“The primary cause of [investing] failure is that [people] pay too much attention to what the market is doing currently.” – Benjamin Graham In a scene guaranteed to evoke empathy in every parent or grandparent with a heart and a memory, a grandfather was in a grocery store checkout line with his toddler grandson when the boy resorted to the time-tested tactic of…
There is an old riddle about a lily pad in a pond. The lily pad doubles in size every day and after 30 days it completely covers the pond. On what day does the lily pad cover half the pond? If you answered without really thinking about it you probably answered “day 15”. Our mind…
In fact, most of the time you should eat the marshmallow. I am referring, of course, to the famous marshmallow test conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in which he gave young children marshmallows and told them if they waited 15 minutes to eat them he would give them another one. Follow-up studies showed that the…
Many years ago, when my now grown children were in elementary school, we attended a special evening activity at their school with Richard Paul Evans, author of The Christmas Box and many other best-selling books. Evans had just written a book called The Spyglass which he read to us. Evans had never written children’s books…
Famous investor and billionaire Warren Buffett has never lost his Midwestern values. He still lives in the same house he purchased in 1958 for $31,500, and his taste in food doesn’t go much beyond hamburgers and steak. There are stories told of Buffett attending multi-course dinners prepared by world famous chefs where Buffett wouldn’t touch…
Of course I believe in luck. How otherwise to explain the success of those you dislike? – Jean Cocteau, French writer and artist The most important questions of life are, for the most part, really only problems of probability. – Pierre-Simon Maquis de Laplace, French mathematician & pioneer in the field of statistics Meeting Phil…
Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience. –Ralph Waldo Emerson, American author, poet, and philosopher Last year I lost my cell phone on an out of state trip. I prepare taxes out of my home as a side job and we were just entering the tax season. I knew my customers would be…
Most Investors follow the crowd down the path to comfortable mediocrity. – David F. Swensen Somewhere (I am not saying where) there is a picture of me at a high school dance, circa 1980. My hair is longish and parted in the middle. I am wearing a powder blue polyester suit with airplane wing collars…
The American Mosquito Control Association declares, “Mosquitoes cause more human suffering than any other organism.” Wikipedia quantifies this suffering, stating “Nearly 700 million people get a mosquito borne illness each year resulting in greater than one million deaths.” Those who escape the worst consequences of mosquitoes still don’t get off unscathed. Mosquitoes have ruined countless…
Stock markets have had a rough couple of weeks to start the New Year. They recovered a bit Friday but they are still down considerably since January 1. Although the year is young the Dow has already suffered several triple-digit losses, sometimes on consecutive days. When this happens people become restless and wonder what they…
