This is a selected archive of speeches I gave before I joined The Wall Street Journal. Since 2008, under the Journal’s rules, I have turned down approximately 99% of all requests to make speeches.
I will probably be unable to accept your invitation, too, and I apologize for that. If you would nevertheless like to me to consider an invitation to speak before your group, you may email me at info[at]jason.zweig.com.
3-Dec-03
Ben Is Back: Lessons and Ideas from Benjamin Graham
This presentation summarizes the life and living legacy of Benjamin Graham, author of “The Intelligent Investor.” What can we still learn today from the greatest investment thinker who ever lived? Jason Zweig outlines some of the enduring lessons any investor can learn from Graham.
18-MAR-03
Is Your Brain Wired to Make You Rich?
This speech, which Jason presented at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in 2003, is a shorter and simpler version of the talk Jason gave to the AIMR in 2002. It is a good visual overview of how the human brain goes about making financial decisions – complete with dazzling graphics of neurons firing away.
27-Jun-01
Fat Tails, Thin Ice
In this speech, the keynote address to the 2001 Morningstar Investment Conference, Jason talks about how financial planners misunderstand and misuse the lessons of history: They cite academic studies “proving” investment theories without ever reading them; they extrapolate past data without questioning the quality and durability of the numbers; and they fail to communicate investment risk in terms clients can understand. Jason offers suggestions on how to do better.
07-DEC-00
If Your Clients Know as Much as You Do, How Can You Keep Them?
In this speech, Jason warned that money managers needed to build an emotional bond with their investors before it was too late. All too many fund companies rely on hot performance and marketing gimmicks, instead of building trust by managing risk and investing for the long term. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems a shame that more people in the fund industry didn’t take this speech (to the Association for Investment Management & Research) more seriously.
25-Oct-99
Behavioral Finance: What Good Is It, Anyway?
Behavioral finance – the study of investing psychology – is getting tons of attention. The trendiest money managers all say they use behavioral finance to exploit the mistakes of irrational investors. In this speech to a conference at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Jason argues that behavioral finance is not a window onto the behavior of other people, but a mirror that shows our own shortcomings; we should use it not to take advantage of other stupid investors, but rather to make ourselves smarter investors.
14-OCT-99
1974 and 1999: History Turned Upside-Down
In this speech, Jason warned that money managers needed to build an emotional bond with their investors before it was too late. All too many fund companies rely on hot performance and marketing gimmicks, instead of building trust by managing risk and investing for the long term. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems a shame that more people in the fund industry didn’t take this speech (to the Association for Investment Management & Research) more seriously.
01-JUN-95
Why Do Mutual Funds Cost So Much?
In this speech, Jason told the history of rising expenses over the years and reviewed – then dismantled – the fund industry’s justifications for the ever-higher flood of costs. If you want to learn more about how high fund expenses are, how they got there, and what to do about them, you may find that this speech (given while Jason was the mutual funds editor at Forbes) remains a useful resource.