What We’re Reading

Beliefs:

A total and complete stranger doesn’t have to share your investment beliefs. Doesn’t have to agree with your opinions about the right way to trade or the right investments to hold.

That difference in opinion is not a repudiation of your beliefs. It is not making a mockery of your philosophy. It’s not a challenge to your wisdom or a taunt about your positions. If you believe it to be, your mind is playing tricks on you. You’re not in a one on one competition with any other investor, unless you count the only real competitor – your own self.

Eliud Kipchoge:

He has a thing about celebrating, Kipchoge. Sees it as something sinister, something dangerous, a self-indulgent act that might derail his mindset, make him think, somewhere in his subconscious, that he has arrived, the inference being he has nowhere left to go.

Confidence:

The perennially insightful investment strategist Michael Mauboussin often references a famous study of horse race handicappers. They first asked the handicappers to make race predictions with 5 pieces of information for each horse in the race. Then they asked the handicappers to make the same predictions with 10, 20, and 40 pieces of information.The handicappers didn’t get any more accurate *with each additional piece of information, but they did get more *confident.

Attention:

Equipped with this knowledge, people decided that they didn’t want to spend their entire lives thinking about money. They wanted the Nothingness of Money to start earlier than the last few moments of their lives, so they could spend at least a few decades living without the attentional drain of their finances.

Vices:

Americans purchased more cigarettes last year, the first uptick in two decades, according to a new report released by the Federal Trade Commission.

The number of cigarettes purchased by wholesalers and retailers rose slightly, 0.4%, to 203.7 billion from 202.9 billion in 2019.

Have a good weekend.