Stocks For The Long Run Quotes

Life has immense analogy with stock market. It is volatile, but if you stick on long enough, it has the potential to reward you with handsome returns in the long run.

Consider this scenario. You own shares in Company A. During the past year you considered switching to stock in Company B but decided against it. You now find that you would have been better off by 1200$ if you had switched to the stock of Company B. You also owned shares in Company C. During the past year you switched to stock in Company D. You now find out that you'd have been better off by 1200$, if you kept your stock in Company C. Which error causes you more regret? Studies show that about Immune to Reality nine out of ten people expect to feel more regret when they foolishly switch stocks than when they foolishly fail to switch stocks, because most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies also show that nine out of ten people are wrong. Indeed, in the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret "not" having done things much more than they regret things they "did", which is why the most popular regrets include not going to college, not grasping profitable business opportunities, and not spending enough time with family and friends.

Love was like a stock, Lizzie realized. You gambled on its paying off in the long run—but it could just as easily cost you everything.

By 2060, India’s economy is projected to be larger than China’s because of its greater population growth. India is forecast to produce about one-quarter of world GDP from 2040 through the rest of this century.

Would you believe me if I told you that there’s an investment strategy that a seven-year-old could understand, will take you fifteen minutes of work per year, outperform 90 percent of finance professionals in the long run, and make you a millionaire over time?   Well, it is true, and here it is: Start by saving 15 percent of your salary at age 25 into a 401(k) plan, an IRA, or a taxable account (or all three). Put equal amounts of that 15 percent into just three different mutual funds:   A U.S. total stock market index fund An international total stock market index fund A U.S. total bond market index fund.   Over time, the three funds will grow at different rates, so once per year you’ll adjust their amounts so that they’re again equal. (That’s the fifteen minutes per year, assuming you’ve enrolled in an automatic savings plan.)   That’s it; if you can follow this simple recipe throughout your working career, you will almost certainly beat out most professional investors. More importantly, you’ll likely accumulate enough savings to retire comfortably.

In the short term, the stock market is a voting machine. In the long run, it’s a weighing machine” that measures a company’s true value.

Luck is a short-term phenomenon. In the long run, luck is for losers.

Yet he knew that stocks would be better than bonds or cash over the long run.

The stock market is a voting machine in the short run, but a weighing machine in the long run.

grocery stores would run out of stock in three days if truckers stopped driving.” Yet the country does not seem to acknowledge that truckers make all that happen.

There is a crucially important difference about playing the game of investing compared to virtually any other activity. Most of us have no chance of being as good as the average in any pursuit where others practice and hone skills for many, many hours. But we can be as good as the average investor in the stock market with no practice at all. Jeremy Siegel, Professor of Finance, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Stocks for the Long Run

If you wanna plan for the long-run, stock up on paper, antibiotics, entertainment items, how-to books, and soap.  If you’re more interested in short-term gains, I’d say stick with knives, seeds, drugs, booze, coffee, and cigarettes. 

Pessimism is a towering skyscraper eighty stories high in the suburbs of the soul at the end of a long avenue with waste ground on either side and a few poorly-stocked little shops. Several ultra-fast staircases give access to the building, running up from the cellars to the roof-gardens. The comfort of this place leaves nothing to be desired and only the greatest luxury is acceptable, but every Friday the residents gather on the ground floor to read from a bible bound in the skin of a blind man. The psalmic words they intone rise up through the pipes, sigh in the stoves and sweep the chimneys coated inside with black grease which leaves dirt on the skin. Water runs constantly in the bathrooms and the showers beat down on the numbered bodies, peppering them with sand. On Sundays the bed linen unrolls by itself and nobody makes love. For this tower block, like an obscure phallus scraping the vulva of the sky, is usually a hive of sexual activity. The most beautiful woman lives there, but no-one has ever known her. It is said, that dressed in furs and feathers, she keeps herself shut away in a first-floor apartment as if in a white safe. Her windows are scissors which cut short both shadow and breath. Her name is AURORA.

THOSE BORN UNDER Pacific Northwest skies are like daffodils: they can achieve beauty only after a long, cold sulk in the rain. Henry, our mother, and I were Pacific Northwest babies. At the first patter of raindrops on the roof, a comfortable melancholy settled over the house. The three of us spent dark, wet days wrapped in old quilts, sitting and sighing at the watery sky. Viviane, with her acute gift for smell, could close her eyes and know the season just by the smell of the rain. Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice — blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. It smelled like late nights spent pointing constellations out from their starry guises, freshly washed laundry drying outside on the line, like barbecues and stolen kisses in a 1932 Ford Coupe. The first of the many autumn rains smelled smoky, like a doused campsite fire, as if the ground itself had been aflame during those hot summer months. It smelled like burnt piles of collected leaves, the cough of a newly revived chimney, roasted chestnuts, the scent of a man’s hands after hours spent in a woodshop. Fall rain was not Viviane’s favorite. Rain in the winter smelled simply like ice, the cold air burning the tips of ears, cheeks, and eyelashes. Winter rain was for hiding in quilts and blankets, for tying woolen scarves around noses and mouths — the moisture of rasping breaths stinging chapped lips. The first bout of warm spring rain caused normally respectable women to pull off their stockings and run through muddy puddles alongside their children. Viviane was convinced it was due to the way the rain smelled: like the earth, tulip bulbs, and dahlia roots. It smelled like the mud along a riverbed, like if she opened her mouth wide enough, she could taste the minerals in the air. Viviane could feel the heat of the rain against her fingers when she pressed her hand to the ground after a storm. But in 1959, the year Henry and I turned fifteen, those warm spring rains never arrived. March came and went without a single drop falling from the sky. The air that month smelled dry and flat. Viviane would wake up in the morning unsure of where she was or what she should be doing. Did the wash need to be hung on the line? Was there firewood to be brought in from the woodshed and stacked on the back porch? Even nature seemed confused. When the rains didn’t appear, the daffodil bulbs dried to dust in their beds of mulch and soil. The trees remained leafless, and the squirrels, without acorns to feed on and with nests to build, ran in confused circles below the bare limbs. The only person who seemed unfazed by the disappearance of the rain was my grandmother. Emilienne was not a Pacific Northwest baby nor a daffodil. Emilienne was more like a petunia. She needed the water but could do without the puddles and wet feet. She didn’t have any desire to ponder the gray skies. She found all the rain to be a bit of an inconvenience, to be honest.

You make plans and decisions assuming randomness and chaos are for chumps. The illusion of control is a peculiar thing because it often leads to high self-esteem and a belief your destiny is yours for the making more than it really is. This over-optimistic view can translate into actual action, rolling with the punches and moving ahead no matter what. Often, this attitude helps lead to success. Eventually, though, most people get punched in the stomach by life. Sometimes, the gut-punch doesn’t come until after a long chain of wins, until you’ve accumulated enough power to do some serious damage. This is when wars go awry, stock markets crash, and political scandals spill out into the media. Power breeds certainty, and certainty has no clout against the unpredictable, whether you are playing poker or running a country. Psychologists point out these findings do not suggest you should throw up your hands and give up. Those who are not grounded in reality, oddly enough, often achieve a lot in life simply because they believe they can and try harder than others. If you focus too long on your lack of power, you can slip into a state of learned helplessness that will whirl you into a negative feedback loop of depression. Some control is necessary or else you give up altogether. Langer proved this when studying nursing homes where some patients were allowed to arrange their furniture and water plants—they lived longer than those who had had those tasks performed by others. Knowing about the illusion of control shouldn’t discourage you from attempting to carve a space for yourself out of whatever field you want to tackle. After all, doing nothing guarantees no results. But as you do so, remember most of the future is unforeseeable. Learn to coexist with chaos. Factor it into your plans. Accept that failure is always a possibility, even if you are one of the good guys; those who believe failure is not an option never plan for it. Some things are predictable and manageable, but the farther away in time an event occurs, the less power you have over it. The farther away from your body and the more people involved, the less agency you wield. Like a billion rolls of a trillion dice, the factors at play are too complex, too random to truly manage. You can no more predict the course of your life than you could the shape of a cloud. So seek to control the small things, the things that matter, and let them pile up into a heap of happiness. In the bigger picture, control is an illusion anyway.

Have you ever seen, your broker offering any investment idea that is for 2-3 years holding period? They can’t offer because their broking business will dry up if you buy today and hold them for 2-3 year. On the contrary, wealth can only be created over the long run.

There is no question that the losing IPOs far outnumber the winners. Of the 8,606 firms examined, the returns on 6,796 of these firms, or 79 percent, have subsequently underperformed the returns on a representative small stock index, and almost half the firms have underper-formed by more than 10 percent per year.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle The Little Book of Behavioral Investing by James Montier Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel The Warren Buffett Portfolio by Robert Hagstrom Damn Right: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger by Janet Lowe Investing: The Last Liberal Art by Robert Hagstrom Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing by Michael Mauboussin Devil Take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks All About Asset Allocation by Rick Ferri Winning the Loser's Game by Charles Ellis

Takes them less than a week to run the Line thro’ somebody’s House. About a mile and a half west of the Twelve-Mile Arc, twenty-four Chains beyond Little Christiana Creek, on Wednesday, April 10th, the Field-Book reports, “At 3 Miles 49 Chains, went through Mr. Price’s House.” “Just took a wild guess,” Mrs. Price quite amiable, “where we’d build it,— not as if my Husband’s a Surveyor or anything. Which side’s to be Pennsylvania, by the way?” A mischievous glint in her eyes that Barnes, Farlow, Moses McClean and others will later all recall. Mr. Price is in Town, in search of Partners for a Land Venture. “Would you Gentlemen mind coming in the House and showing me just where your Line does Run?” Mason and Dixon, already feeling awkward about it, oblige, Dixon up on the Roof with a long Plumb-line, Mason a-squint at the Snout of the Instrument. Mrs. Price meantime fills her Table with plates of sour-cherry fritters, Neat’s-Tongue Pies, a gigantick Indian Pudding, pitchers a-slosh with home-made Cider,— then producing some new-hackl’d Streaks of Hemp, and laying them down in a Right Line according to the Surveyors’ advice,— fixing them here and there with Tacks, across the room, up the stairs, straight down the middle of the Bed, of course, . . . which is about when Mr. Rhys Price happens to return from his Business in town, to find merry Axmen lounging beneath his Sassafras tree, Strange Stock mingling with his own and watering out of his Branch, his house invaded by Surveyors, and his wife giving away the Larder and waving her Tankard about, crying, “Husband, what Province were we married in? Ha! see him gape, for he cannot remember. ’Twas in Pennsylvania, my Tortoise. But never in Maryland. Hey? So from now on, when I am upon this side of the House, I am in Maryland, legally not your wife, and no longer subject to your Authority,— isn’t that right, Gents?” “Ask the Rev,” they reply together,

There’s the reassuring smell of a coal fire and beeswax polish, and the dark-green leather button-back booths are deep and comfortable, built for long, relaxed drinking sessions. An old man and his snoozing Jack Russell are the only other patrons. It’s one of those unpretentious, end-of-the-world pubs that you know hasn’t changed much in decades, ruddy quarry tiles and a brass surround running the length of the well-stocked bar.

An American home has not, historically speaking, been a lucrative investment. In fact, according to an index developed by Robert Shiller and his colleague Karl Case, the market price of an American home has barely increased at all over the long run. After adjusting for inflation, a $10,000 investment made in a home in 1896 would be worth just $10,600 in 1996. The rate of return had been less in a century than the stock market typically produces in a single year.

Their blue blood was a myth, and perhaps in the secret places of their souls they knew it and suffered accordingly, thus bringing a little grain of bitterness into the conversation from time to time; and it was all very unnecessary, could they but have realised that it was simple honest bourgeois blood that made the best stock in the long run, giving to its descendants a capacity for work and achievement and straight thinking, whereas the other turned to water and produced the idler, the shirker, the weaver of sterile dreams.

What are you doing here?" He shoved one hand in his pocket. "I need a wife." "And you came here..." She searched for an explanation for his outlandish statement. "Because you thought a company that sells feminine care products might also have a supply of women available for marriage? I can go to the stock room if you want and see what we have on the shelf. Are you looking for a blonde or a brunette? I guess it doesn't matter whether she likes you or not." "It's not just for me," Liam explained, pulling his hand out of his pocket. "I need a wife to preserve my family legacy." "So you want to breed her? Good to know. That takes Margie and Joan out of the running. They're both in their sixties." He dropped to one knee and held out a blue velvet box. "I want you. Marry me, Daisy." Of all the things she'd expected him to say, "Marry me," did not even make the top thousand. For a long moment, all she could do was stand and stare. "I think you have me confused with someone who would even want to be in the same room as you, much less wed you after such a romantic proposal.

What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour. It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate. We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy, till the moment of execution, and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do, without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions; sometimes the great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have always recourse to the loudest clamour, and sometimes to the most shocking violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the folly and extravagance of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen. The workmen, accordingly, very seldom derive any advantage from the violence of those tumultuous combinations, which, partly from the interposition of the civil magistrate, partly from the necessity superior steadiness of the masters, partly from the necessity which the greater part of the workmen are under of submitting for the sake of present subsistence, generally end in nothing, but the punishment or ruin of the ringleaders. But though in disputes with their workmen, masters must generally have the advantage, there is, however, a certain rate be.

