The following is our quarterly investment letter that was recently sent to clients. 75 years ago this month, a thrilling World Series concluded what many baseball historians decidedly describe as the best baseball season ever. That season is notably remembered for two historic accomplishments: Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak and Ted Williams finishing the season with [...]
"It is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not fancy.” — Thucydides Immediately following the British vote to exit from the European Union (“Brexit”), we sent an email to you and other clients explaining the implications. A [...]
“It might be the simplest play in all of sports, and the most effective. Give the ball to Michael Jordan, and everyone else get out of the way.” These two sentences began an Associated Press article on May 28, 1989. The day prior, the Chicago Bulls had the ball in the closing seconds of a [...]
The most interesting research project I worked on in graduate school was a study of statistical inefficiencies in sports gambling markets. My small team of fellow classmates hypothesized on all kinds of possible anomalies in sports. Was the over/under line inefficient when high scoring NBA or NFL teams were competing? Were teams coming off a [...]
On a recent visit to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), I surprisingly stumbled upon an exhibit featuring classic video games such as Tetris, Asteroids, and Pac-Man. The games were displayed on active video screens with an adjacent explanation of the creativeness or design elegance for why they were each chosen. In their heyday, these [...]
At various points in life, individuals begin to avoid roller coasters, back flips off the high dive, cartwheels, and full contact football. They take more frequent breaks in their weekly tennis game and aspire to completing a marathon rather than finish one in less than 3-hours. Instead of travelling to Spain to run with the [...]
The following is an excerpt from the quarterly letter we sent to clients. We are an overconfident species. 93% of us believe we are above average drivers, 86% of us believe we are better looking than the average person, and 80% of us think we’re smarter than average. We are convinced that we know more [...]
Imagine walking into your new doctor’s office for a routine physical. The doctor asks for no information other than your age. From just that piece of information, the doctor gives you a clean bill of health, suggests that you exercise 3 times each week, eat a well-balanced diet, thanks you for coming, and reminds you [...]
The following is an excerpt from the letter we wrote to clients in July 2013 and provides a worthy lesson in behavioral investment. Peter Bernstein in Against the Gods states that the evidence of investor behavior “reveals repeated patterns of irrationality, inconsistency, and incompetence in the ways [they] arrive at decisions and choices when faced with uncertainty.” [...]
