The hottest Behavioral Finance Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Finance Topics

A pedagogical tax

Global Inequality and More 3.0 • 1328 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. A tougher Zucman-style tax on the ultra-rich would mainly serve as a moral, pedagogical signal rather than a big revenue source, showing society objects to extreme greed and vanity.
  2. Greed (pleonexia) is driven by a need for social validation, so people keep accumulating and displaying wealth with no natural limit, which makes status-driven consumption endless and socially harmful.
  3. A social-credit-style system for billionaires could tie tax rates to behavior, rewarding decent conduct and raising taxes for abusive or unethical actions to create real accountability and reduce elite impunity.

I Don’t Know (And Neither Does Warren Buffett)

Spilled Coffee • 52 implied HN points • 18 Mar 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Nobody truly knows what the market will do; even famous investors and big firms are just making educated guesses.
  2. Better investors succeed through a rigorous process — disciplined research, solid risk controls, and the honesty to admit and cut losses when they’re wrong.
  3. Accept that investing is probabilistic: don’t trust confident guarantees, do your own homework, and focus on managing downside while letting winners run.

10-Minute Investment Autopsy No. 4: Advance Auto Parts

Behavioral Value Investor • 59 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. The automotive aftermarket looks like a stable, slow-changing business where short trips, urgency, low ticket sizes, and helpful in-store service create repeat customers and limit online disruption, which can support margin improvement like competitors have shown.
  2. Execution risk mattered: same-store sales were weaker than expected even as margins improved, but better results at peers suggested the problems were company-specific rather than structural, so early misses didn’t automatically change the value view.
  3. The market quickly priced in expected synergies from a large acquisition, closing the gap to intrinsic value and creating a clear exit opportunity, and sensible position sizing plus discipline let the investor realize the gain.

Forward Looking Investing Radicalism

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 26 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Being contrarian usually means you’ll be isolated from the crowd.
  2. Recency bias runs the industry; recent success is treated as timeless and recent failure is written off as broken.
  3. Many people sell toxic financial products dressed up in faux‑academic jargon, and hobbyists often claim to be forward‑looking while obsessively staring at the past.

This Is Imaginal Disk

Some Unpleasant Arithmetic • 23 implied HN points • 20 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Modern AI systems run on huge models trained with massive datasets and require enormous compute — specialized GPUs, large data centers, lots of energy, and a concentrated global chip supply chain.
  2. The current AI boom resembles past tech bubbles because vast infrastructure and speculative valuations risk collapsing if those investments don’t translate into sustained cash flows or viable business models.
  3. Evidence of AI’s productivity gains is mixed and uneven: some tasks see modest improvements, adoption has plateaued in places, and public, political, and regulatory resistance (especially to data centers) could limit broader economic impact.
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The Evolution of Behavioral Value Investor

Behavioral Value Investor • 118 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. A paid tier is launching to help serious investors systematically improve, centered on a weekly "10-Minute Investment Autopsy" case study plus deeper company deep-dives, frameworks, and templates.
  2. Free content and the Value Investing Seminar will remain available, while paid members get a moderated community, regular interaction, an annual Zoom Q&A, and group or educational rates for teams and professors.
  3. The service is explicitly educational, not a stock tip or portfolio service — no public recommendations or portfolio transparency — and aims to improve your investing process with as little as about 30 minutes a week.

[2025–2026] Week 20: The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler

Behavioral Value Investor • 14 implied HN points • 06 Mar 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Forecasting is hard but unavoidable; to earn excess returns you must make a forecast that disagrees with the expectations already priced into a stock.
  2. Your mental game matters — strive to operate in your A‑game rather than your C‑game, learn how to detect when you’ve slipped, identify the causes, and develop routines to correct course.
  3. Deliberate practice and community feedback help you improve: use case studies, complete assignments, share your answers, and engage with others to sharpen your investing skills.