. . . waves of desert heat . . . I must’ve passed out, because when I woke up I was shivering and stars wheeled above a purple horizon. . . . Then the sun came up, casting long shadows. . . . I heard a vehicle coming. Something coming from far away, gradually growing louder. There was the sound of an engine, rocks under tires. . . . Finally it reached me, the door opened, and Dirk Bickle stepped out. . . . But anyway so Bickle said, “Miracles, Luke. Miracles were once the means to convince people to abandon reason for faith. But the miracles stopped during the rise of the neocortex and its industrial revolution. Tell me, if I could show you one miracle, would you come with me and join Mr. Kirkpatrick?” I passed out again, and came to. He was still crouching beside me. He stood up, walked over to the battered refrigerator, and opened the door. Vapor poured out and I saw it was stocked with food. Bickle hunted around a bit, found something wrapped in paper, and took a bottle of beer from the door. Then he closed the fridge, sat down on the old tire, and unwrapped what looked like a turkey sandwich. He said, “You could explain the fridge a few ways. One, there’s some hidden outlet, probably buried in the sand, that leads to a power source far away. I figure there’d have to be at least twenty miles of cable involved before it connected to the grid. That’s a lot of extension cord. Or, this fridge has some kind of secret battery system. If the empirical details didn’t bear this out, if you thoroughly studied the refrigerator and found neither a connection to a distant power source nor a battery, you might still argue that the fridge had some super-insulation capabilities and that the food inside had been able to stay cold since it was dragged out here. But say this explanation didn’t pan out either, and you observed the fridge staying the same temperature week after week while you opened and closed it. Then you’d start to wonder if it was powered by some technology beyond your comprehension. But pretty soon you’d notice something else about this refrigerator. The fact that it never runs out of food. Then you’d start to wonder if somehow it didn’t get restocked while you slept. But you’d realize that it replenished itself all the time, not just while you were sleeping. All this time, you’d keep eating from it. It would keep you alive out here in the middle of nowhere. And because of its mystery you’d begin to hate and fear it, and yet still it would feed you. Even though you couldn’t explain it, you’d still need it. And you’d assume that you simply didn’t understand the technology, rather than ascribe to it some kind of metaphysical power. You wouldn’t place your faith in the hands of some unknowable god. You’d place it in the technology itself. Finally, in frustration, you’d come to realize you’d exhausted your rationality and the only sensible thing to do would be to praise the mystery. You’d worship its bottles of Corona and jars of pickled beets. You’d make up prayers to the meats drawer and sing about its light bulb. And you’d start to accept the mystery as the one undeniable thing about it. That, or you’d grow so frustrated you’d push it off this cliff.” “Is Mr. Kirkpatrick real?” I asked. After a long gulp of beer, Bickle said, “That’s the neocortex talking again.

Avoid hot stocks in hot industries. • Distrust diversifications, which usually turn out to be diworseifications. • Long shots almost never pay off. • It’s better to miss the first move in a stock and wait to see if a company’s plans are working out. • People get incredibly valuable fundamental information from their jobs that may not reach the professionals for months or even years. • Separate all stock tips from the tipper, even if the tipper is very smart, very rich, and his or her last tip went up. • Some stock tips, especially from an expert in the field, may turn out to be quite valuable. However, people in the paper industry normally give out tips on drug stocks, and people in the health care field never run out of tips on the coming takeovers in the paper industry. • Invest in simple companies that appear dull, mundane, out of favor, and haven’t caught the fancy of Wall Street.

The first concerns how an investor should choose among different types of broad-based index funds. The best-known of the broad stock market mutual funds and ETFs in the United States track the S&P 500 index of the largest stocks. We prefer using a broader index that includes more smaller-company stocks, such as the Russell 3000 index or the Dow-Wilshire 5000 index. Funds that track these broader indexes are often referred to as “total stock market” index funds. More than 80 years of stock market history confirm that portfolios of smaller stocks have produced a higher rate of return than the return of the S&P 500 large-company index. While smaller companies are undoubtedly less stable and riskier than large firms, they are likely—on average—to produce somewhat higher future returns. Total stock market index funds are the better way for investors to benefit from the long-run growth of economic activity.

Putting it all together, fluctuations in attitudes and behavior combine to make the stock market the ultimate pendulum. In my 47 full calendar years in the investment business, starting with 1970, the annual returns on the S&P 500 have swung from plus 37% to minus 37%. Averaging out good years and bad years, the long-run return is usually stated as 10% or so. Everyone’s been happy with that typical performance and would love more of the same. But remember, a swinging pendulum may be at its midpoint “on average,” but it actually spends very little time there. The same is true of financial market performance. Here’s a fun question (and a good illustration): for how many of the 47 years from 1970 through 2016 was the annual return on the S&P 500 within 2% of “normal”—that is, between 8% and 12%? I expected the answer to be “not that often,” but I was surprised to learn that it had happened only three times! It also surprised me to learn that the return had been more than 20 percentage points away from “normal”—either up more than 30% or down more than 10%—more than one-quarter of the time: 13 out of the last 47 years. So one thing that can be said with total conviction about stock market performance is that the average certainly isn’t the norm. Market fluctuations of this magnitude aren’t nearly fully explained by the changing fortunes of companies, industries or economies. They’re largely attributable to the mood swings of investors. Lastly, the times when return is at the extremes aren’t randomly distributed over the years. Rather they’re clustered, due to the fact that investors’ psychological swings tend to persist for a while—to paraphrase Herb Stein, they tend to continue until they stop. Most of those 13 extreme up or down years were within a year or two of another year of similarly extreme performance in the same direction.

It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms. The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily: and the law, besides, authorises, or at least does not prohibit, their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work, but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer. A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks, which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year, without employment. In the long-run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him; but the necessity is not so immediate.

I guess you’ll have to try to do something with F’s moon now. Presumably it’s dead. Or even try E.” He looked up at it, big in the blue sky. “Well, no. It’s too big. Too heavy.” Two minutes later: “Maybe you can just keep living on the ship, and stock up on whatever you run out of, from here and from E. Terraform F’s moon if you can. Or maybe you can resupply and get to another system entirely. I seem to recall there’s a G star just a few more light-years out.” Long silence. Then: “But you know, I bet they’re all like this one. I mean, they’re either going to be alive or dead, right? If they’ve got water and orbit in the habitable zone, they’ll be alive. Alive and poisonous. I don’t know. Maybe they could be alive and we live with them and the two systems pass each other by. But that doesn’t sound like life, does it? Living things eat. They have immune systems. So that’s going to be a problem, most of the time anyway. Invasive biology. Then on the dead worlds, those’ll be dry, and too cold, or too hot. So they’ll be useless unless they have water, and if they have water they’ll probably be alive. I know

The quality of the people involved in the company was just as critical. I use the word quality to encompass two quite different characteristics. One of these is business ability. Business ability can be further broken down into two very different types of skills. One of these is handling the day-to-day tasks of business with above-average efficiency. In the day-to-day tasks, I include a hundred and one matters, varying all the way from constantly seeking and finding better ways to produce more efficiently to watching receivables with sufficient closeness. In other words, operating skill implies above-average handling of the many things that have to do with the near-term operation of the business. However, in the business world, top-notch managerial ability also calls for another skill that is quite different. This is the ability to look ahead and make long-range plans that will produce significant future growth for the business without at the same time running financial risks that may invite disaster. Many companies contain managements that are very good at one or the other of these skills. However, for real success, both are necessary.

As I became older, I was given many masks to wear. I could be a laborer laying railroad tracks across the continent, with long hair in a queue to be pulled by pranksters; a gardener trimming the shrubs while secretly planting a bomb; a saboteur before the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor, signaling the Imperial Fleet; a kamikaze pilot donning his headband somberly, screaming 'Banzai' on my way to my death; a peasant with a broad-brimmed straw hat in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, stooped over to toil in the water; an obedient servant in the parlor, a houseboy too dignified for my own good; a washerman in the basement laundry, removing stains using an ancient secret; a tyrant intent on imposing my despotism on the democratic world, opposed by the free and the brave; a party cadre alongside many others, all of us clad in coordinated Mao jackets; a sniper camouflaged in the trees of the jungle, training my gunsights on G.I. Joe; a child running with a body burning from napalm, captured in an unforgettable photo; an enemy shot in the head or slaughtered by the villageful; one of the grooms in a mass wedding of couples, having met my mate the day before through our cult leader; an orphan in the last airlift out of a collapsed capital, ready to be adopted into the good life; a black belt martial artist breaking cinderblocks with his head, in an advertisement for Ginsu brand knives with the slogan 'but wait--there's more' as the commercial segued to show another free gift; a chef serving up dog stew, a trick on the unsuspecting diner; a bad driver swerving into the next lane, exactly as could be expected; a horny exchange student here for a year, eager to date the blonde cheerleader; a tourist visiting, clicking away with his camera, posing my family in front of the monuments and statues; a ping pong champion, wearing white tube socks pulled up too high and batting the ball with a wicked spin; a violin prodigy impressing the audience at Carnegie Hall, before taking a polite bow; a teen computer scientist, ready to make millions on an initial public offering before the company stock crashes; a gangster in sunglasses and a tight suit, embroiled in a turf war with the Sicilian mob; an urban greengrocer selling lunch by the pound, rudely returning change over the counter to the black patrons; a businessman with a briefcase of cash bribing a congressman, a corrupting influence on the electoral process; a salaryman on my way to work, crammed into the commuter train and loyal to the company; a shady doctor, trained in a foreign tradition with anatomical diagrams of the human body mapping the flow of life energy through a multitude of colored points; a calculus graduate student with thick glasses and a bad haircut, serving as a teaching assistant with an incomprehensible accent, scribbling on the chalkboard; an automobile enthusiast who customizes an imported car with a supercharged engine and Japanese decals in the rear window, cruising the boulevard looking for a drag race; a illegal alien crowded into the cargo hold of a smuggler's ship, defying death only to crowd into a New York City tenement and work as a slave in a sweatshop. My mother and my girl cousins were Madame Butterfly from the mail order bride catalog, dying in their service to the masculinity of the West, and the dragon lady in a kimono, taking vengeance for her sisters. They became the television newscaster, look-alikes with their flawlessly permed hair. Through these indelible images, I grew up. But when I looked in the mirror, I could not believe my own reflection because it was not like what I saw around me. Over the years, the world opened up. It has become a dizzying kaleidoscope of cultural fragments, arranged and rearranged without plan or order.

What was the Sherlock Holmes principle? ‘Once you have discounted the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’” “I reject that entirely,” said Dirk, sharply. “The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks. How often have you been presented with an apparently rational explanation of something which works in all respects other than one, which is just that it is hopelessly improbable? Your instinct is to say, ‘Yes, but he or she simply wouldn’t do that.’” “Well, it happened to me today, in fact,” replied Kate. “Ah yes,” said Dirk, slapping the table and making the glasses jump, “your girl in the wheelchair – a perfect example. The idea that she is somehow receiving yesterday’s stock market prices apparently out of thin air is merely impossible, and therefore must be the case, because the idea that she is maintaining an immensely complex and laborious hoax of no benefit to herself is hopelessly improbable. The first idea merely supposes that there is something we don’t know about, and God knows there are enough of those. The second, however, runs contrary to something fundamental and human which we do know about. We should therefore be very suspicious of it and all its specious rationality.

People are free. Well, they can't fly on their own . . . but pretty much whatever they can think up, they can make happen. When they're sleepy, they can sleep. They're free to start or quit whatever they're doing whenever they want. And the only reason they don't is because things like social norms, laws, traditions and sentiment get in the way. Running naked through the streets . . . conning old people . . . killing . . . everything’s possible if you ignore morality. That's why they insist on teaching you cooperation and ethics when you're young- But the world is set up to force people to fight, cheat and steal as a default. Trying to live with that contradiction is torture. But in so many places happiness and sorrow are traded like stocks on wall street. What will it take for everyone to be happy? Who knows? But if a kid could figure it out, war would've gone extinct long time ago. I'd hate to trust the entire thing to politicians. They're just old men who have to dance to public opinion. The world is the embodiment of human nature exposed . . . There's no way for everyone to be happy. Happiness is relative anyway . . . and people want it that way. Evil is relative too. In order to protect her, a mother can turn into a demon. And it gets held up as inspirational. People go to war to protect kin and country. It's the same thing. Even if you pretend to be good fundamentally everyone has some negative aspects. It's amazing that no one knows that. Why? People have become so adept at excuses and shifting the blame . . . that they never even consider the possibility that they're culpable for their own problems.

Dom, are you out here?” called a voice from somewhere beyond the stables. Damn it all. It was Tristan. Swiftly Dom donned his shirt. “Be quiet,” he whispered to Jane, “and he’ll go away.” Tristan’s voice sounded again, even nearer now. “I swear to God, Dom, if you ride off to London in the dark and make a liar out of me before Ravenswood, I will kick you from here to France!” “He won’t go away,” Jane whispered back, a hint of desperation in her voice. “He promised Ravenswood that you wouldn’t head for London with broken carriage lamps, and now he’ll want to make sure that you don’t.” Which meant his arse of a brother wasn’t going to stop looking for him. Any minute now, he’d be striding into the harness room. Then Jane would have to marry Dom. As soon as the thought entered Dom’s head, it apparently occurred to her, too, for she paled and stepped near enough to whisper, “Please. Not like this.” He stared at her ashen face, and his stomach sank. He couldn’t force her to wed him. After what had happened between them years ago, she would never forgive him for taking her choice away from her yet again. Besides, he didn’t want to force her into anything. The only way he could prove that he didn’t intend to run roughshod over her for the rest of their lives was to walk away now. Even if it killed him. Bloody hell. “I’ll draw Tristan away from the stables,” Dom said tersely as he shoved his stocking feet into his boots. “That will give you a chance to finish dressing and sneak back into the house.” Relief spreading over her face, she bobbed her head. He buttoned up his shirt. “It will also give you a chance to decide what you want.” Gathering up his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, he added in a low murmur, “But know this, Jane. I am not, nor ever intend to be, a man like your father. Somewhere inside of you, you must…” He winced. “You surely do know it.” He waited long enough to see uncertainty flicker in her eyes. Then he strode out of the harness room and closed the door behind him.

An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked. “Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English. “Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked. “I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket. “But… What do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.” The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.” He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could run your expanded enterprise with proper management. The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?” To which the American replied, “15-20 years, 25 tops.” “But what then, señor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions señor? Then what?" “Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll in to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.

