Good investors must learn to contextualize the daily background noise.

Whenever you hear a discussion about the short-term swings in any given stock's price, your immediate thought should be whether it matters to why you are investing.

With Twitter, you can build your own virtual trading floor and research department, populated by the smartest people on earth. Almost any subject or sector has you can think of, you can find a few people with an expertise in that area.

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

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

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.

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.

Many hedge fund managers have become billionaires; perhaps this - plus their reputations as the smartest guys in the room - is why they have captured the investing public's imagination.

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.

The simple reality of life is that everyone is wrong on a regular basis. By confronting these inevitable errors, you allow yourself to make corrections before it is too late.

You have a natural tendency to want an emotionally satisfying tale - and to make investments based on that - despite times when the actual data may be telling you something different.

It is in your DNA to love a good story. You know, neat tales with heroes and villains and conflicts to resolve. A good story pushes our buttons, is exciting and memorable.

Whenever I see a forecast written out to two decimal places, I cannot help but wonder if there is a misunderstanding of the limitations of the data, and an illusion of precision.

Markets are frequently ahead of, and often out of sync with, the economy.

Narrative drives most of economics. Everything seems to be part of a story, and how that story is told often leads to critical error.

The good news is that economists are intelligent, engaging and often charming folks. The bad news is their work is often of little use to investors.

'Returnless risk' is not how you prepare for a decent retirement.

The beauty of diversification is it's about as close as you can get to a free lunch in investing.

Amongst the financial Twitterati, the term 'muppets' has come to describe any client used and abused by some financial predator. I've adopted the term to describe portfolios that have been assembled for purposes other than serving the clients' best interests.

Asset managers have different approaches, and I don't wish to suggest there is only one way to run money. There are many ways one can attempt to reduce risk, improve performance, lower drawdowns and reduce volatility.

You want less of the annoying nonsense that interferes with your portfolios and more of the significant data that allow you to become a less distracted, more purposeful investor.

Truth be told, most financial television bores me. Two or more people discussing the latest economic trends or hot stocks is not especially entertaining.

If I am going to trash others for their dumb predictions, I must at least hold myself to the same sort of accountability.

One thing I detest most about the financial press is the lack of accountability. All sorts of nonsense is said without penalty.