The Transparent Advisor

by Danno It's been reported by TMZ and confirmed by numerous others that Kobe Bryant, his 13 year-old daughter Gianna, and 7 others passed away in a helicopter crash on Sunday.  I've been a Lakers fan since I first laid eyes on Magic Johnson and the Showtime Lakers in the mid-80's.  The 1990's were tough for Lakers fans until Kobe Bryant arrived on the scene, and Kobe was my guy for the better part of 2 decades.   No doubt you will have read or heard the basic outline of his legendary athletic accomplishments and the young family he left behind by now.  What you might not know is that his athleticism may have been exceeded by his mind, and that he might have been able to accomplish more in his after-basketball life than he did in the NBA.  We'll never know.   Check out this interview with Lewis Howes and Kobe just last year   Kobe Bryant: Mamba Mentality .   image from Alan Berezovsky + Getty Images on elle.com Legal Disclosure:  This is not Investment Adv

by Danno When I shake one die, I know that I have a 1-in-6 chance of rolling a 6, a 1-in-6 chance of rolling a 5, a 1-in-6 chance of rolling a 4, and on down the line.  It's just basic probabilities, right?  We all know that.  The odds are right there on the faces of the die.  My mind might sometimes trick me into thinking that shaking four 3's in a row means that my next one has a lower likelihood of being a 3, but the odds on the next shake remain 1-in-6.  In any 1 shake, 100% of the time it will land on a single number, so we might get one 1, and zero 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, and 6's on that shake.  In any one shake there is no predictability of which one will come up, but in a larger sample size it becomes very predictable.  Over 6,000 shakes, we can be fairly certain that we will be in the neighborhood of 1,000 of each number, but that it won't be exactly equal across all 6 possibilities.  It's important to know the odds of the game that you are p

The calendar has turned, and what a year it was!  Heck, what a decade it was!  U.S. stocks outperformed everything else, after being the worst asset class in the prior decade. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Past performance does not guarantee future results" ?  Well that can work in either direction.  I haven't had the opportunity to post recently, but here's what I'm reading about: Risk is What You Don't See  by Morgan Housel (this one is 5-stars!) 10 Things Investors Can Expect in 2020  by Ben Carlson The Investor's Fallacy: Why Markets are Never "Due" for Anything  by Nick Maggiulli Gradual Improvements Redux  by Michael Batnick 2020: What a Time to Be Alive  by Morgan Housel Where the Magic Happens in the Stock Market  by Ben Carlson Forget Happiness; Think Satisfaction  by Barry Ritholtz The Case for Global Investing  by Meb Faber What I Believe Least  by Morgan Housel Go Packers! ~Danno Legal Disclosure:  This is no