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The ability to select stocks, manage them over time and know when to sell them is incredibly difficult, even for professional fund managers.
Barry Ritholtz -
The good news is that economists are intelligent, engaging and often charming folks. The bad news is their work is often of little use to investors.
Barry Ritholtz
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A hedge fund manager whose clients demand monthly performance reports has different needs than any individual investors with a 20-year time horizon. The needs of that long-term investor differ markedly from someone who is retiring in three years.
Barry Ritholtz -
Any time you speak to people about their posture, you learn about their most recent investment activity. When someone just bought stocks, they tend to be bullish; someone who just sold is bearish.
Barry Ritholtz -
It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what is going to happen in the future, and any investment plan that is dependent on accurately forecasting where markets will be next year is doomed to failure.
Barry Ritholtz -
Even when you are right, there are costs and taxes associated with being tactical. When you are wrong, there are opportunity costs.
Barry Ritholtz -
People forget that although we can pinpoint the price, we can only guess at future earnings. The past isn't much help: It simply tells whether a market was pricey or cheap.
Barry Ritholtz -
Hedge fund managers charge so much more than mutual fund managers; alpha is even harder to come by. They end up selling a variety of things beyond mere outperformance.
Barry Ritholtz
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You want less of the annoying nonsense that interferes with your portfolios and more of the significant data that allow you to become a less distracted, more purposeful investor.
Barry Ritholtz -
Most of the time, economic data is fairly benign. I don't wish to imply it is meaningless, but it is not a driver of stock markets. Indeed, the correlation between economic noise and how equity markets perform has been wildly overemphasized.
Barry Ritholtz -
Getting more and more of our news from the social network is having significant repercussions for markets - and your money.
Barry Ritholtz -
The consumption and production of energy is a major component of the global economy.
Barry Ritholtz -
Yearly data put the rest of the noise into perspective. Most of the weekly or monthly random up-and-down movements get smoothed out. Ultimately, this is where long-term investors should be focused.
Barry Ritholtz -
History shows us that people are terrible about guessing what is going to happen - next week, next month, and especially next year.
Barry Ritholtz
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Truth be told, most financial television bores me. Two or more people discussing the latest economic trends or hot stocks is not especially entertaining.
Barry Ritholtz -
Have a well-thought financial plan that is not dependent upon correctly guessing what will happen in the future.
Barry Ritholtz -
Never forget this simple truism: Forecasting is marketing, plain and simple.
Barry Ritholtz -
In New York, the former lack of real competition allowed taxis to extract excessive charges, regardless of the poor service.
Barry Ritholtz -
TV producers want ratings and are willing to do nearly anything to get them. They gin up artificial conflicts and create an urgency for even the most minor of economic data points.
Barry Ritholtz -
I credit Google for having the foresight to identify threats to its main business of selling advertising against search results. The potential loss of market share in the mobile space led them to the Android acquisition.
Barry Ritholtz
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Any Wall Street advertising that does not go into the boring details of methodology is most likely to be pushing past performance.
Barry Ritholtz -
The electronics industry expanded rapidly and the seeds for the semiconductor and software revolution were planted. The postwar period also saw the suburbanization of America, the rise of the homeowner, the build-out of the interstate highway system, and the rise of automobile culture. Credit availability expanded dramatically.
Barry Ritholtz -
Whenever you hear a discussion about the short-term swings in any given stock's price, your immediate thought should be whether it matters to why you are investing.
Barry Ritholtz -
Here is a dirty little secret: Stock-picking is wildly overrated. Sure, it makes for great cocktail party chatter, and what is more fun than delving into a company's new products? But the truth is that individual stocks are riskier than broad indices.
Barry Ritholtz