“Never fall in love with a stock,” as the old saying goes. This implies you should always be open to criticisms of stocks you’re holding, even if they come from people who are financially motivated to spread bad news about a company. Short sellers who issue scathing reports epitomize the term “conflict of interest,” yet […]
It’s tough to teach leadership skills, but it’s easier to teach people how to become more comfortable making decisions with limited information. That’s what the HBS Case Method is about. Take a bunch of tomorrow’s leaders who forked over six figures for a network that ultimately won’t live up to their expectations and serve them […]
The father of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) was recently on the Lex Friedman podcast eliciting sympathy from the audience by talking – in that soft-spoken voice – about how difficult his upbringing was. It’s a shame he wasn’t confronted about how much damage he did to retail investors while amassing his wealth. Mr. Palihapitiya […]
Deciding to buy a stock is easy. We spend a minimal amount of time convincing ourselves that it’s worth the risk while conducting due diligence that would hardly be considered sufficient. If 95% of professional money managers can’t succeed at stock picking, spending several hours in your underwear on a Saturday morning “researching” a stock […]
Our recent piece on water IoT stock Xylem (XYL) looked at the wide differences in which the finance community defines a growth stock. Usually, this involves looking at earnings growth which doesn’t work so well for disruptive growth stocks which typically don’t have positive earnings. That’s why revenue growth becomes such an important metric for […]
About 20 years ago, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) introduced a new concept called goodwill impairment, which despite the name has nothing to do with being charitably challenged (see Jeff Bezos). Just the opposite, in fact. Goodwill in accounting speak refers to the premium one company donates pays for another that is supposed to […]
We learned everything we know about fashion from watching the movie Zoolander. In other words, we don’t know much about the world of runway models and runaway fashion trends. It’s a joke we’ve made before when researching startups using artificial intelligence for selecting and designing fashion apparel. This fashionable use of AI got a ton […]
Here’s a thought exercise. Let’s say you invested in a stock that you believed was the market leader. Later, another company goes public which looks attractive – high growth and challenging the leader. The leader’s growth stalls and share price plummets. You’re underwater holding the “leader” and missing out on the upside of the challenger. […]
Studies show that investors feel the pain of a loss twice as hard as they feel the joy of a gain. Another psychological phenomenon is feeling strong emotions before any gain or loss has been realized. Until you sell a position to realize profits or losses, you really shouldn’t feel anything. But we all know […]
Anyone who decides to spend a few bricks on bee school will quickly become acquainted with the Harvard Business School (HBS) Case Method. It starts with a “case study,” a 10-20 page document written from the viewpoint of a real person leading a real organization. The aspiring leaders of tomorrow then use Google to try […]