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Talking Inflation & Interest Rates on What’d You Miss

This week I was on What’d You Miss talking with Joe, Julia, and Lisa this about how inflation and rising interest rates tend to impact stock market performance:  Here’s the full piece for some more data behind these thoughts: Inflation is a Bigger Danger to Stocks Than Rising Rates There’s not always a perfect…

The Curse of Intelligence

Before I really knew anything about human behavior, incentives, and how the markets really work, I was always blown away by the sheer amount of intelligence I would come across in the investment world. Most of the people I’ve interacted with throughout my career are highly educated at some of the best colleges and universities…

Animal Spirits Episode 17: Phony Happiness

On this week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben we discuss: How hard it is to predict what’s going to transpire over the short-term in the markets. The pros & cons of private equity. The phony happiness provided by private equity reporting. What would a permanent portfolio look like to us? Why picking an asset…

Inequality in the Stock Market

The stock market is one of the biggest equalizers in terms of leveling the playing field from a wealth perspective because it allows anyone with some money to easily invest in corporations. Unfortunately, the vast majority of stock market wealth is concentrated in the hands of the rich. In this piece I wrote for Bloomberg…

The Biggest Thing I Got From an MBA

I didn’t really have a good reason to get my MBA. I already had the CFA designation and going to business school wasn’t going to change the trajectory of my career all that much…or so I thought. Business school didn’t teach me to be any better at running a business or leadership or financial theory…

Decision Regret

One of the hardest parts of the decision-making process in any endeavor stems from the fact that there are no counterfactuals. You can’t simply run a simulation and create a decision tree to show how different decisions and variables would affect the outcomes of each and every big decision you make. This leads to what…

Animal Spirits Episode 16: The Meltdown

On this week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben we discuss: Our thoughts on the market correction. What happens when there’s nowhere to hide and correlations go to one. What we personally did, if anything, during last week’s sell-off. The countless reasons everyone is giving for the latest downturn. Why managed futures had such a…

The New Permanent Portfolio For Millennials

The original permanent portfolio was created by Harry Browne and consists of the following allocation: 25% in U.S. stocks 25% in long-term bonds 25% in gold 25% in cash The idea behind this portfolio is that it’s diversified enough to get you through a wide variety of economic and market environments and simple enough that even…

Some Random Observations On The Market Correction

Some random observations as things have gotten interesting once again in the stock market… This is the exciting part. It’s more fun when stocks rise but part of me can’t help but be excited by a market correction. Maybe this is because I work in the industry but the psychology of market downturns fascinates me to no…

The Drawbacks of Behavioral Finance During a Market Correction

The stock market got interesting again this week. Volatility is back after having gone missing for the past 18 months or so. I saw the following words spewed across the financial media this week: turbulence, fear, pain, panic, distress, agony. It’s still a little early for all of that. As of the close on Thursday,…