Macro perspective on capital markets, economy, geopolitics, and technology from Barry Ritholtz.
I’m categorically against self-checkout. I mean I’m already doing all the work. But it’s even worse, the machines are so theft-avoidant that you’ve got to follow a specific routine, not only scanning the item, but placing it on a platform to register its weigh…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Trump and prediction markets are building a society of suckers: The gamification of everything — politics, policy, sports — is producing a population that confuses betti…
This week, I speak with Lori Heinel, Global Chief Investment Officer at State Street Investment Management. We discuss her unlikely journey from majoring in religious studies at Princeton to working in finance and investing. She tells us about her role as CIO…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • On Quality: An ode to Pirsig: What quality is and how it is degraded. Every investigation I’ve published documents the same…
Overnight, the Trump Administration announced a new, massive set of tariffs, claiming authorization by Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The full list of the 60 countries tariffs were levied on is at The Independant. These are as likely unlawful as the IEE…
My end-of-week morning reads: • The Credit Market Lens: Rich Spreads, Cheap Treasuries, and an Incomplete Explanation: The evolution of credit spreads remains driven primarily by credit fundamentals, investor risk appetite, flows, and broader market technicals…
I have been fortunate to get to know Joe Davis, chief economist at investing giant Vanguard, over the years. He has been on MiB a few times, and I have referenced his research many times. I had been to the VG campus a few times before — once to interview Jack…
My morning reads: • Tesla’s Cratering Cybertruck Sales Evoke Ford Edsel Comparisons: Both automakers expected consumers to buy hundreds of thousands of their futuristic models per year. Tesla’s pickup is missing the mark by a wider margin. (Bloomberg) • Bitcoi…
At The Money: Investing in Wheat (July 22, 2026) Do you want to own a core food staple as a geopolitical hedge, an inflation offset, or simply as a diversifier? There’s an ETF for that! Full transcript below. ~~~ About this week’s guest: Sal Gilbertie began tr…
My mid-week morning reads: • Prediction Markets Are Minting a New Type of Insider Trader: Sites like Polymarket were built to price uncertainty. New data shows they might be rewarding privileged knowledge instead. (Businessweek free) • Treasury Flags Concern O…
We are all systematically blind to how often things fail. A 2025 research paper, titled The Failure Gap, goes into great detail about this. The paper’s authors reviewed over 30 “life domains”; they determined that failure occurs about 61% of the time. But ask…
My morning train reads: • Why Most Portfolios Are Under Diversified: QuantPedia’s data-driven case that even portfolios that look diversified aren’t — correlation spikes during stress, factor overlap, and the illusion of spreading risk. (QuantPedia) • How to F…
The transcript from this week’s MiB: Jason Wenk, Altruist founder and CEO, is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of our earlie…
My early Monday morning reads: • 2% of What? Redefining inflation is not the way to achieve price stability. Warsh confirmed that 2% is the target level, but he did not, and has not, confirmed that PCE prices are the yardstick. Aside from reading out results f…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • Inside Nokia’s Race to Catch the iPhone and Android Wave: IEEE Spectrum’s oral history of Nokia’s doomed attempt to compete with the smartphone revolution — a masterclas…
This week, I speak with Jason Wenk, founder and CEO of Altruist, a modern custodian for independent financial advisors. We discuss why Jason started the company and his plans to change asset management through technology. He weighs in on the state of RIAs, and…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • The American E.V. Has Been Crushed. Will It Take the U.S. Auto Industry With It? The largest U.S. automakers have backed aw…
Perhaps the question I hear asked most often is: “Are we in a bubble?” and “What’s happening with this artificial intelligence thingie?” I picked a few of my favorite charts that shed light on this issue. All of these were pulled from my Q3 Review & Update qua…
My end-of-week morning reads: • Wall Street Traders Are Having Their Best Year Ever: JPMorgan, Goldman and other big banks are raking in trading revenue this year as “the market is clearly extremely risk-on.” (Wall Street Journal) • Robotaxi Riders Are Falling…
I have been busy on a few projects, most of which are wrapping up. Blogging has been light, but I have some fun things teed up in the near future. I wanted to come out of hiding to share a few recent media mentions of “How Not to Invest,” along with a broader……
My morning train WFH reads: • What Americans Need to Understand About China: Ezra Klein interviews former Australian PM Kevin Rudd — one of the West’s most fluent China hands — on the gaps in American understanding that keep producing bad policy. (New York Tim…
At The Money: When Should Do-It-Yourself Investors Fire Themselves? (July 15, 2026) DIY investors have been a force in the market, pouring trillions into indexing and remaking asset management. But at a certain point in their lives, their needs become more com…
My mid-week morning train WFH reads: • Developers Are In On The Joke: Apologize Later: Jonathan Miller on developers who build first and beg forgiveness after. The oldest play in real estate. NYC Development Legend Harry Macklowe’s Midnight Demolitions (Housin…
The transcript from this week’s, MiB: McKeel Hagerty, CEO and Chairman of Hagerty , is below. You can stream and download our full conversation, including any podcast extras, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube (video), YouTube (audio), and Bloomberg. All of o…
My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads: • Gold’s Faithful Think Twice as Prices Slide From Record Highs: The metal declined again Monday after the U.S. and Iran traded a fresh round of attacks. Gold slides off record highs and the faithful are wobbling. No…
My back-to-work morning train WFH reads: • War Leaves Economy With More Stubborn Inflation, In latest Journal survey, economists have lowered the probability of recession but see inflation staying higher longer. The Iran conflict is embedding higher costs into…
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • It’s a World-Class Investment. It’s a Junk Investment. What Is Going On With SpaceX? The answer starts with Wall Street’s long-held distinction between “smart money” and…
This week, I speak with McKeel Hagerty, CEO and Chairman of Hagerty. We discuss how he transformed the family boat insurance business into a “sexy” driver-forward business. We also discuss our love of collectable cars and his love of his first car, a Porsche,…
The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads: • The Anti-Amazon. One brilliant feature of the Costco experience is, paradoxically, the constraint: as opposed to Amazon, wi…
My end-of-week morning reads: • Europe chose insurance. America chose growth. Europe and America chose different points on the efficiency-equity trade-off. That used to be a matter of preferences. It isn’t anymore. Visitors notice something else, even the ones…