As a child I used to love playing monopoly, which I had not done for years, but the other day, while braaing with friends, I re-discovered my monopoly board and could not resist the temptation. My friend Emil and I
Don’t only trust your instincts
Happiness
According to Barry Schwartz, American psychologist, “the secret to happiness is low expectations”. Expanding on the idea of happiness it seems like our happiness is more of a relative story than anything else. We are very happy with our new
Investment yarns result in high prices and lousy returns
According the author of the award-winning book Homo Sapiens the success of humankind over other species came from the ability to work together and the secret to this togetherness came from the ability to tell stories, which we could all
Make room for ambiguity too
As investors we hate ambiguity, we want certainty, which is why we dislike the idea of randomness. We want our advisors / managers to know exactly what is going on. Financial experts must speak confidently and explain what is driving
My crystal ball predicts far better returns for the next five years
As it turns out my crystal ball really works. Unfortunately, I only realise that now after going through all my articles written in 2013 when I correctly predicted the lousy returns of the last 5 years. Of course, nobody wanted
Study shows SA globally misconstrued
The World Economic Forum published research, which shows SA to have the highest misperception score in the world in respect of people’s incorrect perception of what is going on versus reality. Like any statistic there is a risk of
Please be more astute in reading the cycles
As a 20 year old backpacker hitchhiking through Europe I had planned to run with the Bulls in Pamplona Spain, unfortunately I never made it to Spain. But thinking back as a fearless or stupid youngster this was probably a
Financial advisors also act like preachers
At gym the other day a local minister mentioned that he regularly read my article. He questioned me on the difficulty of selecting a new topic each week. His passing words were, “at least you know how we ministers feel
Market irrationality requires cool heads
“Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy” Warren Buffett The big financial institutions have just released their economic forecasts for 2018 and what do you know they are extremely bullish with a consensus view of
Rational investors sit it out
For this week’s article I am going to ask you to pretend you are living in a make-believe world, which shouldn’t be too hard, just follow our supreme leaders example by living in denial until you believe your own lies;