The Nobel in Economics: Another Bubble?
Am I the only person in the world to be wondering about the recent prize in economics? How they awarded it to 3 different people (to wit Lars Peter Hansen, Eugene F. Fama and Robert J. Shiller) with totally different theories and approaches? I mean, which one was right? Aren’t the Nobels supposed to be […]
Behavioral Accounting Transforms Green Eye-Shades into Empathic Intuitors?
So you haven’t heard of behavioral accounting? Wow you haven’t lived! It does exist and it has generally been defined as accounting for the differential impact of behaviors on the value of an organization. But I have a different perspective on behavioral accounting. As in, how does the behavior of the preparer of an accounting document […]
Make Behavioral Finance Useful – Alternative Investment Application is the Next Big Thing
So behavioral finance is hot these days. Authors such as Nouriel Roubini and Malcolm Gladwell have popularized it with the Great Unwashed. And academics are starting to catch on too, so that’s progress. The problem is that for all its intellectual fecundity, behavioral finance suffers from a major problem. That is, that it hasn’t been […]
The Calpers’ Hedge Fund Fiasco: The Solution They Missed
I guess you noticed that Calpers has just ditched investing in hedge funds. The official line was that it was too complicated. The truth of the matter was that it didn’t work. . That tells us a lot about hedge funds and investing generally and you know I am going to draw my own conclusions from […]
“Lean In” The Sequel: Are Women More Profitable than Men?
Many wise words have been penned about women in leadership. Most of them focus on the work-life balance, the glass ceiling and the leadership characteristics of women as distinct from men. But what about women’s profitability performance versus men? Why wouldn’t we be interested in that? Ever heard of a women investment manager? Yeah, I […]
Are the Financial Guys in Private Equity Failing Due To Over-Reliance On Financials?
I guess you’ve noticed all the comment and analysis about private equity doing worse than the S&P or at least not doing better? Seems that while PE has done much better than the S&P over a 10 year period, over the past 5 years they have been way behind. But alternative investments are supposed to beat the […]
Genetic Testing to Behavioral Predestination: Can Neuroscience Predict Lifetime Outcomes?
So now genetic testing has become de rigueur amongst the jet set, the biological equivalent of Google Glass. As well it might be since Google has invested in this area also (is there anything that Google hasn’t invested in?). What does this mean for everyone else? Well there was a time there when it looked like once […]
Business Acumen and the Bitcoin Bubble
The Guardian newspaper in the UK just published an article “Is Bitcoin about to change the world?”. When I see articles like that, it’s a big red flag; like appearing as Man or Woman of the Year on the cover page of Time magazine, which seems to always come before a fall The price of […]
Does an MBA mean less profitability?
OK so I know this is heresy. An MBA is supposed to mean you are very sophisticated in business and of course you will make more profits right? So how come all the MBAs, quants, and Nobel laureates in economics and finance in Wall Street almost capsized the Western financial system in 2008? And LTCM […]
Is Innovation a form of Business Acumen?
The history of science is littered with the carcasses of things we found out in unexpected places. Such as Sir Alexander Fleming finding penicillin in a “failed” experimental dish consisting of mold that was thought to be an accident and of no use. Currently you might have heard of another example in the medical field; […]