Barry Ritholtz Biography
Barry Ritholtz is an American author, newspaper columnist, blogger, equities analyst, CIO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and guest commentator on Bloomberg Television. Ritholtz is the host of the Bloomberg Podcast Masters in Business in which he interviews influential figures on markets, investing and business. He is also a former contributor to CNBC and TheStreet.com.
Prior to founding Ritholtz Wealth Management, Ritholtz was CEO of Fusion IQ, prior to that chief market strategist at Maxim Group in New York, an investment bank.
Barry Ritholtz Age
Barry Ritholtz is an American author, newspaper columnist, blogger, equities analyst, CIO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and guest commentator on Bloomberg Television. He was born on October 22, 1961. He is 57 years old as of 2018
Barry Ritholtz Writing
Ritholtz is the author of Bailout Nation, published in 2009. He also writes an investing column for The Washington Post, and a blog, The Big Picture. In 2010, Ritholtz was named one of the “15 Most Important Economic Journalists” by The Daily Beast. In 2009, he published his first book, Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy.
Barry Ritholtz Image
Barry Ritholtz PhotoBarry Ritholtz Early life
Ritholtz graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Math and Physics. He was a member of the school’s equestrian team and competed in the 1981 National Championships of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association.
After graduation, Ritholtz studied at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, graduating in 1989 with a J.D. He passed the Bar exams in New York and New Jersey. He went on to practice law for a few years.
Barry Ritholtz Wife
About Barry Ritholtz
Barry L. Ritholtz is co-founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management LLC. His focus has long been how the intersection of behavioral economics and data analysis affects investors.
Launched in 2013, RWM is a financial planning and asset management firm, with over $1 billion in assets under management, offering Financial Planning and Wealth Management to the investing public.
In 2017, RWM was named ETF Advisor of the Year. The firm was also named to the Financial Times Top 300 Advisors in the US, and is the 4th fastest-growing RIA in America, according to Financial Advisor magazine.
“To say that Barry Ritholtz ‘pulls no punches’ is like saying that Joe Louis had a nice right cross.”-Jesse’s Café Américain
Ritholtz has long been a frequent critic of the excesses of Wall Street and the failures of the press in its coverage of finance. Named one of the “15 Most Important Economic Journalists” in the United States, he has been called one of the 25 Most Dangerous People in Financial Media.
He writes a daily column for Bloomberg Opinion (2013- ) and previously, a twice-monthly column on Personal Finance and Investing for The Washington Post (2011-2016).
He is also the creator and host of Masters in Business, a popular radio show/podcast on Bloomberg Radio. A 90-120 minute deep dive with some of the most important people in business and finance, the radio/podcast can be found on iTunes, Soundcloud, and Bloomberg.
The ground-breaking podcast quickly set the standard for business interviews, helped to “podcastify” Bloomberg, and led to many new finance podcasts. It has quickly become one of Bloomberg’s most popular shows.
Ritholtz has been called the “blogfather” for his long-standing finance weblog, The Big Picture. TBP generates 1-2 million page views per month and has been covering everything investing related since 2003. The blog has amassed ~150 million visitors over that 15 year period.
Media accolades include TED named TBP one of top 100 Websites You Should Know and Use; TBP was featured in the 10th annual New York Times magazine “Year in Ideas,”(DIY Economics); Numerous traffic sites rank The Big Picture as one of the most trafficked Markets/Economic’s blogs on the web.
In 2008-09, Ritholtz wrote the book Bailout Nation, published by Wiley in 2009; with an updated paperback released in 2010. Bailout Nation became the best-reviewed book on the bailouts, with NYT calling it “Irreverent,” and “an important book about a complicated subject, and yet you could still read it at the beach.” WSJ noted, “If you want to know how we got into this mess and what might still be coming, this is the book for you.” Bloomberg praised it as “A valuable new contribution to our understanding of how we arrived at this sorry juncture.”
Bailout Nation was named “Investment Book of the Year” by Stock Trader’s Almanac and won a First Amendment Award for Outstanding Journalism: Best Book. Numerous media — USA Today, Miami Herald, Marketplace Radio — named Bailout Nation as one of the best finance/business books of 2009.
One of the few strategists who saw the coming housing implosion and derivative mess far in advance, Ritholtz issued warnings about the market collapse and recession to clients and readers to seek safe harbor. Dow Jones Market Talk noted that “many market observers predict tops and bottoms, but few successfully get their timing right. Jeremy Grantham and Barry Ritholtz sit in the latter category…” (A summary of major market calls can be found here).
His observations are unique in that they are the result of both quantitative data AND behavioral economics, and a function of his unusual career path in finance.
