"The trouble with market research is that people don't think what they feel, they don't say what they think, and they don't do what they say." -- David Ogilvy Beautiful equations are seductive. Mathematics brings logic and structure to a ...
Social norms govern how individuals interact with each other and with society at large. Many norms have been incorporated into legal systems but most continue to be informal conventions. A significant percentage of the population will fail to adhere to ...
"So, guys, how did the trip to Japan go? Did you get the software installed?" "It was great! The clients loved us and are super happy about the installation! The boss even took us out for dinner the last night ...
Seneca said that "life is long if you know how to use it." But modernity presents us with a nearly infinite number of ways to waste time and fall short of our human potential ...
In complex or confusing situations, our brains tend to overweight information that is easily available even if there are more important factors that we are less cognizant of ...
"People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too. And those after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out ...
"Success makes people think they're smart. That's fine as far as it goes, but there can also be negative ramifications." -- Howard Marks The investing profession tends to attract individuals who, to put it politely, have a healthy sense of ...
"Good investment ideas are rare, valuable and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are. Therefore we normally will not talk about our investment ideas." -- Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Owner's Manual One of the ...
"Treat what you don't have as nonexistent. Look at what you have, the things you value most, and think of how much you'd crave them if you didn't have them. But be careful. Don't feel such satisfaction that you start ...
The belief that human beings are fundamentally rational individuals is perhaps the most important foundational element of modern economics. While no economist would ever claim that all individuals are rational all the time, it has long been thought that rational ...
"The elementary part of psychology—the psychology of misjudgment, as I call it—is a terribly important thing to learn. There are about 20 little principles. And they interact, so it gets slightly complicated. But the guts of it is unbelievably important." ...
Are you merely average? If you are reading this article, chances are that you will instinctively recoil when asked this question. People do not like to think of themselves as merely average and this is even more true for individuals ...
In the world of purely efficient markets, economic actors behave in their own rational self interest by dispassionately weighing the evidence and making optimal decisions on investment matters. In the real world, emotions are often an investor’s worst enemy and ...
It's in the bag: Stock prices will be up this year based on the Super Bowl indicator! Stock market legend has it that years in which a team from the original NFL wins the Super Bowl, stock prices will go ...
I am not alone in wondering how it could be possible for so many highly educated and wealthy individuals to fall for a scam on the staggering scale of Bernard Madoff's ponzi scheme. How could it be that a prominent ...