Quantitative Finance
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The Efficient Frontier is a Beautiful Lie: Why 'Optimal' Portfolios Fail in Real Markets
- Fabio Capela
- Portfolio theory , Quantitative finance , Modern portfolio theory , Risk management , Mathematical finance , Investment mathematics , Portfolio construction , Academic finance
If you’ve ever opened up an investing textbook, you’ve seen the chart. A smooth, upward-curving line — the efficient frontier — showing a perfect relationship between risk and return. All you need to do is plug in your estimates for expected returns, volatilities, and correlations, and voilà: the optimal portfolio is right there in front of you.
Read MoreVariability Drain: The Silent Killer of Long-Term Compounding
- Fabio Capela
- Systematic investing , Portfolio mathematics , Compounding , Risk management , Quantitative finance , Volatility management , Long term investing , Portfolio optimization
You spend years refining your strategy. You optimize your entries and exits. You backtest it across decades. On paper, it shows strong returns. Maybe even impressive alpha. But something keeps bothering you. Despite solid average returns, your portfolio isn’t growing the way you expect. You’re not losing in any dramatic way — no catastrophic drawdowns, no obvious mistakes. But something subtle is bleeding your wealth. Quietly. Relentlessly.
Read MoreHow Fractional Differencing Revolutionized My Feature Engineering for Investment Strategies
- Fabio Capela
- Quantitative finance , Feature engineering , Machine learning , Systematic investing , Financial mathematics , Time series analysis , Advanced analytics , Algorithmic trading
As a theoretical physicist turned systematic investor, I’ve always been fascinated by the mathematical structures underlying financial markets. While most investors focus on price movements and traditional technical indicators, I discovered that the real edge comes from understanding the deeper statistical properties of market data—particularly how to extract meaningful features that preserve both trend information and stationarity.
Read MoreThe One Number That Changed How I Think About Investment Risk
- Fabio Capela
- Risk management , Sharpe ratio , Risk adjusted returns , Portfolio analysis , Investment metrics , Systematic investing , Performance measurement , Quantitative finance
For years, I focused on the wrong metric when evaluating my investment performance. Like most investors, I obsessed over returns. How much did I make this month? How much did I make this year? How did my portfolio compare to the S&P 500?
Read MoreThe Truth About Beating the S&P 500: What 8 Years of Real Trading Taught Me
- Fabio Capela
- Market outperformance , Systematic investing , S& p 500 analysis , Investment performance , Portfolio management , Risk management , Quantitative finance , Active investing
I’ve heard this phrase countless times from financial advisors, academic researchers, and fellow investors. The conventional wisdom is clear: 90% of professional fund managers fail to outperform the S&P 500 over ten years, so why should individual investors even try?
Read MoreHow I Built an Investment Strategy That Beat the S&P 500 by 8% Annually for 8 Years
- Fabio Capela
- Systematic investing , Portfolio management , Investment performance , Market outperformance , Risk management , Asset allocation , Quantitative finance , Financial strategy
Eight years ago, I was frustrated. Like most investors, I was putting money into index funds and watching my portfolio swing wildly with every market tantrum. The conventional wisdom said I should just “buy and hold” the S&P 500, but watching 20% drawdowns every few years while barely beating inflation didn’t feel like a winning strategy.
Read MoreWhy Index Funds Are Sabotaging Your FIRE Timeline: The Systematic Solution
- Fabio Capela
- Fire , Systematic investing , Portfolio management , Financial independence , Investment strategies , Retirement planning , Asset allocation , Quantitative finance
Most FIRE investors are unknowingly adding 5+ years to their retirement timeline by sticking with “safe” index funds. While the investment world preaches the gospel of passive investing, a growing number of sophisticated investors are achieving Financial Independence faster through systematic strategies.
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