December 2017

I recently spoke with a client who wanted to know what could go wrong with bitcoin.  We talked about bitcoin and the monetary system (not a risk now, but who knows in the future) as well as black market applications (greenbacks work just as well or better here).  The question stuck with me, though.  What could go wrong?  I remembered attending a session at an IMCA (now the Investments & Wealth Institute) conference with Dan Ariely and something clicked.  Ariely’s research suggests that the further we get from money, the higher the likelihood that we will cheat. Check out his TED talk here.  He performed an experiment where subjects were given a limited amount of time to complete a number of math problems and would get paid based on the number of problems they completed.  Subjects who handed in their papers got an average of 4 problems correct. Lots of…

In honor of my favorite vignette from The Office… Question:  What kind of bear is best? ‘Tis the season for market predictions (and forgetting last year’s predictions).  The optimists predict low single digit returns for equities.  The bears predict bear things.  Which means no one expects even decent stock market returns.  Now more than ever it makes sense to hold a portfolio that doesn’t require you to predict the future to be successful. Bears Eat Beets Schwab’s Jeffrey Kleintop points out that while stocks have gone up every month this year, so have earnings. Battlestar Galactica Bitcoin is going bananas yet again.  Charlie Bilello has tracked bitcoin sentiment via Twitter polls at major milestones which is fascinating.  He also occasionally marks bitcoin’s “market cap” (or whatever you want to call it) which has hit $214 billion.  OMG!  That’s more than Home Depot!!! Calm down, Apple’s cash hoard is around $270…