Behavioral Finance/Psychology

Sliding Doors

Famed behavioral psychologist Daniel Kahneman died two weeks ago at age 90. You probably heard about it even if you live outside the finance and economics bubble. Kahneman is a Nobel laureate who co-authored the seminal paper Prospect Theory with his research partner, Amos Tversky. Prospect Theory identified loss aversion for the first time and…

Same As Ever: The Perfect Complement to The Psychology of Money

When Morgan Housel published The Psychology of Money, I wrote that it would be the finance book of the year. I grossly underestimated it. Psychology of Money has sold over 4 million copies. It has become my standard gift to graduates and young people searching to learn about money and investing. Now, that gift will…

Church of Apple

In first grade, my elementary school opened a new campus. It had a computer lab stocked with Apple MacIntosh computers. For one hour each week, we learned coding language on an application called Logo Writer. If we were lucky, the teacher would let us play Oregon Trail when our assignments were complete. I remember the…

Numbers on a Screen

Dealing with money is less tangible today than at any time in the history of money. Paychecks are directly deposited into bank accounts. Bills are paid automatically online. Debit and credit cards can be used everywhere (even in NYC cabs), and we are quickly adopting the use of Apple Pay, Venmo, and Zelle for a…

Endowment Effect – Housing Market Edition

We just went under contract to buy a house. Yes, in this market with these interest rates, we are buying a house. We can’t put our life on hold because interest rates are higher than they were a year ago. The real world doesn’t work like that. Humans are, as it turns out, not economic…

The Worst Time to Invest with Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is arguably the greatest investor of all time, to date. His track record is undeniable. Between 1965 and 2020, Berkshire Hathaway stock had an average annual return of 20%, almost double the return of the S&P 500 Index. Of course, we all know he’s the GOAT now, but how would investors have evaluated…

Come On Ride The Train

In case you missed it, we launched a cryptocurrency index a few weeks ago. With great anticipation and excitement, my account was funded and traded on launch day. I waited until late in the afternoon for confirmation that the wire from my bank did in fact make it to my new crypto account and breathed…

Pluto is a Planet

Science was the first academic subject I stopped pursuing, and I regret it. In high school, the only science options senior year were A.P. and required an extra hour for the lab work. I had other priorities, including a semi-professional dance career that took up a lot of my time. In college, I took the…

Unknown Unknowns

For over a year, I’ve been kicking around a blog idea in my head that I just couldn’t figure out how to write. The premise – America has a math problem. That math problem became painfully clear to me during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I cringed each time I heard a misguided…

Get Rich versus Stay Rich

I don’t help people get rich, I help them stay rich.  My job as a wealth manager is to help clients hold on to their wealth and to preserve and grow it to keep pace with inflation. My number one priority is to ensure that money is there to meet their goals, when they are…