“Over the years, I’ve become convinced that fluctuations in investor attitudes towards risk contribute more to major market movements than anything else. I don’t expect this to ever change.” – Howard Marks Small caps have been on everybody’s radar this year because the Russell 2000 experienced a 10% drop.  This is more commonplace than you…

“But there are all sorts of analysts in the investment world, including many that have titles that don’t contain the word “analyst.” An analyst, then, is simply someone who analyzes, who examines an investment problem with a critical eye.” – Tom Brakke Tom Brakke from The Research Puzzle has put out an excellent resource for…

“In the case of equities or real estate or farms or whatever, other very important variables are almost always at work, and that means the effect of interest rate changes is usually obscured. Nonetheless, the effect–like the invisible pull of gravity–is constantly there.” – Warren Buffett

“It’s virtually impossible for young workers to deploy their investment capital too aggressively, because their human capital overwhelms it.” – William Bernstein Millennials have been taking it on the chin lately for their lack of basic financial knowledge and understanding. There was a fascinating piece in The Week by Ryan Cooper called The Confessions of…

“Being passive doesn’t mean doing nothing.” – Larry Swedroe One of the first decisions you need to make in the process of building an investment portfolio is whether you will be an active or a passive investor.  Most investors assume this means making the choice between index funds and active management, but that’s too much…

“Stocks are a piece of ownership in a firm.  Taken together, stocks represent the collective wisdom of the business world.  And they represent the promise of future technological advances and future profits from those innovations.” – Ken Fisher

“The one rule I have is I give very general instructions to my financial advisor, and then I don’t monitor it. I think that’s good, both because it causes more anguish than pleasure, on average, and because you’re tempted to make stupid decisions if you monitor things too closely.” – Daniel Kahneman As Daniel Kahneman…

As Warren Buffett was closing in on age 60 in 1989, his net worth was $3.8 billion according to the Forbes List. This year, as Buffett approaches his mid-80s, he’s worth $58.5 billion. That means nearly 94% of Buffett’s current net worth was created after his 60th birthday. I’ll come back to these facts again…

Michael Batnick shared a great stat on the Russell 2000 small cap index in a recent post on his blog, The Irrelevant Investor:

“At any given moment, what the market is doing reflects how we’re feeling right NOW. Not how we’ll feel tomorrow and most likely not how we’ll feel in a month, let alone a year. Short-term market behavior is rarely about anything other than an interpretation of what we THINK is happening or will happen as…