This was my first time attending the Berkshire annual meeting.  I always thought I had a pretty good idea what the weekend entailed.   But it wasn’t until I went to Omaha and lived the experience that I was able to see it for what it really is – A Master Class in community, investing, business, […]

“It’s deja-vu all over again”  Some of you may recognize this as a quote from the one and only Yogi Berra.  Others of you may feel it should be the title slide for this year’s market.    You’re both right! Watch the business news on any given day and you will likely be left with the […]

What is something worth?  That’s a simple question without a simple answer.  You could argue that something is worth the value stated on the price tag, or the price the purchaser is willing to pay and a seller is willing to accept, or even the quantitative price plus an implied value for the associated qualitative […]

Predictability and consistency.  Who among us doesn’t thrive under such conditions?  Most of us like things we can count on.  We enjoy feeling as if we are in control of what comes next.  We don’t like unexpected surprises (good or bad).   2017 was such an environment for investors.  A welcome calm passage in the investing […]

View fullsize Market pullbacks.  We certainly didn’t miss them when they were seemingly on vacation in 2017 –  a year in which the S&P 500 rose 19% and did so with only 8 days of +/- 1% moves and a maximum intra-year drawdown of 3%.   January 2018 seemed to indicate that we were in for another […]

Mirror Lake, at the start of my Yosemite backpacking trip I covered a lot of hiking trail this year.  A 3-day backpacking trip in Yosemite (with ~3,000 feet of vertical elevation gain),  a one-day 30 mile hike in Devil’s Lake for Cystic Fibrosis, desert hikes in Arizona, and a multi-day fall getaway to Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, and […]