“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…

Last week the Financial Planning Association released its annual investment survey of financial advisors — 2017 Trends in Investing Survey: Where Financial Advisors are Investing Now. The survey consists of responses from over 300 financial advisors to various questions about how this group is thinking about the current investment landscape. There were a few data points in the…

My wife and I were in a hospital room a few weeks ago waiting to go into the operating room for her c-section for the birth of our twins. She had to answer a bunch of questions, fill out a seemingly endless pile of paperwork and listen to various doctors and nurses describe what was going to happen…

One of the market myths I covered in my book is that a higher yield makes something a safer or better investment. Income alone doesn’t tell the entire story. You have to look at total return and the risks involved with those higher yields. This piece I wrote for Bloomberg looks at the risks involved…

I’ve been documenting my home selling and buying experience for the past year or so (see here, here and here). This is the first time I’ve gone through the sale process so it’s been a good learning experience. Since most people don’t go through this process very often I thought it would be helpful to…

Markets always seem easy when looking through the rearview mirror because knowing what already happened makes us all feel that everything in the past was blatantly obvious. It makes us feel that we would perfectly navigate those markets if only we had the chance to invest in the same scenario again. Hindsight Capital LLC never…