The financial industry gets a bad rap. It seems very few people trust “Wall Street” anymore following the financial crisis. I get it. Much of it is deserved for greedy behavior and a lack of self-awareness about the treatment of clients. But many of the problems in the investment world stem from poorly aligned incentives…

The average size of an NFL lineman in the 1960s was close to six feet tall and 250 pounds. Today the average NFL lineman is over six feet five inches and well over 310 pounds. There are likely a number of reasons for this huge increase over time — better workout programs, more informed diets…

I wrote a piece for Bloomberg earlier this week about preparing in advance for the end of the bull market. I received an email from a reader who took umbrage with the fact that I said the bull market is now 8 years old. He made the case that the bull market didn’t really start…

Investors are increasingly worried about geopolitical crises but very few have taken the time to understand how the markets typically react when these things go down. The reactions to wars, political malfeasance, or scandals are not always what you would think based on the headlines. In this piece I wrote for Bloomberg I look back…

Most of the well-known consumer technology stocks saw big losses last Friday, which continued yesterday in what some are calling the “tech wreck.” A two-day sell-off is jumping the gun just a bit in terms of coming up with labels but here are the losses in Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google on Friday and…

“The reason that ‘guru’ is such a popular word is because ‘charlatan’ is so hard to spell.” – William Bernstein The word ‘charlatan’ is supposedly derived from the Italian word ciarlare, which means ‘to babble.’ Some of the original charlatans were confidence men who would prey upon people’s misunderstandings about healthcare before modern medicine existed. There used…

I was on What’d You Miss? again with the crew yesterday afternoon putting the tech stock sell-off on Friday in perspective and going over a few potential scenarios that could finally cause the bull market to come to an end (skip ahead to the 29-minute mark for my segment): And if you’ve missed any of my pieces…

I tweeted the following this week and received a pretty decent response: You would never realize we live in one of the most peaceful periods in human history when you watch the terrible stories on the news every day. Apathy as a strategy can work to your advantage when most things in life are out of your…

Pension plans are eventually going to cause some problems for municipalities who have over-promised and under-saved for their beneficiaries. To make up for differences between asset and liabilities, and because of political pressure to succeed, many of these funds have turned to alternative forms of investing. The next hope to provide a savior is private…

I’m really excited for our Evidence-Based Investing Conference later this month in Orange County, CA. I’ll get to see some old friends. The resort looks amazing. And somehow I’ve never been to California in my entire life so this visit will be a first for me. Plus the agenda for the conference is stacked. There are tons…