May 30, 2025· 39 min

Krishna Memani on Wall Street's Very Expensive "Free Lunch"

Orality
Model
87%
Highly oral (epic poetry, sermons, hip-hop)

Speaker Breakdown

HostJoe Weisenthal(2,406 words)
M:94%
HostTracy Alloway(945 words)
M:94%
GuestKrishna Memani(3,301 words)
M:28%

Oral Indicators

Agonistic42%
literally, certainly, obviously
Engagement82%
you, our, your
Memory Aids100%
listen, like, right
Repetition100%
know (83x), think (56x), like (53x)
Parallelism70%
And I'm Tracy Alloway...., So you should really just go g..., And I'm Tracy Alloway....
Sound Patterns70%
53 question(s), alliteration: "markets move", alliteration: "barclays brief"
Formulaic Phrases8%
you know what, i mean, if you will

Literate Indicators

Hedging8%
may, maybe, could
Passive Voice6%
are revealed, been encouraged, was supported
Abstract Nouns17%
investment, community, business
Subordination8%
although, because, while
Sentence Length32%
Avg: 12.9 words/sentence
Word Complexity48%
investment, analyze, anticipate
Academic Markers4%
according to
Impersonal Style18%
620 personal pronouns found
Descriptive Style91%
apply, really, literally

Description

We're told over and over again that the one "free lunch" in investing is diversification, and that you can improve your returns over time simply by investing in a wider range of assets. This is textbook modern finance. And yet over the past several years this hasn't been the case. An investor would have done great (with the occasional hiccups) just by investing in US stocks. What's more, even within US stocks, investors should have concentrated on big tech stocks. Going long US tech has been identified as the most crowded trade by investors for years, and yet most of the time it has outperformed almost everything else. So what are the lessons from this story? And is now the moment where international diversification is going to work? On this episode, we speak with veteran portfolio manager Krishna Memani, who is now the chief investment officer at Lafayette College. Previously, he was the CIO at OppenheimerFunds, which got bought by Invesco. We talk about portfolio theory, the tragedy of the prudent international investor over recent decades, and whether that realized return we've seen across a range of asset classes should prompt a fundamental rethink of finance theory. Odd Lots Live is returning to New York City on June 26. Get your tickets here! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.