Author Archives: Win Smith

September in Paris

Posted on October 3, 2019 by Win Smith

In a previous post, I described a paper on sovereign debt by Mattia Landoni (Cox School of Business – Southern Methodist University), Christopher Cameron (US Treasury), and me.  Our paper gives a simple way to relate debt management policies and … Continue reading →

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Talk on Alternative Factor Investing

Posted on September 7, 2019 by Win Smith

QWAFAFEW* Denver meets September 12th with a discussion on alternative factor investing!   Please RSVP now. Event Details and Location: We will meet at the Cactus Club in Denver, located at 1621 Blake St, starting at 5:30pm. Our format will allow ample … Continue reading →

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Bond Talk on May 23

Posted on May 15, 2019 by Win Smith

‏If you’re in Denver on May 23 and you’re interested in the bond market, join us for a QWAFAFEW* talk: Predicting the Supply of Long-Term Bonds.  The talk will be based on a new paper by Mattia Landoni, Chris Cameron, … Continue reading →

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New Paper on Bond Portfolio Dynamics

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Win Smith

  Mattia Landoni (SMU Cox School of Business) and I recently completed a paper on bond portfolio dynamics (now under review at an academic journal). We offer a new theory on the evolution of the maturity structures for rolling bond … Continue reading →

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Spam Followers

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Win Smith

A wave of spam followers has hit this blog, so I removed the “follow” feature.  If you are sincerely interested in following this blog, please do so by contacting me.  Thank you.

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The Invisible Run-Off

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Win Smith

Today, the Alphaville section of the Financial Times published The invisible run-off, in which I discuss a new source of “quantitative tightening” that almost no one seems to have noticed.  I estimate that $350 billion of private funds will be … Continue reading →

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My Letter to the Wall Street Journal

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Win Smith

The Wall Street Journal just published a letter of mine, Debt Bomb has Shorter Fuse Than Many Citizens Think (credit to them for the snappy title, and to my wife Corrina for invaluable editing).  I respond to the Journal’s recent editorial Obama’s … Continue reading →

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Quarter the Cross: An Elegant Construction

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Win Smith

Last month, I presented an infinite pattern of nested crosses as a response to the  #QuarterTheCross challenge on Twitter.  The idea is to find interesting ways to shade one-quarter of the area of the cross built from five squares.Now David Butler, a math lecturer … Continue reading →

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Quarter the Cross

Posted on February 18, 2017 by Win Smith

Yesterday, I noticed that some of the math teachers I follow on Twitter were challenging their students, and themselves, with the #quarterthecross problem.  The problem is simply to find interesting regions of a five-square cross that take up exactly one-quarter of … Continue reading →

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My FT Alphaville Commentary on Managing U.S. Treasury Debt

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Win Smith

My commentary Go Long, Mr Mnuchin has just been posted at FT Alphaville of the Financial Times. I address whether the U.S. Treasury debt should be lengthened and whether it should sell 50-year or 100-year bonds.  I think that “ultra-long” bonds are … Continue reading →

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