But being short something where your loss is unlimited is quite different than being long something that you’ve already paid for. And it’s tempting. You see way more stocks that are dramatically overvalued in your career than you will see stocks that are dramatically undervalued. I mean there — it’s the nature of securities markets to occasionally promote various things to the sky, so that securities will frequently sell for 5 or 10 times what they’re worth, and they will very, very seldom sell for 20 percent or 10 percent of what they’re worth. So, therefore, you see these much greater discrepancies between price and value on the overvaluation side. So you might think it’s easier to make money on short selling. And all I can say is, it hasn’t been for me. I don’t think it’s been for Charlie. It is a very, very tough business because of the fact that you face unlimited losses, and because of the fact that people that have overvalued stocks — very overvalued stocks — are frequently on some scale between promoter and crook. And that’s why they get there. And once there — And they also know how to use that very valuation to bootstrap value into the business, because if you have a stock that’s selling at 100 that’s worth 10, obviously it’s to your interest to go out and issue a whole lot of shares. And if you do that, when you get all through, the value can be 50. In fact, there’s a lot of chain letter-type stock promotions that are sort of based on the implicit assumption that the management will keep doing that. And if they do it once and build it to 50 by issuing a lot of shares at 100 when it’s worth 10, now the value is 50 and people say, “Well, these guys are so good at that. Let’s pay 200 for it or 300,” and then they could do it again and so on. It’s not usually that — quite that clear in their minds. But that’s the basic principle underlying a lot of stock promotions. And if you get caught up in one of those that is successful, you know, you can run out of money before the promoter runs out of ideas. In the end, they almost always work. I mean, I would say that, of the things that we have felt like shorting over the years, the batting average is very high in terms of eventual — that they would work out very well eventually if you held them through. But it is very painful and it’s — in my experience, it was a whole lot easier to make money on the long side.

If it were any of the other Sharpes, he wouldn’t balk. But the idea of spending serveral hours in her company was both intoxicating and terrifying. “If you don’t let me go along,” she continued, “I’ll just follow you. He scowled at her. She probably would; the woman was as stubborn as she was beautiful. “And don’t think you can outride me, either,” she added. “Halstead Hall has a very good stable, and lady Bell is one of our swiftest mounts.” “Lady Bell?” he said sarcastically. “Not Crack Shot or Pistol?” She glared over at him. “Lady Bell was my favorite doll when I was a girl, the last one Mama gave me before she died. I used to play with it whenever I wanted to remember her. The doll got so ragged that I threw her away when I outgrew her.” Her voice lowered. “I regretted that later, but by then it was too late.” The idea of her playing with a doll to remember her late mother made his throat tighten and his heart falter. “Fine,” he bit out. “You can go with me to High Wycombe.” Surprise turned her cheeks rosy. “Oh, thank you, Jackson! You won’t regret it, I promise you!” “I already regret it,” he grumbled. “And you must do as I say. None of your going off half-cocked, do you hear?” “I never go off half-cocked!” “No, you just walk around with a pistol packed full of powder, thinking you can hold men at bay with it.” She tossed her head. “You’ll never let me forget that, will you?” “Not as long as we both shall live.” The minute the words left his lips, he could have kicked himself. They sounded too much like a vow, one he’d give anything for the right to make. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to have noticed. Instead, she was squirming and shimmying about on her saddle. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I’ve got a burr caught in my stocking that keeps rubbing against my leg. I’m just trying to work it out. Don’t mind me.” His mouth went dry at her mention of stockings. It brought yesterday’s encounter vividly into his mind, how he’d lifted her skirts to reach the smooth expanse of calf encased in silk. How he’d run his hands up her thighs as his mouth had tasted- God save him. He couldn’t be thinking about such things while riding. He shifted uncomfortably in the saddle as they reached the road and settled into a comfortable pace. The road was busy at this early hour. The local farmers were driving their carts to market or town, and laborers were headed for the fields. To Jackson’s relief, that made it easy not to talk. Conversaing with her was bound to be difficult, especially if she started consulting him about her suitors.

a guitar. A hammock is swung near the table. It is three o'clock in the afternoon of a cloudy day. MARINA, a quiet, grey-haired, little old woman, is sitting at the table knitting a stocking. ASTROFF is walking up and down near her. MARINA. [Pouring some tea into a glass] Take a little tea, my son. ASTROFF. [Takes the glass from her unwillingly] Somehow, I don't seem to want any. MARINA. Then will you have a little vodka instead? ASTROFF. No, I don't drink vodka every day, and besides, it is too hot now. [A pause] Tell me, nurse, how long have we known each other? MARINA. [Thoughtfully] Let me see, how long is it? Lord—help me to remember. You first came here, into our parts—let me think—when was it? Sonia's mother was still alive—it was two winters before she died; that was eleven years ago—[thoughtfully] perhaps more. ASTROFF. Have I changed much since then? MARINA. Oh, yes. You were handsome and young then, and now you are an old man and not handsome any more. You drink, too. ASTROFF. Yes, ten years have made me another man. And why? Because I am overworked. Nurse, I am on my feet from dawn till dusk. I know no rest; at night I tremble under my blankets for fear of being dragged out to visit some one who is sick; I have toiled without repose or a day's freedom since I have known you; could I help growing old? And then, existence is tedious, anyway; it is a senseless, dirty business, this life, and goes heavily. Every one about here is silly, and after living with them for two or three years one grows silly oneself. It is inevitable. [Twisting his moustache] See what a long moustache I have grown. A foolish, long moustache. Yes, I am as silly as the rest, nurse, but not as stupid; no, I have not grown stupid. Thank God, my brain is not addled yet, though my feelings have grown numb. I ask nothing, I need nothing, I love no one, unless it is yourself alone. [He kisses her head] I had a nurse just like you when I was a child. MARINA. Don't you want a bite of something to eat? ASTROFF. No. During the third week of Lent I went to the epidemic at Malitskoi. It was eruptive typhoid. The peasants were all lying side by side in their huts, and the calves and pigs were running about the floor among the sick. Such dirt there was, and smoke! Unspeakable! I slaved among those people all day, not a crumb passed my lips, but when I got home there was still no rest for me; a switchman was carried in from the railroad; I laid him on the operating table and he went and died in my arms under chloroform, and then my feelings that should have been deadened awoke

An unexpected sight opens in front of my eyes, a sight I cannot ignore. Instead of the calm waters in front of the fortress, the rear side offers a view of a different sea—the sea of small, dark streets and alleys—like an intricate puzzle. The breathtaking scenery visible from the other side had been replaced by the panorama of poverty–stricken streets, crumbling house walls, and dilapidated facades that struggle to hide the building materials beneath them. It reminds me of the ghettos in Barcelona, the ghettos I came to know far too well. I take a deep breath and look for a sign of life—a life not affected by its surroundings. Nothing. Down, between the rows of dirty dwellings stretches a clothesline. Heavy with the freshly washed laundry it droops down, droplets of water trickling onto the soiled pavement from its burden. Around the corner, a group of filthy children plays with a semi–deflated soccer ball—it makes a funny sound as it bounces off the wall—plunk, plunk. A man sitting on a staircase puts out a cigarette; he coughs, spits phlegm on the sidewalk, and lights a new one. A mucky dog wanders to a house, lifts his leg, and pisses on it. His urine flows down the wall and onto the street, forming a puddle on the pavement. The children run about, stepping in the piss, unconcerned. An old woman watches from the window, her large breasts hanging over the windowsill for the world to see. Une vie ordinaire, a mundane life...life in its purest. These streets bring me back to all the places I had escaped when I sneaked onto the ferry. The same feeling of conformity within despair, conformity with their destiny, prearranged long before these people were born. Nothing ever changes, nothing ever disturbs the gloomy corners of the underworld. Tucked away from the bright lights, tucked away from the shiny pavers on the promenade, hidden from the eyes of the tourists, the misery thrives. I cannot help but think of myself—only a few weeks ago my life was not much different from the view in front of my eyes. Yet, there is a certain peace soaring from these streets, a peace embedded in each cobblestone, in each rotten wall. The peace of men, unconcerned with the rest of the world, disturbed neither by global issues, nor by the stock market prices. A peace so ancient that it can only be found in the few corners of the world that remain unchanged for centuries. This is one of the places. I miss the intricacy of the street, I miss the feeling of excitement and danger melted together into one exceptional, nonconforming emotion. There is the real—the street; and then there is all the other—the removed. I am now on the other side of reality, unable to reach out with my hand and touch the pure life. I miss the street.

Miss Prudence Mercer Stony Cross Hampshire, England 7 November 1854 Dear Prudence, Regardless of the reports that describe the British soldier as unflinching, I assure you that when riflemen are under fire, we most certainly duck, bob, and run for cover. Per your advice, I have added a sidestep and a dodge to my repertoire, with excellent results. To my mind, the old fable has been disproved: there are times in life when one definitely wants to be the hare, not the tortoise. We fought at the southern port of Balaklava on the twenty-fourth of October. Light Brigade was ordered to charge directly into a battery of Russian guns for no comprehensible reason. Five cavalry regiments were mowed down without support. Two hundred men and nearly four hundred horses lost in twenty minutes. More fighting on the fifth of November, at Inkerman. We went to rescue soldiers stranded on the field before the Russians could reach them. Albert went out with me under a storm of shot and shell, and helped to identify the wounded so we could carry them out of range of the guns. My closest friend in the regiment was killed. Please thank your friend Prudence for her advice for Albert. His biting is less frequent, and he never goes for me, although he’s taken a few nips at visitors to the tent. May and October, the best-smelling months? I’ll make a case for December: evergreen, frost, wood smoke, cinnamon. As for your favorite song…were you aware that “Over the Hills and Far Away” is the official music of the Rifle Brigade? It seems nearly everyone here has fallen prey to some kind of illness except for me. I’ve had no symptoms of cholera nor any of the other diseases that have swept through both divisions. I feel I should at least feign some kind of digestive problem for the sake of decency. Regarding the donkey feud: while I have sympathy for Caird and his mare of easy virtue, I feel compelled to point out that the birth of a mule is not at all a bad outcome. Mules are more surefooted than horses, generally healthier, and best of all, they have very expressive ears. And they’re not unduly stubborn, as long they’re managed well. If you wonder at my apparent fondness for mules, I should probably explain that as a boy, I had a pet mule named Hector, after the mule mentioned in the Iliad. I wouldn’t presume to ask you to wait for me, Pru, but I will ask that you write to me again. I’ve read your last letter more times than I can count. Somehow you’re more real to me now, two thousand miles away, than you ever were before. Ever yours, Christopher P.S. Sketch of Albert included As Beatrix read, she was alternately concerned, moved, and charmed out of her stockings. “Let me reply to him and sign your name,” she begged. “One more letter. Please, Pru. I’ll show it to you before I send it.” Prudence burst out laughing. “Honestly, this is the silliest things I’ve ever…Oh, very well, write to him again if it amuses you.

In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was mentioned that upon first breaking ground in the whale’s back, the blubber-hook was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the monster’s back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is concluded. The whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the Highland costume—a shirt and socks—in which to my eyes, at least, he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to observe him, as will presently be seen. Being the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his waist. It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed. So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another’s mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice. And yet still further pondering—while I jerked him now and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam him—still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg’s monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.

Regardless of what they say in their unparalleled self-promotion, not even the “pros” can pick stocks or time markets in the short run. Nevertheless, good returns over the long run, constantly quoted prices, low transaction costs, accurate records, and absolute liquidity make stock market investing attractive.

Calculating risks shrewdly is the main ingredient for consistent superior performance. Pros play percentage ball, and that’s why, in the long run, they are more consistent than amateurs. Therefore, it could be said that the difference between an amateur and a pro lies in consistency. Relying on the probabilities based on a positive mathematical expectation to win (your “edge”) will lead to success.

Active investors have a number of options available to them. First, they can decide to make their portfolio more aggressive or more defensive than the index, either on a permanent basis or in an attempt at market timing. If investors choose aggressiveness, for example, they can increase their portfolios’ market sensitivity by overweighting those stocks in the index that typically fluctuate more than the rest, or by utilizing leverage. Doing these things will increase the “systematic” riskiness of a portfolio, its beta. (However, theory says that while this may increase a portfolio’s return, the return differential will be fully explained by the increase in systematic risk borne. Thus doing these things won’t improve the portfolio’s risk-adjusted return.) Second, investors can decide to deviate from the index in order to exploit their stock-picking ability—buying more of some stocks in the index, underweighting or excluding others, and adding some stocks that aren’t part of the index. In doing so they will alter the exposure of their portfolios to specific events that occur at individual companies, and thus to price movements that affect only certain stocks, not the whole index. As the composition of their portfolios diverges from the index for “nonsystematic” (we might say “idiosyncratic”) reasons, their return will deviate as well. In the long run, however, unless the investors have superior insight, these deviations will cancel out, and their risk-adjusted performance will converge with that of the index.

For it was clear that, while one need not be rich, or even affluent, to survive in this environment, it was necessary to have some of the qualities that led to affluence when they were applied in more settled places. The cords of split wood neatly stacked under corrugated roofs, still amply stocked even at the end of the long mountain winter, and many other such details told Olivia that the same people, transplanted to Spokane, would soon be running small businesses and chairing civic organizations.