7 Investing Habits That Matter More Than Stock Picks in 2026

Behavioral Value Investor • 193 implied HN points • 30 Dec 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses as an investor and focus on improving your process; pick one area to work on deeply rather than trying to change everything at once.
  2. Do less trading and spend most of your time reading and learning, but be prepared to act decisively and take large positions when a high-conviction opportunity within your circle of competence appears.
  3. Keep realistic return expectations and maintain high investment standards; ignore market noise, hot trends, and persuasive promises that erode your margin of safety.

[2025–2026] Week 18: The Investment Checklist by Michael Shearn

Behavioral Value Investor • 29 implied HN points • 20 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Favor businesses that are predictable and don’t change much over the long term, because stability makes forecasting and compounding easier.
  2. Prioritize honest, competent management and alignment with owners, since trustworthy leaders and CEOs who are engaged materially improve long-term outcomes.
  3. Use a structured, checklist-based research process and deliberate practice: customize the checklist to your approach, be realistic about the time needed to become proficient, and accelerate learning by discussing work with peers.

The 10-Minute Investment Autopsy Series: A Guide for Thoughtful Investors

Behavioral Value Investor • 52 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. A weekly 10-minute series will analyze past investment decisions to help experienced investors improve their process quickly.
  2. Each autopsy reviews the original thesis, lays out the facts of what happened, explains why it unfolded that way, and extracts practical and behavioral lessons.
  3. Readers are encouraged to actively engage by pausing after the thesis, questioning assumptions and biases, and using the lessons to avoid mistakes or spot opportunities.

Retail Investors: The New Smart Money

Spilled Coffee • 48 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Retail investors are now a permanent market force, making up roughly 20–25% of trading volume and controlling a huge share of assets with over 100 million brokerage accounts.
  2. They’ve grown more sophisticated, increasingly using ETFs, options, and disciplined strategies like “buy the dip,” signaling more diversified portfolios and better risk management.
  3. Real-time data, social platforms, and crowd-sourced research have collapsed information gaps, letting retail coordinate and influence markets in ways institutions must track and respond to.

[2025–2026] Week 19: Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock

Behavioral Value Investor • 14 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Start building an investing checklist early and update it as your approach evolves so it becomes a reliable repository of your process and decision rules.
  2. Learn and practice forecasting skills by studying what makes superforecasters better than average and by making clear, probabilistic predictions to sharpen judgment.
  3. Share your answers in a single comment and engage with others' responses to learn through feedback and community discussion.

[2025–2026] Week 17: Big Money Thinks Small by Joel Tillinghast

Behavioral Value Investor • 29 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Read Joel Tillinghast’s Big Money Thinks Small and answer six focused questions about his investment style, background, best and worst investments, stock ideas, and an AI-based prompt.
  2. His approach emphasizes finding small, undiscovered companies by doing on-the-ground research and favoring inexpensive stocks judged by current profits and cash flow, combining a Peter Lynch–style search with a Neff-like value focus, while recognizing how randomness can affect short-term results.
  3. Participants should post all answers in a single comment, engage respectfully with others, and note that the next assigned book is The Investment Checklist.

What 25 Years of Investing Taught Me: 12 Mistakes Your Brain Keeps Making

Behavioral Value Investor • 163 implied HN points • 03 Dec 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Always understand what you're investing in. Don't rush; take time to study the company and its future.
  2. Look beyond just numbers when investing. Pay attention to the company's quality and management to get a fuller picture.
  3. Be cautious with your investments and think long-term. Quick gains are tempting, but they often lead to losses.

Warner Bros.: How 5 Mental Models Turned Lonely Conviction into a Big Win

Behavioral Value Investor • 104 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Use several mental models together instead of relying on intrinsic value alone. When ideas like "good business vs bad business," potential vs kinetic energy, and auction dynamics line up, they can reveal big opportunities.
  2. Focus on unique assets and how they can be better monetized or separated from weak parts of the business. Actions like spin-offs, stronger IP monetization, or strategic interest from acquirers can turn hidden value into real gains.
  3. Use long-dated options selectively and size positions to get asymmetric payoffs while managing time risk. Also keep in mind that competitive auctions or strategic bidders can push prices far above standalone intrinsic value, so lock in gains when it makes sense.

