Jason Apollo Voss - The Intuitive Investor

24 April 2013: Jason Apollo Voss is a Panelist at the Battle of the Quants

Jason Apollo Voss — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:30:26 +0000

Right here on the What My Intuition Tells Me Now blog I frequently criticized quantitative finance for its disconnection from reality. In particular, I decry the extreme prejudice to favor analytical, as opposed to creative and intuitive, thinking. So imagine my great pleasure at being asked to be a panelist at the forthcoming Battle of the Quants in New York City on 24 April 2013 at 10:45am at the Museum of Mathematics. Specifically, I will be a part of the “Main Event” – the “Man vs. Machine” debate – taking the side of the power of human reason and wisdom in investing.

I hope that you will be rooting me on from wherever you are. In the meantime, sate yourself with some of these selections from my writing on the subject of man vs. machine:

Regardless of your feelings on this issue, Battle of the Quants is one of the globe’s premier quantitative finance venues and I am thrilled to be a part of it! Other participants include Heidi Klum (yes, Heidi Klum is hosting a charity event); Dr. Robert High, the man behind IBM’s über komputer, Watson; and my pal, Emanuel Derman. Especially big thanks is owed to Bartt Kellermann, principal of Global Capital Acquisition Corporation, and the man behind the Battle of the Quants; as well as to Robert Passarella, Managing Director: Global Head Financial Institutions Group at DataSift, for introducing me to Bartt.

what my intuition tells me now: CFA Institute asks: “What is the difference between investing and speculation?”

Jason Apollo Voss — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 20:02:46 +0000

In a post on CFA Institute’s “Inside Investing” blog, Robert Hagstrom asks of people, “What is the difference between investing and speculation?” Well, lo and behold, I addressed this very issue in my book, The Intuitive Investor: A Radical Guide for Manifesting Wealth, on pages 85-86. Here is what I had to say:

“There are a million ways to make money by investing. And the results of investing are measured objectively, not subjectively. It doesn’t matter if you are nice to other people or if you go to church on Sundays. What matters is whether you make money or not. That said, there is a huge difference between speculators and investors.

“Speculators are similar to gamblers. Gamblers rush to make money. Their time scale is often extraordinarily short, extending out only to the point where they no longer have any money, or have lost enough money to scare them into stopping their gambling. Gamblers obsess about big money and care little about risks. In fact, many gamblers are attracted to gambles with the highest risks. Gamblers often convince themselves they are different from everyone else. Gamblers often do not have a plan when they gamble because they are in it for the visceral and immediate rush. Gamblers are subject to their emotions.

“Unfortunately, many people who purchase interests in investments behave the way gamblers behave. People frequently make investments based on rumor, momentum, and speculation hoping to ride the wave of extreme fortune. With the fortune in hand the speculator believes that he will be happier. There is nothing wrong with any of this, as long as the speculation is serving the speculator. However, a speculator is not an investor.

“An investor is a careful investigator looking to uncover opportunities, account for risks, and purchase business interests where returns exceed risks over a preferred investment time horizon. The primary difference between investors and speculators is consciousness. Investors are more cognizant of their choices than speculators because they take full responsibility for their choices. Additionally, investors bring to bear all of their personal power and capabilities to find that rarest of things: the excellent investment opportunity.”

In other words, the essential differences are time scale preference (long- vs. short-term), behaviors (i.e. the purpose of engaging in the activity), desired outcomes, methods (investigation vs. guessing), and, of course, the degree of consciousness of the two parties (engaged vs. visceral).

I couldn’t have been more public in my opinion!

With smiles!

Jason

Intuitive Investor Simple Basics and Power Principles Course at en*theos Academy

Jason Apollo Voss — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 02:07:34 +0000

Hi!

Many of you over the years have asked me to teach the material in my award winning book The Intuitive Investor: A Radical Guide for Manifesting Wealth. I am therefore very pleased to announce my forthcoming course Intuitive Investor Simple Basics and Power Principles offered with my pals at the en*theos Academy!

The course is designed for investors of any proficiency and will be taught LIVE each Sunday 5 August thru 26 August at 10am PDT/1pm EDT. The more creative and intuitive you are the better.

The Intuitive Investor is a book that pros have hailed as “a book that forever shifts the way we think about the world” and “a masterpiece.” In the consciousness community folks have said, “I was reminded, once again, that everything one does is spiritual, if one does it with love and a genuine sense of presence” and “different from any other book about investing I’ve read in that it focuses on the use of creativity and intuition.”

