Here’s something you don’t see every day: This was a tweet sent by a Senator from Wisconsin in response to a piece I wrote for Bloomberg this week about a bill she proposed to ban share buybacks. My main point was that share buybacks are not as evil as some people in politics or the…
Search Results for: "behavior"
The Power of Narrative
Before the early-1900s almost no one in America brushed their teeth. It wasn’t until advertising executive Claude Hopkins came along to pitch Pepsodent that this all changed. Hopkins had previously sold people on the idea of Schlitz beer, Palmolive soap, and Goodyear tires. Now he had a friend who wanted him to help get people to…
Short-Term Outperformance vs. Long-Term Outperformance
Here’s a headline I read this week that seems a bit counterintuitive at first glance: This is a story from Bloomberg about the PruLev Global Macro Fund that was up 52% in 2017, making it the best performing hedge fund in its class. But the return of volatility in the markets saw this fund fall…
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…
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…
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…
When Mental Models Fail
Lynn Hill is a world-renowned rock climber. Widely regarded as one of the sport’s best climbers in the 80s and 90s, she won more than 30 international climbing titles. In the summer of 1989, she was about to climb what she termed a “relatively easy” route in France. At the base of a cliff she…
All-Time Highs, Risk & Consequences
In my first book I went through 14 market myths using history as a guide. Myth #9 was that all-time highs in the stock market mean it’s going to crash. I shared the following: The S&P 500 hit new all-time highs in early 2000 and subsequently crashed by more than 50 percent over the following…
Even With Low Returns, Bonds Still Have Their Use
It’s easy to forget about bonds when the stock market is doing so well. It’s even easier to forget about bonds with all of the talk about the “end of the bond bull market” which is the latest topic du jour in financial circles. Here are a few reminders for investors looking to abandon bonds…
The Lifecycle of an Investment Idea
The Holy Grail of portfolio management is finding an asset or strategy that has high returns with low correlations to standard portfolio holdings like stocks and bonds. In the mid-2000s, many investors were led to believe they found such an asset in commodities. One of the main reasons for this belief was an academic paper…