Safety Not Guaranteed

The Better Letter • 471 implied HN points • 19 Jan 24
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Safety in investing and in life is not guaranteed.
  2. Correlation does not imply causation, and certainty in outcomes is rare.
  3. The index mindset favors average results but may overlook opportunities for greater reward and growth.

[2025–2026] Week 12: The Money Game by 'Adam Smith'

Behavioral Value Investor • 44 implied HN points • 09 Jan 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. There are many different investing styles that can succeed, so focus on the approach that fits your natural strengths and find ways to cover or mitigate your weaknesses.
  2. Human psychology and behavioral biases strongly shape market decisions, so studying past market behavior helps you recognize recurring patterns and avoid common mistakes.
  3. Active learning and community engagement—doing assigned readings, answering questions, and discussing ideas respectfully—accelerate understanding and improve practical investing skills.

Why pessimists make more money

Klement on Investing • 5 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. People value stories more than raw data and will pay for explanations about the economy even when they already have the forecasts.
  2. Among buyers of narratives, pessimistic stories command a higher price, so pessimists can charge more for their outlooks.
  3. Different people prefer different narratives: overconfident buyers lean toward pessimistic views, motivated reasoners seek biased (optimistic or pessimistic) stories, and those focused on accuracy choose the consensus narrative.

[2025–2026] Week 13: You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt

Behavioral Value Investor • 29 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Human behavior keeps repeating, so psychological biases and recurring irrationality are central to how markets misprice securities.
  2. Come to the market with a clear, entrenched investment process and a strong sense of who you are, because learning by trading costs you dearly; identity and anxiety often drive choices more than cold arithmetic.
  3. Special situations like spin-offs, restructurings, rights offerings and takeovers create repeatable templates to find mispriced assets, so evaluating which categories are more efficient today and compiling candidate opportunities is a practical next step.

[2025–2026] Week 14: One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch

Behavioral Value Investor • 22 implied HN points • 23 Jan 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. True mispricings tend to come from special situations caused by forced selling or neglect, like spin-offs, post-bankruptcy stocks, or sidelined divisions. These situations often let patient investors buy assets the market is overlooking.
  2. Popular, hyped stocks—including hot-sector names, IPOs, and momentum-driven picks—are more driven by sentiment than fundamentals and are less likely to offer reliable bargains. They often create FOMO and poor entry points for long-term investors.
  3. Stick to your circle of competence and hunt for neglected or forced-sale opportunities, using careful research and tools such as long-dated options to capture asymmetric upside with limited downside. Sharing ideas and learning from others can help you find and refine these opportunities.

Is Dave Ramsey right?

Economic Forces • 18 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Simple rules and mental buckets exist because making perfect decisions about every dollar is costly. Heuristics cut cognitive effort and often produce good enough outcomes.
  2. Institutions like prices, brands, and cultural norms compress information and lower the mental cost of choices, letting people compare options quickly instead of doing detailed calculations.
  3. Competition and real budget constraints discipline behavior so many heuristics survive by being survivable, not perfect, but attention and memory limits can still create systematic, predictable mistakes in some contexts.

My Personal Investing Journey

Jay's Data Stream • 5 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Buy-and-hold only reliably works for broad index funds, because they spread risk across many companies; individual stocks or crypto can go to zero, so you can’t treat every asset the same.
  2. True diversification means different exposures, not just different labels — owning the S&P plus a bunch of U.S. tech bets is still concentrated; an automated, multi-asset portfolio with regular rebalancing helps you survive big drawdowns.
  3. Use clear rules and position sizing: keep a small YOLO bucket, only hold individual bets you would buy at today’s price, and pay attention to fees and fine print because small differences compound over time.

Stimulation Theory

Malt Liquidity • 24 implied HN points • 15 Jan 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. The public internet and algorithm-driven discourse are extremely volatile and risky, producing lots of low-signal, performative conversation that makes maintaining a public profile dangerous.
  2. A better approach is to stop publicly posting trades and performance and instead build a client-focused, scalable wealth management practice that protects proprietary thinking and relies on two-way feedback.
  3. Stimulation theory: aim for an optimal threshold of information so you can make informed decisions without getting fried by toxic constant flow, and build information pipelines that filter signal from noise.

