In the wake of the recent college admissions bribery scandal that ensnared Aunt Becky and a whole host of other wealthy people, there were generally two takes from the content/social media apparatus: (1) College is a meritocracy that benefits the rich. It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that rich people pull strings to get…
Behavioral Finance/Psychology
Daniel Kahneman on Intuition
Behavioral finance is still only a few decades old at this point because the finance industry was a little late to the game in understanding that investment decisions are driven almost exclusively by human emotions and biases. Now that human psychology has grown in importance in the field, the bible to anyone serious about understanding…
Are Super Bowl Ads Worth The Money?
The average cost of an ad for this year’s Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and LA Rams1 is estimated to be more than $5 million. That’s an enormous cost for 30 seconds of ad space. It seems insane corporations would spend this kind of money but the data suggests these commercials are worth…
How to Be Memorable
My wife and I attended a wine tasting party a few weeks ago at a friend’s house (21-year-old me can’t believe 37-year-old me just typed that but here we are). Every couple brought the wine of their choice to the party and all of the bottles were then placed in an individual bag with a number…
Big Up Days In The Stock Market
On this week’s Animal Spirits podcast Michael and I predicted some vicious countertrend rallies in the midst of the current bear market in stocks. Here’s the tape: There was some fortuitous timing with the release of the show and the market action that followed. We taped this one a little early because of the holidays…
Prediction vs. Preparation
We’re coming up on that time of year when professional pundits and investors alike trot out their annual forecasts for the upcoming year. I have nothing against forecasts. It can be a fun exercise and if we want to get into semantics, we’re all forecasting in one way or another based on how our portfolios…
The Stock Market Doesn’t Care About You
“The stock doesn’t know you own it.” – Adam Smith (aka George Goodman) Yesterday wasn’t a great day for workers at General Motors. Here’s the news via Bloomberg: General Motors Co. will cut more than 14,000 salaried staff and factory workers and close seven factories worldwide by the end of next year, part of a sweeping realignment…
Under Pressure
It’s estimated 44% of eligible voters didn’t fill out a ballot for the 2016 elections. That amount of people vastly outnumbered those who voted for Trump, Clinton or any of the third party candidates. Here’s the data courtesy of The Big Picture: Trump and Clinton were both in the 60 million range while the number of…
The Psychology of Sitting in Cash, Part Deux
In early-2015 I wrote a piece called The Psychology of Sitting in Cash where I tried to answer the following reader question: I took one piece of advice from a close friend that the market was too high and that I should go to cash and wait for a correction. I am still waiting. How do…
How To Stay in the Game
Everyone remembers game one of last year’s NBA Finals between Golden State and Cleveland as the JR Smith game. After rebounding a missed free throw with just under 5 seconds left Smith dribbled out the clock, not realizing the Cavs weren’t winning but rather tied with the Warriors. This picture of LeBron’s dismay with Smith…
