Following Instructions
On the 22nd of August 1985 British AirTours flight, 28M was sitting on the runway at Manchester Airport. Loaded with British budget holiday makers who were no doubt looking forward to their holiday in Corfu wherein the tradition of English tourists they would get legless most nights, complain a Greek Island didn’t have food like…
How Led Zeppelin Came to Be
On September 7th, 1968, Led Zeppelin played their first live show ever in, of all places, a converted gym in Gladsaxe, Denmark. They weren’t yet billed under their soon-to-be world-famous name but were instead performing under the guise of the New Yardbirds, a relaunch of the British Invasion blues rockers who’d imploded just months before. The only…
The Importance of Outliers
One of the mistakes that new traders make is they hold the belief that the market will give them a salary much the same as any other employer would. When in fact the reality is very different – returns from markets are very lumpy and in part, I think it is this staccato nature of…
2020: A Recap of My 1270%, $18.2 million trading year.
This piece dropped into my Twitter feed courtesy of Steven Goldsmith who runs the AlphaMind podcast. You don’t need to be on Twitter to read the thread just hit the link and it should open. What interested me about this thread were the comments as they display the dichotomy that exists within Twitter and by…
Investing in a Bubble
The S&P 500 index soared 38% in 1995. This sharp increase, following four years of steady gains, made some of the smartest investors on Wall Street begin to grow wary of a bubble in the making. Over the past few months, we studied what today’s most famous investors were saying during the years leading up…
GameStop
I have been following the action in GameStop this week with great interest because mania is a fascinating thing and watches a hedge fund who thought they were onto a sure thing getting their nuts squeezed is hilarious as is the bleating of Wall Street traditionalists to make the nasty young people stop. If you…
When and How Should Investors Make Forecasts?
It is easy to criticise investment forecasting. I do it myself on a regular basis. As enjoyable a pastime as this is, there is a problem. All investors are consistently making forecasts. Consciously and unconsciously. Even the biggest sceptic of the folly of market and economic predictions is inevitably expressing views about the future when…
Why Learning a New Skill Is So Good for You
As it turns out, being a grown-up novice offers all kinds of surprising benefits. Just ask journalist Tom Vanderbilt, who spent a year attempting to pick up a variety of challenging skills, from surfing to singing to drawing. Ultimately, he didn’t become amazing at any of these things, but his humble quest taught him something…
Want To Rewire Your Brain For Meaningful Life Changes?
You are the architect of your brain. It turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks. Until recently, the conventional thinking was that our brains were hardwired at birth and therefore unchangeable. But the good news is that our brains are constantly being reshaped by our daily experiences. You can control improve how…
