“An asset allocation is like a wet bar of soap – the more frequently you touch it, the more rapidly it disappears.” – William Bernstein The terms bubble and crash get thrown around far too liberally these days, which makes sense since investors can easily see two large boom-and-bust cycles in the rearview mirror. Many…

“Stories are what stick with us. Statistics do not.” – Michael Mauboussin Going into our EBI West Conference I wrote about how excited I was to hear Michael Mauboussin speak. He didn’t disappoint. Mauboussin walked the crowd through a series of stories, examples and behavioral studies to understand how to make better decisions or avoid…

Philip Tetlock has spent his career studying experts and prediction. One of his studies involved nearly 300 economists, political scientists, intelligence analysts and journalists. They tallied almost 30,000 predictions in their respective fields. The average expert wasn’t much better than a random guess. And the more confident they were in their predictions the worse they…

The financial industry gets a bad rap. It seems very few people trust “Wall Street” anymore following the financial crisis. I get it. Much of it is deserved for greedy behavior and a lack of self-awareness about the treatment of clients. But many of the problems in the investment world stem from poorly aligned incentives…

The average size of an NFL lineman in the 1960s was close to six feet tall and 250 pounds. Today the average NFL lineman is over six feet five inches and well over 310 pounds. There are likely a number of reasons for this huge increase over time — better workout programs, more informed diets…

I wrote a piece for Bloomberg earlier this week about preparing in advance for the end of the bull market. I received an email from a reader who took umbrage with the fact that I said the bull market is now 8 years old. He made the case that the bull market didn’t really start…

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…

I get a lot of questions from people about how they should invest their money and which specific investments they should focus on. What should my asset allocation look like? Which funds should I pick in my 401k? Should I own individuals securities, mutual funds or ETFs? Which ones? Should I change my current portfolio…

Bonds will provide an interesting case study in investor behavior in the years ahead. With interest rates at much lower levels than they have been in the recent past the same change in rates will now lead to much more volatility in bonds than it would have at the higher rates seen in the past….

In the classic 1980s movie Cocktail, young Brian Flanagan (played masterfully by Tom Cruise) shacks up with an older woman who basically becomes his New York City sugar momma. They met at a bar in the Jamaica and it was never going to work out but they made a go of it anyways. When things eventually come…