The recent market correction was unusual in how swift it occurred but the magnitude of the losses shouldn’t be unexpected for investors. Losses are part of the game when investing in the stock market. This piece I wrote for Bloomberg in the midst of the sell-off provides some perspective on this year’s losses in stocks….
Ben Carlson
Accidental Career Guidance
Most career advice isn’t very helpful. Follow your passion but take the safe route but remember that you’re lucky to even have a job… I say this as someone who has sought out career advice on countless occasions throughout my professional life from a wide range of sources. The reason giving and/or receiving career advice is so…
Some Perspective on Investing Advice
I had a family member ask for some investment advice recently. They had come into some money and wanted to know if I had any thoughts on what they should do with it. It would be easy to simply offer up a fund or handful of funds to invest in but there’s more nuance required…
Animal Spirits Episode 20: Goodnight Moon
On this week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben we discuss: Why the flash correction was so rare. The growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots. The huge following of Dave Ramsey. Why rising interest rates are a double-edged sword. Why crypto index funds don’t make sense. The potential move into financial services by Amazon….
Does Economic Volatility Affect Stock Market Volatility?
We finally had some volatility in the markets this year after an extraordinarily calm 2017. Investors seem to worry under both scenarios. When volatility is low, the worry is that it will pick up in the future. And when volatility spikes, the worry is that it will continue. The truth is both periods of subdued…
Making it Look Easy is Hard Work
In a podcast post-mortem about hosting the Oscars last week, Jimmy Kimmel told Bill Simmons that Martin Short is the greatest dinner guest of all-time along with being a member of the Mount Rushmore of great talk show guests. Then The New Yorker ran a story this week asking Is Martin Short the Greatest Talk-Show Guest…
Lessons From the Couple Who Hacked the Lottery
The best story I’ve read in a while comes from Highline Magazine. It tells the tale of a couple from a small Northern Michigan town who figured out how to hack the lottery to win millions of dollars. And what they did required no deception, no cheating, and no broken laws. It was perfectly legal and…
The Power of Narrative
Before the early-1900s almost no one in America brushed their teeth. It wasn’t until advertising executive Claude Hopkins came along to pitch Pepsodent that this all changed. Hopkins had previously sold people on the idea of Schlitz beer, Palmolive soap, and Goodyear tires. Now he had a friend who wanted him to help get people to…
Animal Spirits Episode 19: Brothers From Another Mother
On this week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben we discuss: How much your job should matter in determining your portfolio. How to clean up a suboptimal portfolio with a mishmash of holdings. The Dustin Hoffman approach to budgeting. The importance of tracking your investment performance. Should you be skeptical of smart beta funds? Investing implications…
Short-Term Outperformance vs. Long-Term Outperformance
Here’s a headline I read this week that seems a bit counterintuitive at first glance: This is a story from Bloomberg about the PruLev Global Macro Fund that was up 52% in 2017, making it the best performing hedge fund in its class. But the return of volatility in the markets saw this fund fall…
