The wisdom of crowds is the idea that the judgment of a large group of people can be better than that of any individual. If you ask a large enough group of people to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar, the average answer will be remarkably accurate and better than most […]
News
The 2-Minute Thought: Stock Market Valuation –Where Are We?
Had you blinked year to date and just opened your eyes, you could think that stocks moved very little in 2016– U.S. stocks are almost even with where they started the year. But that would be glossing over the worst-ever start to the year for U.S. stocks and weeks of blind panic around the world. […]
The 2-Minute Thought: In Defense of Optimism
Investors need to be optimists. They need to believe that change is possible and that change is sometimes for the better. Without optimism, taking risk would be impossible. But in investment and life, it is easy for pessimism to prevail. For one thing, pessimism can sound a lot smarter than optimism. Morgan Housel muses about […]
Entrepreneurship & Creativity
Thomas Friedman the columnist in the New York Times is always excellent. In a February piece he noted that if given a blank sheet of paper and told to write down America’s three greatest sources of strength, he would include, “A culture of entrepreneurship”, “An ethic of pluralism” and “The quality of our governing institutions”. […]
The Lessons We Have To Learn…And Learn … And Learn Again
You don’t need me to tell you the stock market has been on quite a roller coaster earlier this year. In the first twelve days of 2016 the Dow Jones lost over 10%. This is the worst decline to start a year since 1897. We have said before and I am sure we will say […]
Reasons for Optimism
There are two interlinked stories here. One is about the rise of economic dynamism in smaller U.S. cities like Duluth, Sioux Falls, and Akron. The other is about the fall of globalization. Perhaps calling it “the fall of globalization” is a little dramatic, but global trade in goods is definitely down. Growth in the global […]
The Unanticipated Impact of Low Oil Prices
Most of us are well aware of oil’s recent, precipitous decline. Happily, prices at the gas pump are now below $2/gallon, home heating bills this winter have been less painful and airlines, in a show of generosity, are once again handing out free pretzels. The negative impact of lost energy sector jobs and profits are […]
The 2-Minute Thought: Brazilian stocks rally? What?!?
Source: stockcharts.com Has the world gone crazy or are Brazilian stocks really rallying? It seems like it was just a moment ago that investors didn’t want to hear about Brazil, think about it, or certainly, touch it. The economy is terrible. The president’s facing impeachment. And the ex-president just was implicated in the Petrobras corruption […]
The 2-Minute Thought: Why laundromats in Japan are booming
japanupdate.com “Anyone wondering what a decade of deflation, rising female labour participation, falling marriage rates and soaring pollen counts can do to a nation could study Japan’s self-service launderettes boom.” So riffed the Financial Times poetically last fall. In most of the developed world, self-service laundries have been declining – which makes sense in a […]
The 2-Minute Thought: The wrong way to think about money
The right way to think about money is to focus on opportunity costs. That’s how Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely opened an interview late last year. That means that we should think clearly about all the possible alternatives we are giving up as a result of spending money on something. Of course that is […]
Your Questions, Our Answers
Even the most experienced investors have felt unnerved by the recent market sell-off. To help calm nerves and foster a long term perspective, here are our answers to some recently asked questions. Is the recent market decline the start of another major bear market? Many of the world’s stock markets are already in bear market […]
The Changing Face of Shopping
Traditional retail from high end to low is struggling. That includes department stores, single brand outposts, outlets, big boxes, and malls. Spending on traditional categories like apparel is down. The proliferation of online buying options means it’s harder to figure out how bricks and mortar should work. Observers always pay attention to changing consumer demand […]
