Based in Europe, Nicholas is a widely recognized expert on exchange-traded funds and an accomplished investment expert. Nicholas has been a regular commentator on CNN International and Fox Business Network. He has also been cited in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Fox Business News, CBS MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance and MSN Money Central.
Here’s a little more about the journey that led him to you…
Growing up in Pittsburgh, Nicholas earned spending money by selling flavored ice cubes at Little League baseball games, delivering the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 5:00 a.m. and shoveling snow during the harsh Pennsylvania winters.
For a kid from the Rust Belt who was a big Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers fan, he also lived a double life. He spent his summers studying in West Germany (before unification), France, Italy and communist Hungary on scholarships he diligently applied for while in high school.
I was lucky. My parents made me aware of opportunities other kids couldn’t even dream about. Every summer, I had the chance to dip into a completely different language, reality and culture. During the bad old days of the Cold War, not a lot of kids from the United States were spending their summers in Europe, let alone behind the Iron Curtain. It was as if I got to visit another planet each summer. And then I spent the school year back on planet earth.
Luckily, this was the kind of unusual background that top colleges were looking for.
Nicholas earned a B.A. in both economics and history and an M.A. in history in less than four years from Stanford University.
There, he discovered the work of free market economist Friedrich Hayek and wrote two theses on his work.
That work put him on track to win a Fulbright scholarship to the Karl Marx University of Economics in Budapest, making him one of the first Fulbright scholars to study behind the Iron Curtain.
Assuming his academic interests in the Soviet Union and centrally planned economies was a professional dead-end, he turned down an economics Ph.D scholarship to Oxford University and went on to attend Harvard Law School instead.
Truth be told, he wasn’t a big fan of the law. Compared with the exciting world of clashing economic ideals, law seemed pedestrian and boring. Harvard proved better fit for his classmates, including future president Barack Obama and good friend, now Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch.
As luck would have it, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down before he graduated. Suddenly, Eastern Europe and Russia were open for business.
After Harvard, he joined the world’s largest law firm, which had just opened offices in Eastern Europe. His mission – as he put it then – was to “help dismantle centrally planned economies.”
For nearly four years, he worked on the privatizations of some of the leading banks, oil companies and telecom companies in the region, listing them on regional stock exchanges. It’s this work that first exposed him to the fascinating world of investing.
Nicholas then set out to learn all he could about finance and embarked on a successful and varied business career, including launching several investment funds in Europe, founding a London-based roundtable of leading investment experts like Steve Forbes and Nassim Taleb, and writing for Eagle Publishing’s The Global Guru for 12 years alongside four other investment advisory newsletters.
In January 2018, Nicholas became The Oxford Club’s first and only ETF strategist, writing for the daily Liberty Through Wealth e-letter (formerly Investment U) and our flagship newsletter, The Oxford Communiqué. He is also the Editor of the new ETF trading service, Oxford Wealth Accelerator.
Outside of work, Nicholas focuses on managing his personal investments and his growing family.
Articles by Nicholas
Two Simple Rules to Win the Prediction Game November 7, 2019- Humans have tried every method imaginable to predict the future, from reading tea leaves to performing complex analysis. But here’s what you should do to build wealth.
Why the Doom-and-Gloomers Are Always Wrong November 5, 2019- Doom-and-gloomers are always predicting the “next big crisis,” from ice ages to droughts, famine to overpopulation. But have they ever gotten it right?
Why I’m Betting on a Q4 Rally October 31, 2019- We’ve endured choppy markets over the last two years. Does market analysis show the market will sustain its current rally, or will we see a repeat of 2018’s fourth quarter?
What Spanish Property Taught Me About Investing in Commodities October 29, 2019- Contrarian investing is an enviable skill. There are several markets - including commodities - that may be due for a boom, but how can investors know for sure?
What the Red Queen Knows About Hedge Funds October 24, 2019- Hedge funds used to rule the market, providing great returns and lower risks. So why can’t the smart investment strategies beat the market anymore?
Don’t Buy Into China’s Bull October 22, 2019- There are several schools of thought on where China will end up in terms of global wealth, but one thing is for certain: Don’t buy the China bull.
It’s a New Day in Vietnam October 18, 2019- Although it was once as poor as Ethiopia, Vietnam has seen soaring economic growth since 1990. Could it be the next great addition to your ETF portfolio?
How to Profit From the Biggest Bubble of Them All October 15, 2019- Today, both conventional market analysis and historical comparisons tell us that the U.S. stock market is in a bubble. So what should investors do?
How Tiny Habits Can Make a Big Difference October 10, 2019- The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply over time.
Yale’s Billion-Dollar Mistake? October 8, 2019- The Yale endowment investment strategy has seen massive success and inspired many copycats over the years, but why has it lagged the market recently?