the next episode

(01:06:08):
of the Blunt Dollar for moreraw, honest finance
conversations.

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