MICHEL PIREU: Old TV series are your Friends in Twilight Zone of the market
Classics have lessons for retail investors about diversification, surprises and noble rescuers
Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman Charlie Munger advises students to cultivate multidisciplinary thinking. "I went through life practising the multidisciplinary approach," he tells them, "and that made it more fun, more constructive, and it made me enormously rich." Getting enormously rich while having more fun doing something different is the sort of advice one can relate to, so last week I stopped watching Bloomberg and began watching reruns of old television series to see if they held any lessons for the retail investor, starting with Star Trek. After all, who wouldn’t want to be more like Spock when it comes to investing: logical to a fault, never losing his cool and thus able to make unemotional decisions in the face of great stress. "But while the creature we study in traditional economics is similar to Spock, who found humans to be odd creatures with peculiar weaknesses," says Richard Thaler, "the world is full of people that are more like Homer Simpson — a little chubby, with...
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Subscribe now to unlock this article.
Support BusinessLIVE’s award-winning journalism for R129 per month (digital access only).
There’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in SA. Our subscription packages now offer an ad-free experience for readers.
Cancel anytime.
Questions? Email helpdesk@businesslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00. Got a subscription voucher? Redeem it now.