Category: Investing
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Books read in 2015
Obviously I read far too few books this year. From the best to the least best: Ben Yagoda, The B-side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song A very interesting history of the evolution of popular American music, particularly with its insights in the twenty years following World War II. Tom […]
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Big themes at Morningstar Investment Conference 2012
Several themes emerged at last week’s Morningstar Investment Conference: Don’t panic 1: “It’s hard to imagine the Eurozone coming apart” (Michael Hasenstab, Franklin Templeton) Don’t panic 2: “For China to experience a hard landing would require two unlikely near-term events… a massive overtightening error, and a banking crisis” (Michael Hasenstab, Franklin Templeton) The best growth […]
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Neologisms
This “Keeping Our Word” campaign from Eagle Asset Management looks suspiciously (and coincidentally, I’m sure) like my “Neologisms” ads for Deloitte & Touche of nine years ago. I have to admit I’m a sucker for invented words, so I admire Eagle’s approach which consists of these new coinages: perfonomy — the addition of alpha through […]
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Fault Lines : Raghuram G. Rajan
Another take on the economic crisis: somewhat dry and academic but quite thorough. The most illuminating idea was a refinement of the distorted compensation incentives that poison Wall Street. Rajan’s idea is an employee’s performance bonus held in long-term escrow to ensure it does not blow up a too-big-to-fail bank employer within a year or […]
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Three ways to address innovation in business
Innovation is the big imperative of the next economy, many say. But so many things currently endemic to the American way of business impede the American way of innovation: Me-tooism. Every smartphone is playing catchup to the iPhone, which was innovative and creative. Any touch-based smartphone that follows, no matter how cool and incrementally beneficial, […]