To share or not to share that is the question. Shakespeare it is not), but when and if to share ideas is an important question.How so? Suppose you have a great idea. It is an idea that you think could make you much money. You are not sure however. On one hand it could be a bad idea. But to gauge how ... Read more

Behavioral Corporate Finance is the main topic in class tonight. Here are some of the links we will be discussing:Musings on Markets: Behavioral Corporate Finance 1: The Objective in Decision Making:: "When stock prices go up or down on the announcement of an action, there is some aspect of that act ... Read more

Q&A: Is Market Efficiency the Culprit? - Fama/French Forum: "Most investing is done by active managers who don't believe markets are efficient. For example, despite my taunts of the last 45 years about the poor performance of active managers, about 80% of mutual fund wealth is actively managed. ... Read more

The Hubris of Economics | The Big Picture:Barry Ritholtz discussing a WSJ piece ( Crisis Compels Economists To Reach for New Paradigm.) "...an intriguing look at the problems of the the field of economics. It went, however, way too easy on both the profession and its practitioners. The article fails ... Read more

Interesting take on Berhshire's takeover of Burlington Northern. I confess I did not consider this at all, but it makes sense. Buffett may be concerned that his successor would be left with a large cash holding that would have to be invested. This purchase, which fits his value investing mantra, eff ... Read more

Predictably Irrational: "...what do we do when we need to make decisions but making them “correctly” is too time consuming and difficult? We adopt simplifying rules, which academics call heuristics, and these heuristics provide us with actionable outcomes that might not be ideal but they help us ... Read more

Food for Grooming - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com: "New research indicates that in addition to exchanging goods and services, monkeys adjust exchange rates as supply changes. Ronald Noe, a primate ethnologist, measured the grooming behavior of vervet monkeys in southern and eastern Africa. Among t ... Read more

Common Objections to Capitalism - Art Carden - Mises Institute: "This article is based on Professor Carden's lecture 'Common Objections to Capitalism,' given at the 2009 Mises University Summer Program on July 30, 2009, and available as an MP3 download.A lot of people object to what they call "capit ... Read more

Active Management Loses in Risk Study - WSJ.com: "The study by Morningstar Inc. found that, over the past three years, while about half of actively managed funds outperformed their respective Morningstar indexes -- which cover the nine different Morningstar investment styles -- only 37% did on a ris ... Read more

(Lots of) Cash for Clunkers - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com: "Edmunds.com reports that its statistical analysis of the Cash for Clunkers program finds that the program generated only 125,000 extra new vehicle sales, meaning that the cost to the U.S. government was $24,000 for each of those new car ... Read more