[2025–2026] Week 15: John Neff on Investing

Behavioral Value Investor • 14 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Study John Neff’s approach by mapping his investment style, linking it to his background, and evaluating specific examples and modern stock ideas using the six guided questions.
  2. Great investors leverage a personal knowledge edge and apply a broad set of strategies—stalwarts, cyclicals, turnarounds, and long-term growers—using simple, clear theses rather than overcomplicated models.
  3. Use a disciplined, time-efficient routine like a weekly 10-minute investment autopsy to systematically dissect real decisions and steadily improve your investing process.

How AI Helps Me Combat Confirmation Bias (And Research Faster)

Behavioral Value Investor • 66 implied HN points • 07 Nov 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. AI can help generate lots of investment ideas quickly, but it's up to you to use your judgment to pick the good ones. This saves time and allows deeper research on the promising candidates.
  2. By using AI to analyze companies and industries, you can spot trends and risks faster. This makes your initial research more efficient, letting you focus on the most worthwhile opportunities.
  3. AI also helps you think critically by providing a 'Devil’s Advocate' perspective. This way, you can challenge your own beliefs and reduce biases before making investment decisions.

[2025–2026] Week 10: Warren Buffett: Berkshire Hathaway Years

Behavioral Value Investor • 37 implied HN points • 12 Dec 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. He started as a Graham-style deep-value investor but often acted like an activist, pushing management or catalysts to realize hidden value.
  2. Over time he moved toward buying high-quality businesses and whole companies, placing more weight on management, qualitative insights, and long-term compounding than on pure quantitative bargains.
  3. Comparing his partnership years to his Berkshire years highlights practical questions to answer: what to copy or avoid, which investments were best or worst, and how his approach would adapt to different capital sizes and situations.

READING/HOISTED: From 2021: Matt Levine Is Bewildered by the Financial Economics of Elon Musk

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 222 implied HN points • 06 Jun 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Elon Musk's influence on investments shows that value now often comes from social dynamics and celebrity power rather than traditional financial metrics. His tweets can drive prices up just because many people decide to buy into his hype.
  2. The rise of assets like GameStop and Dogecoin highlights a new way people coordinate their purchases online, often based on collective agreement rather than a solid analysis of the underlying value.
  3. Money and value are becoming less about concrete assets and more about social perceptions and internet culture. As social media evolves, how we view and use money is changing too.

[2025–2026] Week 11: John Train's The New Money Masters

Behavioral Value Investor • 29 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Investors must evolve their methods over time, moving beyond old bargain-only strategies to favor durable, high-quality businesses while still insisting on a clear margin of safety.
  2. Temperament matters: patience and the willingness to wait for the right opportunities are as important to long-term returns as intelligence, process, or experience.
  3. The seminar assigns reading The New Money Masters and practical work: map investors’ styles, pick your favorite and least favorite with reasons, create an AI prompt based on an investor, and share all answers in a single comment while engaging respectfully with others.

Overview of Portfolio Construction and Risk Management, Part 2

DeFi Education • 699 implied HN points • 03 Mar 23
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Human emotions like greed and fear can affect investing decisions. People often buy high when they're greedy and ignore good opportunities when they're scared.
  2. Even experienced money managers can make mistakes by following trends instead of sticking to their strategies. They sometimes buy at the peak instead of the bottom.
  3. Understanding these emotional swings can help in better portfolio management. It's important to recognize how emotions can lead to poor financial choices.

Why do people invest in expensive stocks?

Klement on Investing • 3 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Many investors treat very expensive stocks like lottery tickets, hoping for a rare big payoff instead of focusing on realistic expected returns.
  2. Surveys and analyst reports find the majority (about 60% overall and 81% of retail investors) hold high-valuation stocks because they expect high future returns, while far fewer cite superior fundamentals (~15%) or safer past performance (<10%).
  3. These beliefs contradict finance theory and empirical evidence, yet investors remain convinced and continue to hold expensive stocks despite knowing their high valuations.

