The 1890s were supposed to be the decade of unstoppable progress. Railroads had stitched America together. Capital was flowing. The future was obvious to everyone who had eyes. And then the whole thing collapsed. The Panic of 1893 wiped hundreds of railroads, shuttered 15,000 businesses, and left unemployment hovering around levels that would not be […]
Don’t Get “Railroaded”: Investing Lessons from the 1890s Read More »
There is a strange arithmetic that happens when markets fall. You open your brokerage app, see red everywhere, and suddenly you feel like a lesser person. Not just a person with less money. A lesser person. As if the stock market has opinions about your character. This is not rational. You know it is not
When Your Portfolio Drops, Does Your Self-Worth Drop Too? Read More »
There is a particular kind of madness that takes hold in boardrooms and earnings calls every quarter. It sounds like this: “Our strategy is to grow revenue by 20% year over year.” Everyone nods. The slide advances. Nobody asks the obvious question. What if revenue growth is not something you do, but something that happens
Revenue Growth Is Not a Strategy (It’s a Consequence) Read More »
Money is old. Portfolio theory is not. But the instinct behind portfolio theory – do not put everything in one place – is arguably older than written language itself. Long before Harry Markowitz published his Nobel Prize winning work in 1952, merchants in Florence, traders in Constantinople, and farmers in Mesopotamia were already practicing diversification.
Pre-Industrial Portfolio Theory: Diversifying Like a Medici Merchant Read More »
Money in Pre-Industrial Societies You would think that a group of monks who took vows of poverty would be the last people to invent banking. But history has a sense of humor, and the Knights Templar are the punchline. In the 12th century, a small order of warrior monks set out to protect Christian pilgrims
How the Knights Templar Invented Modern Banking While Fighting Crusades Read More »
There is a quiet assumption baked into most financial analysis. It goes something like this: people are rational. They see money, they want more of it, and they make decisions accordingly. Supply meets demand. Incentives drive behavior. The math works out. Except it does not. Not even close. If human beings were actually rational about
Why Logic Is the Worst Way to Understand Global Finance Read More »
There is a particular kind of guilt that comes with investing. You hand your money to a brokerage, it flows into companies you have never visited, and somewhere a factory hums a little louder. ESG funds were supposed to fix that. They promised a world where your portfolio could grow and your conscience could rest.
Why the Best ESG Strategy is Just Buying the S&P 500 and Planting Trees Yourself Read More »
There is a particular kind of madness that only visits nations at the peak of their confidence. It does not arrive with warnings or sirens. It walks in wearing a tailored suit, carrying a briefcase full of projections that only go up. In the late 1980s, that madness knocked on Japan’s door, and Japan did
The Diamond Standard: How Japan Became the World’s Top Gem Buyer Overnight Read More »
There is a particular kind of stubbornness that only committees can produce. An individual, confronted with obvious evidence that something is broken, will eventually accept reality. It might take a day, a week, maybe a month. But a committee? A committee of sovereign nations bound together by a shared currency and a deeply fragile sense
Cognitive Dissonance in Brussels: Why It Took Two Years to Admit the Truth (2010) Read More »
There is a country in the heart of Europe that builds some of the finest cars on the planet, engineers machines that other nations can only admire, and runs an economy so productive it essentially bankrolls half a continent. And yet, when it comes to investing in stocks, this same country behaves like a nervous
Why German Savers Are Terrified of the Stock Market Read More »