Gerard O’Reilly of Dimensional Fund Advisors - What Happens When a Rocket Scientist Becomes an Investment Manager?

Orion's The Weighing Machine

Today Rusty & Robyn are joined by Gerard O’Reilly from Dimensional Fund Advisors. Gerard O’Reilly serves as Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Dimensional Fund Advisors LP and is a Dimensional Director. He was named Co-CEO in 2017 and has been with Dimensional since 2004. Along with Co-CEO Dave Butler, Gerard guides the firm’s vision and strategy through daily oversight of the company’s people and processes. As Co-CIO, he drives innovation across Dimensional’s investment offering with fellow Co-CIO Savina Rizova. Since joining the firm, Gerard has been instrumental in the evolution of Dimensional’s systematic approach to creating and implementing investment solutions. He was formerly Head of Research, managing the firm’s rigorous, scientific approach to interpreting, testing and applying research in portfolios. He is a member of the firm’s Investment Research Committee, which reviews potential investment strategy enhancements, and a member of the Investment Committee, which oversees portfolio and account management. He also serves on the Boards of Dimensional’s US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. Prior to joining Dimensional, Gerard obtained his PhD in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology. He holds a master of science degree in high performance computing from Trinity College Dublin in his native country of Ireland, where he also received a first class honors degree in theoretical physics and was a recipient of the Foundation Scholarship.

Key Takeaways

• [03:17] - How and why did Gerard pivot from Theoretical Physics and Aeronautics Engineering to the Investment Industry?
• [04:23] - What is Dimensional’s origin story and how do they stand apart from their peers?
• [06:37] - How does Gerard’s data science background, as a rocket scientist, apply to his leadership at Dimensional?
• [08:57] - Why did Dimensional get such a late start to the ETF industry and how have they had such great success with ETFs so quickly?
• [16:01] - Dimensional incorporates some of the positives of Passively managed strategies. Why is their dynamic approach a potential improvement to Pure Indexing?
• [20:27] - Some might argue that Dimensional’s strategy is not active, given how many securities an investor might hold in a portfolio, how would Gerard rebut that comment?
• [23:06] - Monetary and fiscal policy is a lot different than it ever has been in the past. Does that impact some of these premiums?
• [26:40] - How does Dimensional incorporate factors like momentum, quality, volatility and others into their investment process?
• [29:17] - What is Dimensional’s approach to asset allocation and building model portfolios?
• [32:10] - How is Gerard currently thinking about innovation in the industry and what role does he see AI, in particular, playing going forward?
• [37:32] - What is currently Gerard’s favorite investment idea?

Quotes

[07:45] - “When it comes to investing, investing is about making decisions and some decisions are going to be more important than others. But, what’s the skill set that says: ‘okay these are the key ones that you need to get right, that have to be the foundation of your investment approach?’ So, I think that type of training, learning how to do the analysis and what tools to use and how to do these massive computations…[You have] to make decisions and trade offs and [focus] on the key things to get right. I think that combination has helped me, at least, in my time either working on investment strategies or management issues here at the firm. ” ~ Gerard O’Reilly

[10:17] - “The person who [uses Google Maps to navigate more efficiently]...is a natural candidate for investing in market portfolios. The person who takes the same route, every single time they go from one point to another point is an Index Portfolio investor. ” ~ Gerard O’Reilly

Links

• Gerard O’Reilly
• Tune Out The Noise Documentary (Access code: MARKETSWORK)
• Dimensional Fund Advisors
• Dimensional on LinkedIn
• “The Rocky Road to Dublin” by The Dubliners

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• Meet Rusty Vanneman, Orion’s Chief Investment Officer
• Check Out All of Orion’s Podcasts
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Disclosure(s) - Orion Portfolio Solutions, LLC, an Orion Company, is a registered investment advisor.

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