Most fund managers pick more losers than winners. That isn’t the problem.
Essentia’s latest Behavioral Alpha Benchmark suggests that payoff discipline -- and what managers do on the way out -- matters more than being right most of the time.
30 June 2026 Behavioral Alpha Benchmark Ranking: Decision Quality Rebounds
For the three years ended June 30, 2026, our assessment shows a broad rebound in decision-making outcomes, although the median Behavioral Alpha score remained below the value-additive threshold.
Once Bitten: Why Investors Won’t Buy Back a Stock That Burned Them
Every investor has a name or two they’ll never own again – and it’s rarely about the fundamentals.
31 March 2026 Behavioral Alpha Benchmark Ranking: Skill at the Top, Pressure Across the Field
Our latest (three years ended March 31, 2025) Essentia Behavioral Alpha Benchmark ranking shows continued pressure across the ranked universe, even as the headline measure improved modestly.
Performance Attribution Beyond Brinson: How Decision-Based Analysis Reveals True Investment Skill
Most institutional investors evaluate active equity managers using Brinson-Fachler attribution or Fama-French factor models -- frameworks that explain performance after the fact but say little about the decisions that produced it.
Why Cutting Losses is so Hard – Especially Now
Behavioral biases and cognitive depletion conspire to make exit decisions among the weakest areas of professional investor skill. The data -- and the habits of the world's best fund managers -- show there's a better way.
Maestro Profile: Mission Impossible
How G2's Josh Goldberg beat the odds and built a winning investment process
Stock Market Maestros is Available Now
Stock Market Maestros: The Winning Habits, Strategies, and Mindsets of the World’s Best Investors, co-written by Essentia CEO Clare Flynn Levy and bestselling author Lee Freeman-Shor, is on sale now!
31 December 2025 Behavioral Alpha Benchmark Ranking: A Tale of Two Firms
Our latest (three years ended December 31, 2025) Essentia Behavioral Alpha Benchmark ranking shows a pronounced downturn in decision-making outcomes across the ranked universe.
When Two Minds Make One Maestro
Adapted from Stock Market Maestros: The winning habits, strategies, and mindsets of the world's best investors, which will be published by Harriman House in March 2026.