About Scott Cleland
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You are hereSECThe Father of Indexing Calls My Indexing Thesis "Nuts!"Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2009-07-03 17:35When Investment News asked John Bogle, Vanguard's founder and the father of indexing, about my "Indexing into the Ditch" thesis (that indexing is one of the root causes of the financial crisis) he said: it “is nuts! Last time I looked, index funds accounted for about 0.4% of all stock trading ... Just perhaps the other 99.6% might bear a teeny-weeny bit of the responsibility.” Let me first respond to Mr. Bogle's points in order. The thesis "is nuts! "I must admit I smiled at the ad hominum implication that my thesis was "nuts" and not worth listening to; I remembered that Bernie Ebbers called me the "idiot Washington analyst" because my research was the first to charge that WorldCom's business simply did not add up. Challenging Mr. Bogle's Claim Indexing is InvestingSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2009-06-12 12:34With all due respect to Mr. John Bogle, legendary founder of Vanguard and de facto leader of the American index fund movement that now manages ~$1.5 trillion, I must respectfully challenge, on the merits, Mr. Bogle's, and others, ongoing mischaracterization of indexing as "investing." Indexing into the Ditch -- Financial Crisis Root Causes -- Part ISubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2009-06-11 17:43Despite the widely held view that indexing is the safest way to invest, indexing helped recklessly drive our financial system and economy into the ditch last fall.
A major reason the system has become so unstable and dangerous to financial security is that over ten percent of money management vehicles on the road today are indexers, which by design drive the wrong way against the oncoming traffic of a market economy that allocates capital based on economic merit. Diagnosing the Financial Crisis' Root CausesSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2009-06-11 17:43This is an introduction and background for my new multi-part research series on diagnosing the root causes of the Financial Crisis. Why a Lack of Openness Sullies the Integrity of Google's Ad AuctionsSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2008-06-02 15:30Does Google warrant the current exceptional leap-of-faith in the integrity of its dominant ad auction model, given its near total lack of openness, transparency, independent auditability, or third party oversight? There is a growing body of evidence that Google does not.
Why a lack of openness sullies the integrity of Google's ad auctions. First, it is widely accepted that public markets operate best when open and transparent. Google's ad auction model has become one of the world's most important public markets. Google is increasingly becoming the world's primary public information broker. Google brokers:
Google is also not open or transparent. What's missing from the reporting on Google's falling stock price?Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2008-02-27 14:13There were three proverbial "elephants in the room" that the media and analysts largely missed in discussing Google's stock slide and recent concern over a slow-down in paid clicks. Elephant #1 -- Click Fraud: I was stunned that no one connected-the-dots with the slow down in paid clicks with Google and Yahoo's "dirty little secret" of addressing raging click fraud. Google's Regulatory Outlook 2008Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2008-01-18 18:33The big question for investors is why?
Google's Regulatory Outlook: Federal Trade Commission: Antitrust: Great FT article on Google provides more evidence of Google's cultural aversion to internal controlsSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-09-21 13:30Richard Waters of the FT produced a very insightful and newsy article on how Google reportedly passed on buying DoubleClick two years earlier over internal concerns about how that alignment of businesses could clash with Google's famed "don't be evil' highmindedness.
My big takeaway from this article was an undercurrent of Google's struggle over internal controls to ensure Google's "ethics" are carried out in practice. Debunking more net neutrality revisionist historySubmitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-08-20 22:34Liberal blogger Matt Stoller of OpenLeft has a post at Save the Internet that lamely tries to rewrite "the history of net neutrality" in his commentary about his interview with FCC Commisioner Michael Copps. Translating Google's spectacular earnings callSubmitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-04-20 09:45Google turned in another awe-inspring financial performance in 1Q07. Pick your news report for the basics. All you need to know is revenue growth was up 63%. Wow!
Let me translate some of the earnings call: Pages |