There’s a peculiar gap in American finance that most people never think about. Banks love lending to massive corporations because the deals are huge and the risks are calculable. Venture capitalists chase technology startups with dreams of hundred-fold returns. But what about the company that makes industrial fasteners in Ohio? The regional logistics firm in […]
The Middle-Market Medic: How BDCs Keep Main Street Breathing Read More »
We’ve been here before, sort of. Remember when people thought a billion dollars was unfathomable wealth? Then we got used to billionaires. Then trillion dollar companies arrived and we shrugged. Now we’re staring at the possibility of a ten trillion dollar company, and the strange thing is how normal it already feels. But it shouldn’t
The Final Boss: What Happens to the Economy When a Company Hits $10 Trillion? Read More »
Most investors treat market capitalization like a number on a scoreboard. A company worth ten billion dollars is simply ten times bigger than one worth a billion. This arithmetic thinking makes intuitive sense until you actually try to double these companies and discover that the laws of finance behave more like the laws of physics
The Physics of Finance: Why Doubling a $10B Market Cap is 10x Harder Than a $1B Read More »
We live in an age where a picture of an eggplant can mean something other than produce and a skull doesn’t necessarily signal danger. So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that investors are now parsing rocket ships and diamond hands for market signals. What was once the domain of teenagers texting has become a legitimate
Emoji Economics: Can a Rocket Ship Icon Actually Predict a Rally? Read More »
Your brain is a terrible financial advisor. Not because it lacks intelligence or processing power, but because it evolved to keep you alive on the African savanna, not to evaluate stock portfolios. The mental shortcuts that helped your ancestors avoid becoming lunch now sabotage your investment decisions in ways both predictable and profound. Consider this:
The Availability Heuristic: Why One Bad News Story Outweighs Ten Years of Growth Read More »
Many investors are playing the wrong game. They obsess over returns like kids comparing Halloween candy hauls, bragging about how much they got while conveniently forgetting to mention the stomach aches. The financial industry encourages this myopia because it sells products. Beat the market. Alpha generation. Outperformance. These phrases populate marketing materials like confetti at
The Case for Stop Chasing Alpha: Why the Sharpe Ratio is the Only Metric That Matters Read More »
You assemble a bookshelf at two in the morning. Your fingers ache. The instructions make no sense. Three screws are missing, and you’re pretty sure Panel F is actually Panel G. Four hours later, you step back and admire your crooked masterpiece. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. You built this. A week later, your friend points
The IKEA Effect in Investing: Why You Love Your Bad Stocks Too Much Read More »
There’s a peculiar moment in every new investor’s journey when the market whispers sweet lies directly into their ear. It usually happens after a few successful trades, maybe a week or two of watching numbers tick upward. Suddenly, Warren Buffett seems like he’s been doing things the hard way. The investing books collecting dust on
The Dunning-Kruger Investing Portfolio: Why You Think You’re a Pro After One Green Week Read More »
There’s a particular breed of investor who checks their brokerage account the way some people check their pulse. They want to see that dividend hit. They want confirmation that their money is working, that capital deployed is capital rewarded. And nowhere is this impulse stronger than among those who invest in business development companies. BDCs
Is Your Dividend a Return of Capital or a Return on Capital? Read More »
The crowd gathered outside the corporate headquarters, waving signs and chanting slogans. Inside, executives prepared their quarterly earnings call, ready to announce record profits. This scene has become so familiar in modern capitalism that we barely register the contradiction anymore. The companies we publicly despise often possess an almost supernatural ability to print money. This
Investing in the Villain: Why the Most Hated Companies Might Deserve Your Money Read More »