Do you consider yourself calm and rational? Cool under pressure? Master of your domain? Think again. According to Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman we make 95% of our decisions emotionally and subconsciously. It’s after we’ve made decisions that we try to rationalize them with logic. Luxury goods are a prime example. The manufacturers of luxury goods [...]
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Nice quote. Here it is in full: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness. Oscar Wilde I’m not about to suggest that I’m great or that Apollo clients are mediocre. I will admit, however, that it’s flattering when clients use my quotes. [...]
Americans love sports. Why? The reasons are seemingly endless. A popular feature is certainty. At the end of the game there’s a clear winner and loser. Along with certainty comes fairness. We want what’s “right.” What else explains instant replay? Americans loves politics. Why? The reasons are seemingly endless. A popular feature is certainty. At [...]
Carl Icahn is considered by many a great investor. He likely considers himself an activist investor. The truth is he’s someone who takes control positions in corporations and uses them as leverage to agitate for activity that unlocks short-term shareholder value. Since we never want to let facts get in the way of a good [...]
On Wednesday the Internal Revenue Service announced tax year 2020 annual inflation adjustments. Impacts are negligible as if often the case. A detailed description of all adjustments is available in Revenue Procedure 2019-44. Those impacting the majority of taxpayers include: The standard deduction for taxpayers filing MFJ increases from $24,400 (tax year 2019) to $24,800. [...]
Today the Social Security Administration (“SSA”) announced that the cost of living adjustment (“COLA”) for 2020 will be 1.6%. The 2019 and 2018 COLAs were 2.8% and 2.0% respectively marking the 2020 change as a slowing of the rate of increase. Conversely it’s an improvement over years such as 2010, 2011 and 2016 when the [...]
We hope you enjoy the q2 letter from Ron Baron. Another gem from another of our fav reads. Interesting to note Baron Capital’s preference for businesses that focus on the LT instead of daily, weekly, quarterly or annual targets and how that LT focus produces excellent results. Wonder how many individual investors speculators can say [...]
Join host Mike Norton of the Harvard Business School and economist Allison Schrager as they explore the many forces that influence our relationships with money. Episode #1 - Is it Logical to be Irrational About Money?: Why do our brains seem hard-wired to skew our decisions and lead us astray? Host Mike Norton explores how [...]
OK, uninformed is a bit reckless. We don’t mean uninformed in the literal sense. We’re speaking relatively. What we really mean is that advice from people outside of the fields of business, investing and economics is rather helpful when making decisions that have business, economic and societal impacts. In this spirit we queried folks working [...]
To paraphrase a smart quote about Trump the public takes him seriously but not literally whereas the media takes him literally but not seriously. The former explains his election – the latter the existence of his antagonists. Exceptions? Sure. There are people who hang on his every word and take to social media to voice [...]