Kind or Hostile

I was recently listening to the 100th episode of the Michael Kitces podcast with Joe Duran to learn about how Duran used data analytics to help build and scale a $24 billion wealth management firm.  However, it wasn’t the machine learning or the data-driven decision making that stuck with me the most.  It was something Duran said at the end of…

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If You Feel Thankful, Write It Down. It’s Good For Your Health

…..And noting your gratitude seems to pay off: There’s a growing body of research on the benefits of gratitude. Studies have found that giving thanks and counting blessings can help people sleep better, lower stress and improve interpersonal relationships. Earlier this year, a study found that keeping a gratitude journal decreased materialism and bolstered generosity among adolescents. In another study from August, high school…

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Fear Not

………..Investors have to face fear every day, although more so on some days than others (nobody complains about volatility to the upside), and don’t often face it very effectively. To quote Jason Zweig paraphrasing Mike Tyson, “investors always have a plan until the market punches them in the face.” Real fear comes with names, faces, and a story.…

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Emotional Inertia

I have always been a fan of Decision Theory – the notion of how we make decisions with varying amounts of information has always been fascinating to me. This should seem obvious since trading is a profession that straddles both normative and descriptive decision making. Normative decision is about making decisions with incomplete information whereas…

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