At Holcombe Financial’s recent client learning event about “Behavioral Biases and Their Investment Limitations”, my favorite story was about Sir Isaac Newton’s early investment success and subsequent failure during the South Sea Bubble. In 1720 Newton profited handsomely, earning £20,000 by the time he sold his shares (big bucks in those days). Sounds like an expert…
“Experience is the worst teacher. It gives the test before giving the lesson.” Unknown The book “What I learned losing one million dollars” by Brendan Moynihan should be required reading for every investor. The book shares the story of legendary trader, Jim Paul, then President of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, who was unceremoniously removed after…
On our annual ski trip, we decided to ride the California Zephyr, which cuts an unimaginable path through the Rockies. We arrived at the terminal in Denver at 7 am to check our bags and were greeted with something that looked like it came off the set of Indiana Jones. The luggage cart with steel…
I am not sure how I convinced Scarlett to give the financial planning process one more chance. Her experience with financial planners had been awful. The meetings made her feel dumb — “They looked at me like I was nuts for what I thought was a very simple question. How much do I need to…
Being in Omaha, Nebraska the weekend that Warren Buffett published his annual letter to shareholders was a great moment to spend time reading some of his older letters. All are online, at the Berkshire Hathaway website, which is a testament in itself to his ‘no frills‘ culture. The letters on the website go back to…
Crosshairs are only good up close. The longer the shot, the more likely the wind will move your shot off target. And so, snipers learn to aim away from the target to adjust for the journey to the target. Financial planning is very similar – aiming for a far away target with many uncertainties along…
In the last 60 days, two Atlanta companies sold for more than $700 million. Founders, employees and investors who toiled for years with the hope of a better future realized their dream. They became financially independent in an instant. But as history has shown us, liquid wealth can create problems. Malcolm Gladwell’s new book David…
A prisoner serving a life sentence desperately wants to escape. A simple sunrise is torture. But then one morning he finds a rope in his cell. The problem is, it’s only half the length he needs to escape. So he divides the rope in half, ties the ends together and gains his freedom. This riddle…
For the last 9 months, I have been working on a presentation around the new book. After completing the lengthy writing process, I was not really interested in embarking on another journey, but it seems I found one. I learned to enjoy speaking. The speaking journey began after I did my very first presentation to…
If you were stranded on a desert island for two weeks with the choice of food or water, which would you pick? Your answer to this question will vary depending on when it is asked. When this question was asked at a gym before the workout, the vast majority said food. Asked after the workout,…