AAII is on a roll with great interviews this month. I highlighted one with Philip Tetlock a few weeks ago and somehow overlooked another with Bill Bernstein.

The conversation works around the idea of being wrong but setting yourself up for minimal losses when it happens. Of course, this is the basis of value investing. Margin of safety, capital preservation, avoiding big losses, why Buffett asks “What could go wrong?”, and even diversification is built around this concept. It’s something many investors overlook because they’re so keyed into the story, the promises, and the possibilities of everything going right.
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I started digging into The Long Term Asset Return Study released by Deutsche Bank a few weeks ago. The 90 odd page report takes a dive into asset returns over the last century and digs into the past 35 years to project how the next few decades might look.

Most of the projections revolve around shifting demographics and globalization and its broad impact on developed and emerging economies. The outward spread of globalization has been ongoing since the ’80s. It should be no surprise to see some of that revert in the years ahead. Recent political rhetoric seems to be fanning the flames, at least, on globalization. Continue Reading…

Unplanned things happen all the time. That was my situation this week when software and hardware decided not to play nice, take out my primary computer, and ruined a well-planned week.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure, you know there’s only two options – fix it or get a new one. As a glutton for punishment, I did both. (Despite the inconvenience, it did provide a healthy break from all things finance, while I focused on fixing things.)

The real issue is recovering years worth of files. The ever increasing size of hard drive storage enables digital hoarding. The process of recovering files, moving them all to a safe place, re-installing software, and organizing everything just the way you had it is a huge time suck and makes for a thrilling week. Continue Reading…