If you want to be reminded about how many, widely varying varieties of dinosaurs existed, you can ask any eight-year-old. Similarly, there are many “dinosaur” investing signals that have survived for a long time. Today we will examine another one. In 1976, Norman Fosback wrote the book, “Stock Market Logic: A Sophisticated Approach to Profits […]

It is common to write off old ideas as “dinosaurs”. The implication is that they worked in the past but have now died off.  But this superficially smart dismissal misses a very important point: the dinosaurs were incredibly successful. They dominated the planet for over 150 million years and are still around in the form […]

“People, Process and Product.” -Marcus Lemonis, host of CNBC’s “The Profit” In his business turnaround TV show, Marcus Lemonis is fond of saying that he evaluates a business based on people, process and product; his “three p’s.” I’m going to use the same framework but add one more as well. I must list these in […]

Behavioral finance is fascinating. This is partly because the science can be illustrated with fun anecdotes. It is also because knowing about the field seems like it must confer some sort of advantage (we will return to this). But the main appeal is that we can feel smug about our own rationality while we learn […]

As far as we can tell, ostriches aren’t smart. And as far as we can tell, the average self-directed investor is smarter than the average person. However, there is also evidence that various psychological biases disproportionally affect smart people enough that their intelligence advantage is completely eradicated. One of these biases is the “Ostrich Effect.” […]