Jeremy Siegel

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Jeremy James Siegel (born November 14, 1945) is an American economist and the Russell E. Palmer Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is a frequent TV and radio guest on networks like CNN, CNBC, and NPR, and writes columns for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and Yahoo Finance. The investing idea known as Siegel's paradox is named after him.

Life and career in brief
- Siegel grew up in Chicago in a Jewish family and attended Highland Park High School.
- He studied math and economics at Columbia University, earning a BA in 1967, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.
- He earned a PhD in economics from MIT in 1971, studying with Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow.
- He taught at the University of Chicago for four years before moving to Wharton.
- He wrote Stocks for the Long Run (1998) and The Future for Investors (2005), outlining his investing views.

Key investing ideas
- Bonds: He argues that long-term bonds often underperform once inflation is taken into account.
- Stocks and indexing: He favors index funds when possible and is cautious about active management over long horizons.
- DIV guideline: Dividends, International exposure, and Valuation.
- Dividends signal mature, profitable companies and tend to perform well over time with lower risk.
- International holdings help avoid home-country bias and broaden options (he has recommended up to 40–50% international stocks).
- Valuation: invest in fairly valued or undervalued areas and avoid overhyped sectors (the “growth trap” is real).
- Small allocations to individual stocks are allowed if selections are prudent.
- He has supported the Dogs of the Dow approach and helped influence fundamental indexing as an alternative to market-cap weighting.

Impact and controversies
- His research influenced index design used by WisdomTree Investments.
- After the dot-com crash, he advocated for fundamental indexing rather than sole reliance on market-cap weights.
- He has been a regular commentator on Kudlow & Company on CNBC and has debated Robert Shiller on the stock market and future returns.
- He has criticized some IPOs, finding that they often underperform small-cap benchmarks (analyzed 9,000 IPOs from 1968–2003).
- In 2000, he warned about overvalued tech stocks, while still supporting diversified stock investment and bonds as a hedge.
- He was an advisor to WisdomTree (around 2007) and owned a stake in the company.

Awards
- 1994 Best Business School Professor (Business Week)
- 2002 Lindback Award for outstanding teaching
- 1996 and 2005 Anvil Awards for teaching
- 2005 Nicholas Molodovsky Award from the CFA Institute for significant contributions to the profession