Author Archives: philosophicalecon@gmail.com

In late December of 2010, with the S&P 500 pushing through the mid 1200s on the heels of QE2 exuberance, my favorite financial economist–the great Robert Shiller–made what will likely turn out to be a very inaccurate prediction.  To be … Continue reading →

Last week, CNBC profiled the inspirational story of Ronald Read, a gas station attendant and janitor from Vermont who amassed an $8MM fortune simply by investing portions of his small salary into high-quality, dividend-paying U.S. equities. Judging from the familiar … Continue reading →

In this piece, I’m going to show that the profit margin expansion seen in the U.S. corporate sector over the last two decades has been driven largely by gains in the financial and technology sectors.  I’m then going to examine arguments … Continue reading →

In the previous piece, I offered a definition of the investment concept of “intrinsic value.” Intrinsic value is the value that the owner of a security realizes from holding the security, rather than selling it. To determine the intrinsic value … Continue reading →

James Osborne of Bason Asset Management recently published an excellent critique of the investment concept of “Intrinsic Value.”  I urge readers to take a minute and go check it out.  In this piece, I’m going to try to tackle a question … Continue reading →

In the first century, the historian Plutarch introduced a famous philosophical paradox.  The paradox goes like this.  A ship–“The Ship of Theseus”–was returning home to Athens from Crete.  As it sailed, the wooden planks that made up its structure gradually … Continue reading →

Judging from the financial headlines, we live in a world where everyone sucks at investing. Hedge funds?  Consistent underperformers: this year, last year, the year before that, the year before that, the year before that.  Every year, it seems.  Just google … Continue reading →

(Much thanks to the must follow @ElliotTurn for valuable help and feedback in the development of these charts and tables) In this piece, I’m going to present a series of charts and tables that seek to efficiently convey the state … Continue reading →

‘Tis the season for corrections, and so we ask, how often do they occur historically?  To answer the question, we need to precisely define the the term “correction.”  If the stock market falls 20% in a straight line, most of … Continue reading →

In this piece, I’m going to share a few charts on the state of investment around the world. The data is taken from FRED, and shows the percentage change in trailing twelve month real gross fixed capital formation from 1Q … Continue reading →