Learn the why. Not just the what.
Investing fundamentals, market logic, and the discipline behind good decisions.
Long-Term Capital Management 1998: When Genius Failed
The 1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management, run by Nobel Prize-winning economists, remains one of the most-studied case studies in financial risk. Understanding what happened provides essential lessons.
Japan 1989: Lessons from a 30-Year Bear
The Nikkei 225 peaked at 38,957 in December 1989 and did not surpass that level until 2024 — a 34-year period. Understanding the specific dynamics is one of the most instructive lessons in modern market history.
SVB and the 2023 Regional Bank Crisis
The March 2023 failure of Silicon Valley Bank and the associated regional banking stress was one of the most significant banking events since 2008. Understanding what happened is essential to reading modern financial stress dynamics.
The 2022 Rate Shock: 60/40's Worst Year
The traditional 60/40 stock/bond portfolio produced one of its worst years in modern history in 2022. Understanding the specific mechanism reveals important lessons about the assumptions embedded in the framework.
The COVID Crash and V-Shape Recovery
The February-March 2020 market decline was one of the fastest bear markets in history. The subsequent recovery was equally rapid. Understanding what happened in both directions is one of the more instructive recent case studies.
The 2014-2016 Oil Crash
The oil price decline from $107 in June 2014 to $26 in February 2016 was one of the largest commodity price collapses in modern history. The mechanism was specific to a technology-driven supply shock that OPEC misread.
The 2010 Flash Crash: When Liquidity Vanishes
On May 6, 2010, the Dow lost nearly 1,000 points in minutes before recovering. The event exposed vulnerabilities in market structure that continue to influence how modern markets are regulated and monitored.
The 2008 Global Financial Crisis
The 2008 crisis is the reference episode for modern financial system risk. Understanding what actually broke — and how the response prevented a worse outcome — is the essential context for reading any modern credit event.
The Dot-Com Bust: Growth Without Cash Flow
The 2000–2003 tech bear market erased 78% of the Nasdaq. The mechanism was specific: valuations that required cash flow that never arrived, in a rate environment that turned unforgiving.
Silver Thursday and the Danger of Cornering Markets
How the Hunt brothers' attempt to corner the silver market in 1980 collapsed in a single session, illustrating the risks of leverage and concentration.
Black Monday 1987: A Structural Cascade
The Dow lost 22.6% in a single day on October 19, 1987 — the largest single-day decline in the exchange's history. The mechanism was less about news and more about interacting market structures under stress.
The Nifty Fifty: When Blue Chips Became a Bubble
In the early 1970s, a small group of large-cap growth stocks was widely believed to be a one-decision holding — buy and never sell. The unwinding that followed is one of the most instructive episodes in modern equity history.
The Great Depression: Deflation and the Debt Spiral
The 1929–1932 collapse is the reference episode for every modern central bank. Understanding what actually broke — and what didn't — is the key to reading policy responses today.
Tulip Mania: What the First Famous Bubble Actually Teaches
Tulip mania is invoked constantly as the archetypal bubble, yet modern scholarship suggests the economic damage was limited. The real lesson lies in how the story itself became distorted.
The South Sea Bubble: When Sophistication Offers No Protection
The South Sea Company's rise and collapse in 1720 demonstrated that intelligence, education, and even mathematical genius provide no protection against the pressure of watching others grow rich.
The Crash of 1929: How Long a Recovery Can Take
The market decline that began in 1929 took the Dow down nearly ninety percent and did not reclaim its prior peak for twenty-five years. It is the clearest available answer to how long an investor may have to wait.
The Nifty Fifty: When Great Companies Are Not Great Investments
The Nifty Fifty of the early 1970s were sound businesses purchased at prices that assumed permanence. The episode remains the clearest demonstration that quality and value are separate questions.
Black Monday 1987: A Fall Without a Cause
The largest single-day percentage decline in American market history occurred without any identifiable triggering event, and much of it was recovered within two years.
Japan's Asset Bubble: When a Recovery Takes Thirty Years
Japan's asset bubble and its long aftermath demonstrate that the assumption of eventual recovery, while broadly supported by history, offers no guarantee about timing.
Long-Term Capital Management: The Limits of Brilliance
LTCM's 1998 collapse showed how leverage converts a temporary and improbable market movement into permanent ruin, regardless of the sophistication behind the positions.
The Dot-Com Bubble: Right About the Technology, Wrong About the Price
The technology bubble of the late 1990s demonstrates that being right about a transformative trend provides no protection whatever against paying too much to participate in it.
Trading Frequency and Returns: What Sixty Thousand Households Revealed
Research examining real brokerage accounts found that the most active traders earned substantially less than the least active, and that the gap was largely explained by the costs of activity itself.
The Disposition Effect: Selling Winners and Keeping Losers
The disposition effect is the documented tendency to realise gains too readily and to hold losses too long. It is driven by the reluctance to admit a mistake rather than by any analysis.
The Gap Between a Fund's Return and Its Investors' Returns
Studies consistently find that the returns investors actually earn fall short of the returns their funds produced, because of when they buy and sell. The gap is a measure of self-inflicted cost.