Benoit Mandelbrot was a Polish-born, French and American “mathematician with broad interests in the practical sciences.” I met him only once at a lecture at Microsoft Research before he passed away in 2010. Mandelbrot and Richard Hudson are the authors of the influential book The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence. I suggest you…
The ability to focus is an important driver of excellence. Focused techniques such as to-do lists, timetables, and calendar reminders all help people to stay on task. Few would argue with that, and even if they did, there is evidence to support the idea that resisting distraction and staying present have benefits: practicing mindfulness for 10 minutes a day, for example, can enhance leadership effectiveness by…
It is often said that there is a relationship between the length of a text message that you receive and the mental stability of the person that is sending the message. Messages that run to only a few words to my mind demonstrate both an understanding of the what the technology is actually for and…
If we’re going to be precise about it, work gets done at 11AM on a Monday in October. At all other times of day, we’re basically slacking from our most productive. Sustaining 8 hours-plus of intense focus year-round is more of a Herculean pipe dream than a reality of the modern day workplace. We come…
Do investors holding an asset in the midst of a price bubble all come to share similar beliefs, even if they did not do so previously? Asset price bubbles are unfailingly supported by a captivating narrative, which is ‘validated’ by price movements, draws in investors and allows for traditional valuation considerations to be discarded. It…
I once knew a girl whose father had, when she was just a little child, left her mother one night without warning or explanation, who grew up to be a young woman that was always seeking that absent father. She sought him in bad relationships, where neither person could give the other what they needed,…
Over the past 20 years, hedge funds have gained almost mythic status. Loved and loathed, they are held to be sharply distinct from the broader asset management industry. The fortunes of the best-known firms are followed with great interest. There is nothing that definitively marks hedge fund managers apart from other investment managers, however. Instead,…
If you live in Eastern Australia you couldn’t help but notice that over the weekend it rained a little. This rain was both preceded and accompanied by warnings of an impending apocalypse. A succession of emergency service personal and politicians told me that the end of days was upon us and that we were all…
One of the most interesting things about markets is that they are not an homogeneous ecology – those who lack experience in trading or investing tend to speak about equity markets as if every segment is exactly the same as every other segment. It is obvious that the market is split into segments based upon…
The WSJ generated a neat little chart that put the rise of Bitcoin this year into context by dropping it in a timeline with other speculative bubbles. One of the joys of longevity is I remember all of these bubbles and have participated in all bubble since the 1980’s stock market boom and the life…
I snipped this from the Capegemini World Wealth Report 2017. I am surprised at the relatively low total held in real estate compared to equities.
