About

 I was born and raised in Murmansk, Russia (the home for Russia’s northern navy fleet, think Tom Clancy’s Red October).  I immigrated to the US from Russia in 1991 with all my family – my three brothers, my father and my stepmother.  (Here is a link to a more detailed story of how my family emigrated from Russia)

My professional career is easily described in one sentence:  I invest, I educate, I write and I could not dream of doing anything else.  Here is a slightly more detailed curriculum vitae:

I am a director of research at Investment Management Associates, Inc (IMA) a money management firm based in Denver, Colorado.  After I received my graduate and undergraduate (cum laude, but who cares) degrees in finance from University of Colorado at Denver, and finished my CFA designation (three years of my life that are a vague recollection at this point), I wanted to keep learning.   I figured the best way to learn is to teach.  At first I taught an undergraduate class at the University of Colorado at Denver and later a graduate investment class at the same university that I designed based on my day job.  Currently I am on sabbatical from teaching for awhile.

I found that the university classroom is not big enough for me - I started writing, and let’s be honest I needed to let my genetically embedded Russian sarcasm out.  I am a regular contributor to the Financial Times, Forbes.com and Minyanville.   I’ve contributed articles for Barron’s, BusinessWeek, The Rocky Mountain News and many other financial publications.

I gave in depth (the best kind) interviews to The Wall Street Transcript, Welling@Weeden, BusinessWeek, CNBC, and countless radio shows.  I also lent quotes to the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and other newspapers and magazines that knew how to spell my name right. 

Finally my biggest achievement, well actually second biggest - I count quitting smoking in 1992 as the biggest - I’ve authored  Active Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets an investment book published by John Wiley & Sons in October 2007.