The Southern California sky is known for beautiful sunsets. Yet one evening last month, there was something extra to behold. Something… spectacular. I was driving, about a mile from home, when I saw it. An object steadily cascading across the aqua and golden sky. It looked like an orb. In its wake—a long, glowing trail. It was unlike anything I’d...
Karl Friedrich Louis Dobermann was a busy man. In the late 1800’s, he roamed the streets of Germany, collecting both coins and canines, as a tax collector and dog catcher. Oddly enough, the jobs complemented one another. Tax collecting was a dangerous line of work back then. Collectors were often targeted by thieves and bandits, so Dobermann used stray dogs...
As we approach a new year, it’s common to think about life goals and how we aim to achieve them. Here are three simple ideas you can take into 2018 to improve your chances of investing well. Be optimistic My wife’s Grandma Etta frequently says: “Life is good.” It’s a simple dose of wisdom, but I appreciate the reminder. A...
The rise of cryptocurrencies is one of 2017’s most captivating market stories. A lot of market watchers have been left scratching their heads, not sure what to make of it. There’s strange new jargon to absorb—words like “blockchain.” Mystical, faceless founders, known only by Internet alias. One thing that isn’t confusing is the price action. It seems overnight millionaires are...
'Tis the season for annual market forecasts. David Kostin of Goldman Sachs thinks the S&P 500 will finish 2018 around 2,850 (+7%). Mike Wilson from Morgan Stanley says 2,750 (+3%) Citigroup’s Tobias Levkovich—the “Eeyore” of the bunch—expects just 2,675 (i.e. flat). Whose number will prove closest? Before delving into forecasts for next year, let’s revisit a call from last year...
Investing seems complicated to many people but the best strategies are often just the opposite. You can beat most investors if you learn to focus on the right things and simplify. That means finding effective principles you can easily implement and compounding those returns. To get started on the right path, you can model a few ideas from a renowned...
George Bernard Shaw once quipped, "If all economists were laid end to end, they would still not reach a conclusion." There’s truth to Shaw’s comment—economic forecasting is tricky and imprecise. Everyone’s crystal ball is hazy, including mine. But that does not mean all economic indicators are created equal (or rather, are equally unreliable). Some indicators are historically and statistically sound...
How much money is enough? The more money we have, the more choices we have in life. So, money is important. But as we all know, money is not the only thing that matters. *** It’s a Wonderful Life plays on the major television networks each year at Christmas. The film’s main protagonist—George Bailey—struggles with how to value his life...
When it comes to investing, most people are in search of reliable return streams to facilitate lifestyles and legacies they aspire to. And while we are all unique, we have many things in common in the way we want our money to work for us. The “perfect” return stream, if we were to sketch it, might resemble the Mystery Fund...
The world is changing at a faster pace by the day. As existing paradigms are upended, it can be hard to see in real-time, because of cognitive biases we all carry around with us. In this piece I wrote for RealClearMarkets , I explore changes taking shape in the Consumer Staples and Technology sectors. *** We take eye exams to...
Alexander Bottema is a middle-aged computer programmer in Massachusetts. On the surface—a normal guy. However, he recently did something extraordinary. “I’m not a billionaire yet,” Bottema told Business Insider. “But my capital has grown by a factor of more than one hundred since I sold all my stocks and liquidated my savings in order to buy bitcoins in 2013.” That’s...
Finding value becomes more challenging as an investment cycle matures. Many stocks now trade at rich valuations compared to history. Concurrently, a lot of cheap stocks run a risk of being 'value traps.' Cheap gets cheaper when business models become impaired, and that's becoming more common across a handful of industries (e.g. retail). This stock spotlight video profiles the investment...