Going for Broke

The Better Letter • 275 implied HN points • 06 Oct 23
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. In a coin-flipping experiment, even financially savvy individuals struggled with optimal betting strategies.
  2. The world is far more random than we realize, affecting markets and investments unpredictably.
  3. Probabilistic strategies can help in decision-making, especially when human biases lead to suboptimal choices.

The Philosophy of Money

We're Gonna Get Those Bastards • 8 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Money is a tool to buy comfort and freedom, and having enough makes small daily worries disappear.
  2. Save and invest consistently with delayed gratification—anyone can build wealth by living below their means and starting early.
  3. Manage risk by hedging against catastrophic losses and being realistic about investing, since preserving capital can be more important than chasing higher returns.

[2025–2026] Week 16: Investing Against the Tide by Anthony Bolton

Behavioral Value Investor • 7 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. John Neff’s large-cap value approach focused on stable, predictable businesses bought at low P/E ratios, yielding a high batting average, modest winners, small losses, and roughly a 3% annual edge over decades.
  2. This week’s assignment centers on Anthony Bolton’s Investing Against the Tide, with specific questions to map his investment style, link it to his background, and evaluate his best and worst picks.
  3. The seminar is designed to be interactive and practical: participants are asked to submit a single comment with answers, engage with others, and use extra resources like the 10‑Minute Investment Autopsy and the next reading to keep improving.

Fortune tellers

Klement on Investing • 3 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Chinese investors often use superstitions like horoscopes when making investment decisions, showing a cultural difference from the West.
  2. A lab experiment found positive Chinese fortune-telling reports raised willingness to invest by over 20 percentage points, and Chinese horoscopes influenced choices more than Western ones.
  3. Worryingly, venture capital managers were even more swayed than individual investors, so these beliefs can meaningfully affect market behavior.

Thesis Drift

MD&A • 118 implied HN points • 29 Jun 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Investing can be a fun and intellectually stimulating puzzle, similar to solving crosswords or watching movies. If you enjoy it, picking stocks can be a rewarding hobby even if it's not always financially beneficial.
  2. Thesis drift is when investors create new reasons to hold onto a stock after their original reasons have failed. Instead of admitting they were wrong and moving on, they keep justifying their position and often end up losing more money.
  3. In both investing and life, it's important to recognize when a strategy isn't working. Instead of sticking to failed ideas, we should be willing to change course and learn from our mistakes to find better paths.

I Am Back: Exposing the Bullsh*t Market

Behavioral Value Investor • 282 implied HN points • 26 Nov 24
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. The author took a break from writing because it felt too scheduled and stressful, but now plans to write when inspired instead. This way, they can share better insights without pressure.
  2. There's a lot of strange behavior in today's markets, like people paying an outrageous amount for a banana or a company being valued more than its actual Bitcoin holdings. It shows how market psychology can be very irrational.
  3. Many financial indicators are warning signs of problems ahead, but people often ignore them because the current trends seem to last. It’s important to recognize these warnings to avoid repeating past mistakes in investing.

Do HNWI get better advice?

Klement on Investing • 3 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Advised private-bank clients tend to have more diversified portfolios with less home bias, lower turnover, and lower volatility.
  2. Despite lower risk and fewer behavioral errors, advised portfolios often show lower average returns and higher fees, partly because advisers move money into expensive alternative funds.
  3. Adviser incentives can steer clients toward high-fee products that cut net performance, so getting advice isn’t a guarantee of better outcomes.

The Audacity of it

We're Gonna Get Those Bastards • 6 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25
💰 Finance Behavioral Finance
  1. Successful people can still fear greater success and often set small, safe goals because they doubt they deserve more.
  2. Big opportunities can trigger paralyzing anxiety where performance depends as much on mental makeup and faith as on technical skill.
  3. Despite the fear, choosing audacity—taking bold actions, enjoying life’s perks, and trusting a higher power—helps you handle uncertainty and keep moving forward.