I am very excited to be teaching this material for the very first time in such an extended forum.

Course overview and registration information are listed below. Please tell your friends about the upcoming courses.

With smiles!

Jason

Course Overview

On October 21, 2004, Jason Apollo Voss had a true epiphany: there was going to be a near-collapse on Wall Street, taking global gdp with it, and he should retire to exclusively pursue a spiritual practice. In electing to honor his vision he gave up a career in which the mutual fund he co-managed bested the NASDAQ by 77.0%, the S&P 500 by 49.1%, and the DJIA by 35.9%. Most of this success came from a detailed scientific understanding of the right brain and its capacity for creative and intuitive thought. These secrets and their real-world application are the specific focus and passion of The Intuitive Investor. Much more than just a book about investing, The Intuitive Investor is also a guide to healthy, mindful living. Scarcely have money, mind, and spirit been brought together so potently.

Incorporating ideas about spirituality, philosophy, science, and the art of meditation into the thought map for potential investors, The Intuitive Investor becomes a manifesto – a blueprint for decision making in finance and investment, with applications for life beyond that sphere. As he brings the right brain into the investor’s thought process, Voss explores the limitations of hard information like words, numbers, and raw data; explains how to separate “feeling” and “intuition” from “emotion” in decision making; and attempts to reconcile the seeming dichotomies of intuition versus analysis and art versus science. The author breaks down complex concepts into easily understandable components, offering seven essential investor attitudes, seven essential investor behaviors, and the four principles of the Intuitive Investor (Infinity, Paradox, Harmonizing and Action), adding enlightening anecdotes from Voss’s fabulously successful career.

“One of the most important of all investment secrets is that there is no such thing as a future fact.”

This deceptively simple statement is one of the key concepts behind Jason Apollo Voss’s new book, The Intuitive Investor: A Radical Guide for Manifesting Wealth, and it sets the tone for this 4-week course!

Enroll Now

Who Should Attend?

Anyone who wants to make better, more informed investment decisions using intuition and wants tools to improve intuitive investment decision making.

What You’ll Learn Each Week

Week 1. Intuitive Investor’s Simple Basics

A definition of investing that is more powerful and mind opening
Why intuition is more important in investing than facts
Why emotions are not the same thing as feelings
What the truth feels like
The Intuitive Investor’s Four Principles
The most important investing skill

Week 2. Intuitive Investor’s Principles 1, Infinity, and 2, Paradox

The Gift of Ignorance and why this is critical for investing success
The Gift of Fear and why this is also critical for investing success
Why context determines the power of your vision
How to open your mind to better understand information
Skills for zeroing in on relevant information

Week 3. Intuitive Investor’s Principles 3, Harmonizing, and 4, Action

The 7 Essential Investor Attitudes
How to apply the Attitudes to make better, more intuitive decisions
The 7 Essential Investor Behaviors
How to apply the Behaviors to make better, more intuitive decisions

Week 4. Easy, But Potent, Meditation for Investing

That everyone meditates naturally
What meditation is
An analogy for understanding meditation
An extremely easy, but potent, way to meditate almost immediately

Dates & Tuition

Time: 4 Sundays at 10:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM ET
Dates: August 5, 12, 19, 26
Can’t make the calls? No problem! Download an MP3 of the class the next day.

Tuition: $100

If cash is tight, we offer a “Pick Your Price” model where you can choose to pay $100/$75/$50.
(And, if cash is *super* tight, you can choose to apply for one of the limited number of scholarships available for this course.)

Enroll Now

What You’ll Get Out of the Course

You’ll learn why intuition is much more important for effective investing than is analysis.
You’ll learn important structure that makes your intuition much more potent and turns it into an on-demand tool.
You’ll learn how to use your intuition to make better investment decisions.
You’ll learn how to meditate easily and effectively.
You’ll learn many investing secrets not taught in any other investing course.

Textbook for the Course

Buy on Amazon!

The Intuitive Investor: A Radical Guide for Manifesting Wealth
by Jason Apollo Voss

About Jason Apollo Voss

Jason Apollo Voss is a person with that rare gift of innate balance, a mind equal parts creative and analytical, a personality equal parts heart and head. This is aptly demonstrated in his book, The Intuitive Investor: A Radical Guide for Manifesting Wealth, a 2011 Foreword Reviews Business & Economics Book of the Year finalist, and unique for its emphasis on the right-brain and its unfettered ability for generating abundance.

