When looking at the ideal time to buy or sell stocks, the investor must consider the asymmetric reward/risk relationship of each opportunity. This post touches on understanding asymmetric risk and reward in the stock market. Essentially, the concept is around...

Identifying exceptional managerial ability is far from a scientific process with there being few objective and reliable tests of managerial competence, and the disciplined investor must resist the urge to invest in enterprises run by self-serving managers and...

The financial game is a wild space and when playing in that world it’s important to understand the difference between an investor and a speculator – both of which have drastically different views and long/short-term goals. This post touches more on that. First and...

As investors ourselves and consultants that guide financial institutions around the world, one question we often get is around the primary function of the market and how that relates to creating liquidity. And in reality, the market creates this liquidity by creating...

Many hedge funds are successful because they stick to their guns, focus on the strategies that produced returns in the past, and are savvy enough to see emerging trends and what’s likely to happen around the next turn. And that’s where hiring consultants comes into...

Family offices inherently operate in a bubble and one they’ve created with much success, however what we’ve seen over the years is how operating in such bubbles can many times inhibit the success/growth of family offices, so we wanted to drop this blog post. First and...

Unlike conventional financial institutions, family offices are a unique animal where the main focus is to preserve generational wealth in the smartest, most strategic ways that allow the legacy to live on, and many times it’s helpful for family offices to bring in...

At the Practical Contrarian we are always watching the markets and when Tim Cook sold 13% of his Apple stock for $88 million ($42M after taxes) we noticed a lot of questions buzzing on Reddit, Twitter and the internet in general. So why did Tim Cook sell a portion of...

With all the recent clamoring over new IPOs in 2023 like Instacart and Arm Holdings, it is paramount that we remember that for every IPO like Microsoft or Apple that turns out to be a winner, there are thousands of losers. Historically IPOs have been terrible...