We’re fortunate in the investment industry to have so many new content creators consistently stepping up to share their expertise via podcasts. At the same time, a podcast production schedule can be demanding and hard to justify when there’s insufficient observable return for the effort, and over the last few months several shows have either taken their final bow or gone on an extended hiatus.

And so, it’s time to again update the Lowe Group Insider’s List to Investing Podcasts (and you’ll see that we’ve updated the user interface too!).

Included among our new entries are:

  • The Investment Management Operations show has been part of the Insider’s List for several months now. There’s no excusing what took so long to add Capital Allocators with Ted Seides but we are righting that wrong.Midway into the Feb. 19 riveting discussion with Counterpoint Global’s head of Consilient Research Michael Mauboussin on pattern recognition and public markets, my mind wandered to a time when institutional investing was just a black box to a fund marketer like I was. Now, institutional insights are freely accessible to anyone doing errands or working out. You’ll see many of the guests on this show (Michael Milken last week) interviewed on CNBC and other media programs, but the depth of these Q&As with Ted Seides is unparalleled—and so valuable.
  • Featured guests are one requirement for consideration for our list (see our criteria) and, indeed, the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors quarterbacked by financial advisor recruiter and consultant Mindy Diamond regularly interviews guests (check out the Feb. 8 interview with a UBS defector). But if you’re going to sample just one Diamond podcast, listen to Mindy and son Louis Diamond as they recap 2023 recruitment trends on the December 2023 show. It’s yet another illustration of the value of podcasts—the ability to go deep on a subject that a narrow band of people have an intense interest in.
  • Morningstar’s Big Picture in Practice appears to be on track again, having gone quiet from December 2022 (described as their Season 1 finale) and November 2023. February delivered two discussions with firms everyone wants to learn more about: BlackRock and Rockefeller. As you’d expect, Ben Johnson and Julie Willoughby are skilled interviewers, noticeable especially when they probed for detail in a Jan. 18 Q&A with LPL’s head of wealth management solutions Rob Pettman.
  • TRAP: The Real Adviser Podcast features four independent (and informal) advisors based in the UK and Ireland. Granted, not everything Alan Smith, Andy Hart, Carl Widger and Nick Lincoln discuss is relevant to a U.S.-based listener. (Tip: access the show on YouTube, where they handily offer timestamps to their topics),But their perspectives on the world economy, U.S.-based funds and investing trends offer a different take. In their Jan. 31 show, for example, they commented on the $6 trillion sitting in cash in the U.S., added cash stats for the UK (37% of all retail investments are 100% in cash) and concluded that there’s a “large scale wealth destruction going on in slow motion.”
Now with trailers!

Podcast promotion is moving to the next level with the addition of the podcast trailers we’re spotting in support of many investment podcasts on Spotify.

Involving incremental effort, it’s a great idea for tipping the scales in your favor with browsers hesitant about subscribing. (That being the case, it’s difficult to fathom why a few podcast producers are allowing the insertion of ads as preroll in front of their trailers. Please reconsider—that’s a move that will repel, not attract.)

These three trailers will give you an idea of the state of the art.