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 11 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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
Geremia: ESG will cease to be an investment term within three years
“The most exciting to me is that ESG will go away. It will not be an investment term in three years, and it has nothing to do with it not being super important.”
Geremia: MFS aims for full-cycle outperformance rather than 1-to-5-year alpha
“We do not believe that we exist to generate alpha over short measurement periods like one, three, and five. Our goal is to outperform over a full market cycle”
Geremia: Obsessive Growth at Any Cost and Passive Capital Have Hit Limits
“I think what we're seeing today is that obsessive growth at any cost is over. I think we're seeing the limitations of passive capital. I think we're seeing the limitations of short-term alpha. I think we're going to start to desperately realize how important l…”
Geremia: MFS Avoids Active ETFs Because They Cannot Be Closed for Capacity
“We have looked a lot at active ETFs as an example, but here's the problem with ETFs. You can't close the products. How do you manage capacity, and how do you protect performance as an active manager? That is the sole reason we have not offered an active ETF.”
Geremia: Skeptical that investment personalization actually serves client needs
“I think there's a lot of talk about personalization, and I'm a little skeptical on that, because again, I'm not sure that's actually, it sounds good, and it sounds like it's about the customer. I'm not sure that's actually What the customer needs. I think it's…”
Geremia: Full market cycles take 7-10 years, but benchmarks measure half
“The measurements that the industry anchors around are usually half a full market cycle. Anywhere between seven and 10 years is a full market cycle.”
Geremia: MFS stock holding duration is 3-4x the industry average
“When you even look at the average holding of a stock inside our portfolios, it's three to four times the industry average.”
Geremia: Combining credit and equity analysts protected MFS in 2008
“It was the greatest differentiator for us in the global financial crisis. We could see our fixed income team knew and understood and started to understand the issues, especially in the financial sector, and really said, there's a lot of stuff here we can't val…”
Geremia: MFS ties at least one-third of compensation to teamwork
“So we changed compensation decades ago, first and foremost, to say that we are a team and that's the way we're going to incent people to operate. So you're not just going to get paid on your results. That's going to be a huge factor for sure, but there's going…”
Geremia: Investors take 5x more risk today for same 1990s returns
“Today, although that's starting to change as interest rates are rising, for the past 30 years, investors have been taking five times the amount of risk to get the same amount of return that they did 30 years ago.”
Geremia: MFS closed high-inflow product to protect existing shareholder returns
“About almost 20 years ago, and I was taking over the institutional business, and so I had a lot to learn. And you're dealing with large institutions all over the world, but we made the decision to close a product that was receiving lots of flow. And I, at the …”