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
Charlie Munger’s Checklist for Investing December 5, 2019- Billionaire Charlie Munger is a compelling character with a lot to teach investors. Learn how to grow your wealth with his investment checklist.
Is Traditional Wall Street Research Useless? December 3, 2019- In the 1990s, investment recommendations were made based on “kicking the tires.” A lot has changed since then. Here’s what it means for your ETF portfolio.
Don’t Be an Investment Turkey November 29, 2019- Situations change - in an instant, sometimes - and what was working like a well-oiled machine can suddenly become a ticking time bomb.
The Greatest Investor in History November 26, 2019- Who is the greatest? He probably doesn’t come to mind, but this lesser-known investor ignored modern theory and created the best-performing quant fund ever.
Should You Bother Investing in Emerging Markets? November 21, 2019- In the 1990s, emerging markets earned top returns, but the picture looks a lot different today. Should emerging markets be part of your ETF portfolio?
Don’t Buy Into the Decline of America November 19, 2019- Conventional wisdom is that the U.S. empire is on the skids, but is that really the case? Let’s examine America’s unique history of self-deprecation.
Should You Bet Big on the Latest Red-Hot IPO? November 14, 2019- IPO is a phrase that conjures magical ideas of untold wealth for investors. Are these red-hot opportunities a good strategy, or should investors steer clear?
Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall November 12, 2019- The Berlin Wall came down 30 years ago, signifying the end of the Soviet Union. Today, we reflect on its significance and lasting impact on global wealth.
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?