After days of endless debate over FBI Director James Comey’s notification to the United States Congress of reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server, we have heard an abundance of both praise and condemnation. Yet absent is any commentary about implicit bias and its role in decision making. One can love or hate theRead more
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Having physically been in India last week when the Trump bus video recording became news, I can personally attest to the relative ubiquity of its circulation. Around the globe, politicians, media, and laypersons traded ideas on what Trump’s obscene comments say about his view of women as well as his ability to govern. But theRead more
October 6, 2016 Editor New York Times Re: September 15 New York Times article, “At BlackRock, a Wall Street Rock Star’s $5 Trillion Comeback” Madam/Sir- As an investment professional, past adjunct faculty of finance, and international speaker on human behavior, I am compelled to comment on your article published September 15Read more
It is not okay to formulate opinions based on fragmented facts. Think about Hillary Clinton. You say she is a crook, but how much do you really know? Have you spoken to her personally and reviewed her many thousands of hours of testimony and compared her dealings with others in similar roles and readRead more
A fascinating reflection on Buddhist thought – rooted in many thousands of years of knowledge and practice – is that science, and particularly neuroscience, is just now starting to catch-up. Buddhism has understood for many centuries innumerable concepts about our behavior and decision making that science is only beginning to uncover. And Buddhism has done it almost entirely through externalRead more
Our behavior when investing represents much of what plagues our greater lives – perhaps, therein, we can learn a thing or two… In every financial transaction, there is a buyer and a seller. That means two different people have looked at the same facts and determined completely opposite verdicts. The same happens in ourRead more
It turns out, that other person who you hate so much and is so wrong and so awful, has a heartbeat and limbic system and feelings and fears and vulnerabilities too – just like me and you. Markets taught me that every transaction has a buyer and a seller with data and research and factsRead more
When we take noble silence, we attempt to totally quiet our minds, and do so by not interfacing with the world. I set a goal of absolutely no human interaction, including eye contact. I do not speak, even to myself. I do not listen to music, read, nor use any form of technology. It isRead more
Our habits do not define us, they confine us.
In portfolio management, the tendency is to chase. We chase performance, always judging ourselves against a benchmark and making huge efforts to outperform. If something is not working, we fix it immediately. If something is going well, we double-down. But markets have a way of tricking us – they entice us to chase, though itRead more
