luck vs skill
What's more critical to investing success: luck or skill?
The idiocy of corporate jargon, the rise of the superbugs, and a lesson from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five are just some of the topics covered in this week's edition of Weekend Reads by Lauren Foster.
Back in 1991, when I was about halfway through a two-and-half year work-travel adventure that took me from Cape Town, South Africa, to mucking out stables on a horse farm in France, fruit-picking in Australia, and various stints in London, including staffing the front of house at a theater in the West End, I stumbled upon the late Oliver Sacks's wonderful book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
US stocks reached a notable milestone earlier this week when the bull market turned six years old. As Charlie Bilello of Pension Partners notes, only twice in its history has the S&P 500 Index recorded a better six-year stretch.
Here in Asia, speculation continues to swirl about China, with headlines portending doom: "rout deepens", "financial distress", and "bear market". Amid all of this, a Tibetan mastiff puppy reportedly sold in China for almost $2 million, prompting author and bubble watcher Vikram Mansharamani to tweet: "China bust coming?"
Don't fret. This is not the "self-help" edition of weekend reads, even though the headline might lead you to think so. It just so happens that luck versus skill, work (and it's evil twin overwork), and investor happiness are topics tackled in three separate articles.
The art of algorithmic war, GMO's latest quarterly letter, and why most back-tested performance histories are bunk.