One of the concepts in academic economics which seems to obviously false in the real world is the idea that firms in a competitive market will earn “economic profits” of zero. An oversimplified version of that would be to say that after subtracting out all economic costs, including opportunity costs, there is no advantage of […]
I prefer to be as sector agnostic as possible when investing, but when pressed, I admit that healthcare is one of my preferred industries to invest in. While sensitive to regulation and high professional service fees, healthcare is something humans have always needed, are likely to always need, which technology has made enormously higher in […]
Today’s chart in the sectors category plots what would happen if you only invested in either bank stocks or REITs, rather than the overall market. Financial analysis and accounting courses often treat financials separately, because financials like banks and insurance companies don’t really have “revenue” like other businesses do, and REITs are more about assets […]
At times like these, after a high growth sector like technology, telecom, computers, or railroads has had an amazing decade of high performance and high valuations, it is natural to ask whether it makes sense to invest in more “boring” sectors of the stock market like utilities and consumer staples. Today’s chart in the sectors […]
Investing in technology is definitely exciting, but it is just as definitely difficult and uncertain which technology companies will become exponentially profitable and which will simply die. Today’s chart in the sectors category is titled “A tale of two tech funds” plotting the dramatically different performance between two of the oldest technology sector funds from […]
Airlines have notoriously been a terrible sector to invest in, being capital hungry and fiercely competitive among other hazard, but represent some of the many international brands most easily remembered by those who enjoy travel as much as I do. Perhaps one reason we know their brands so well is because brand wars are so […]