The Only Black Swans with William Bernstein

Ben sits down with investor, author and market historian William Bernstein to put the current crash into perspective with history's worst crises.

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[mynameisdj]

1:51 Deep Risk
- 1914 St.Petersburg stock exchange market
- 1989 Japan is Deep Risk
- 2020 is not Deep Risk
3:15 Great Depression analogy
5:04 1989 Japan
26:16 Bond investing in low rate environment.
- Absolutely
- Buffett's equanimity comes from large pile of T-bills.
27:35 Human spirits that allow us to make it through this tough times
- Capital market does good job and it is extremely resilient
28:17 Germany's productive capacity was destroyed in 1940s but within 3~4 years they came back to pre-war level.

[TheInvestmentCircle]

Wow. What a fascinating interview. Your ability to not interrupt Bill is commendable, the man is a genius. Surprised I haven’t heard of him.

[alexinvests]

One of the best interviews/videos I have listened to on investing in general. Great Interview thank you so much! Keep up the amazing work.

[matteopeo]

Ben, groomed to perfection, uber-prepared on Bill's writings, great questions and the cool when your kid was about to enter the screen (which would have been awesome to see..!) 😂
Great job and several pearls of wisdom out of a legend.

[gen-X-trader]

killer interview, thank you for producing it

[jordicalavera]

Outstanding interview. Not just on the quality of the discussion, but I think you guys have really captured the mood of April 2020.

[kevinhartshorn]

Great interview. This is the best content you guys have had on The Compound!

[johnpoisson]

Great interview. Nice to hear from a calm hand who can think rationally about where we are...at the same time unclear why this has "Black Swan" in title...if you read taleb....and recently he is on record that this is a white swan :)

[browsedeweb]

Great interview...thanks! I would have loved to have heard more about what his thoughts are on all of the manipulation of the markets by the Fed...keeping rates low, massive QE, resulting in lots of stock buybacks over the past few years. It seems this kind of activity is both reckless and drives extreme risk taking by removing perceived risks.

[syncmeandroid]

It's him, it's Bernstein, the man!

[Xyzi]

incredible was waiting for this one!!! i have his books and yours... good stuff

[nvrselout]

Great interview! 21:44 looks like a millions are about to experience the living hell of the overqualified and long term unemployed!

[ioannislazaridis]

Is interesting to see that quite a few people who have studied other than finance or economics became very good at both of them.

[johndoh]

Just watched the interview again, and I am just a little more optimistic than an hour ago. Most of a companies value is years into the future, so even if we just shut down for a year there is still decent value to be had.
Thoughts anyone ?

[IakonaWayne]

I was just thinking of bernstein given his medical and investing knowledge and why I haven't heard much from him given the pandemic and the volatile markets of today's

[TheoreticallyNo]

Very good interview. I’m always interested to hear what Bill thinks.

[johndoh]

I am a great fan of william, I have a couple of his fantastic books.
However, I was hoping for some optimism from him regarding the current crisis, but
it wasnt freely forthcoming I felt. Ben tried to coax some hope from Bill, mentioning the great depression and other crashes giving the idea that surely today may not get as bad as that, but Bills answer was that " who knows, it could be".
Certainly no talk of a "v" shaped recovery. Thats a worry !
Also his bond/cash position stretches out further than most which may make me re-asses my own portfolio.
I think I will keep my tin hat on for longer than planned.
Good to see Bill being interviewed again, its been a few years since I have seen him on youtube.
Ben, did the interview change your thoughts on how to plan going forward from here ?

[richramsey]

This was great. I love you using these outside sources. More please!

[slovokia]

During the great depression we had deflation so dollars increased in purchasing power while asset prices (denominated in dollars) went down. Might we see an outcome this time where asset prices don’t go down as much and instead we have a burst of inflation? The inflation adjusted results might end up being the same as what happened in the great depression except that nominal government bond holders will end up receiving much lower real returns. Can central banks control inflation if they are not permitted to raise interest rates high enough because their host governments cannot afford to pay higher interest rates on their debts?

[slovokia]

Keeping money in FDIC insured savings / money market accounts at banks is a good substitute for treasury bills provided you are able to stay below the FDIC insurance limit.