Atticus: I've been working there four fucking weeks! I'm going to be eating ramen noodles for the rest of my life. Asher: Never tried them. Atticus: Dude, fucking disgusting. Trust me. Asher: Matilda's making roast au jus for dinner tonight with those homemade Yorkshire puddings you like. Atticus: I hate you. Loathe. Despise. Basically every synonym for hate there is. Asher: Call me? My phone rang a minute later, and I whined long and loud into the receiver in place of saying hello. I'd been accused of being overly dramatic in the past. There might be some truth behind it. Asher chuckled. "You're pathetic." "Why have you not run away with me? We've been separated. I can't stand it. It's like the individual cells in my body are trying to divide again and make another you. It hurts. I can't do it twice." I whimpered again for emphasis. "Ash, I'm screwed, and not in the bend me over the hood of the Jag and pound my ass type of way. The bad way. The painful way. The oh-crap-my-bank-account-is-in-the-negative way. I'm fast running out of ideas, and you're over there living the high life and eating roast au jus with my goddamn Yorkshire puddings." "I get the sense you're trying to tell me something, but whatever it is, it's getting lost in translation. You're rambling. What's going on? Speak-a the English. What's the problem?" "What isn't the problem? I'm poor and miserable. I was not ready for adulthood this soon. Tell Mom and Dad it was all lies. It was a phase. I'm over it. Ha, good joke, right?" "Riiight, and how do you propose I magically make the burned image of your mouth around Ryan Vector's cock disappear from Matilda's mind?" "Fuck. You know what? We don't need a housekeeper. Fire her ass! Tell Mom and Dad she's a big fat liar who lies and hates me. Tell them she's stealing from them. She's an illegal immigrant! No, tell them, she's a housekeeper by day and a hooker by night. I saw her walking the streets of Fifth Avenue after sundown in a mini skirt and fishnet stockings." I paused, envisioning our sixty-year-old housekeeper/used-to-be-nanny in that kind of attire. Asher and I both audibly ewwed at the exact same time. "Dude, that's fucking gross as shit, and you know it. I just threw up in my mouth. Why would you put that image in my head?" "I regret many of my life decisions. Add it to the list. Ash, I'm serious. Just make something up. Get rid of her. We don't need a housekeeper, and we're long past requiring a nanny. Especially one who walks into rooms without knocking. What was she thinking?" "The door wasn't closed." "Not the time, Ash!" "Okay, so let's pretend for five minutes Matilda dies in a horrible car crash." "We could make that happen.

We’ll also adopt a fairly strict pay-for-performance model in which you get paid nothing in your bad years—no cheating, like guaranteed bonuses or repriced stock options allowed—but you receive a very generous bonus, say $10 million, in your good years. At first glance this arrangement seems fair—because you only get paid when you perform. But a second glance reveals that over the long run, the gains that you make for your employer are essentially canceled out by your losses; yet your compensation averages out at a very handsome $5 million per year.

Why should the future returns of stocks always be the same as their past returns? When every investor comes to believe that stocks are guaranteed to make money in the long run, won’t the market end up being wildly overpriced? And once that happens, how can future returns possibly be high?

First of all, recognize that an index fund—which owns all the stocks in the market, all the time, without any pretense of being able to select the “best” and avoid the “worst”—will beat most funds over the long run.

The contrary is almost certain to be true in the long run. The defensive investor must confine himself to the shares of important companies with a long record of profitable operations and in strong financial condition. (Any security analyst worth his salt could make up such a list.) Aggressive investors may buy other types of common stocks, but they should be on a definitely attractive basis as established by intelligent analysis.

How well people expect stocks and cryptocurrencies to perform has a role in how they do perform in the long run. So reality is really about expectations. The economy is made up of people, right? So it checks out that what people think is going to happen (expectations) will drive their behavior (reality) and thus the Fed’s response (policy). I mean technically, we are all the Federal Reserve.

The best on horses you think will lose are a valuable "insurance policy." When rare disaster strikes, you'll be glad you had the insurance. 71 The exponential growth of wealth in the Kelly system is also a consequence of proportional betting. As the bankroll grows, make larger bets. 98 [2 questions are central to John Kelly's analysis] What level of risk will lead to the highest long-run return? What is the chance of losing everything? 286 As Fred Schwed, Jr. author of Where are the Customer's Yatchs? put it back in 1940, "Like all of life's rich emotional experiences, the full flavor of losing important money cannot be conveyed in literature." 304 Claude Shannon: A smart investor should understand where he has an edge and invest only in those opportunities. 308 The longer you hold a stock, the harder it is to beat the market by much. 316

No one is saying you can’t take a minute to think, Dammit, this sucks. By all means, vent. Exhale. Take stock. Just don’t take too long. Because you have to get back to work. Because each obstacle we overcome makes us stronger for the next one. But . . . No. No excuses. No exceptions. No way around it: It’s on you. We don’t have the luxury of running away. Of hiding. Because we have something very specific we’re trying to do. We have an obstacle we have to lean into and transform. No one is coming to save you. And if we’d like to go where we claim we want to go—to accomplish what we claim are our goals—there is only one way. And that’s to meet our problems with the right action. Therefore, we can always (and only) greet our obstacles with energy with persistence with a coherent and deliberate process with iteration and resilience with pragmatism with strategic vision with craftiness and savvy and an eye for opportunity and pivotal moments Are you ready to get to work?

In the stock market, the shares that are most popular and familiar to investors change hands more often, and that, in turn, attracts still more attention to these stocks as they turn up in the day’s list of “most active shares.” Because of all that extra exposure, the stocks with the highest trading volume have higher returns in the short run—but, in the long term, they tend to underperform by two to five percentage points per year. In the stock market, which is a game of inches, that’s a country mile.

And once hordes of people like a company, it becomes what finance professor David Hirshleifer calls a “celebrity stock.” At that point, just like Kathie Lee Gifford or Mr. T, it is almost sure to end up overpriced, overexposed, and overdue for a collapse in popularity. No matter how great a business may be, its stock can’t be an enduring moneymaker once an investor stampede drives the price up too high. Thus, over the long run, familiarity breeds failure.

These steps will help you remember that correlation is not causation, and that most market prophecies are based on coincidental patterns. That was the problem in the late 1990s at the Motley Fool website. Its Foolish Four portfolios were based on research claiming that factors like the ratio of a company’s dividend yield to the square root of its stock price could predict future outperformance. In the long run, however, a company’s stock can rise only if its underlying business earns more money.

In the long run a stock has no life of its own; it is only an exchangeable piece of an underlying business. If that business becomes more profitable over the long term, it will become more valuable, and the price of its stock will go up in turn. It’s not uncommon for a stock’s price to change as often as a thousand times in a single trading day, but in the world of real commerce, the value of a business hardly changes at all on any given day. Business value changes over time, not all the time. Stocks are like weather, altering almost continuously and without warning; businesses are like climate, changing much more gradually and predictably.

Late-stage cup-with-handle formations seem to be particularly vulnerable, especially when they are very wide and loose. A cup-with-handle formation is often a very productive first-stage base to see when a stock is just starting a big upside price run, but when you start to see these sloppy late-stage cup-with-handle formations after a long upside price move, they can often mean that trouble is brewing.

Many have been supposedly foolproof but zany formulae that have made no one rich but the hucksters who sold them to the gullible. But over the years there have been some approaches that have enjoyed at least a modicum of success. These range from the Dow Theory first espoused by Wall Street Journal founder Charles Dow—essentially using technical indicators to try to identify and profit from different market phases—and David Butler’s CANSLIM system, to the value investing school articulated by Benjamin Graham. The earth-shattering suggestion of the research conducted in the 1960s and 1970s was that the code might actually be unbreakable, and efforts to decipher it were expensive and futile. Harry Markowitz’s modern portfolio theory and William Sharpe’s CAPM indicated that the market itself was the optimal balance between risks and return, while Gene Fama presented a cohesive, compelling argument for why that was: The net effect of the efforts of thousands upon thousands of investors continually trying to outsmart each other was that the stock market was efficient, and in practice hard to beat. Most investors should therefore just sit on their hands and buy the entire market. But in the 1980s and 1990s, a new round of groundbreaking research—some of it from the same efficient-markets disciples who had rattled the investing world in the 1960s and 1970s—started revealing some fault lines in the academic edifice built up in the previous decades. Perhaps the stock market wasn’t entirely efficient, and maybe there were indeed ways to beat it in the long run? Some gremlins in the system were always known, but often glossed over. Already in the early 1970s, Black and Scholes had noted that there were some odd issues with the theory, such as how less volatile stocks actually produced better long-term returns than choppier ones. That contradicted the belief that return and risk (using volatility as a proxy for risk) were correlated. In other words, loopier roller coasters produce greater thrills. Though the theory made intuitive sense, in practice it didn’t seem to hold up to rigorous scrutiny. This is why Scholes and Black initially proposed that Wells Fargo should set up a fund that would buy lower-volatility stocks (that is, low-beta) and use leverage to bring the portfolio’s overall volatility up to the broader stock market.7 Hey, presto, a roller coaster with the same number of loops as everyone else, but with even greater thrills. Nonetheless, the efficient-markets hypothesis quickly became dogma at business schools around the United States.

Ross’s “arbitrage pricing theory” and Rosenberg’s “bionic betas” posited that the returns of any financial security are the result of several systematic factors. Although seemingly stating the obvious, this was a seminal moment in the move toward a more vibrant understanding of markets. The eclectic Rosenberg was even put on the cover of Institutional Investor in May 1978, the bald, mustachioed man depicted as a giant meditating guru with flowers in his hair, worshipped by a gathering of besuited portfolio managers. The headline was “Who Is Barr Rosenberg? And What the Hell Is He Talking About?”8 What he was talking about was how academics were beginning to classify stocks according to not just their industry or their geography, but their financial characteristics. And some of these characteristics might actually prove to deliver better long-term returns than the broader stock market. In 1973, Sanjoy Basu, a finance professor at McMaster University in Ontario, published a paper that indicated that companies with low stock prices relative to their earnings did better than the efficient-markets hypothesis would suggest. Essentially, he showed that the value investing principles espoused by Benjamin Graham in the 1930s—which revolved around buying cheap, out-of-favor stocks trading below their intrinsic worth—was a durable investment factor. By systematically buying all cheap stocks, investors could in theory beat the broader market over time. Then Banz showed the same for small caps, another big moment in the evolution of factor investing. Follow-up studies on smaller stocks in Japan and the UK showed similar results, so in 1986 DFA launched dedicated small-cap funds for those two markets as well. In the early 1990s, finance professors Narasimhan Jegadeesh and Sheridan Titman published a paper indicating that simply surfing market momentum—in practice buying stocks that were already bouncing and selling those that were sliding—could also produce market-beating returns.9 The reasons for these apparent anomalies divide academics. Efficient-markets disciples stipulate that they are the compensation investors receive for taking extra risks. Value stocks, for example, are often found in beaten-up, unpopular, and shunned companies, such as boring industrial conglomerates in the middle of the dotcom bubble. While they can underperform for long stretches, eventually their underlying worth shines through and rewards investors who kept the faith. Small stocks do well largely because small companies are more likely to fail than bigger ones. Behavioral economists, on the other hand, argue that factors tend to be the product of our irrational human biases. For example, just like how we buy pricey lottery tickets for the infinitesimal chance of big wins, investors tend to overpay for fast-growing, glamorous stocks, and unfairly shun duller, steadier ones. Smaller stocks do well because we are illogically drawn to names we know well. The momentum factor, on the other hand, works because investors initially underreact to news but overreact in the long run, or often sell winners too quickly and hang on to bad bets for far longer than is advisable.

The market is a voting machine in the short run, but it is a weighing machine in the long run. Go with Bharti Grow with Bharti

The takeaway from these studies is simple. Broad diversification is the only guaranteed way to approximate the superior returns that stocks have historically offered investors. Putting together a narrow portfolio of stocks may be a big winner, but usually is a loser.

If your needs are not attainable through safe instruments, the solution is not to increase the rate of return by upping the level of risk. Instead, goals may be revised, savings increased, or income boosted through added years of work. . . . Somebody has to care about the consequences if uncertainty is to be understood as risk. . . . As we’ve seen, the chances of loss do decline over time, but this hardly means that the odds are zero, or negligible, just because the horizon is long. . . . In fact, even though the odds of loss do fall over long periods, the size of potential losses gets larger, not smaller, over time. . . . The message to emerge from all this hype has been inescapable: In the long run, the stock market can only go up. Its ascent is inexorable and predictable. Long-term stock returns are seen as near certain while risks appear minimal, and only temporary. And the messaging has been effective: The familiar market propositions come across as bedrock fact. For the most part, the public views them as scientific truth, although this is hardly the case. It may surprise you, but all this confidence is rather new. Prevailing attitudes and behavior before the early 1980s were different. Fewer people owned stocks then, and the general popular attitude to buying stocks was wariness, not ebullience or complacency. . . . Unfortunately, the American public’s embrace of stocks is not at all related to the spread of sound knowledge. It’s useful to consider how the transition actually evolved—because the real story resists a triumphalist interpretation. . . . Excessive optimism helps explain the popularity of the stocks-for-the-long-run doctrine. The pseudo-factual statement that stocks always succeed in the long run provides an overconfident investor with more grist for the optimistic mill. . . . Speaking with the editors of Forbes.com in 2002, Kahneman explained: “When you are making a decision whether or not to go for something,” he said, “my guess is that knowing the odds won’t hurt you, if you’re brave. But when you are executing, not to be asking yourself at every moment in time whether you will succeed or not is certainly a good thing. . . . In many cases, what looks like risk-taking is not courage at all, it’s just unrealistic optimism. Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds. Optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don’t know the odds. It’s a big difference.” Optimism can be a great motivator. It helps especially when it comes to implementing plans. Although optimism is healthy, however, it’s not always appropriate. You would not want rose-colored glasses in a financial advisor, for instance. . . . Over the long haul, the more you are exposed to danger, the more likely it is to catch up with you. The odds don’t exactly add, but they do accumulate. . . . Yet, overriding this instinctive understanding, the prevailing investment dogma has argued just the reverse. The creed that stocks grow steadily safer over time has managed to trump our common-sense assumption by appealing to a different set of homespun precepts. Chief among these is a flawed surmise that, with the passage of time, downward fluctuations are balanced out by compensatory upward swings. Many people believe that each step backward will be offset by more than one step forward. The assumption is that you can own all the upside and none of the downside just by sticking around. . . . If you find yourself rejecting safe investments because they are not profitable enough, you are asking the wrong questions. If you spurn insurance simply because the premiums put a crimp in your returns, you may be destined for disappointment—and possibly loss.

