RWH071: Risk, Ruin, Reinvention & Resilience w/ Victor Haghani

In this episode, William Green speaks with Victor Haghani, founder & CIO of Elm Wealth & author of The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Making Better Financial Decisions. Victor’s journey is among the most remarkable & instructive in modern investment history. As one of the founders of Long-Term Capital Management, he experienced dazzling success & devastating failure. Today, he oversees billions of dollars using a low-cost, diversified, index-driven strategy that reflects hard-won lessons about resilience, humility, simplicity & risk management.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:

(00:00:00) Intro(00:04:17) How Victor Haghani’s tumultuous family history shaped him.(00:14:02) What he learned as a star trader on Salomon’s famed arbitrage desk.(00:22:56) How he honed his skills by playing high-stakes games of Liar’s Poker.(00:30:35) How Long-Term Capital Management hit the jackpot—for a while.(00:46:04) How Russia’s default in 1998 sparked a cascading disaster.(00:49:18) Why he defends the fund’s enormous appetite for leverage & risk.(00:52:20) What he views as the real lessons of the fund’s collapse.(00:58:21) How the concept of expected utility can improve our financial decisions.(01:11:09) Why he fell out of love with exotica like private equity & hedge funds.(01:13:22) What troubles him about the traditional, static approach to indexing.(01:18:52) Why he favors a “dynamic asset allocation” based on risks & rewards.(01:27:21) How his firm’s current allocations reflect a wary view of US equities.(01:40:45) What he’s learned about overcoming adversity & finding happiness.

Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences.

BOOKS AND RESOURCES

Inquire about William Green’s ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Richer, Wiser, Happier Masterclass⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Victor Haghani’s investment firm, Elm Wealth.

Victor Haghani & James White’s book “The Missing Billionaires.”

Michael Lewis’ book, “Liar’s Poker.”

Roger Lowenstein’s book, “When Genius Failed.”

Daniel Gilbert’s book, “Stumbling on Happiness.”

Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”