Quote for the Week
Most of us spend a lot of our time doing something that human beings just don’t do very well. Predicting things. What earnings will be in a few years. When interest rates will peak. What inflation will be. One of the most consuming uses of our time, in fact, has been accumulating information to help us make forecasts of all those things we think we have to predict. Where’s the evidenced that it works? I’ve been looking for it. Really. Here are my conclusions: Confidence in a forecast rises with the amount of information that goes into it. But the accuracy of the forecast stays the same. And when it comes to forecasting—as opposed to doing something—a lot of expertise is no better than a little expertise. And may even be worse. The consolation prize is pretty consoling, actually. It’s that you can be a successful investor without being a perpetual forecaster. Not only that, I can tell you from personal experience that one of the most liberating experiences you can have is to be asked to look over your firm’s economic outlook and to say, “We don’t have one.” — Dean Williams (Source)
From the Archives
Last Call
- The Art and Science of Spending Money – M. Housel
- What Investment Beliefs do You Hold that the Majority Disagrees With? – M. Faber
- Learning from Discount Tire’s Bruce Halle – Investment Master Class
- Democratization And “The Bucket Shop Problem” – Investor Amnesia
- Questioning the Illiquidity Premium – FWP
- Why the Super Rich are Inevitable – The Pudding
- When Money Doesn’t Look Like Money – Tedium
- Inside The Secretive World Of Shark Tank Deals – Forbes
- Monorail! How Conan O’Brien Came Up With an Iconic Simpsons Episode – The Ringer