I don’t subscribe much to any of these fancy investing theories, and most people seem surprised to learn that I’ve never done much investing in anything except Wal-Mart. I believe the folks who’ve done the best with Wal-Mart stock are those who have studied the company, who have understood our strengths and our management approach, and who, like me, have just decided to invest with us for the long run. We

It is your mind that matters economically, as much or more than your mouth or hands. In the long run, the most important economic effect of population size and growth is the contribution of additional people to our stock of useful knowledge. And this contribution is large enough in the long run to overcome all the costs of population growth.”7

You do not lie so good, Yellow Hair. Your eyes make big talk against you. But that is okay. We have had this one moment together, no? And you did not spit.” Chuckling, he ducked his head and tightened his arm around her with such crushing strength that she couldn’t breathe, let alone fight. Then he wheeled his horse, yelling gibberish. The young man who held Amy nudged his pony out of the ranks and galloped it toward the house. In a skid of hooves and flying dust, he dumped her none too gently onto the dirt and rode off. Amy scrambled to her feet, holding out her arms. “Loretta, no…Loretta, please…” To Loretta’s relief, Rachel burst out of the cabin, grabbed Amy, and dragged her up the steps. After shoving the child through the door, she reappeared with a rifle in her hands. Lifting the stock to her shoulder, she took careful aim. At Loretta… It happened so fast that even the Comanche was taken by surprise. His body snapped taut. For the space of a heartbeat, Loretta felt a shattering sense of betrayal, of fear. Then she understood. Aunt Rachel was going to kill her rather than see her taken by Comanches. The blast of the gun and a roar from the Comanche came almost simultaneously. He threw his body forward, slamming Loretta against the stallion’s neck. Pain exploded in her chest, a flattening, mind-searing pain. Insane as it was, the thought crossed her mind that the Comanche hadn’t won after all. The stallion reared, striking the air, then leaped forward, nearly tossing both his riders. Loretta was squashed between the long ridge of the animal’s neck and the Comanche’s chest. Sitting sideways as she was, her body was twisted at an impossible angle. Instinctively she clutched the horse’s mane to hold her seat. She was going to fall. The hooves of the other horses thundered all around her. If she lost her grip, the other riders would surely trample her. Desperation filled her. She was slipping. At the last moment, when her fingers lost their hold and she felt herself falling, her captor’s arm clamped around her ribs, pulling her back onto the horse. Then the weight of his chest anchored her, so heavy she couldn’t breathe. Wind blew against her face. Slack-jawed, she labored for air, pressure building to a pulsating intensity in her temples. The Indians rode a safe distance from the house before stopping. When Hunter finally drew rein and leaped off the horse, Loretta fell with him and landed in a heap at his feet. Dust plumed around her. Men dismounted, yelling, running in her direction. For a moment she thought they were going to swoop down on her, but they circled her captor instead, jabbering and touching his shoulder. There were so many legs, some naked. Brown buttocks flashed everywhere she looked. Hunter snarled something and peeled off his shirt. A furrowed flesh wound angled across his right shoulder. Pressing a hand to her chest, Loretta glanced down in bewilderment. She had been so sure…Laughter bubbled up her throat. Aunt Rachel had missed? She never missed when she could draw a steady bead on a still target. Loretta’s throat tightened. The Comanche. She looked up, confusion clouding her blue eyes. He had shielded her with his own body?

It’s only going to take another week of this and we’re going to have the mother of all humanitarian crises on our hands. The Independencies are already living on food stocks that aren’t going to last long. The algaepaddies can’t survive prolonged cooling, which is going to eliminate ten percent of GE’s bioil supply. Most of Highcastle is already camped out by the gateway demanding to return. And nobody is making any decisions, certainly not in the GE. Every commissioner is running scared of a decision. Right now they’re having summits about holding summits on what to do. I’ve never seen anything so pathetic. Even the licensed news shows are sneering.” Vance

Keynes had been appointed to the board of the National Mutual, one of the oldest institutions in the city, in 1919.107 He had served as chairman of the insurer, and helped manage its investment portfolio from 1921. That portfolio lost £641,000 ($61 million), an enormous sum of money in 1937. While Keynes was recuperating from a heart attack, F. N. Curzon, the acting chairman of the insurer called him to account for the loss.108 Curzon and the board criticized Keynes’s investment policy of remaining invested in his “pet” stocks during the decline.109 In a response to Curzon in March 1938, Keynes wrote:110 1. I do not believe that selling at very low prices is a remedy for having failed to sell at high ones. . . . As soon as prices had fallen below a reasonable estimate of intrinsic value and long-period probabilities, there was nothing more to be done. It was too late to remedy any defects in previous policy, and the right course was to stand pretty well where one was. 2. I feel no shame at being found owning a share when the bottom of the market comes. I do not think it is the business, far less the duty, for an institutional or any other serious investor to be constantly considering whether he should cut and run on a falling market, or to feel himself open to blame if shares depreciate on his hands. . . . An investor is aiming, or should be aiming, primarily at long-period results, and should be solely judged by these. . . . The idea that we should all be selling out to the other fellow and should all be finding ourselves with nothing but cash at the bottom of the market is not merely fantastic, but destructive of the whole system. 3. I do not feel that we have in fact done particularly badly. . . . If we deal in equities; it is inevitable that there should be large fluctuations.

big swing its initial impulse, the fact is that its continuance is not the result of manipulation by pools or artifice by financiers, but depends upon basic conditions. And no matter who opposes it, the swing must inevitably run as far and as fast and as long as the impelling forces determine.

Well, Mr. Cranton,” she said, brows raised. “When you told me you needed my gown so as to clean the sea stains and tar from it, I had no idea that you had… uh, other uses for it.” Loud guffaws met her remark. “Really, Captain O’ Devir,” she said, turning to the grinning Irishman. “Your so-called Navy has some odd ways of amusing itself.” “Odd ways that saved all of our hides,” cried a nearby seaman. “Three cheers for our captain!” “Hip hip, huzzah! Hip hip, huzzah! Hip hip, huzzah!” Nerissa, confused, could only stare at them all. They’d surely lost their minds. “I expected there to be a sea fight, and I’m very glad there was not, but how did you manage to avoid getting blown to the ends of the earth, Captain O’ Devir?” He just shrugged, his eyes hungry and dark as he took in her long, willowy form, her legs clearly outlined in Midshipman Cranton’s skinny breeches. “Well, Lady Nerissa, ye’re the most valuable person on this ship and that countryman of yers back there knows it. He wouldn’t dare fire on us with you up here on deck.” “But I wasn’t up here on deck.” “Aye, precisely. But that piece of sh—… ehm, that blaggard back there, didn’t know that. Ye’ll stay in Cranton’s uniform so he doesn’t find out.” “What? What are you all talking about?” Lieutenant Morgan, chewing on a piece of dried ginger, was the one who clarified it for her. “Captain O’ Devir would never risk your life by having you up on deck where musket or cannonballs could be flying, so he had Cranton here pretend to be you.” The youth rubbed the back of his head. “Didn’t need to hit me quite so hard, sir,” he said good naturedly. “I nearly didn’t have to fake being knocked out cold.” “My heavens,” Nerissa said, as laughter greeted the youth’s remark, and immediately the sailor’s teasing resumed. “Still think you make a fetching young lady, Mr. Cranton!” “Can I call on you, my lady?” asked Tackett the sailing master, making an elegant leg to the blushing youth. “I’d love to run my fingers through your hair….” “Hell, I’d love to run mine through his cleavage.” “Hahaha!” “Shut yer gobs, ye rogues,” said Captain O’ Devir. “That’s an officer ye’re talkin’ to. Give him some respect.” More guffaws, because it was hard to give a man any respect when he stood before them in a lady’s gown, red-faced, fuming, and reaching into his bosom to tear out the other stocking. He flung it down. “My apologies, Lady Nerissa,” he said, looking like he was about to take a swing at the sailing master. “You should not have to listen to such talk.” She couldn’t help but be caught up in their high spirits. “I have brothers,” she said, smiling. “There’s not much that will offend me, I can assure you.

It nevertheless remains true that, in most countries for which long-run data are available, stocks have out-performed bonds – by a factor of roughly five over the twentieth century.

It nevertheless remains true that, in most countries for which long-run data are available, stocks have out-performed bonds – by a factor of roughly five over the twentieth century.9 This can scarcely surprise us. Bonds, as we saw in Chapter 2, are no more than promises by governments to pay interest and ultimately repay principal over a specified period of time. Either through default or through currency depreciation, many governments have failed to honour those promises. By contrast, a share is a portion of the capital of a profit-making corporation. If the company succeeds in its undertakings, there will not only be dividends, but also a significant probability of capital appreciation. There are of course risks, too. The returns on stocks are less predictable and more volatile than the returns on bonds and bills. There is a significantly higher probability that the average corporation will go bankrupt and cease to exist than that the average sovereign state will disappear. In the event of a corporate bankruptcy, the holders of bonds and other forms of debt will be satisfied first; the equity holders may end up with nothing. For these reasons, economists see the superior returns on stocks as capturing an ‘equity risk premium’ – though clearly in some cases this has been a risk well worth taking.

Entry and exit points are vital parts of trading and investing. That is worth repeating.  Entry and Exit points are vital parts of Trading and Investing. Whether you are Day Trading, Swing Trading, or are a Long Term Investor. Why would you ever buy a stock at the wrong time? Unfortunately, there are many market participants with no training that do it every day. The Pros love the uninformed, the novices, and the Pigs. Who else are they going to sell to when a stock has reached a resistance point, or reached an all time high? You guessed it. They are going to sell to the novices and the pigs who are hoping for more advance. Then when the stock drops, falls to support, or finds support somewhere, the Pros will buy it back from the novice who has just taken a loss and a beating. “The time to buy is when blood is running in the streets” ~Baron Rothschild

Jeremy Siegel’s Stocks for the Long Run (1994)—culminating,

There is a good reason why stocks are not reacting to Fed policy as they have in the past. Investors have become so geared to watching and anticipating Fed policy that the effect of its tightening and easing is already discounted in the market. If investors expect the Fed to stabilize the economy, this will be built into stock prices long before the Fed even begins to take its stabilizing actions.

would the Volcker amendment, had it been law in 2007, have prevented the 2008 financial crisis? The financial crisis was caused by the overleveraging of real estate-related securities in Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, which were investment banks and would not have fallen under the purview of the Volcker amendment. Nor would it have applied to the insurance giant AIG, which the Fed chose to save after seeing the turmoil unleashed by the Lehman bankruptcy. Furthermore, banks that obtained loans from the Fed, specifically Citibank and Bank of America, ran into trouble because of bad real estate loans, not proprietary trading. Given this history, it is dubious that the Volcker amendment, had it been in effect in 2007, would have changed the course of the financial crisis.

in 1950 there were 14 retired persons for every 100 workers in the United States. This ratio rose to 28 retirees per 100 workers in 2013, and by 2060 it is expected to rise to 56.

China will be the world’s largest economy when its per capita income reaches 25 percent of that of the United States, which is forecast to occur around 2016.

the economy of China will become twice the size of the U.S. economy in 2025 if both countries’ per capita income continues to grow at recent rates.

Africa remains a small part of the world economy until 2070, when it begins to expand rapidly, reaching 14 percent, the same size as the economy of China, by the end of the century.

In 2006 the United Nations Human Development Report estimated that 2.6 billion people, or 40 percent of the world’s population, had no indoor plumbing.

The amount of $1 invested in a capitalization-weighted portfolio in 1802, with reinvested dividends, would have accumulated to almost $13.5 million by the end of 2012.

would take only $1.33 million invested in the stock market in 1802 to grow, with dividends reinvested, to about $18 trillion, the total value of U.S. stocks, by the end of 2012. The sum of $1.33 million in 1802 is equivalent to roughly $25 million in today’s purchasing power, an amount far less than the value of the stock market at that time.

By the end of 2012, the price of gold reached $1,675 per ounce, and $1 of gold bullion purchased in 1802 was worth $86.40 at the end of 2012, while the price level itself increased by a factor of 19.12.

The first actively traded U.S. stocks, floated in 1791, were issued by two banks: the Bank of New York and the Bank of the United States.

As we explore later in this chapter, virtually no asset, except for long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, served as an effective hedge against the sudden and sharp decline in asset values that took place during the financial crisis.

Realty investing is something you can assist to variety your profile more varied. Putting your cost savings into structures and land can provide you expanded your financial investments over even more sectors besides simply bonds and stocks. Continue reading to find out properly to buy investor. When choosing to purchase realty, make it expert by establishing an LLC. This will assist to shield both you personally and the financial investments that you make in the future. It can likewise provide you tax advantages thanks to your company negotiations. Constantly get a great feel of the neighborhood values resemble. Home loans and rental costs in communities that are regional will provide you a home is worth. Be particular you invest adequate time on business as well as discovering about exactly how it works. You need to budget plan your time invested on various other activities in order to make even more cash over the long run. Ditch the poker night or an additional guilty satisfaction so you have even more time to sharpen your investing abilities. Stick with niches you feel comfy handling. You will discover more success by adhering to a specific market sector. Whether you prepare to flip a residence, purchase or buy a rental home repossession, stay with exactly what you understand for success. Get to understand others in genuine estate market. It can be practical to have a couple of buddies who understand about investing in genuine estate. Troubles with lessees could take in a large amount of time. This presumption is harmful in the genuine estate market and any specific home. Your finest bet is to invest in things that supply a favorable money flow right away. Land near water or in the future. If you buy a home with the objective of leasing it out, be cautious of who you let lease it. If they can not get their cash together at this time, they aren't a trusted bet for you. When thinking about a big factor to consider for buying genuine estate, Area is critical. Consider the location you are deciding to purchase and the possible capacity. Make sure you are a great bookkeeper. You will conserve yourself a significant headache later on if you're excellent accounting now. You can find info about city planning information and various other details that could affect genuine estate values in the future. A growing city that's growing is an excellent financial investment. When attempting to get that next offer, never ever over-leverage yourself. You should keep money on reserve in case the unanticipated expenditures. Begin little with simply one home. Start with a single home and discover as you desire to make use of. Realty is a wonderful method to branch out. There are particular guidelines you need to comprehend. Use this short article when you begin to invest into genuine estate in order to end up being effective in it. Continue reading to discover the right means to invest in luxury condos miami financier. When choosing to invest in genuine estate, make it expert by setting up an LLC. Get to understand others in genuine estate market. It can be valuable to have a couple of pals who understand about investing in genuine estate. Use this post when you begin to invest into genuine estate in order to end up being effective in it.

