The Reformed Broker
thereformedbroker.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2009
Josh Brown, a Wall Street financial advisor, writes about markets, investing manias, and finance culture.
What HN saysCommenters recommend his podcast and posts, and HN links it for his takes on Wall Street, passive indexing, and valuation.
64HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
138stories submitted
1.4Kstory points
2 years agolast shared
2009people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Abundance5 people · 13 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 2When Everything That Counts Can’t Be Counted4 people · 84 points · first shared 2019 · 51 comments on HN
- 3Why they clapped for Sam Bankman-Fried3 people · 5 points · first shared 2022 · 1 comments on HN
- 4ChatGPT is everything you wanted Bitcoin to be3 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · 2 comments on HN
- 5The AI Bubble of 20232 people · 19 points · first shared 2023 · 4 comments on HN
- 6The post-crisis environment finally has its first true blue investment mania2 people · 2 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 7The Big Long – The Reformed Broker2 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 8Just own the damn robots1 people · 474 points · first shared 2017 · 342 comments on HN
- 9NYC Pension Earns $40M Over 10 Years, Pays Fund Managers $2B1 people · 173 points · first shared 2015 · 88 comments on HN
- 10Talk Less, Listen More1 people · 132 points · first shared 2020 · 29 comments on HN
- 11“A Mild Recession”1 people · 78 points · first shared 2022 · 114 comments on HN
- 12That Time Buffett Smashed the Efficient Market Hypothesis1 people · 69 points · first shared 2014 · 51 comments on HN
- 13Reverse Wealth Transfer on Steroids1 people · 52 points · first shared 2021 · 65 comments on HN
- 14Elizabeth Warren's Banking Sector Napalm1 people · 31 points · first shared 2019 · 8 comments on HN
- 15You weren’t supposed to see that1 people · 30 points · first shared 2022 · 23 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
ajsharp · 2021-01-30
Josh Brown starts the podcast episode released yesterday telling this story. It's a fantastic re-telling, highly recommend.
As he says repeatedly in the episode, "Wall Street always changes the rules."
https://thereformedbroker.com/2021/01/29/pigs-get-slaughtered-doing-th…
yarone · 2011-01-19
Large version of chart, here:
http://www.thereformedbroker.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/My-Favorit…
boysabr3 · 2018-01-04
If you're starting from scratch, I'd recommend this Khan academy course (it's short and sweet): https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/mone…
There's a lot more advanced stuff out there (as you can see in the other comments) that I would touch on once I have a rough overview.
A lot changes in the crypto world month-to-month, and so forums like Reddit and Twitter are usually the best to stay up to date. Unfortunately, there's a lot of useless chunder on these forums you'll have to learn to filter to get access to the quality stuff.
Personally, I avoid the fanboys/girls and like following people who are more critical of the space. Because of this, I've discontinued following r/Bitcoin on Reddit (I'm sure there're smart people out there—there was just too much I didn't agree with and decided to leave).
Some of my favorites today are:
- patio11 on Twitter
- prestonbyrne.com website and Twitter
- buttcoin on Twitter
- Tim Swanson (ofnumbers on Twitter)
- Bitfinexd on Twitter
- http://thereformedbroker.com/2017/11/27/it-just-got-real/
I know this is more of a crypto pessimist crowd but I tend to agree with their views way more than the rest of the herd. I think they're a lot more rational and highlight some great things to look out for.
I would encourage you to fish for some of the rational optimists as well. If anyone has recommendations, I'm all ears!
SnakePlissken · 2015-09-23
I believe the argument is along the following lines:
The more money that is placed into passive indexes (funds that merely attempt to track the performance of something like the S&P500 by owning a proportional, market cap weighted amount of each stock in the index), the less that is being actively managed by a human being or algorithm with the affect of price discovery.
With less 'players' in the game acting on their competing investment theses, inefficiencies are expected to widen. In other words, if AAPL is at price X on any given day, that price is the sum total of all buy and sell orders being placed. One can assume that even with a large portion of passive buying today, most involved in trading AAPL are trading on their own assessment of the true value of Apple's stock. If at some future point the majority of money in the market is simply passive/buy-and-hold, the price of AAPL (or any stock/wider index) will be less "efficient" because of the distortion in supply & demand created by an increase of mindless buy orders.
Some market watchers have attributed the abnormally placid bull tear of 09-present, at least in part, to this consistent buying. Josh Brown called it the relentless bid [0] and explained how the increased popularity of dollar cost averaging, scheduled index fund purchases, etc could be a major factor.
[0] http://thereformedbroker.com/2014/03/05/the-relentless-bid-explained/
nemothekid · 2019-07-18
How is anything valued today?
https://thereformedbroker.com/2019/06/13/when-everything-that-counts-c…
caffeine5150 · 2018-06-14
A negative take on one of Hussman's funds:
http://thereformedbroker.com/2017/09/05/when-the-hedge-is-worse-than-t…
flubert · 2016-09-13
Anyone have actual stats on homeownership vs. age? Here's one I was able to dig up, maybe someone's got something better. This seems to say that 21% of people under 25 own a house, and 32% of 25-29's own a house.
http://thereformedbroker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Screen-Shot-20…
teslabox · 2016-02-25
This is the post that businessinsider takes from:
http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/02/25/abundance/
Someone else submitted this earlier today:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11177389
Thanks for the link. Here's the quote I like:
"No one cares how many actual business models get wrecked in the process. How many useful jobs are lost in the process. The new fixed income or currency trader on Wall Street will never need health care, or take a vacation or grab a female co-worker’s ass. It’s a chip on a server. Much cheaper to employ, much easier to manage.
"Automate everything, outsource the rest – it’s cheaper for the customers. “But now there are no customers left, no one has the money to be a customer anymore.”
...
"“Let’s take a product or service that people used to charge for, make a worse version and give it away for free!” Why would we do that? “Bro down.”"
PhantomGremlin · 2016-01-16
I keep saying similar things. Unfortunately, everyone is enamored with Bitcoin. But what they really want is a lower friction way of electronic money transfer. What they don't want is for their savings to be easily stolen.
"You know what's cooler than a million dollars? Virtual currency backed by nothing and nobody."
Here's Bitcoin explained using a Venn diagram. If you don't understand this diagram, you're the ideal Bitcoin user.
http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2013/11/20/bitcoin-likely-users-venn-…
umarmung · 2011-11-24
Epic Groupon poem, especially for those who do not understand why this is price action is happening!
http://www.thereformedbroker.com/2011/10/30/groupoem/
Here are the first three verses as a teaser:
Gather round, dear investors, and hear all about
The worst IPO that has ever come out
It's hitting this week if the stars align right
But only the foolish would look for a bite
---
For Groupon is now past the peak of its glory
Its promising start a well-known story
Of youthful intensity, vision and zeal
Of crafting the perfect consumer-led deal
---
City by city, Groupon grew like a weed
Positioned as marketing for the small biz in need
Coupons for shoes and coupons for socks
Offers for Lasik and half-off on Crocs