Going long a stock with conviction helps you sleep well at night when your portfolio is dramatically underwater because the market hit the skids. The Nasdaq has fallen 30% since the beginning of this year when the market peaked and the bear market started its slide. This means your average tech stock would have fallen […]
One of the leading thought leaders in Web 3.0 venture funding told the New York Times “investing, for me, is a form of activism to create the world I want to see.” That’s great, but you won’t see a red penny of our hard-earned money. Ideas such as providing a “guaranteed minimum income” to “creators” […]
If you ever land in a new country and don’t know how the local currency is valued, just look for a bottle of Coke in a shop just outside the airport. That price equates to roughly one greenback. Just be careful about what ATMs you use because they’re not all created equally. These days, you […]
Our recent piece on a blockchain-powered VC fund talked about how investing in startups provides exposure that’s not correlated to the movements of the broader stock market. Venture capital as an alternative asset class provides portfolio diversification which reduces risk. For retail investors, that’s been rather problematic because venture funds don’t just take investments from whoever knocks […]
They say you should never talk about money with people who have much more or much less than you. Traveling in emerging market countries will quickly make you see how important that rule becomes when negotiating prices. Similarly, when you analyze a firm that’s providing financial services in emerging markets, you need to remove your […]
We recently talked about how SPACs promised to “democratize” access to the world’s most exciting startups. That didn’t come to fruition because the stakeholders were incented to find a company and merge with it as quickly as possible. The SPAC managers would realize an immediate windfall, the VCs would see an exit, the company would […]
Cultural anthropologists refer to ethnocentrism as the propensity for individuals to view the world through the lens of their own culture and customs. For Americans who want to see their own inclinations towards this behavior, read the classic paper on Body Ritual Among the Nacirema by Horace Miner. Then have your kids read it to […]
If you’re a hiring manager in finance who recruits fresh grads, here’s a great thing to tell them. “Take the most sophisticated financial concept you know and explain it to me like I’m your grandmother.” The effectiveness is the psychological challenge. Explain a simple concept perfectly and it implies their depth of knowledge might be […]
Imagine working in a department where your goals were impossible to meet, your actions created division amongst employees, and every competent individual regarded your function as useless. No, we’re not talking about human resources, we’re referring to the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) functions that ought to be getting trimmed, oh, right about now that […]
The Chinese are a particularly superstitious lot. For proof of that, look no further than the list of things you aren’t supposed to do during Hungry Ghost month. And it’s not just restricted to a certain class of people. Hong Kong’s wealthiest home buyers won’t set foot in a house that has ghosts. In fact, […]