Over the 210 years I have examined stock returns, the real return on a broadly diversified portfolio of stocks has averaged 6.6 percent per year.

In the short run, however, stock returns are very volatile, driven by changes in earnings, interest rates, risk, and uncertainty, as well as psychological factors, such as optimism and pessimism as well as fear and greed.

It took just over 15 years to recover the money invested at the 1929 peak, following a crash far worse than Smith had ever examined. And since World War II, the recovery period for stocks has been even better. Even including the recent financial crisis, which saw the worst bear market since the 1930s, the longest it has ever taken an investor to recover an original investment in the stock market (including reinvested dividends) was the five-year, eight-month period from August 2000 through April 2006.

The financial crisis of 2008 is illustrated by the following analogy. There is no doubt that the improvements in engineering have made the passenger car safer than it was 50 years ago. But that does not mean that the automobile is safe at any speed. A small bump on the road can flip the most advanced passenger car speeding 120 mph today just as surely as an older model traveling 80 mph. During the Great Moderation, risks were indeed lower, and financial firms rationally leveraged their balance sheets in response. But their leverage became too great, and all that was needed was an unexpected increase in the default rate on subprime mortgages—that “bump on the road”—to catapult the economy into a crisis.

In fact, for someone in the highest tax bracket, short-term Treasury bills have yielded a negative after-tax real return since 1871, even lower if state and local taxes are taken into account. In contrast, top-bracket taxable investors would have increased their purchasing power in stocks 288-fold over the same period.

The government can put dividends on the same tax basis as capital gains if the tax authorities allow investors to obtain a tax deferral on reinvested dividends until the stock is sold.

At the end of 2012, the yield on nominal bonds was about 2 percent. The only way that bonds could generate a 7.8 percent real return is if the consumer price index fell by nearly 6 percent per year over the next 30 years. Yet a deflation of this magnitude has never been sustained by any country in world history.

As a result, proportional movements of high-priced stocks in the Dow averages have a much greater impact than movements of lower-priced stocks, regardless of the size of the company.

The S&P 500 Index originally contained exactly 425 industrial, 25 rail, and 50 utility firms, but these groupings were abandoned in 1988 in order to maintain, as Standard & Poor’s claimed, an index that included “500 leading companies in leading industries of the economy.

In 1957, IBM’s weight was two-thirds of the technology sector; in 2013, IBM was only the third largest in a sector that contains 70 firms.

CVS Corporation, which in 1957 entered the S&P 500 Index as Melville Shoe Corp.,

buy the Consumer Value Store chain in 1969, specializing in personal health products. The chain quickly became the most profitable division of the company, and in 1996 Melville changed its name to CVS.

Her leg, sculptured by the tight sheen of the stocking, its long line running straight, over an arched instep, to the tip of a foot in a high-heeled pump, had a feminine elegance that seemed out of place in the dusty train car...

Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely, talks about the psychology behind many of our poor investment decisions in a manner that is friendly for the layperson. Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel and Triumph of the Optimists by Elroy Dimson both discuss historical stock market returns in detail.

Over the short term, Mr. Market acts like a wildly emotional guy who can buy or sell stocks at depressed or inflated prices. • Over the long run, it's a completely different story: Mr. Market gets it right.

Yet one must be aware of the political, institutional, and legal framework in which these returns were generated. The superior performance of stocks over the past two centuries might be explained by the growing dominance of nations committed to free market economics.

a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.” He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?” To which the American replied, “15–20 years. 25 tops.” “But what then, señor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions, señor? Then what?” “Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos …

The unprecedented bull market in Treasury bonds, supported by the belief that Treasury bonds are “insurance policies” in the case of financial collapse, could end as badly as the bull market in technology stocks did at the turn of the century. When economic growth increases, Treasury bondholders will receive the double blow of rising interest rates and loss of safe-haven status. One of the prime lessons learned from long-term analysis is that no asset class can stay permanently detached from fundamentals. Stocks had their comeuppance when the technology bubble burst and the financial system crashed. It is quite likely that bondholders will suffer a similar fate as the liquidity created by the world’s central banks turns into stronger economic growth and higher inflation.

Jason Zweig, senior writer and columnist at Money magazine and coauthor of the revised edition of Benjamin Graham's classic, The Intelligent Investor: "If you buy-and then hold-a total stock market index fund, it is mathematically certain that you will outperform the vast majority of all other investors in the long run. Graham praised index funds as the best choice for individual investors, as does Warren Buffett.

In the competitive world of money management, performance is measured not by absolute returns but the returns relative to some benchmark. For stocks these benchmarks include the S&P 500 Index, the Wilshire 5000, global stock indexes, or the latest “style” indexes popular on Wall Street. But there is a crucially important difference about investing compared with virtually any other competitive activity: Most of us have no chance of being as good as the group of individuals who practice for hours to hone their skills. But anyone can be as good as the average investor in the stock market with no practice at all. The

Paradoxically, in the long run, bonds are at least as risky as stocks. This is because stock returns are “mean reverting.” That is, a series of bad years is likely to be followed by a series of good ones, repairing some of the damage.

Bonds are even worse, since their returns do not mean revert—a series of bad years is likely to be followed by even more bad ones, as happened during the 1970s. This is the point made by Jeremy Siegel in his superb treatise, Stocks For The Long Run. Professor Siegel pointed out that stocks outperformed bonds in only 61% of the years after 1802, but that they bested bonds in 80% of ten-year periods and in 99% of 30-year periods. Looked

The right response to a fall in the price of one asset class is never to panic and sell out. Rather, you need the long-term discipline and personal fortitude to buy more. Remember: The lower stock prices go, the better the bargains if you are truly a long-term investor. Sharp market declines may make rebalancing appear a frustrating “way to lose even more money.” But in the long run, investors who rebalance their portfolios in a disciplined way are well rewarded.

The message is clear: in the long run, stock returns depend almost entirely on the reality of the investment returns earned by our corporations. The perception of investors, reflected by the speculative returns, counts for little. It is economics that controls long-term equity returns; emotions, so dominant in the short-term, dissolve.

Stock investors should expect periods of time when equities do not make money after inflation. It is the nature of investment risk. This is also why time in the market is critical to stock investors. In the long run, equities have outpaced inflation by a wide margin, and they are expected to remain one of the best real return investments in the future. You have to stay invested during all market conditions to benefit from the gains. U.S.

From the Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker Appreciation! Appreciation…. One of the nicer things we can get or give is appreciation. It makes what we do worthwhile! It inspires us to work harder, do better and above all, makes us feel better about ourselves. I feel appreciated when someone says thank you…. It’s as simple as that! Of course it’s also nice to receive an award for something I wrote. I recently won two awards for The Exciting Story of Cuba and it made my day! It felt even better to share the moment with my crew because they deserved it and I certainly appreciate them and their contribution, for the effort I got credit for. It’s really very nice when we appreciate people for what they have done for us and remember that it is better to give than receive. Now here is an existential thought that I’ll run past you. You might have heard the ancient chestnut.… “Does a tree make a noise when it falls in a forest with no one around to hear it?” The answer is debatable, with no definitive answer that everyone accepts. Now let’s take this thought one step further by contemplating life itself. Is there really anything, if there is no one to appreciate it? Could this account for our existence? Do we really have to exist at this time and place, within this sphere of infinity, to appreciate everything we are aware of including the universe? To me it’s an interesting thought, since philosophically “I am!” More interesting is that so are you and everyone else. Without us, would there be universe? And if so, would it make any difference, because there would be no one to know. What makes the difference is that we are here and we know that we are here! Therefore, we can appreciate it! I’m not a philosopher. I’m really just another “id” that is contemplating my existence, but what I want to impart is the importance of sharing this existence with others by appreciating them. The English poet John Donne said, “No man is an Island.” I guess the original content is found in prose, not poetry; however it’s the thought that counts. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theory of personality states that, “The id is the personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs and desires.” Now the way I see it, is that the reason that we are here is to appreciate each other and our wondrous surroundings. I might even take things a step further by getting religion into the mix. If we are made in our creator’s image, could that mean that our creator, like us, desires the appreciation of his creation and we are here to appreciate what he, or she, has created? The way we as a people are polarized causes me to wonder, if we are not all acting like a bunch of spoiled brats. Has our generation been so spoiled that we all insist on getting things our way, without understanding that we are interdependent. Seeing as how we all inhabit this one planet, and that everything we possess, need, aspire to and love, is right here on this rock floating in space; we should take stock and care for each other and, above all, appreciate what we have, as well as each other. So much from me…. I’ve been busy trying to get Suppressed I Rise – Revised Edition and Seawater One…. Going To Sea!, published before the holidays. It’s been a long time in coming, but I’m hoping that with just a little extra effort, these books will be available at your favorite book dealer in time to find a place under your Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush. That’s right! Just look at your calendar and you’ll see its October and that the holidays are almost here again! Take care, appreciate each other and have a good week. It’s later than you think….

It is interesting that an investor who has some knowledge of the principles of equity valuations often performs worse than someone with no knowledge who decides to index his portfolio.

A 6.5 percent annual real return, which includes reinvested dividends, will nearly double the purchasing power of your stock portfolio every decade. If inflation stays within the 2 to 3 percent range, nominal stock returns will be 9 percent per year, which doubles the money value of your stock portfolio every eight years. Despite

Chapter 6 showed that over holding periods of 20 years or longer, stocks have both a higher return and lower after-inflation risk than bonds. The

Tilt your portfolio toward value by buying passive indexed portfolios of value stocks or, fundamentally weighted index funds. Chapter

Investors can take advantage of this mispricing by buying low-cost passively managed portfolios of value stocks or fundamentally weighted indexes that weight each stock by its share of dividends or earnings rather than by its market value.

The perceptive in the City could see that their long run of ever more perfect freedom, beginning with Margaret Thatcher’s big bang and advancing, to their pleasant surprise, under Tony Blair’s New Labour, was facing a prolonged interruption when the masses worked out that they had been left with the bill for the incipient crisis. The new moneymen of the former Soviet Union shared with the libertarians of the City a loathing for the state. They had done splendid business together, the industrial triumphs of the proletariat laid out in lavish stock market prospectuses.

reasons. Water is a well-known resource that is becoming scarcer globally – too much is used, much is wasted, and aquifers are running low. It is a fertile field for investment. Yet, water shares have generally underperformed. Certain water-sensitive stocks which are highly likely to see significant increases in demand for their products over the long term can be

Taking all these things together–the emphasis on pricing, the focus on cost reduction and balance sheet efficiency–an improvement in both margins and return on capital was to be expected. As for valuation, the average free cash flow yields of 6–7 per cent imply growth rates of around GDP or a little less, which suggests that the stock market is underestimating the potential long-run benefit to be derived from market consolidation and improved discipline. In the light of an improving capital cycle among brewers, we find ourselves able, to paraphrase Sir Winston, to overcome our prejudice and begin increasing our exposure to beer. 6

Throwing even more fuel on this fire was Alibaba’s record-breaking 2014 debut on the New York Stock Exchange. A group of Taobao sellers rang the opening bell for Alibaba’s initial public offering on September 19, just nine days after Premier Li’s speech. When the dust settled on a furious round of trading, Alibaba had claimed the title of the largest IPO in history, and Jack Ma was crowned the richest man in China. But it was about more than just the money. Ma had become a national hero, but a very relatable one. Blessed with a goofy charisma, he seems like the boy next door. He didn’t attend an elite university and never learned how to code. He loves to tell crowds that when KFC set up shop in his hometown, he was the only one out of twenty-five applicants to be rejected for a job there. China’s other early internet giants often held Ph.D.s or had Silicon Valley experience in the United States. But Ma’s ascent to rock-star status gave a new meaning to “mass entrepreneurship”—in other words, this was something that anyone from the Chinese masses had a shot at. The government endorsement and Ma’s example of internet entrepreneurship were particularly effective at winning over some of the toughest customers: Chinese mothers. In the traditional Chinese mentality, entrepreneurship was still something for people who couldn’t land a real job. The “iron rice bowl” of lifetime employment in a government job remained the ultimate ambition for older generations who had lived through famines. In fact, when I had started Sinovation Ventures in 2009, many young people wanted to join the startups we funded but felt they couldn’t do so because of the steadfast opposition of their parents or spouses. To win these families over, I tried everything I could think of, including taking the parents out to nice dinners, writing them long letters by hand, and even running financial projections of how a startup could pay off. Eventually we were able to build strong teams at Sinovation, but every new recruit in those days was an uphill battle. By 2015, these people were beating down our door—in one case, literally breaking Sinovation’s front door—for the chance to work with us. That group included scrappy high school dropouts, brilliant graduates of top universities, former Facebook engineers, and more than a few people in questionable mental states. While I was out of town, the Sinovation headquarters received a visit from one would-be entrepreneur who refused to leave until I met with him. When the staff told him that I wouldn’t be returning any time soon, the man lay on the ground and stripped naked, pledging to lie right there until Kai-Fu Lee listened to his idea.

