Q&A: With Steven Pinker the meta-optimistic author of Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science Humanism and Progress. (Scientific American)
Quote of the Day
"In all candor, many investors defeat themselves. They greed in and panic out of stocks, never making as much as they could, and losing more than they should. If you remember that fear is arguably one of the investor’s few friends in the markets, you will often find yourself on the right side of events."
(Steven M. Sears)
Chart of the Day

Emerging market relative underperformance (vs. the S&P 500) ended in early 2016.
Markets
- Why it's difficult to find much fault with recent corporate earnings. (fat-pitch.blogspot.com)
- Everything you need to know about this month's spike in the $VIX and resulting fall out. (mrzepczynski.blogspot.com)
Strategy
- Why your intuition about overall stock market valuations may be flawed. (blogs.wsj.com)
- Without a plan, it's easy to lose track of why we invest. (theirrelevantinvestor.com)
Kindle deals
- "The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice" by Trevor Corson is just $1.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
- "How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World" by Steven Johnson is just $1.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
- "The Startup Playbook: Founder-to-Founder Advice From Two Startup Veterans by Rajat Bhargava and Will Herman is just $0.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
- "The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology" by Simon Winchester is just $2.99 for the Kindle. (amazon.com)
Berkshire Hathaway
- The 2017 Berkshire Hathaway ($BRKA) shareholder letter is out. (berkshirehathaway.com)
- Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK.B) booked a big mark-to-market gain due to the new tax law. (nytimes.com)
- Some takeaways including takes on expensive stocks and the downside of leverage. (pragcap.com)
- Warren Buffett is fed up with high acquisition prices. (barrons.com)
Companies
- Dropbox has filed to go public. (recode.net)
- Tracking Buzzfeed's love/hate relationship with Facebook ($FB). (om.co)
Funds
Support
- Stay up-to-date with all of our posts: sign-up for our daily e-mail. (abnormalreturns.com)
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Global
Economy
- Just how monopolistic has the US economy become? (bloomberg.com)
- Why US men aged 25-54 are still not coming back to the workforce. (bloomberg.com)
- A succinct summary of the week's economic events. (ritholtz.com)
- The economic schedule for the coming week. (calculatedriskblog.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- Top clicks this week on the site. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Saturday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Longform links: the cult of convenience. (abnormalreturns.com)