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
Welcome to the Quant Investing Revolution April 2, 2020- Twenty years ago, quant investing required millions of dollars and a Ph.D. Today, quant investing and swing trading are much more accessible to investors.
Why Warren Buffett Is Smiling Ear to Ear March 31, 2020- The coronavirus crash hit many companies hard, including Berkshire Hathaway. But as the market recovers, Warren Buffett is poised for a big year.
Invest When There Is Blood in the Streets March 26, 2020- One of the best times to put your money to work is when there’s “blood in the streets.” Here’s why contrarian investing is the way to wealth. 
The Story of the Great Contagion March 24, 2020- The onset and spread of COVID-19 seem new and extreme, but it’s a tale as old as time. Here’s some perspective and hope for your health and wealth.
COVID-19’s Greatest Gift March 19, 2020- The global pandemic and market sell-off may seem like a nightmare, but soon investors will understand the wealth creation opportunities it presented.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly About COVID-19 March 17, 2020- The rapid onset of the COVID-19 virus has had major implications on global health and wealth. Here are the key takeaways that we should all understand...
The “Critically Counterintuitive” Lessons of Investing March 13, 2020- In order to grow your wealth, you may think you need to be very intelligent and highly analytical, but successful investors have proven those things untrue. 
Your Market Crash ETF Toolkit March 10, 2020- When the market drops, it’s tempting to abandon ship. But pick up these tools for your ETF portfolio, and you could actually profit from a bear market.
Quant Investing’s Biggest Edge March 5, 2020- Quant investing uses computers to process tons of data and reveal invisible patterns. But the real edge for quant and swing trading is a lot simpler.
What Winston Churchill Would Have Advised About Today’s Market March 3, 2020- The recent market correction has investors everywhere panicking. But if you really want to grow your wealth, heed this advice: Keep calm and carry on.