Once again, a single sentence would hold the key. I found it in The Economic Status of Black Women: An Exploratory Investigation, a 1990 staff report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: On average married black women contribute 40 percent to household income compared with only 29 percent for white women.° Simply put, all wives did not contribute to their households in the same way: Black women were likely to earn as much (or more) money as their husbands, while white women were likely to earn much less. This was certainly true in the case of my parents (whose income was more or less equal most years). But the joint tax return system, under which most married couples file their taxes together, offers the greatest benefits to households where one spouse contributes much less than the other to household income. That meant couples like my parents-my hardworking, home-owning, God-fearing parents, who wanted to earn a little bit more to enjoy their lives after raising two daughters-weren't getting those breaks. My parents' tax bill was so high because they were married to each other. Marriage-which many conservatives assure us is the road out of black poverty -is in fact making black couples poorer. And because the IRS does not publish statistics by race, we would never know. It's long been understood that blacks and whites live in separate and unequal worlds that shape whom we marry, where we buy a home, whom we have as neighbors, and how we build a future for our children. Race affects where we go to college and how we pay for it. Race influences where we work and how much we are paid. What my research showed was that all of this also determines how much we pay in taxes. Taxpayers bring their racial identities to their tax returns. As in so many parts of American life, being black is more likely to hurt and being white is more likely to help. The implications of this go far beyond the forms you file every April. In the long run, tax policy affects whether and how you'll be able to build wealth. If you're eligible for tax breaks, you either pay less in taxes throughout the year or receive a larger refund in the spring. If, like my parents, you're considered ineligible for a particular tax break, you never see that money. One missed tax break may not sound like much, but those dollars not given to Uncle Sam can be put into your bank account, invested in stocks or property, or used to build home equity through improvements or repairs every year. Think of that money as an annual pay raise – but if you do not get it, you cannot save it. Over time those dollars, or the lack of them, add up to increased or depleted wealth.

Once again, a single sentence would hold the key. I found it in The Economic Status of Black Women: An Exploratory Investigation, a 1990 staff report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: On average married black women contribute 40 percent to household income compared with only 29 percent for white women.° Simply put, all wives did not contribute to their households in the same way: Black women were likely to earn as much (or more) money as their husbands, while white women were likely to earn much less. This was certainly true in the case of my parents (whose income was more or less equal most years). But the joint tax return system, under which most married couples file their taxes together, offers the greatest benefits to households where one spouse contributes much less than the other to household income. That meant couples like my parents-my hardworking, home-owning, God-fearing parents, who wanted to earn a little bit more to enjoy their lives after raising two daughters-weren't getting those breaks. My parents' tax bill was so high because they were married to each other. Marriage-which many conservatives assure us is the road out of black poverty -is in fact making black couples poorer. And because the IRS does not publish statistics by race, we would never know. It's long been understood that blacks and whites live in separate and unequal worlds that shape whom we marry, where we buy a home, whom we have as neighbors, and how we build a future for our children. Race affects where we go to college and how we pay for it. Race influences where we work and how much we are paid. What my research showed was that all of this also determines how much we pay in taxes. Taxpayers bring their racial identities to their tax returns. As in so many parts of American life, being black is more likely to hurt and being white is more likely to help. The implications of this go far beyond the forms you file every April. In the long run, tax policy affects whether and how you'll be able to build wealth. If you're eligible for tax breaks, you either pay less in taxes throughout the year or receive a larger refund in the spring. If, like my parents, you're considered ineligible for a particular tax break, you never see that money. One missed tax break may not sound like much, but those dollars not given to Uncle Sam can be put into your bank account, invested in stocks or property, or used to build home equity through improvements or repairs every year. Think of that money as an annual pay raise – but if you do not get it, you cannot save it. Over time those dollars, or the lack of them, add up to increased or depleted wealth

In 1984, the creator of Sam Adams beer, Jim Koch, was staring long and hard across the chasm. It was spring. It was the beginning of the baseball season in Boston, and it was about to be “morning in America.” Ronald Reagan was preparing for what would be a landslide reelection to the presidency, the economy had finally turned around after years in recession, the US Olympic team was about to run away from the competition at the Summer Games in Los Angeles, and Jim was in the middle of his sixth year as a management consultant for Boston Consulting Group (BCG), already earning $250,000 per year (that’s more than $600K in 2020 dollars) before his thirty-fifth birthday. By all accounts, Jim Koch had it made. His feet were planted securely on the terra firma of the business consulting world. “We flew first-class. You consulted with CEOs. Everyone treated you really well,” Jim recalled. These were interesting, heady times at BCG. The company had just become fully employee owned, complete with an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) that forged a real path to truly significant wealth for consultants like Jim. At the same time, he had already worked alongside a quartet of future luminaries:

The economist Julian Simon was one of the first to make this optimistic argument, and he advanced it repeatedly and forcefully throughout his career. He wrote, “It is your mind that matters economically, as much or more than your mouth or hands. In the long run, the most important economic effect of population size and growth is the contribution of additional people to our stock of useful knowledge. And this contribution is large enough in the long run to overcome all the costs of population growth.”7

While illusion (the momentary prices we pay for stocks) often loses touch with reality (the intrinsic values of our corporations), it is reality that rules in the long run.

Fables and Fortune Hunters An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish. “How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked. “Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English. “Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked. “I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket. “But … What do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.” The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.” He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually New York City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?” To which the American replied, “15–20 years. 25 tops.” “But what then, señor?” The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions, señor? Then what?” “Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos …

Her skin was hot now, though all that remained on her body was the long, white shirt and her thick wool stockings. He stripped her of the latter, one by one, then bent his head and pressed a worshipful kiss to her bare knee. He stayed like that for a long moment, his head bowed before her, his lips against her skin. She petted his head, hesitantly at first, running her palm over his snow-dampened hair, as black as the night. Then, gently, she molded her fingers against his roughened cheek and rugged jaw. He lifted his head and gazed at her with a passionate near adoration that took her breath away. Without warning, she sat up and lifted the shirt off over her head, offering herself to him in virginal, tongue-tied silence. Surely he knew she'd have done this for free. Just like she knew he'd have protected her, expecting nothing in return. He breathed her name, heartily accepting her gift of herself. He rose to claim her lips once more, enfolding her in his arms. She gloried in his mouth on hers and the smooth warmth of his hands caressing her bare back, her arms, her sides. She returned his kisses in wild, reckless abandon, burning for him now, touching him everywhere, relishing the sleek iron hardness of his broad shoulders, massive arms.

Posh Cal comes from the countryside and tells stories about the woods. These old hunty blokes who live in the forest and cut people and burn them on big bonfires with all the brambles and bracken and smoky shit so nobody knows, grind the bones into pig lunch. Shiny leather high heels and kids' toys in the wood like props from ITV murder dramas, scared people running through bracken and brambles, trying to get to the safety of the big house but the big house isn't safe, it's fully stocked with violent, frustrated young male offenders, lying awake, nightsweats in the dark Last Chance, marinating their desire to hurt people night after night in their soupy rural overlapping dreams, bad young men, blast-past-borstal bastards, lab rats, lying there while crusty ghosts from the old house crouch over them dribbling fear and violent fantasy into their ears, drip, spittle, trickle in the middle of the mean old witchy littered English woods a long way from home, a long way from any lights or cab ranks, or trust, or mums. Haha, crack on, you fuckintwat, says Shy, and starts walking again, slight shivers in his belly.

I jolted out of my sleep or so I thought with tunneling sparking flashing light. For a second when I look around the room everything seems soft, unclear, and slightly distorted, I am in my bed naked like I am every day when I get up and hug my stuffed bunny for the last time, as I snap on the lamp on my nightstand. I have to hide my bunny when the girls come over. Ray used to just throw him off the bed onto the floor. That was not cool! I don’t think Marcel would mind my cuddly stuffed bunny, with the cute floppy ears. My alarm has been blaring and Beep- Beeping for five minutes. It's from seven-o to six am. I smash and rub my face in my soft pillow for the last time. I look around the room I am sweating. I wipe my forehead, saying wow, I have had a dream that I’m falling- but never like this. ‘Damn that was a crazy dream!’ So- I start my morning retain- you know grabbing for what inside my Pringles can buy my bed before all hell comes busting through my door. I sit up in bed slightly and I turn on my laptop, might as well live record what going to do on cam, why not. So, push the quilt away, I look down at my unclothed body with my toy in hand, and I see my toes wiggling with nail polish, and my almost smooth legs and everything in-between. Thinking I just shaved and looked at all this stubble, growing here already… don’t you hate that, I sure do? It’s like all you can see and feel. Now I’m covered with sweat even though my room is frigid cold. My throat is dry, my heart is racing, and I’m desperate for a drink, yet I am almost there, my sighing is getting loud, I can feel it building up, I can stop it feeling so good and the tips are just rolling in for the boys that tune into my show. The camera is right there, whoosh- and I feel on top of the world. Yet after I hit a low with having to start my day, running away from me away from who I am, I’ve just been running a long way. My floral sheets are stocked with everything rushing out, and so is my keyboard, yet the boys love it and love me for it, so that is good enough for me. Yet after I do that it’s like I get an embarrassing feeling, I pull it out, then close the lid of my lap, to cover up fast. It’s like I get a rush from it, and then the guilt comes after in my mind saying- ‘That was the wrong missy, yet I can’t stop. Jenny and my girls give me that same rush, always doing something that feels so good yet maybe wrong.

Do build on the child’s strengths: “You are such a good cook! Help me remember what we need for our meat loaf recipe. Then, you can mix it.” Or, “You have energy to spare. Could you run over to Mrs. Johnson’s house and get a magazine she has for me?” Think “ability,” not “disability.” Do build on the child’s interests: “Your collection of rocks is growing fast. Let’s read some books about rocks. We can make a list of the different kinds you have found.” Your interest and support will encourage the child to learn more and do more. Do suggest small, manageable goals to strengthen your child’s abilities: “How about if you walk with me just as far as the mailbox? You can drop the letter in. Then I’ll carry you piggy-back, all the way home.” Or, “You can take just one dish at a time to clear the table. We aren’t in a hurry.” Do encourage self-help skills: To avoid “learned helplessness,” sponsor your child’s independence. “I know it’s hard to tie your shoes, but each time you do it, it will get easier.” Stress how capable she is, and how much faith you have in her, to build her self-esteem and autonomy. Show her you have expectations that she can help herself. Do let your child engage in appropriate self-therapy: If your child craves spinning, let him spin on the tire swing as long as he wants. If he likes to jump on the bed, get him a trampoline, or put a mattress on the floor. If he likes to hang upside down, install a chinning bar in his bedroom doorway. If he insists on wearing boots every day, let him wear boots. If he frequently puts inedible objects into his mouth, give him chewing gum. If he can’t sit still, give him opportunities to move and balance, such as sitting on a beach ball while he listens to music or a story. He will seek sensations that nourish his hungry brain, so help him find safe ways to do so. Do offer new sensory experiences: “This lavender soap is lovely. Want to smell it?” Or, “Turnips crunch like apples but taste different. Want a bite?” Do touch your child, in ways that the child can tolerate and enjoy: “I’ll rub your back with this sponge. Hard or gently?” Or, “Do you know what three hand squeezes mean, like this? I-Love-You!

A lazy trader always loses lots of money in the long run. You need to treat your trading like a job, and take it seriously. To be successful, you need to learn how to run your trading like a business.

The idea of long-term planning is a relatively new concept from a human evolution standpoint. We weren’t evolved to live this long and have to make plans for the very distant future. Storing food for the next month or two, sure. But, to think about stocking away a retirement nest egg in case I’m retired for 30 years? This is relatively foreign. You couple that novel aspect of planning with the idea that we’re very swayed by everything that is happening in the present. It’s very easy to ignore the long, long run, and really hard to ignore all the pulls on our attention right now. Spending more money right now and eating something delicious right now—it’s appealing to do those things because we know we get the rewards right now. But to not do those things—to not spend, to not eat unhealthily—so that our long-run selves can be better off, well, that’s a hard proposition for a lot of people because the present is so powerful.” —Dr. Hal Hershfield38

My long expected warning came to me when I noticed that, one after another, those stocks which had been the leaders of the market reacted several points from the top and—for the first time in many months—did not come back. Their race evidently was run, and that clearly necessitated a change in my trading tactics.

The potential problem with options is that executives can do things to goose the firm’s stock in the short run that are bad or disastrous for the company in the long run—after the CEO has sold tens of thousands of options for an astronomical profit. Michael Jensen, a Harvard Business School professor who has spent his career on issues related to management incentives, is even harsher than Paul Volcker. He describes options as “managerial heroin,” because they create an incentive for managers to seek short-term highs while doing enormous long-term damage.12 Studies have found that companies with large options grants are more likely to engage in accounting fraud and more likely to default on their debt.

Total Cost Analysis When the purchasing staff considers switching to a new supplier or consolidating its purchases with an existing one, it cannot evaluate the supplier based solely on its quoted price. Instead, it must also consider the total acquisition cost, which can in some cases exceed a product’s initial price. The total acquisition cost includes these items: • Material. The list price of the item being bought, less any rebates or discounts. • Freight. The cost of shipping from the supplier to the company. • Packaging. The company may specify special packaging, such as for quantities that differ from the supplier’s standards and for which the supplier charges an extra fee. • Tooling. If the supplier had to acquire special tooling in order to manufacture parts for the company, such as an injection mold, then it will charge through this cost, either as a lump sum or amortized over some predetermined unit volume. • Setup. If the setup for a production run is unusually lengthy or involves scrap, then the supplier may charge through the cost of the setup. • Warranty. If the product being purchased is to be retained by the company for a lengthy period of time, it may have to buy a warranty extension from the supplier. • Inventory. If there are long delays between when a company orders goods and when it receives them, then it must maintain a safety stock on hand to guard against stock-out conditions and support the cost of funds needed to maintain this stock. • Payment terms. If the supplier insists on rapid payment terms and the company’s own customers have longer payment terms, then the company must support the cost of funds for the period between when it pays the supplier and it is paid by its customers. • Currency used. If supplier payments are to be made in a different currency from the company’s home currency, then it must pay for a foreign exchange transaction and may also need to pay for a hedge, to guard against any unfavorable changes in the exchange rate prior to the scheduled payment date. These costs are only the ones directly associated with a product. In addition, there may be overhead costs related to dealing with a specific supplier (see “Sourcing Distance” later in the chapter), which can be allocated to all products purchased from that supplier.

