Blog Archives

Trauma and Intelligent Investing

Trauma

Traumatic events can hold great sway over our lives. They can trigger reactions that are often times not healthy for us. I was at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and saw someone speak who was born in Brussels in 1943. For the first two years of his life,

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What Movie Are You Creating And Watching?

Barry Ritholtz Gary Carmell

Scott Adams is someone I follow and I appreciate his insights about persuasion and human nature. He often says that everyone is living their own movie. They write the scripts and they have cast them with characters they have developed with personalities they have created for them.

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Economic Gain, Treasury Pain

Treasury Yield

It’s been a brutal couple of weeks for Treasuries as the following headline from Bloomberg attests to on September 13th.

Bloomberg Treasury Dive

10-year yields bottomed on a closing basis on September 3rd at 1.47% and have shot back up to 1.90% as of September 13th.

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Think Globally Act Locally

Think Globally. Act Locally

There has been some criticism of Fed chairman Powell as he has gone from saying this in early October 2018:

Jerome Powell we're a long way headline

To telegraphing this on July 10th:

Jerome Powell Signals Rate Cut

Those who are upset by his dovish turn are irked because they feel like he is kowtowing to the market and Trump who is forcing his hand despite record high stock market averages,

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Treasury Note Yield: Could I Be Wrong? A Humbling Week

Treasury Note Yield

Talk about a humbling week. Last week I was making the case that 3.11% on the 10-year Treasury note yield and possibly as high as 3.16% were the key levels that I did not think would be breached. This chart shows how wrong I was.

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Man Up Revisited - Winners Like Apple and Amazon

Apple Amazon.com

In an earlier blog, I discussed a fascinating study that asked whether stocks outperformed T-Bills. Surprisingly, the answer was that most stocks do not and the bulk of stock market returns have come from an incredibly small number of companies that have produced the estimated $32 trillion in wealth (returns in excess of T-Bills) between 1926 and 2015.

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Should You Focus Relentlessly On The Process Or Goals?

Process or GoalsPaul O’Neill, who ran Alcoa and quintupled profits during his 13-year tenure, famously focused on one keystone habit to transform the company. It’s worker safety. Analysts and investors couldn’t believe their ears when he was introduced as the new CEO when he said that would be the company’s most important focus.

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Not All Bubbles Are Created Equally

Bubbles

With the subprime-induced global financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009, along with the dotcom implosion in the early 2000s resulting in the NASDAQ dropping by approximately 80%, it’s not surprising that most investors are constantly on guard against the bursting of bubbles and crashes ensuing. If one takes a step back,

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Stock Market Volatility - Up Like an Escalator and Down Like an Elevator

stock market

Trite generalizations have been able to have longevity because there is enough truth in them to have proven wise and insightful. One of them is that markets go up like an escalator and drop like an elevator. Last week was a perfect example of this.

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Philosophical Investor - 2015 Questions We Will be Pondering

As 2015 opens, like many of you, there are numerous questions I am pondering.

2015 Questions I’m Pondering

Oil

  • How will lower oil prices impact apartment demand, particularly in Houston?
  • Will lower oil prices lead to more conflict in the Middle East engineered by Iran to retaliate against the Saudis and/or to create supply disruptions?

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