Barry Ritholtz

The ability to select stocks, manage them over time and know when to sell them is incredibly difficult, even for professional fund managers. ”

Once you research an idea, you begin to develop a perspective. Writing about anything in public, often in real time, has helped fashion my views. ”

Little white lies are told by humans all the time. Indeed, lying is often how we get through each day in a happy little bubble. We spend time and energy rationalizing our own behaviors, beliefs and decision-making processes. ”

Based on a lifetime of observations and a few decades in the markets, I understand that societies, beliefs and fashions all move in long arcs of time. We call these arcs several things: cycles, periods, eras. ”

I have been a member of the Microsoft-bashing society for quite some time. ”

Any time you speak to people about their posture, you learn about their most recent investment activity. When someone just bought stocks, they tend to be bullish; someone who just sold is bearish. ”

Secular cycles are the long periods - as long as decades - that come to define each market era. These cycles alternate between long-term bull and bear markets. ”

A hedge fund manager whose clients demand monthly performance reports has different needs than any individual investors with a 20-year time horizon. The needs of that long-term investor differ markedly from someone who is retiring in three years. ”

Most of the time, economic data is fairly benign. I don't wish to imply it is meaningless, but it is not a driver of stock markets. Indeed, the correlation between economic noise and how equity markets perform has been wildly overemphasized. ”

If you have read me for any length of time, you know I am less than enthralled with much of what passes for financial news. ”