Oil and Gas Investing in Permian Basin-Smart Move As the true scope of Permian Basin is being understood, one thing is very clear; it is going to attract a lot of investment. As in case of all oil and gas investments, the sooner you invest, the better your returns are going to be. Right now is the perfect time for oil and gas investing in Permian Basin. There are a lot of benefits of choosing to invest in things other than the property, shares and stocks circuit. It not just helps you spread out your earnings, it lets you test potential markets such as these. As these markets are not overcrowded, there is more scope for growth. But why should you choose oil and gas investing in Permian Basin when you have dependable assets elsewhere? The answer is that those assets multiply at such a slow pace that you forget they are there while when there is an oil and gas boom, it turns your fortunes. An oil well investment brings with it years of steady income with the benefit of tax deduction on the investment. It is not as much a gamble as it is made out to be and oil strikes are more frequent than people would like you to believe. About 15% annual income from oil and gas wells is exempt from tax and 65-85% of your first year's investment can be waived off. Gone are the days when all you could do with oil well was bore increasingly downwards, vertically. Now there is technology available that lets you draw oil supply for a long, long time after the initial vertical bore runs dry. With new advancements in drilling and extracting techniques, a lot of oil that was earlier as good as not being there has suddenly become readily available. Being with a company that is well equipped with the latest technology gives your investment more stability. That is one of the reasons for a revival of the boom in Permian Basin and it has been predicted to last for a long time to come. Choose with great care a reliable and experienced company that is a seasoned hand at oil and gas drilling and production. Oil and gas investing in Permian Basin is bound to attract many investors looking to be a part of the upward trend. Invest today and reap benefits for years to come.

Every year millions of American men buy televisions in order to watch football. The various companies that produce TVs are aware of this, and try to run advertisements for their contraptions that feature games. Unfortunately, the NFL only sells footage to its official television company. That means if, say, Zenith is the NFL’s TV of choice, Panasonic, Sony, and myriad other entities can’t use league action. “So every year—every single year—I get calls from the companies, wanting to purchase USFL stock footage,” Cohen said. “I averaged about $100,000 a year for a long time. Dom was right.” Don’t blink, or you might miss ubiquitous snippets of USFL game footage. That game Julie Taylor was watching in the student lounge on Friday Night Lights? Blitz-Bandits at Tampa Stadium. The “Bubble Bowl” game in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “Band Geeks”? Bandits-Showboats at the Liberty Bowl. A Scientology advertisement stars Anthony Carter scoring a touchdown for the Panthers; Russ Feingold, a United States senator running for reelection in 2010, ran a spot with Gamblers receivers Clarence Verdin and Gerald McNeil dancing in the end zone;

In the short run, the stock market is a voting machine; in the long run it is a weighing machine. —Benjamin Graham, Security Analysis (1934)

Gold is for hoarders who expect to trade glittering bars for stale bread after a financial Armageddon. Or it’s for people trying to “time” gold’s movements by purchasing it on an upward bounce, with the hopes of selling before it drops. That’s not investing. It’s speculating. Gold has jumped up and down like an excited kid on a pogo stick for more than 200 years. But after inflation, it hasn’t gained any long-term elevation. I prefer the Tropical Beach approach: Buy assets that have proven to run circles around gold (rebalanced stock and bond indexes would do). Lay in a hammock on a tropical beach. Soak in the sun and patiently enjoy the long-term profits.

Interviewed in 1999 by Jason Zweig, Aronson said, “Small-caps don’t outperform over time . . . Sure, the long-run numbers show small stocks returning roughly 1.2 percentage points more than large stocks . . . [But] the extra trading costs easily eat up the entire extra return—and then some!

A very basic thing to know about your money is that, over the really long run, people who buy equities—stocks—will almost surely make a lot more money (if they’re at all sensible in how they do it) than people who make “safer” investments.

Table 4.1 Equities Generate Superior Returns in the Long Run Wealth Multiples for U.S. Asset Classes and Inflation December 1925–December 2005 Asset Class Multiple Inflation 11 times Treasury bills 18 times Treasury bonds 71 times Corporate bonds 100 times Large-capitalization stocks 2,658 times Small-capitalization stocks 13,706 times Source: Ibbotson Associates, Stocks, Bonds, Bills and Inflation, 2006 Year Book.

First of all, recognize that an index fund—which owns all the stocks in the market, all the time, without any pretense of being able to select the “best” and avoid the “worst”—will beat most funds over the long run. (If your company doesn’t offer a low-cost index fund in your 401(k), organize your coworkers and petition to have one added.) Its rock-bottom overhead—operating expenses of 0.2% annually, and yearly trading costs of just 0.1%—give the index fund a

Whereas in the early days of the plague they had been struck by the host of small details that, while meaning absolutely nothing to others, meant so much to them personally, and thus had realized, perhaps for the first time, the uniqueness of each man's life; now, on the other hand, they took an interest only in what interested everyone else, they had only general ideas, and even their tenderest affections now seemed abstract, items of the common stock. So completely were they dominated by the plague that sometimes the one thing they aspired to was the long sleep it brought, and they caught themselves thinking: "A good thing if I get plague and have done with it!" But really they were asleep already; this whole period was for them no more than a long night's slumber. The town was peopled with sleepwalkers, whose trance was broken only on the rare occasions when at night their wounds, to all appearance closed, suddenly reopened. Then, waking with a start, they would run their fingers over the wounds with a sort of absentminded curiosity, twisting their lips, and in a flash their grief blazed up again, and abruptly there rose before them the mournful visage of their love. In the morning they harked back to normal conditions, in other words, the plague.

Although those who wait long enough will eventually recoup losses on a diversified portfolio of stocks, buying stocks at or below their historical valuation is the best way to guarantee superior returns.

I examined the buy-and-hold returns of almost 9,000 IPOs issued between 1968 and 2001. I calculated the returns based on whether investors purchased the IPOs either at the end of the first month of trading or at the IPO offer price and held these stocks until December 31, 2003.25 There is no question that the losing IPOs far outnumber the winners.

Financial strength and capital structure. The most basic possible definition of a good business is this: It generates more cash than it consumes. Good managers keep finding ways of putting that cash to productive use. In the long run, companies that meet this definition are virtually certain to grow in value, no matter what the stock market does. Start by reading the statement of cash flows in the company’s annual report. See whether cash from operations has grown steadily throughout the past 10 years. Then you can go further. Warren Buffett has popularized the concept of owner earnings, or net income plus amortization and depreciation, minus normal capital expenditures. As portfolio manager Christopher Davis of Davis Selected Advisors puts it, “If you owned 100% of this business, how much cash would you have in your pocket at the end of the year?” Because it adjusts for accounting entries like amortization and depreciation that do not affect the company’s cash balances, owner earnings can be a better measure than reported net income. To fine-tune the definition of owner earnings, you should also subtract from reported net income: any costs of granting stock options, which divert earnings away from existing shareholders into the hands of new inside owners any “unusual,” “nonrecurring,” or “extraordinary” charges any “income” from the company’s pension fund. If owner earnings per share have grown at a steady average of at least 6% or 7% over the past 10 years, the company is a stable generator of cash, and its prospects for growth are good.

value stocks have actually done better than growth stocks during both bear markets and economic recessions, so it is doubtful this is the answer.

The price investors paid for IBM was just too high. Even though the computer giant trumped Standard Oil on growth, Standard Oil trumped IBM on valuation, and valuation determines investor returns.

On September 20, 1931, the British government announced that England was going off the gold standard. It would no longer exchange gold for deposits at the Bank of England or for British currency,

Moderate P/E ratio. Graham recommends limiting yourself to stocks whose current price is no more than 15 times average earnings over the past three years. Incredibly, the prevailing practice on Wall Street today is to value stocks by dividing their current price by something called “next year’s earnings.” That gives what is sometimes called “the forward P/E ratio.” But it’s nonsensical to derive a price/earnings ratio by dividing the known current price by unknown future earnings. Over the long run, money manager David Dreman has shown, 59% of Wall Street’s “consensus” earnings forecasts miss the mark by a mortifyingly wide margin—either underestimating or overestimating the actual reported earnings by at least 15%.2 Investing your money on the basis of what these myopic soothsayers predict for the coming year is as risky as volunteering to hold up the bulls-eye at an archery tournament for the legally blind. Instead, calculate a stock’s price/earnings ratio yourself, using Graham’s formula of current price divided by average earnings over the past three years.3 As of early 2003, how many stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index were valued at no more than 15 times their average earnings of 2000 through 2002? According to Morgan Stanley, a generous total of 185 companies passed Graham’s test.

There is a crucially important difference about playing the game of investing compared to virtually any other activity. Most of us have no chance of being as good as the average in any pursuit where others practice and hone skills for many, many hours. But we can be as good as the average investor in the stock market with no practice at all. —Jeremy Siegel, Professor of Finance, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Stocks for the Long Run

Bike Price in Bangladesh – 2025 Overview Motorcycles are one of the most popular and affordable modes of transport in Bangladesh. With rising demand, bike manufacturers are introducing new models with advanced features at various price ranges. Whether you need a fuel-efficient commuter bike or a high-performance sports model, knowing the bike price in BD helps you make an informed decision. This guide provides an overview of current bike prices, key buying factors, and tips to choose the best model. Latest Bike Prices in Bangladesh (2025) Here are some of the most in-demand bike models and their prices in Bangladesh: Honda Bike Prices Honda Dream 110 – BDT 110,500 Honda CB Shine 125 – BDT 135,000 Honda XBlade 160 – BDT 195,000 Honda CBR 150R – BDT 550,000 Yamaha Bike Prices Yamaha FZS Fi V3 ABS – BDT 272,000 Yamaha MT-15 V2 – BDT 460,000 Yamaha R15 V4 – BDT 608,000 Bajaj Bike Prices Bajaj Platina 100 – BDT 98,500 Bajaj Pulsar 150 – BDT 195,000 Bajaj Dominar 250 – BDT 390,000 (Note: Prices may vary based on location, dealer offers, and stock availability.) Factors Affecting Bike Prices in Bangladesh 1. Government Policies & Taxation Motorcycles above 165cc face higher import duties and taxes, increasing their prices significantly. 2. Brand Reputation & Demand Well-known brands like Honda, Yamaha, and Suzuki offer high-quality bikes, often priced higher than local brands. 3. Engine Capacity & Performance Higher CC (Cubic Capacity) bikes come at a premium due to their greater power, speed, and efficiency. 4. Additional Features & Technology Bikes with ABS braking, digital displays, LED lighting, and fuel injection are priced higher due to their advanced technology. How to Choose the Right Bike in Bangladesh 1. Define Your Usage Needs For daily commuting: Opt for budget-friendly, fuel-efficient models like Honda Livo 110 or Bajaj Platina 100. For highway rides: Choose comfortable long-distance models like Bajaj Dominar 250. For speed & style: Consider performance bikes like Yamaha R15 V4 or Honda CBR 150R. 2. Compare Prices & Specifications Visit trusted websites like newbikebd.com to check updated prices, features, and reviews before buying. 3. Check Mileage & Fuel Efficiency Bikes with higher mileage help save fuel costs in the long run, making them a good investment. 4. Look for Dealer Offers & Discounts Many authorized dealers provide discounts, exchange offers, and free servicing packages to attract buyers. 5. Buy from Authorized Dealers Ensure you buy from an authorized dealer to get an official warranty and quality after-sales service. Conclusion Choosing the right motorcycle in Bangladesh requires considering budget, fuel efficiency, and performance. By understanding the bike price in BD and comparing available models, you can find the best option that fits your needs. For the latest updates on motorcycle prices, reviews, and expert buying guides, visit NewBikeBD – Bangladesh’s top online bike resource.

In the short run the stock market is a voting machine . . . in the long run it is a weighing machine.

There are hints, too, of wider social trends. The first edition of the Dictionary contains more than thirty references to coffee, and even more to tea. Johnson would vigorously defend the latter, not long after the Dictionary was published, in his review of an essay by the umbrella-toting Hanway, who believed it was ‘pernicious to health, obstructing industry and impoverishing the nation’.2 Johnson’s love of tea was deep but not exceptional: the leaf had been available in England since the 1650s (Pepys records drinking it for the first time in September 1660), and by 1755 it was being imported to Britain at the rate of 2,000 tons a year. The fashion for tea-drinking, facilitated by Britain’s imperial resources, drove demand for another fruit of the colonies, sugar (‘the native salt of the sugar-cane, obtained by the expression and evaporation of its juice’). Tea also played a crucial role in the dissolution of the eighteenth-century British Empire, for it was of course Bostonian opponents of a British tax on tea who opened the final breach between Britain and colonial America. All the same, it was coffee that proved the more remarkable phenomenon of the age. Johnson gives a clue to this when he defines ‘coffeehouse’ as ‘a house of entertainment where coffee is sold, and the guests are supplied with newspapers’. It was this relationship between coffee and entertainment (by which Johnson meant ‘conversation’) that made it such a potent force. Coffee was first imported to Europe from Yemen in the early part of the seventeenth century, and the first coffee house opened in St Mark’s Square in Venice in 1647. The first in England opened five years later—a fact to which Johnson refers in his entry for ‘coffee’—but its proprietor, Daniel Edwards, could hardly have envisioned that by the middle of the following century there would be several thousand coffee houses in London alone, along with new coffee plantations, run by Europeans, in the East Indies and the Caribbean. Then as now, coffee houses were meeting places, where customers (predominantly male) could convene to discuss politics and current affairs. By the time of the Dictionary they were not so much gentlemanly snuggeries as commercial exchanges. As the cultural historian John Brewer explains, ‘The coffee house was the precursor of the modern office’; in later years Johnson would sign the contract for his Lives of the English Poets in a coffee house on Paternoster Row, and the London Stock Exchange and Lloyd’s have their origins in the coffee-house culture of the period. ‘Besides being meeting places’, the coffee houses were ‘postes restantes, libraries, places of exhibition and sometimes even theatres’. They were centres, too, of political opposition and, because they were open to all ranks and religions, they allowed a rare freedom of information and expression.

Rebalancing a typical stock/bond portfolio will decrease return in the long run, but will also keep periodic losses down to a level you can live with and allow your portfolio to survive.

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