The Rational Walk website was founded in 2009 and contains articles on investing, personal finance, worldly wisdom, and books.
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Recent Articles
Accounting rule changes introduced in 2018 have distorted the analytical value of Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly net income. Operating income is a more useful measure.
The United States has experienced a rapid acceleration of inflation recently. This article examines the automobile industry, a sector experiencing higher than average inflation.
Exposing ourselves to timeless principles is beneficial. But we should not be so rigid as to discount the possibility that the world has changed, and we must keep an open mind.
Without a certain level of trust, our modern civilization would soon disintegrate into total chaos. This article takes a brief look at the role of trust in three acquisitions.
Even if you enjoy an activity once you are engaged in it, the first few steps can be uncomfortable. Fortunately, there are strategies that can help us get started.
Not being in control of your time seems like a bad thing, but this lack of control provides people with a compelling narrative to avoid doing things that they would rather not do.
Timeframe arbitrage is arguably the last major source of potential advantage for individual investors. If this is true, how can individuals best structure their research process?
This post is a list of books that I read in the second quarter of 2022, most notably two classic titles by Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov
Soul in the Game is a difficult book to categorize. Is it a memoir? A book on stoicism? A book on classical music? It is none of these things in isolation, but all of these things in combination.
Sometimes, it is a good idea to purposely "throw sand in the gears" in order to force yourself to slow down during bear markets. This is necessary to avoid mistakes.
Recent research suggests that inflation, adjusted for methodology changes, is getting close to the peak of the early 1980s, casting doubt on the sufficiency of the Fed's response.
Politicians and economists seem baffled by low consumer confidence in the midst of low unemployment. One explanation is that rampant inflation is hammering the poor.
Consumer behavior can often seem crazy. But if a successful company is built around "irrational" behavior, chances are that you might be missing something important.
If reading Benjamin Graham represents "vaccination" against speculation, then having a small “mad money” account could be a form of "variolation".
The Rational Walk is no longer on Twitter after thirteen years of using the platform. Readers should consider subscribing to Rational Reflections to receive new content.
This article is the first in a series about the dialysis industry. It was originally published on Rational Reflections, an email newsletter published by The Rational Walk.
If you are a long-term investor, it is pointless to update the quotes for your portfolio on a daily basis. There is simply too much day-to-day noise to make this exercise meaningful.
This post published in April 2022 discussed how Berkshire Hathaway might acquire minority interests in its energy subsidiary. In June 2022, Greg Abel's 1% interest was acquired.
Financial independence enabling early retirement is a worthy goal, but there are important considerations that are often ignored by the FIRE movement.
The rise of passive investing is the topic of Robin Wigglesworth’s recent book, Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever.
We can learn a great deal about business and capital allocation by studying Tom Murphy’s long and successful career in broadcasting.
This post is a list of books that I read in the first quarter of 2022, most notably two classic titles by Leo Tolstoy: War & Peace and Anna Karenina.
Optimization is generally positive but it can be taken too far. When the cost of redundancy is low and the cost of falling short is high, accepting redundancy can make sense.
The underlying science that made COVID-19 vaccines possible is the product of decades of painstaking research, well described in "A Shot to Save the World".