If It Sounds Too Good to Be True…

A friend gave me a book a few months ago to get my opinion on the investment strategy it was selling outlining. I gave it a read and didn’t get the best first impression. I’m not going to name the book because the name isn’t important. This could have been hundreds of different books or investment pitches….

The Gradual Explosion of Index Funds

This week Fidelity became the first fund company to offer index funds — a total U.S. stock market fund and an international stock market fund — with an expense ratio of 0%. Fidelity is a massive company that more or less missed the boat on index funds and ETFs when the first wave hit. This…

The 3 Levels of Wealth

Slack is a lot like Twitter from my vantage point. It’s a service I use all the time. It’s become an integral part of my life from both a work and social perspective. Every time I talk to someone else who uses the service they share my love for the platform. And it’s almost impossible to explain its usefulness…

Animal Spirits Episode 40: What Worked on Wall Street

On this week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben we discuss: Facebook’s massive stock price crash. Why my immediate reaction was to buy Facebook after its decline. Why being 30 is so much harder for the current generation than their parent’s. Is trend-following dead? The conflicts of interest that arise when hedge funds have internal…

Willing Losers

Charley Ellis is one of my favorite people in the investment business. He seems to always have a similar message but I still come back to that message over and over again because of the way he delivers it. Ellis recently sat down for another chat with Ted Seides on the Capital Allocators podcast. He…

Mean Reversion & The Placebo Effect

A podcast listener asks: It is my understanding that financial theory proposes that asset prices revert to their long-term mean. If so, does this conjecture apply to interest rates too? Mean reversion is probably one of the most misunderstood concepts in all of finance. On the one hand, it’s misunderstood by performance chasers who don’t…

10 Money Revelations From Being a Parent

Here are some of the realizations I’ve had about finances from being a parent: 1. Yes, kids are expensive but… The personal finance section of any financial publication will be quick to remind you that raising a child can cost upwards of $250,000 from birth through age 18. When you include the obscene cost of daycare…

Animal Spirits Episode 39: The Worst 401(k) Advice

On this week’s Animal Spirits with Michael & Ben we discuss: The pie chart heard round the world. Why Michael didn’t create a chart crime. Why concentrated gains are the norm in the stock market. How difficult is it to save $1 million in a 401(k)? The worst advice we’ve seen on 401(k)s. Is AQR the…

There’s No Such Thing as Mosquito Week

This week marks the 31st rendition of the series that’s now the longest-running cable TV event in history which has been viewed by millions of people all around the globe. Shark Week first appeared all the way back in 1988. The series was originally about promoting the conservation of these animals and clearing up any…