The Rational Reminder Podcast
Evidence-based investment research, papers cited every episode and checkable, not a narrative investing show
1:06:42When a Nation Loses the World Cup, Its Stock Market Falls the Next Day
Research tracking over 1,000 World Cup knockout matches found that fan emotion causes next-day domestic stock markets to drop roughly 0.5%, showing that prices are driven not only by fundamentals but also shaped by emotion.
1:06:11Daily rebalancing of leveraged ETFs was wrongly blamed: volatility drag is the true culprit
Multiple recent studies overturn the old claim that leveraged ETFs underperform over time due to daily resets; the true drag on returns comes from the underlying assets' volatility, not the rebalancing frequency.
1:07:30Stock Market Anomalies Aren't Caused by Value Investors—They're Caused by Trend-Chasers
Value investors should dampen volatility, but static rebalancers and return-chasing extrapolators together generate excess volatility, momentum, and nearly every widely-discussed market anomaly.
1:04:53America's real rich get there by owning a business, not a paycheck or a Wall Street job
Between 1960 and 2022, proprietor income's share of earnings among America's top 0.1% rose from 17% to 43%, overtaking wages — real wealth accumulation happens in unglamorous local businesses, not Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
1:22:52An Advisor's Litigation Risk: Private Asset Retailisation Is Opening a Regulatory Gap
Private assets, long confined to accredited investors, are now open to the public without the protections that traditionally came with public offerings — practices normalised in institutional settings become major litigation risk once ordinary investors are in the room.
1:18:01Private Assets Sold to Retail: No Market Price, So Valuation Becomes Power
Public markets have four checks — disclosure, audits, analysts and the media — and private assets strip all of them away by design. No active trading means no market price, so valuation is done by the manager, and valuation directly determines how many units you get when you buy in and when you redeem.
1:19:02Take a Spending Test Before You Marry: Tightwads and Spendthrifts Attract Each Other, and Divorce More
Research sorts spenders into tightwads and spendthrifts. The two extremes attract each other, but after marriage they fight more about money and report lower marital satisfaction; and the more a wedding costs, the higher the divorce risk.
1:08:25The More You Spend on the Wedding, the Higher the Divorce Rate — and the Cheapest Couples Are the Most Stable
Research shows lower wedding spending tracks with lower divorce rates, with the lowest rates among couples who spent under $1,000; and the more a man spends on an engagement ring, the higher his divorce risk.
1:40:15The Number One Fraud Red Flag Isn't Greed — It's Personal Financial Trouble
For 14 straight years, ACFE has ranked "personal financial problems" as the top red flag for financial misconduct; systemic incentives, a critical brain region going offline, and moral overconfidence all let good people cross the line step by step.
1:23:32Good People Embezzle Client Money Too — the Problem Isn't Morals, It's the System
The number-one red flag for financial misconduct is the advisor's own money problems, combined with access to other people's money and a circle that treats being rich as normal; knowing right from wrong won't stop it — you need systems, culture, and a moral operating system.
Index Funds Pay 4% More on Rebalancing: Passive Investing Is More Than Just Indexing
David Booth breaks down the difference between index funds and passive investing: index rebalancing pushes stock prices up 4%, true passivity is scientific pricing plus fine execution; the 10% annual stock return over a century is driven by humanity's desire to improve life.
1:30:55The AI Era Should Be Led by HR, Not IT: Hire AI Like an Employee
Treating AI as a technology purchase handed to IT is serving the main course as a side dish; what actually needs to be broken apart is tasks, not jobs, and HR should lead it, because AI has no feelings and people do.
1:24:57Saving Hard When You're Young Is Robbing Your Poor Self to Pay Your Rich Self
The most popular iron rules of personal finance—save hard while young, dividends drive 40% of returns, index funds only give you average, bonds and cash are safer—mostly get the causality backwards. What actually determines the outcome isn't the rule, it's whether you can hold on.
1:06:55Want to leave wealth to your grandchildren? At the Vanderbilt family reunion, there wasn't a single millionaire
Wealth transfer across generations is almost destined to fail: heirs double the dilution each generation, pay taxes, and keep up with the Joneses; what you should actually do is give the money away with a "warm hand" while your kids are in their thirties or forties.
1:40:34A billionaire's economic forecast is no more trustworthy than financial advice on short video
The halo effect makes people treat everything a successful person says as insight, but outside their own field they are just as ignorant; good advice is humble and probabilistic, bad advice is confident and specific.
1:51:28Leveraged Investing Works on Paper, but Nobody Executes Step Two
The paper says young people should lever up on their lifetime wealth, but clients who pay off the mortgage never borrow it back. Sequence-of-returns risk is only a problem when withdrawals are fixed; make them variable and the portfolio gymnastics become unnecessary.