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Five Good Questions Podcast

Welcome to Five Good Questions. I’m your host, Jake Taylor. Fact: the average American watches 5 hours of television per day. What would the world be like if we dedicated one of those hours to reading books instead? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out. So to inspire others to read more, I ask five good questions of interesting authors and share the results with you every Friday. Let’s see if together, we can’t rescue some of those lost hours. In addition to author interviews, we also publish "The Hikecast." The Hikecast is a show where interesting people take me on their favorite hikes or walks and we talk about big ideas in an unconstrained format.  No planned agendas, just deep conversations, recorded out in nature. The idea is for you to put on The Hikecast and get outside to simulate taking a hike with us.  I want you to feel like you're there with us out in nature.
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Now displaying: April, 2016
5GQ Season 2 Wrap Up 0
Apr 5, 2016

Wrapping up Season 2 of Five Good Questions.

Hi!

We hope you enjoyed Season 2 of Five Good Questions. I'm still in awe at the intellectual generosity of these amazing authors!

It's time for me to hit the road for shareholder meeting season. If you'll be in Toronto for Fairfax or in Omaha for Berkshire, shoot me an email or come up and say hi. I'd love to meet you and chat.

I'll also be traveling to China for a few weeks of exploring with my wife. We're evening doing a marathon on the Great Wall-- wish me luck!

I've already got a massive stack of books cued up for next season, and I may or may not be working on my own book. More details to follow...

Thank you again for supporting 5GQ's mission of creating more inspired readers.

5GQ Jason Zweig - The Devil's Financial Dictionary 0
Apr 1, 2016

Jason Zweig is an investing columnist at The Wall Street Journal and editor of Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor. He's also author of Your Money and Your Brain (2007), on the neuroscience and psychology of financial decision-making, and The Devil’s Financial Dictionary (2015), a satirical glossary of Wall Street jargon.


1. The entire book was written with tongue in cheek and there are some hilarious definitions. What inspired you to write a book of this nature?

2. I enjoyed the entry on the term “panic” and how it related in multiple ways to the Greek god Pan. Can you explain the multiple parallels that exist?

3. I like to imagine two intersecting continuums for intelligent investing. On one of them is a “be the casino” approach most like Joel Greenblatt vs. a highly concentrated, individual company research like how Charlie Munger ran his fund. On the second continuum you have an all-weather, always-invested-and-rebalancing approach most like Ray Dalio vs. a fear-and-greed, holding-cash-for-opportunities-approach of Seth Klarman. In which quadrant would you find yourself drawn to or at least want your money managed?
                                             [All Weather]

                                                      ↑

                            [Be the casino] ← → [Concentration]

                                                      ↓

                                          [Opportunistic]

 

4. I found it surprising to be reminded how much of the terminology of Wall Street is derived from gambling parlance. “Making a bet,” “blue chip,” etc. Do you believe that the markets are like large casinos or do they actually serve to allocate resources to worthy enterprises?

5. What is the one quality people should work hardest to cultivate in order to succeed as investors?

1