Traits shared by the worst investors.
Behavioral Finance/Psychology
Re-Kindled: Malcolm Gladwell
On this edition of Re-Kindled, we re-read Malcolm Gladwell’s first two books, Tipping Point and Blink. We discuss: Why is there so much backlash against Gladwell The rise of pop psychology Why has Sesame Street been so popular for so long? What causes ideas to spread like wildfire? The big investor who had money with Bernie Madoff…
Terrible Business Plans, Wonderful Businesses
Business plans that sound ridiculous until you realize how well they worked in real life.
Monday Morning Quarterbacking
Last year we had Michael Lombardi speak at the EBI conference about how his experience working with the likes of Bill Walsh, Al Davis and Bill Belichick in the NFL translates into the business world.1 When I met Lombardi, who now works for The Athletic, he was at the whiteboard in the conference green room…
Cheap Money vs. Investor Psychology
One of the biggest misconceptions about the Fed’s monetary policy is that low interest rates immediately cause investors to speculate or take on more debt. It would be silly to argue there hasn’t been any yield-chasing or excess risk-taking in recent years but there is a big difference between interest rate levels and credit (or…
The Work Required to Behave in the Markets
“Stay the course” and “ignore the noise” sound like great advice but there’s a lot of work involved to follow through with this advice.
The Difference
My friends in New York love to point out there’s a difference between a slice of pizza in the Big Apple and a slice of pizza everywhere else in the world. I’ve always been of the opinion that pizza is almost always good no matter where it’s from but after sampling some pizza in New…
Why We Believe in Magic
In 1848, two young sisters in a small town in New York discovered they shared a room in their tiny farmhouse with a mysterious spirit. Margaret and Kate Fox learned of this spirit’s presence through a nightly knocking sound in the walls, floors, and furniture. To summon this mysterious spirit, Kate would knock on the…
Why We’ll Never All Be Happy Again
There are two things people need to understand about humanity: (1) Things are unquestionably getting better over time. (2) People assume things are unquestionably getting worse over time. I love this chart from Our World in Data: This data doesn’t quite jibe with how happy people report they feel today. You can see the trend…
The Stocks Manage Themselves
Professor, investor, and researcher Roger Ibbotson made an excellent point about investing in stocks in a recent sit-down with Barry for MIB: As a portfolio manager, you could do nothing and you might do fine. You don’t have to literally trade every day to make things work. You only want to trade when you really…
