Peter Gabriel On Music
Growing older with health and vitality
The preservation of skeletal muscle mass and strength with advancing age are, we propose, critical aspects of ageing with health and vitality. Physical inactivity and poor nutrition are known to accelerate the gradual age-related decline in muscle mass and strength—sarcopenia—however, both are subject to modification. The main purpose of this review is to present the…
Not Much Faith
This begs the question for fundamental style investors – if the people who run the company wont buy it why should you? Few top executives followed Jamie Dimon’s example this year in buying company stock. Insiders at a majority of S&P 500 Index companies didn’t purchase any of their firm’s shares in the open market…
Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That…
Have you seen that funny viral video with that expressive, confident, funny lady? If not, you’ve been missing out. It particularly grabbed Louise’s attention. She says: “After watching this again, for the hundredth time, and giggling, it got me thinking…You know that this year will be a duplicate of last year, unless you change…
The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time
Napoleon Hill is the most famous conman you’ve probably never heard of. Born into poverty in rural Virginia at the end of the 19th century, Hill went on to write one of the most successful self-help books of the 20th century: Think and Grow Rich. In fact, he helped invent the genre. But it’s the…
Grumpy Old Bastards
Interesting piece that looks at the precision of judgement as one ages, in this instance precision refers to the confidence that is brought to a given decision. It turns out that as we age we become more confident in believing we know the truth. This leads to a somewhat intractable problem of both overconfidence and…
Well Here It Comes
In line with the notion of January predicts the direction if the not the quanta of the year ahead here is a rundown of the January gains or losses for various markets. Make of it what you will….if anything….. What is more interesting to me is what I perceive to be a dislocation between perception…
Index Correlations Again
I recently posted this table of index price correlations. Its a fairly simple table that looks at the degree to which indices follow one another in their general pattern of movement. As you would expect indices that are closely related share a very high correlation. For example the Dow and the S&P500 share a price…
Index Correlations
For my own curiosity I decided to have a quick look at the price correlations of a handful of world indices. Those correlations that are below 0.5 I have coloured red. As expected most share a positive correlation with the only true diversification coming from the Shanghai Composite. This does pose a conundrum for index…
Apathy As The Default Human Setting
If you are a fan of human history the impression you get of our progress over the years is a relentless march forward. We evolved on the plains of Africa as small and weak primates with very little to distinguish us from other animals. Deep time and the relentless random pressure of evolution changed that…
Why asset bubbles are a part of the human condition
IN THESE UNCERTAIN economic times, we’d all like a guaranteed investment. Here’s one: it pays a 24-cent dividend every four weeks for 60 weeks, 15 dividends in all. Then it disappears. Unlike a bond, this security has no redemption value. It simply provides guaranteed dividends. It involves no tricky derivatives or unknown risks. And it…
