It’s much easier to come up with the reasons for a bear market after the fact so I like the idea of thinking these things through beforehand, even if it’s impossible to predict the future. Here’s a piece I wrote for Bloomberg laying out some possible scenarios that could derail this bull market. ******* I…

10 questions I’m pondering at the moment: 1. Are investors right to worry about bonds more than stocks? The Wealth of Common Sense anecdotal sentiment reading shows that most investors are more concerned with bonds these days than stocks. Risk is in the eye of the beholder but I wonder if this worry will be a…

A few weeks ago I wrote that I’m optimistic about the future of the finance industry. Maybe this is the value investor in me talking because expectations are so low following the financial crisis but I’m especially bullish on young people in finance. My views could be clouded by my personal experience but the up-and-comers…

A new report from researchers at the University of British Columbia shows that buying time makes people happier. The authors of the report say there’s a rising anxiety around “time scarcity.” This time scarcity and the cult of being busy has led many people to become overworked and in poor health. Here’s the main takeaway:…

It seems like every week I see another survey about how ill-prepared the baby boomer generation is for retirement. Here’s the latest from Alessandra Malito of MarketWatch: Baby boomers, or those born between 1946 and 1964, expect they’ll need $658,000 in their defined contribution plans by the time they retire, but the average in those…

I remember reading an article at the start of 2013 that concluded, “This market reeks of euphoria.” The S&P 500 is up around 90% since then. The problem with the firehose of information these days is that it’s easier than ever to latch onto a narrative that fits your current world view. In the financial…

I remember reading The Accidental Billionaires just after it came out in 2009 or so and being blown away by the back story of how Facebook was founded (This is the book the movie Social Network was based on). After reading about the drama surrounding the founding of the company in a Harvard dorm room I would…

Earlier this week I wrote (again) about the importance of understanding financial market history. This prompted a few people to ask for some of my favorite books on the topic. Here goes: Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation If I had to pick just one book to read on the topic, this would…

I don’t have any groundbreaking insights on the cryptocurrency phenomenon. Some people think it’s going to revolutionize payments and transactions while others assume it’s the no different than the Dutch Tulip Bubble. I’ve done a fair amount of reading on the topic and have concluded that it falls into my too hard pile. But it…

Earlier this week I wrote about the attributes successful investors share but I forgot one — a deep understanding of financial market history. This history proves to be more of a guide to human psychology than a road map for beating the market. No two market environments are ever exactly the same but fear, greed,…