A regular guest in the media, Ritholtz has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal’s Quite Contrary column (August 3, 2004; Page C3), and was the subject of several Barron’s interviews (December 8, 2008, and October 26, 2010). Ritholtz was honored to be the dedicatee of Stock Trader’s Almanac‘s 40th Anniversary edition in 2007 and the Yahoo Tech Ticker’s Guest of the Year in 2009.
Mr. Ritholtz performed his graduate studies at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, where he focused on Economics, Anti-Trust and Corporate Law.
He was a member of the Law Review and graduated Cum Laude with a 3.56 GPA. His undergraduate work was at Stony Brook University, where on a Regents Scholarship, he focused on Mathematics and Physics, graduating with a Bachelor Arts & Sciences degree in Political Science.
He was a member of the Stony Brook Equestrian Team and competed successfully in the National Championships (1981) of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association. In addition to writing the National Affairs column for the campus weekly (The Stony Brook Press), he was elected Vice-President of the student body. (Ritholtz best describes it as his Bizarre Academic Career)
He sits on the Board of Advisors of Riskalyze (creating quantitative measurements of client risk tolerances) and Peer Street (a marketplace that provides unprecedented access to high-quality real estate loan investments). He is also an investor in StockTwits, a Twitter-based stock community.
When not bemoaning the New York Knicks‘ all-too-frequent offensive lapses, Mr. Ritholtz is a vintage sports car enthusiast. He and his wife Wendy, an artist and teacher, live on the North Shore of Long Island, New York with their monsters Teddy and
Barry Ritholtz Net Worth
How Did Barry Ritholtz And Josh Brown Get So Big? Financial Advisors’ Daily Digest
How the opinionated duo got so big is really no secret, but in any case, Brown spells it all out and recommends advisors take heed.
LinkedIn expands its usefulness as an advisor prospecting tool, though kinks remain to be worked out.
There’s just one social platform that starts off with an enormous audience of HNW investors.
Surely most advisors and plenty of high-net-worth investors know of the voluble advisor-bloggers Barry Ritholtz and Josh Brown, who some years ago combined their separate enterprises into Ritholtz Wealth Management. In just two and a half years, the opinionated duo saw their AUM expand from $90 million to $300 million, their staff increasing from 4 to 14.
Speaking to a gathering of the CFA Institute Wealth Management Conference, Josh Brown spelled out their clear-as-day non-secret to investment advisory success:
“Social is how we do it. It’s how anyone can do it, if they want to put in the time and the effort.”
How does this bring in the business? Brown continues:
“You put your opinion out there, and like-minded people find you.”
He says advisors need to get out there on social media, be it Facebook or Twitter, and speak their minds.
Meanwhile, FinancialAdvisorIQ explains how LinkedIn can help advisors connect with prospects, though it also recounts how the platform “closed out” on one advisor just before he closed the deal.
I freely admit my bias here, but it would seem the best platform for advisors to develop a voice and get out in front of investors is Seeking Alpha, for the simple reason that it provides a more appropriate audience than any other social site.
Here are some additional items of interest to advisors today:
- The DOL is not just coming after brokers, but RIAs as well.
- Have we reached a generational peak in corporate profit margins?
- James Picerno assesses U.S. financial system risk.
- Virtually every dollar of corporate debt issuance this century has been used to buy back stock.
- More on the disruptiveness of blockchains.
Ritholtz Wealth Management
Ritholtz Wealth Management is a relatively recently founded firm, as it’s only been in business since 2013. Since its founding, the registered investment advisory firm has grown to manage more than $708 million in assets and it’s made headlines for its innovative move to lower fees for clients once they’ve been with the firm for at least three years.
The fee-only firm, which is headquartered in New York City, offers asset allocation, wealth management, corporate retirement plans, and institutional wealth management.
It provides both traditional asset management services through its team of financial advisors, as well as a robo-advisor program called Liftoff.
Ritholtz works with individuals and high-net-worth individuals, trusts, estates, charitable organizations, pension, and profit-sharing plans. It generally requires a minimum balance of $750,000 for its comprehensive portfolio management services.
Ritholtz Wealth Management Background
Ritholtz Wealth Management was founded in 2013 and currently manages more than $708 million in client assets. According to Ritholtz, its mission is to help its clients achieve their financial goals through comprehensive financial and estate plans and goals-based investment planning.
The firm is employee-owned, with chairman and chief investment officer Barry Ritholtz owning the largest percentage. CEO Josh Brown, director of wealth management Kris Venne and director of research Michael Batnick also own shares.
