November 2016

Mental Scar Tissue

The costliest mistake 2% investors make is timing the market. They sell after losses and buy back only when the coast is clear. The problem is not just the money you leave on the table this time, but these mistakes leave behind scar tissue that compounds in our brains. It doesn’t take long before we’re unable…

This Is Not Bearish

The S&P 500 just made an all-time high for the 11th time this year, and the 1134th time since 1928. Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 19,000 for the first time ever. The natural inclination is that now might not be the best time to put new money to work. The data doesn’t support this,…

When History Suddenly Becomes Irrelevant

“The fact that something so unthinkable could occur has had a lasting impact on my view of life and on investing in particular” – Peter Bernstein I’m extremely proud of the event we put on this week, the Evidence-Based Investing conference. There were a lot of like-minded investors in the room and on the stage,…

Making Sense When There is No Sense to be Made

Our brains were built to save us from ourselves. We misremember the past and pretend we can predict the future. We’re able to make sense of things when there is no sense to be made. Here’s an example- I was staying at a hotel a few weeks ago in San Diego and I walked into…

My Portfolio

I tweeted this last night as stock market futures were down around 5%. I'm buying U.S. stocks tomorrow. Don't care if I'm early, I've got a few decades. — Irrelevant Investor (@michaelbatnick) November 9, 2016 I got a lot of feedback on this, mostly positive, but some decidedly negative, sprinkled in with a little name…

What Is Democracy?

Will Durant answered this question so eloquently in The Lessons of History- I thought tonight would be an appropriate time to review the words he wrote half a century ago. “Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent…