The Confidence Dilemma
In the world of finance, you need confidence. Without it, you're paralyzed but too much of it amplifies errors and undermines financial progress. Better decisions can be the difference between financial…
We’re wired to hunt and forage, not to manage money. So, to manage money well, we have to understand our own psychology. This is both the biggest challenge that investors face, and the greatest opportunity to do well.
Bank Runs and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers
“Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with the 130 IQ. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament…
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The AQN Problem
It's been a long time since I've written about a specific stock. Truth is, I'm not that interested in individual stock analysis because I just don't see the upside. Even…
Positioning
Organisms can position themselves in one of two ways from an evolutionary perspective: specialize or generalize. Specialist species are adapted to a narrow range of conditions. They are specialized for…
Retirees are leaving money on the table
You’ve worked hard for your money. You’ve accumulated wealth by being responsible with your spending and saving decisions. Why? So that you can use that money to enjoy a long,…
Get to vs. Got to
This story starts about a year before that photo was taken.I stumbled into my sparsely furnished apartment tired, dirty, and hungry after a long day of hiking. I had moved…
How to think about bear markets
I heard someone smarter than me say on a podcast recently, "We don't react to the events in our lives. We react to our interpretation of those events." He was…
Optimists, pessimists, and realists in life and investing
My last post, Why I am not a Bitcoin investor, sparked a surprisingly positive response both in and out of the comments section - thank you to those who reached…
Life is like a jar of golf balls
Here is an apocryphal story for you. Its veracity may be questionable, but its impact and utility are not. A university professor enters a classroom full of students carrying a box…
Making good decisions in wicked environments
We recently decided to move. The short story is that we found and bought the perfect house at a reasonable price and we sold our current house in just four…