Imagine Jamie Dimon made a killing shorting J.P. Morgan stock during the Great Financial Recession? And imagine he didn’t get in any trouble for it? This actually happened 90 years ago at Chase Manhattan Bank, while Albert Wiggin was at the helm. This story was marvelously told in Once in Golconda, by John Brooks. Beginning…

Michael Steinhardt once said “Nothing gives a better feeling to a manager than making money for his or her investors when almost everyone else is losing.” I’d imagine that there are few worse feelings for a money manager than not keeping up when everyone around you is winning. The tech bubble is the modern day…

Stories discussed Hedge fund boot camp The millionaire secretary… …And how she got there A bubble in ETFs makes no sense.  Don’t blame ETFs Why people won’t spend down their assets… …This “study” though. Tech IPOs can be overvalued Credit card points The Depression of 2008? The buyback counter.  Lend money to Argentina for 100…

Articles When you realize the magnitude of happenstance and serendipity in your life, you can stop judging yourself on your outcomes and start focusing on your efforts By Nick Maggiulli Quantifying good advice can be difficult because there are no counterfactuals. By Ben Carlson Historical risks you can study are dwarfed by risks you actually experience….

The Federal Reserve, quantitative easing, FAANG, margin debt, index funds, buybacks, low interest rates, CAPE ratio, and now ETFs. Exchange traded funds have found a home in the charlatan’s tool kit. Eric Balchunas says, “Blaming ETFs for the rise of the stock market is like blaming MP3s for the rise of Nickelback.” There is a lot…

Stories discussed Community adjusted what? What would a bear market do for active management? You think our central bank is bad? Carthage > Harvard Yale should not index.  Homes are not a great investment Don’t wait until your 45 Would a bear market kill active management? How much would you pay to keep using Google?…

Ben and I spoke about a listener question on this week’s Animal Spirits podcast. The question came from a young person in their 30s, and he was asking about timing the market. Given where valuations are, and that he has many decades ahead of him, would it make sense to wait for a better pitch…

What’s greater, 306 or 612 ? You might be inclined to pick the first choice, because 30 is five times larger than 6. But due to the (miracle/magic, Einstein quote, etc.) of the compound*, 612 is three times larger than 306. $1 earning 6% a year over 30 years grows to $5.74, a rate of return that many…

Articles I know that the old value adage is that if you buy quality companies and hold them forever, they will pay for themselves, but I don’t believe that! By Aswath Damodaran There’s a 0.26 correlation between the S&P 500’s total return and the change in real GDP. By Charlie Bilello The volatility may not…

Steven Pinker wrote, “In almost every year from 1992 through 2015, an era in which the rate of violent crime plummeted, a majority of Americans told pollsters that crime was rising. In late 2015, large majorities in eleven developed countries said that “the world is getting worse.” But crime isn’t rising, and the world is…