Over the course of his investment career as co-Portfolio Manager of the Davis Appreciation & Income Fund (DAIF) Jason was not only the consummate outsider’s insider, but also the fund he co-managed bested the NASDAQ by 77.0%, the S&P 500 by 49.1% and the DJIA by 35.9%.* The DAIF was regularly ranked in the top decile of its investment category and further it earned a Lipper #1 ranking. The Fund was named a Lipper Leader, and was a perennial Morningstar Analyst Pick. Most impressively, the DAIF was one of Morningstar’s first ten mutual funds given a Stewardship Grade of “A.”

Voss has given numerous press interviews or contributed to: the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Business Week, Bloomberg, Reuters, Money, the Wall Street Transcript, Smart Money, Journal of Private Equity, Seeking Alpha, public radio’s Marketplace Business, U.S. News & World Report, Red Herring, Value Line, Blog on Books, AskMen.com, etc. You might have seen him on television speaking about the importance of analysis coupled with intuition in order to generate excellent investment returns. Or you might have seen one of his pieces written in his previous role as a Forbes Contributor.

Other noteworthy accomplishments include: his October 21, 2004 epiphany in which he realized there was going to be a global recession, a realization that led to his retirement August 19, 2005; and his calling of the March 9, 2009 market low just several days after the fact on his “What My Intuition Tells Me Now” blog.

While Jason considers himself a supporter of the western world’s economic system, his blog has featured frequent criticisms of capitalism. Voss is a true believer in the importance of an ethical and legal framework for business and fully subscribes to the emerging philosophy of conscious capitalism.

Voss holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, and a Masters of Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance and Accounting, from the University of Colorado. Additionally, he is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) as designated by CFA Institute. More recently, Jason is selling his talents to CFA Institute as one of its Content Directors. Specifically he scours the world for compelling fixed income, behavioral finance, corporate finance and quantitative methods content and then packages it into content that is equally compelling for CFA Institute’s 100,000+ members.

Jason is an extremely dynamic investment speaker who loves to teach his audiences how to use their intuition to get what they want.

Lastly, he has studied the ancient martial art of ninjutsu, Eastern healing techniques and has also taught meditation.

Praise for Jason Apollo Voss

Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison had the ability to integrate logic and imagination, reason and intuition, analysis and synthesis. In this powerful book, Jason Voss expresses his genius by guiding you to utilize all these elements in your approach to investing. The Intuitive Investor combines rigorous, analytical discipline and good old common sense with his uncommon intuitive gifts. The best investment you can make today is to buy this book!

— Michael J. Gelb, Author of How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci and Innovate Like Edison

The Intuitive Investor is eloquent, highly intelligent, has great clarity, is superbly researched and one of the best and most instructive books of its kind that I have ever seen.

— Stephen M. Pollan, author of Die Broke and formerly CNBC’s “Answer Man”

This is a great book! Whether you invest for yourself or have a financial advisor, a keen intuitive sense is paramount to success. The Intuitive Investor delivers brilliantly clear strategies to make decisions and invest wisely.

— Kelly Howell, President, Brain Sync Corporation and host of the “Theatre of the Mind” Podcast

Jason Voss and his book The Intuitive Investor are perfect representations of Conscious Capitalism. In this forward-thinking book Jason demonstrates how transcendent values lead to better, more conscious investment choices. I have given many endorsements over the years, but The Intuitive Investor is the easiest for me to say YES to!

— Patricia Aburdene, author of Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism, co-author of Megatrends 2000, and one of the world’s leading social forecasters

Enroll Now

17 May 2012: Link to Jason Apollo Voss’ Nationwide (UK) Interview with the BBC’s Today Programme

Jason Apollo Voss — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:58:40 +0000

Today Jason Apollo Voss, author of The Intuitive Investor was privileged to be interviewed by Simon Jack of the BBC’s #1 ranked radio show, the Today programme. The subject was Facebook’s (ticker symbol: FB) initial public offering (IPO). Thanks very much to Mr. Jack and the Today Programme! It was a treat to be broadcast to approximately 10% of the UK population!

19 March 2012: Link to Jason Apollo Voss’ Nationwide Interview with Marketplace Business

Jason Apollo Voss — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:27:57 +0000

Today Jason Apollo Voss, author of The Intuitive Investor was privileged to be interviewed by Marketplace Business New York Bureau Chief, Heidi N. Moore. The subject was Apple’s (ticker symbol: AAPL) decision to pay shareholders a $2.65/share quarterly dividend. Thanks very much to Ms. Moore and Marketplace Business! It was a treat to be broadcast to approximately 9 million listeners!

