Episode summary
The Big Long: Risk and Reward With Ben Carlson | Trillions
Trillions
· · Hosts: Joel Weber, Eric Balchunas, Vildana Hajric · Guests: Ben Carlson
Summary
Ben Carlson argues that long-term investing succeeds less because of brilliance than because of behavior, time horizon, and simple rules. He frames his new book, Risk & Reward, around the idea that every investing choice carries trade-offs, and that most investors do better by staying invested, rebalancing, and accepting volatility than by trying to call tops and bottoms.
A central theme is that even disastrous market timing can still compound into strong results if the investor stays in the market long enough. Carlson revisits his “worst market timer” study and says the lesson is not that timing does not matter, but that regular investing and patience matter more. He also argues that U.S. stocks have historically been unusually powerful, while diversification across asset classes, geographies, and strategies remains the right defense against unexpected regimes like 2022.
He is especially interested in behavioral products that help investors stick with a plan. Buffer ETFs, “fun accounts,” and trend-following strategies can give people a release valve without forcing them to abandon their core portfolio. That logic also underpins GTND, his new ETF, which is designed as a rules-based, tax-efficient way to move between risk-on and risk-off exposure.
Key takeaways
- Carlson says the key investing variable is time horizon, not perfect market timing, and even the “world’s worst market timer” could still become a millionaire.
- He argues that 60/40 portfolios are far more reliable over long periods, but 2022 showed that bonds also need diversification because rates can rise fast.
- Carlson views buffer ETFs as a behavioral tool that caps some upside in exchange for downside protection, especially for retirees nervous after 2022.
- He says “fun accounts” or capped speculative buckets can help investors leave the rest of the portfolio alone and reduce emotional overtrading.
- Carlson’s GTND ETF uses rules-based trend following to move between risk-on and risk-off, and he says the ETF wrapper improves tax efficiency versus an SMA.
Notable quotes
“even though he was the worst investor ever, the world's worst market timer. He became a millionaire”
“there is no free lunch in investing, but diversification is pretty darn close, right? In terms of a riskmanagement tool”
“you never have an index fund that that decides to take a step back because it wants to spend more time with its family”
“I call it the fun account, which Barry's is probably better better than mine”
“the new thing is tax alpha, right? And people are way aware that it's not my gross returns that matter. It's my net of everything, net of expenses, net of taxes”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio, news. — Welcome to Trillions. I'm Joel Weber. — And I'm Eric Balchunis. — Excited to have a newcomer on the podcast today who's kind of a big deal.
Yeah. I mean, I've known him for a while. I remember my first book, The Institutional ETF Toolbox.
I interviewed him. He was one of like 30 people I interviewed. He was really good.
He came from the institutional world. So, he really knew that world and the sort of I'll call them unnatural barriers for ETFs in that world. Then he joined Rit Holtz and he's been blogging there and he has a podcast called Animal Spirits.
Ben Carlson, I know him as a wealth of common sense. that's kind of his like name of his uh brand. And he writes books and is always just really has great data, great takes, classic sort of big long adviser as I call them.
Meaning that unlike the big short people who are like out there looking for tops and trying to be cool like Christian Bale, these guys do the opposite. They're like, "Don't worry about it. Stay invested.
Go low." — And and their their clients get rich. — Okay. Okay. So, Ben Carlson, who's the director of institutional asset management at Rit Holds Wealth Management, this time on Trillions, risk and reward. Ben, welcome to Trillions. — Hey guys, glad to be here. Eric, it's funny. You and I talked a number of years ago and you said, "Hey, I'm writing this book and I want I might want to call it the big long as opposed to the big short." And I liked that idea. And actually, I was going to ask you first, but I talked to my my uh publisher and I said, "What if we called this the big long?
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- market timing
- long-term investing
- index funds
- buffer etfs
- tax efficiency etfs
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GTND
- Ritholtz Wealth Management
- Goaltender (GTND)
Watch the episode
Watch “The Big Long: Risk and Reward With Ben Carlson | Trillions” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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