"Whenever you try to pick market tops and bottoms, you are making a prediction. Guessing what stock i..." — 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.