Barry Ritholtz, Columnist

A Tweetstorm That Every Investor Should Read

A Wall Street veteran makes the case for acknowledging our ignorance.

May 11, 2018 at 5:00 PM UTC

Barry Ritholtz is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

At least be aware.
Source: Bettmann/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Yesterday, James O’Shaughnessy posted a long and intriguing tweetstorm about investor ignorance. O'Shaughnessy is the chairman and founder of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC, and the author of the classic investing book “What Works on Wall Street.”136 The thread is worth reading from start to finish.

This post, as regular readers know, was about one of my favorite subjects. To be more precise, it was about our own lack of understanding of own lack of understanding. From the original work by Daniel Kahneman and Amor Tversky, as laid out in their famous 1974 paper "Judgment under Uncertainty," to the Dunning-Kruger concept of metacognition -- the specific skill needed to recognize one’s own skill set -- this foible continues to be of great importance to investors.