Barry Ritholtz

Based on a lifetime of observations and a few decades in the markets, I understand that societies, beliefs and fashions all move in long arcs of time. We call these arcs several things: cycles, periods, eras.

People who work in specialized fields seem to have their own language. Practitioners develop a shorthand to communicate among themselves. The jargon can almost sound like a foreign language.

When it comes to investing, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all portfolio.

How are the cabs in your city? In Manhattan, where I work, they are rather awful.

The consumption and production of energy is a major component of the global economy.

You can blow on the dice all you want, but whether they come up 'seven' is still a function of random luck.

History shows us that people are terrible about guessing what is going to happen - next week, next month, and especially next year.

Good investors must learn to contextualize the daily background noise.

Investors tend to discover 'hot' mutual fund managers just after a successful run and just before the inescapable force of mean reversion is about to kick in.

Whenever you try to pick market tops and bottoms, you are making a prediction. Guessing what stock is going to outperform the market is forecasting, as is selling a stock for no apparent reason. Indeed, nearly all capital decisions made by most people are unconscious predictions.

In social media, people cannot build big followings organically unless what they are putting out to the world has value.

Yearly data put the rest of the noise into perspective. Most of the weekly or monthly random up-and-down movements get smoothed out. Ultimately, this is where long-term investors should be focused.

Hedge funds are not especially liquid. Many are 'gated' - meaning there are only small windows when you can withdraw your money. They typically have a high minimum investment and often require investors keep their money in the fund for at least one year.

In New York, the former lack of real competition allowed taxis to extract excessive charges, regardless of the poor service.

Twitter has become a group conversation of that type that used to take place on trading floors.

Hedge fund managers charge so much more than mutual fund managers; alpha is even harder to come by. They end up selling a variety of things beyond mere outperformance.

Despite all the media coverage, glitz and glam of hedge funds, they have not done well for their investors. They have high - some say excessively high - fees; their short- and long-term performance has been poor.

You, your employer and your plan's investment managers fail to follow even the most basic rules of investing. You overtrade, chase performance, do not think long term. All of you - All Of You - have done a horrible job managing your retirement plans.

If your investing approach requires that you become Nostradamus to succeed, then you are destined to fail.

Getting more and more of our news from the social network is having significant repercussions for markets - and your money.