Every industry has its comfort words. Medicine has “stable.” Education has “well-rounded.” And finance has “balanced.” The word shows up everywhere. Balanced portfolios. Balanced risk. Balanced approach. Financial advisors use it like a security blanket. Investors hear it and feel safer. But here’s the problem: balance in finance is not what you think it is. […]
Why “Balanced” is the Most Dangerous Word in Finance Read More »
The Wedding Photographer Problem Imagine a photographer who takes a thousand photos of a wedding and only shows the bride the one perfect shot where everyone is smiling, the lighting is golden, and nobody is blinking. Now imagine that same photographer putting that single photo on their website with the caption “I capture perfect moments
Imagine you could travel back to medieval Europe with one piece of investment advice. You’d probably want to tell someone to invest in the next big innovation, right? Back up the guy inventing the printing press or bet on better shipbuilding techniques. But the smartest move would have been simpler and duller. Buy land near
The Modern Feudalism: Why Owning the Road is Better than Owning the Factory Read More »
When Long Term Capital Management collapsed in 1998, the story became a parable about hubris. Two Nobel Prize winners, the brightest minds in finance, and billions in capital disappeared in a matter of weeks. But the more interesting question isn’t how they failed. It’s what they were actually doing in the first place. The black
Decoding the Black Box: What Was LTCM Actually Trading? Read More »
There’s a moment that arrives uninvited in most lives. You’re at a dinner party, or a wedding, or stuck in an elevator with a stranger. The question comes: “So, what do you do?” What they’re really asking is how you make money. And somehow, your answer is supposed to explain who you are. This seemingly
The Ultimate Financial Question: Who Are You Without Your Income? Read More »
Every year, the same story plays out in living rooms and coffee shops around the world. Someone mentions they made a killing on some stock. Everyone else feels a pang of regret. Why didn’t I see that coming? Why am I always late to the party? And so begins another cycle of reading newsletters, watching
Stop Chasing the Next Big Thing: Fama-French Proves You Just Need Three Read More »
Your retirement savings might be working harder at looking good than doing good. Pension funds have discovered something remarkable in recent years. They can charge higher fees, attract positive media coverage, and appease activist shareholders simply by slapping three letters onto their investment strategy: ESG. Environmental, Social, and Governance investing promises to align your money
The ESG Trap: Is ‘Ethical Investing’ Just a Marketing Ploy for Pension Funds? Read More »
Your brain is a liar. Not in the malicious sense, but in the way it processes value. Hand someone a crisp hundred dollar bill and watch their eyes light up. Show them $100 worth of Bitcoin on a screen and you’ll get a very different reaction. Same value, wildly different emotional response. This isn’t about
Why Your Brain Treats a $100 Bill and $100 of Bitcoin Like Two Different Currencies Read More »
Every country wants to be a winner. And in the grand theater of international economics, nothing signals victory quite like a trade surplus. Politicians beam when announcing that their nation sold more to the world than it bought. Newspapers trumpet the numbers. Economists nod approvingly. The message is clear: we won at trade. But what
The Real Cost of a Trade Surplus (and Why No One Will Admit It) Read More »
We think in straight lines. Our minds prefer symmetry. If something falls by half, we assume it needs to rise by half to return to where it started. This intuition, so natural and automatic, is completely wrong. And this wrongness costs people fortunes. The arithmetic is simple enough. If you have $100 and lose 50%,
The Math of Recovery: Why a 50% Loss Needs a 100% Gain Read More »