The phrase “months of boredom punctuated by moments of terror” is more than a century old. You can find it in the New York Times’ “Current History of the European War,” published in 1915, as a description of infantry work in the trenches. The concept still applies to modern warfare today. It also applies to … Continued

John Maynard Keynes was not just a famous economist. He was also a world-class money manager and an inspiration to Warren Buffett. In the 1930s, one of Keynes’ best-ever investments was a concentrated position in South African gold stocks. With the threat of fiat currencies weakening dramatically in the coming years, as central banks go … Continued

Here is something that top-performing hedge fund managers know: Bearish positions in a portfolio can make it easier to hold bullish ones. In other words, if you have positions that are bearish — that benefit when markets fall — it can make it easier to maintain positions that are bullish (which tend to profit when … Continued

The auto manufacturing industry already had a bleak outlook. The prospect of prolonged trade war makes that outlook much worse. In fact, there is only one automaker that looks attractive right now — Ferrari (NYSE: RACE); all of the others look bearish. You can track the auto industry in general via CARZ, the global auto … Continued

In a speech to the House of Commons in 1948, Winston Churchill said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Churchill was paraphrasing the philosopher George Santayana. To elaborate the point, Churchill added: “We must always look forward, but we have to understand our history in order to not repeat the … Continued

Is there a buying opportunity in rare earth metals? Many would say yes, but you want to be careful. The smartest thing to do at this juncture is probably to stay away. The rare earth metals industry is mostly ignored. But every five to 10 years it captures public attention, producing wild boom-and-bust patterns as … Continued

Favorite-longshot bias is one of the most reliable behavior patterns in all of sports gambling. It applies to markets, too, which means most investors are impacted by it — including you and me. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing though. If you understand the concept of favorite-longshot bias and the key thing that … Continued

Zillow (Z) used to be a real estate portal that made its money from advertising. More than 180 million users would visit the Zillow site or mobile app each month, and real estate agents would pay Zillow to have their services displayed alongside home listings. Now Zillow is in the home-flipping business, which requires huge … Continued

On Wall Street and elsewhere, there is something called the “Winner’s Curse.” The winner’s curse applies when the winner of a bidding contest pays too much for an asset. This happens because, as a result of competitive bidding, the price required to win goes higher (sometimes much higher) than what the asset is worth. The … Continued

Against the odds, the U.S.-China trade war has escalated. This is bad news for companies and industries with significant exposure to China, like Apple and semiconductors. It’s a positive for areas of the market that benefit from currency wars and interest rate cuts, like gold and gold stocks. To briefly summarize, it appeared the trade … Continued