Barry Ritholtz

Narrative drives most of economics. Everything seems to be part of a story, and how that story is told often leads to critical error.

TV producers want ratings and are willing to do nearly anything to get them. They gin up artificial conflicts and create an urgency for even the most minor of economic data points.

We love a tale of heroes and villains and conflicts requiring a neat resolution.

Any Wall Street advertising that does not go into the boring details of methodology is most likely to be pushing past performance.

Active management leads to lots of poor investor behavior. It sends people chasing after whoever has the hot hand at the moment.

People forget that although we can pinpoint the price, we can only guess at future earnings. The past isn't much help: It simply tells whether a market was pricey or cheap.

You, your employer and your plan's investment managers fail to follow even the most basic rules of investing. You overtrade, chase performance, do not think long term. All of you - All Of You - have done a horrible job managing your retirement plans.

In New York, the former lack of real competition allowed taxis to extract excessive charges, regardless of the poor service.

Yearly data put the rest of the noise into perspective. Most of the weekly or monthly random up-and-down movements get smoothed out. Ultimately, this is where long-term investors should be focused.

Twitter has become a group conversation of that type that used to take place on trading floors.

Whenever I see a forecast written out to two decimal places, I cannot help but wonder if there is a misunderstanding of the limitations of the data, and an illusion of precision.

Returnless risk' is not how you prepare for a decent retirement.