Excellent Advice From Peter Brandt
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How to Make a Big Decision
In July 1838, Charles Darwin, then 29, sat down to make a decision that would alter the course of his life. The decision he was wrestling with was not related to scientific questions about the origins of species. It was a different kind of decision — existential as well, but of a more personal nature:…
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The Shipping Forecast
I have always been fascinated by this….. Four times every day, on radios all across the United Kingdom, a BBC announcer begins reading from a seemingly indecipherable script. “And now the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency,” says the voice over the wire. “Viking, North Utsire;…
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The Joy Of Irrelevant Self Importance
For more than a quarter century, Wall Street analyst Mike Mayo has danced to the steady beat of corporate America. His work habits, his family events, his social life, even his workouts and vacations — all have been dictated by the seemingly immutable cycle of quarterly earnings reports. Four times a year, forget about everything…
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Things That Get Lost In The Mix
Unfortunately the archetypal image of a trader is of an individual who is constantly on the move. In the old days the appearance of a trader would include the endlessly repetitive scenes of someone yelling down the phone to their broker issuing a constant stream of instructions. Nowadays the image might be of someone using…
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Sometimes It’s Best to Come Second?
Abstract This paper compares mortality between Gold and Silver medalists in Olympic Track and Field to study how achievement influences health. Contrary to conventional wisdom, winners die over one year earlier than losers. I find strong evidence of differences in earnings and occupational choices as a mechanism. Losers pursued higher-paying occupations than winners according to…
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Even More Fun With ETFs and Indices
What prompted me to revisit this topic this is that once again my inbox is being bombarded with stuff about the magic of ETFs – it seems the gloss has completely gone from cryptos so we are back to old standard. The problem with most of these genius ideas is that they lack depth –…
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Markets Dont Give A Shit
I am in the process of finishing up my presentation of the IFTA conference in Kuala Lumpur in October. My topic is a bit of an exploration of volatility and how it is incredibly poorly understood by most. Whilst in the throws of banging together charts I generated the one below of the S&P/ASX 200…
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Most of us are wrong about how the world has changed
The opinion research organization Ipsos MORI conducted a detailed survey of 26,489 people across 28 countries that gives us an answer.1 Most people think global poverty is rising when in fact the opposite is happening The first chart shows how the surveyed people answered the following question: “In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world…
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