Here is the interview:

14 March 2012: Radio Interview with A Better World’s Mitchell Rabin

Jason Apollo Voss — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:17:48 +0000

Please tune in to A Better World on 14 March 2012 at 6pm EDT for my interview with the effusive Mitchell Rabin. A replay will be available in case you cannot tune in. Thanks to Mitchell Rabin for the opportunity to talk about The Intuitive Investor, conscious capitalism and green investing.

what my intuition tells me now: How to Improve Lie Catching

Jason Apollo Voss — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:31:25 +0000

Here is a link to my favorite piece so far written as one of CFA Institute’s Content Directors: How to Improve Lie Catching, a summation of the lie detection research of Dr. Maria Hartwig and Dr. Charles F. Bond.

I highly recommend a regular perusal of CFA Institute’s Enterprising Investor blog as many excellent investment pieces are featured there, including yours truly.

Jason

what my intuition tells me now: Update on the State of Investing

Jason Apollo Voss — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:31:05 +0000

It has been several months since I have posted to my very own “What My Intuition Tells Me Now” blog. Clearly that is a long absence. However, I promise you that I did not abandon you and your interests. My last guidance on the blog has held up until this point. However, I now feel that an update on the state of investing is needed.

Specifically it is my intuitive sense that the European sovereign debt crisis, while not resolved and while not impotent in its ability to cause multi-percentage point drops in equity indices, has passed the point of metastasizing. Put another way, I feel that investors around the world are at the point where they are no longer insisting on a resolution to the European sovereign debt crisis.

What seems to have occurred is that folks have done their research and are fairly aware of the scale and scope of the debt disease’s symptoms. That awareness has led to a greater propensity to turn attentions toward investment opportunities and a greater receptivity to take risks. For me it looks like the place to start is in the United States and its businesses.

U.S. corporate profitability is at an all time high, yet prices have not appreciated to the same degree as earnings per share. What that means is that the financial markets look inexpensive to me.

So what makes sense in this situation? I have recommended to several friends that an allocation of half of your portfolio to U.S. equities looks attractive. Me? I have a greater proportion in small-capitalization stocks because I feel that the innovations incubated within them are likely to be highly rewarded with price appreciation going forward.

Additionally, I can’t help but think as I always do, about investments that pay actual hard cash to their investors. That category would include: convertible securities, preferred stocks, high-dividend paying stocks and corporate bonds. Especially intriguing to me would be a short to medium-duration corporate bond fund with an average credit rating of A to BBB+. Does such a thing exist? I dunno.

Lastly, certain overseas markets look interesting. For example, Russia. Yes, Russia. Look for a way to own Russia broadly, like an ETF. Why Russia? Because they have a renewed commitment to stable capital markets as they are starved for Western capital. Additionally, the nation is awash in cash as high energy prices have bolstered the nation’s coffers. Lastly, debt rich/interest payment rich Europe needs cash rich Russia.

Jason

what my intuition tells me now: Brain Power Book Recommendation

Jason Apollo Voss — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:01:27 +0000

My good friends, Michael J. Gelb and Kelly Howell, have released a new book today:

Brain Power: Improve Your Mind As You Age

I whole-heartedly endorse Michael’s other books, including How To Think Like Leonardo DaVinci and Innovate Like Edison, as well as Kelly’s many BrainSync compact discs. Please DO check this important book out.

what my intuition tells me now: Comprehensive Guide to the European Sovereign Debt Crisis

Jason Apollo Voss — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:25:13 +0000

I want to point you to some of my first work in my new role as Content Director for CFA Institute. Namely, a comprehensive guide to the European sovereign debt crisis. This link will take you to a fact sheet that contains links to much important data about the story of the year (even greater than the half-revolutions in the Middle East and the Japanese tsunami), the European sovereign debt crisis. Here you will find an:

Overview, Analysis and Timeline (perhaps the most comprehensive timeline about the crisis on the web) about the European sovereign debt crisis
Pertinent Statistics about the European sovereign debt crisis
Latest Plan for Resolving the European sovereign debt crisis
Littany of Unresolved Issues regarding the European sovereign debt crisis

I hope that you find this work useful!

Jason