Quote for the Week
Most financial principles and theories have a degree of good sense to them. It may be a large degree, but it never comes close to being absolute. None of them ever has the comforting reliability of Euclid’s comment about the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle. Consider the observable occurrence and reoccurrence of what economists traditionally call the business cycle. It exists, certainly enough. Stocks never go so high that they don’t fall down, and never sink so low that they don’t eventually go back up again. But the duration of this cycle is figured by some at the mystic and Biblical figure of seven years, and sometimes at six. However, there have been periods when it worked out to other numbers of years, such as three, two, or half a year. Or take the period of two and a half years preceding the morning on which these words happen to be written. (Summer, 1949.) While events of world importance have been taking place, the stock market has done nothing but drift listlessly a little lower, from prices which could be considered low to begin with, in view of corporate earnings at that time. Thus the riddle is propounded: can such a pattern be termed predictable?
It is not likely that this riddle will ever be conclusively solved. It is fair to point out, however, that the tendency of the human heart is to plump for the idea that there is a sensible order in the rise and fall of prices, whether the evidence is good or nonexistent. People do not care for the idea that any important activity which affects them is as beyond their control as a pair of dancing dice. — Fred Schwed Jr. (source)
From the Archives
Last Call
- Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2023 (PDF) – Credit Suisse
- Globe Trotting Curiosity – R. Krueger
- Good Old Times, Innovation Edition – Klement on Investing
- The Mississippi Scheme 1716-1721 (A Tale in 5 Chapters) – G. Hoots
- A Conversation with François Rochon – Best Anchor Stocks
- Learning from National Cash Register’s, John H Patterson – Investment Masters Class
- The Inside Story of How Wellington and Vanguard Became Partners – C. Ellis
- The World’s Largest 3D-Printed Neighborhood Is Here – Bloomberg
- 100 Centenarians’ 100 Tips for a Life Well Lived – The Guardian
- We’re Living in an Age of Small Creatures – Slate
