Welcome podcast listeners. We have a fantastic episode for you today.

Last year when we published the Best Investment Writing

Volume 2, we offered authors the opportunity to record an audio version of their

chapter to be released as a segment of the podcast and listeners loved it. This year we're bringing you

the entire volume of the best investment writing volume 3 in podcast format.

You'll hear from some of the most respected money managers and

investment researchers all over the world. Enough for me. Let's get to our guests and

let them take over this special episode.

Hi, I'm Rob Arnott, founding chairman of research affiliates.

We're best known for our work in Smart Data and Asset Allocation

with about $180 billion in assets managed worldwide using our

investment strategies. We're a bit unusual. We're singularly focused on

research and product innovation and we work with distribution partners to make our ideas available to the

marketplace. So we deliver solutions in partnership with distribution

powerhouses like PIMCO, FUTC, SSGA, Black Rock, Legal in General,

Investco, and NAMORA, to name just a few.

These firms bring our ideas to their end clients through mutual funds, EDFs,

separately managed accounts, and other vehicles.

So as one of the pioneers in Smart Beta, in 2005, we introduced the research affiliates fundamental index

also known as Raffi as an alternative to traditional market cap weighted

indexes. The fundamental index weights companies based on the size of the business, not based on the popularity of the company, not based on how much the market value is, not based on how extravagantly expensive the company is.

So we wait companies based on measures like book value, cash flow, dividends and sales,

...