Ritholtz founder Barry Ritholtz’s presence in the financial industry extends beyond his firm. He is also the creator and host of Bloomberg radio podcast “Masters in Business,” and the author of leading financial blog, “The Big Picture.” Additionally, he currently writes a daily column for Bloomberg View and previously penned a monthly column on personal finance and investing for The Washington Post.
In 2009, Ritholtz published a book titled “Bailout Nation,” which was named one of the best finance books of the year by several organizations.
What Types of Clients Does Ritholtz Accept?
Ritholtz works with individuals and high-net-worth individuals, trusts, estates, charitable organizations, pension, and profit-sharing plans. Clients interested in the firm’s comprehensive portfolio management services will need to have a minimum account size of $750,000. However, this minimum is negotiable for legacy clients and for individuals who expect to soon exceed this minimum.
Ritholtz Minimum Account Sizes
Ritholtz requires a minimum balance of $750,000 for its comprehensive portfolio management services. However, the firm may group together certain client accounts to achieve this requisite minimum. Additionally, Ritholtz notes that this minimum may be negotiable for legacy clients or for individuals who expect to soon exceed the minimum.
Services Offered by Ritholtz
Ritholtz Wealth Management provides a number of services to individuals and institutions:
- Wealth management:
- Financial planning
- Asset management
- Wealth services (estate planning, life insurance, asset-backed lending, corporate retirement plans)
- Investment advice
- Corporate retirement plans
- 403(b)
- Institutional asset management
The firm also has a robo-advisor option called Liftoff. For Liftoff clients, Ritholtz creates diversified model portfolios based on their goals and risk tolerance. These portfolios generally consist of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds, as well as other similar index funds, stocks or investment products.
Investment Philosophy
Ritholtz Wealth Management’s top priorities are capital preservation and risk management. The firm uses behavioral economics and asset allocation to build and manage its client portfolios. Though Ritholtz believes that long-term returns are what truly matters, it understands that investors will have short-term needs.
To balance the two, Ritholtz says it’s developed a “proprietary, low-cost, systematic risk management strategy to ensure that investors can handle periodic volatility without abandoning their investment plan.”
The firm believes that financial planning and wealth management should be intertwined, and it makes investment recommendations based on clients’ goals determined throughout the financial planning process. The firm offers a few different types of discretionary portfolio models, of which there may be multiple versions:
- Core asset allocation: uses institutional share class mutual funds and ETFs
- Tactical model portfolio: often used to complement asset allocation models
- Separately managed accounts: may use all-equity or all fixed-income strategies
Fees Under Ritholtz Wealth Management
As mentioned previously, one of Ritholtz Wealth Management’s big selling points is that it offers a loyalty program called Milestone Rewards, which is available for clients of its comprehensive portfolio management program who have maintained an account with Ritholtz for at least three years.
Clients who are in the loyalty program will get an average fee discount of 16% across all investment accounts. This discount becomes effective the month clients reach the three-year mark.
For its comprehensive portfolio services, the firm generally charges clients based on a percentage of their assets under management. The rates in the table below are the highest clients will receive, as these fees are negotiable.
Barry Ritholtz Twitter
Barry Ritholtz Podcast
MIB: Making the Contrarian Call on Housing, Pre-GFC
If you were Ivy Zelman, a housing analyst at Crédit Suisse First Boston – and you just happen to be right about your forecast of an impending housing and mortgage collapse that will be part of the Great Financial Crisis – you double-down.
Zelman, who warned of writedowns in homebuilders before the stocks fell 40%, responded by writing a new research piece in December 2006, titled: 10 Reasons to sell housing stocks.
Housing began to collapse on cue. So much for the so-called Zelman bottom.
The sales staff might not have appreciated her negativity, but her clients — including subprime bears John Paulson, Steve Eisman (depicted in the Big Short) and Danny Moses of FrontPoint Partners — appreciated her actionable perspectives.
Today, Ivy Zelman is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zelman & Associates. She is a “Hall of Fame Institutional Investor” and Equity Research Analyst covering real estate and housing-related industries. Zelman is best known for warning about the housing crash and great financial crisis in advance.
Her contrarian calls on housing have been astute and well-timed, in large part due to her cultivating a network of private industry professionals from homebuilders, brokers, mortgage underwriters and suppliers.
Her favorite books are here; a transcript of our conversation is available here.
You can stream/download the full conversation, including the podcast extras on Apple iTunes, Bloomberg, Overcast, and Stitcher. Our earlier podcasts can all be found at iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, and Bloomberg.
Next week we speak to Don Felder, lead guitarist for the Eagles.