The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 81 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Grantham: Long-term investors must be prepared to fight the Fed
“Don't fight the Fed if you're a short-term player, but if you're a long-term player, you have to be prepared to fight the Fed on occasions.”
Grantham: Oil dropping to 2.5% of S&P is largest historic sector loss
“Oil as a percentage of the S&P had come down from 25% in 1982 and 16% in oh eight to two and a half percent yesterday. This is the biggest loss of value in the history of the major groups of the S&P that goes all the way back into the 20.”
Grantham: Future deficit spending will largely fund high-return green initiatives
“We will have deficit spending, which will be great, and a lot of it will be green, which will be even better, and very high return.”
Grantham: Post-2008 reluctance toward deficit spending was a major mistake
“After the financial crash, we became too jittery about deficit spending, which is I think a big mistake, quite unnecessary.”
Grantham: Real U.S. hourly wages have stagnated since the mid-1970s
“Workers, Which in the U.S. Have not had a real increase per hour work since the mid-nineteen seventies, can you believe, where even dopey Europe has more than doubled, and China and Vietnam has more than ten-tupled, and so on.”
Grantham: Top graduates choose startups and VC over Goldman Sachs
“The really best and brightest don't go to Goldman Sachs, sorry, Goldman Sachs, anymore, like they did in the financial bubble. They want to get into the VC business, to be mixing with things that really matter, and many of them to be actually starting their ow…”
Grantham: Wage inflation is not in immediate danger of spiraling
“To work through to wages, where inflation really starts to escalate, it's going to take a long time, because we've had such miserable deflation in the typical average wage for so long that we are not in immediate danger of having them spiral out of control.”
Grantham: Spotting bubbles is easy, but timing them is impossible
“Seeing the bubble is easy. Getting the timing right is apparently impossible.”
Grantham: Investors forced into US equities must choose quality stocks
“If you had to own US, and a lot of people do, then you have to own quality stocks, because they have survivability.”
Grantham: In the Great Depression, value stocks went bust while quality survived
“What people found in 1929 Is the value stocks had a dangerous tendency to go bust in the Great Depression, and the Coca-Colas that were horrendously expensive did not go bust.”
Grantham Held a Five Percent Personal Equity Stake in QuantumScape in 2020
“That was by far the biggest investment I had ever made. It's the only one I owned myself, because our opportunity to invest in it was only if we bought a whole lot. It was unsuitably large holding. I had five percent of QuantumScape, I think, in 2020.”
Grantham: Passive investors must outperform active managers net of fees
“By definition, they sum to the market minus the cost of transactions and minus the fees that they charge. And the guys at the bar watching you, they sum to zero. There are no costs. So they will beat you. As a group, they must outperform you.”
Grantham: College endowments face far less career risk than pension funds
“You can be an early mover at a leading college endowment more easily than most people can. A pension fund officer of a medium-large firm has got so much career risk he doesn't know whether he's coming or going.”
Grantham: High-PE markets face substantial declines once confidence breaks
“High PEs are an intrinsically nervous and risky situation where everything is confidence. If you break confidence for any reason, it could be uniquely different this time, It has been quite different in each of the bubbles, but if you break confidence and you'…”
Grantham: Coal and diesel particulate matter kills millions annually in China
“No particulate matter, Which takes years off everybody's life and kills several million people a year in China from coal and so on and diesel.”
Grantham: Emerging market equities are at an unprecedented low relative valuation
“Emerging equities, emerging markets, are not only at an unprecedented low relative, but they are actually quite cheap, absolutely, compared to the US, and on their own.”
Grantham: China will drive over 30% of global growth over 20 years
“China, who is going to represent, according to the World Bank, over 30% of the entire world's growth over the next 20 years”
Grantham: Human optimism bias drives financial bubbles and climate denial
“It's our ability to focus on optimistic thoughts and avoid unpleasant ones. It really is. It's what enables us to have South Sea bubbles, tech bubbles. It's what enables us to ignore the downside of climate change until it bites us”
Grantham: Emerging markets GDP growth will beat developed markets in 2021
“Emerging markets, as I said, it's way over half of the global GDP. It is growing far faster, and because of the size of China, it's guaranteed to do that. It's going to have a much better growth rate this year under stress, much better than the GDP growth of t…”
Grantham: Venture capital uses very little leverage compared to other classes
“Ironically, leverage plays the least role in venture capital. Most of them have relatively little leverage. It's equity money.”
Grantham: Batterymarch beat the market by six points annually over eight years
“Of the eight years of battery march, we drew one and won six and lost one, but we won by an average of six points a year over the eight years.”
Grantham: GMO beat the market for nine consecutive years by eight points annually
“We won the first nine years in a row. You can imagine starting a firm, that's a good time to do it. And we won by an average of eight points a year.”
Grantham: GMO's Early Quant Model Matched Discretionary Picks and Performed Equally Well
“So we redefined the formula until slowly but surely over a few months, we got it to kick out a portfolio, which was 90% the same as ours. Interestingly, the 10% that was different did just as well as our 10%.”
Grantham: No fired clients returned to GMO after dot-com crash
“No one came back after firing us, even though we were right for the right reasons, and we made a ton of money.”
Grantham: GMO made positive returns each year from 2000 to 2002
“We actually made nice money in 2000, nice money in 2001, and hung in by half a percent in 2002.”
Grantham: GMO's AUM fell to $22B before surging to $165B post-crash
“We went from thirty two billion to 22. Then we exploded. In four years, we went from 22 to 165.”
Grantham: Pre-revenue QuantumScape was briefly worth more than General Motors in 2020
“It exploded to a 131 by the end of twenty-twenty. For a second was worth more than General Motors. Years away from having any sales.”
Grantham: Index investing now represents over half the market
“Then it started to get traction, and in the last 25 years took off, and is now more than half the market.”
Grantham: Japan's 20-year-old cohort is half its 1948 size
“Do you know the twenty-year-old cohort in Japan is 50% of what it was in 1948?”
Grantham Foundation may reach $1B in cumulative grants by end of 2026
“I'm pleased to say that we might reach a billion dollars of grant checks written by the end of this year, cumulatively.”
Grantham: Foundation has backed 120 green startups, vast majority will fail
“So we do that, and we've done a 120 ourselves, and a lot of them will fail. The great majority will fail.”
Grantham: GMO held Microsoft in value fund until exiting by June 2000
“Our claim to fame in our first quant funds is that we owned Microsoft in our value stream in the top decile of value from the day it appeared as a stock that met our size limit until late 99, when it finally got overpriced enough that it drifted into decile tw…”