Cutting Through the Noise
March 20, 2014
The sun is shining. Flowers are blooming. And ideas are sprouting. It’s the first day of spring in Vancouver, and as our local brewery says (Granville Island), it’s good to be here. Leading thinkers, innovators and communicators have swarmed the city for the TED ...
Read MoreSeptember 10, 2013
I wrote last week about Canada’s consumer debt challenge and noted that the scary numbers were a risk to the Canadian economy, but that other factors, including global economic trends, would be more important drivers of our stock market. One...
Read MoreMarch 19, 2013
The latest edition of The Economist has a special report on America’s competitiveness, titled Cheer Up. It examines the areas which are the “source of the most hand-wringing” among observers: innovation, energy, education, immigration, infrastructure...
Read MoreJanuary 25, 2012
I’ve read a few interesting books lately on some of the top technology visionaries of our time. They include Paul Allen (Microsoft), Larry Page & Sergey Brin (Google) and Steve Jobs (Apple). The books were all good reads (Idea Man, In the Plex, and Steve Jobs)...
Read MoreSeptember 21, 2010
I admit it. I occasionally read Vanity Fair. This month’s edition is worth picking up. Not because Lindsay Lohan is on the cover, but because there’s an interesting piece by Michael Lewis on Greece. For those who aren’t familiar with Lewis...
Read MoreAugust 31, 2010
Roger Lowenstein’s latest article in The New York Times is a must-read. In Taking Stock, Lowenstein (a financial author and journalist) draws parallels between the investment environment and mindset of individual investors today to that of the 1970s...
Read MoreAugust 30, 2010
I recently finished reading False Economy – A Surprising Economic History of the World. Along with its New York Times Bestseller status and praise from all the usual suspects (The Washington Post, Financial Times, The Economist, etc.), I was intrigued...
Read MoreApril 27, 2010
Michael Lewis has a talent for writing about financial issues in a provocative and colorful manner. Having worked as a bond salesman for Salomon Brothers in the 1980s, he leans on his experiences and lessons learned on Wall Street to bring his readers...
Read MoreDecember 2, 2009
If this month is like previous years, the content in the business publications and industry research will get less and less relevant as we move towards the New Year. Around Christmas the papers and on-line sources will be peppered with fluffy year-end pieces...
Read MoreJune 16, 2009
Panic is a compilation of articles that shed light on the most severe upheavals in recent financial history – the crash of ’87, the Russian default and subsequent collapse of Long Term Capital Management, the Asian currency...
Read MoreDecember 2, 2008
Aside from having one of the great names in the business, Barton Biggs is a renowned hedge fund manager and author of the popular book Hedgehogging . Biggs is a great thinker and investor, and in the words of David ...
Read MoreNovember 29, 2008
Over the last few months, I’d been avoiding the horrific tales of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market. I’d read and heard enough. It was ‘so last year’. But this week a friend alerted me to a treatise by Michael Lewis on ...
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