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The role of randomness in short-term investing.

Hey, let’s mix things up today! Let’s start with our video. Yes, of course we will.

You all know how much of a Swiftie I am, right? I’m a big fan of Taylor Swift’s music — and career. Well, Sunday was Taylor Swift’s 31st birthday. And last week, she dropped her second surprise album of the year.

To celebrate, here’s the video for “Willow”, the lead single from “evermore”.

You probably should know that this video’s narrative picks up precisely from the end of her “Cardigan” video. True story: Swift directed this video too. I’ve enjoyed watching her growth as an entrepreneur. She can do it all!

Now let’s turn our attention to money.

Most Robinhood traders earn lousy returns. [Evidence Investor] — “Robinhood, with commission-free trading, has certainly been successful in its stated mission, having attracted 13 million users with its app that makes trading easy. Unfortunately, its application also leaves naïve individual investors more susceptible to well-documented biases that lead to speculative trading and poor results, with the winner being Robinhood itself.” If you’re a Robinhood user, please read this.

The role of randomness in short-term investing. [Novel Investor] — “A paradox of investing is how much randomness plays a role — both good and bad — in short-term investment track records. Something with the worst odds of success will pay off every now and then. Someone will make a ton of money. It happens with long shots. Lotteries too. For most people, most of the time, long shots don’t pay off.”

The eco-yogi slumlords of Brooklyn. [The Cut] — “Gendville and Brooks-Church’s business ventures ran like a well-oiled, if extremely tenuous, machine. On the surface, they catered to the upper crunchy crust of Brooklyn, hawking imported wooden toys, prenatal-yoga classes, and rooftop gardens to gentrifiers with money to burn. But it was ‘yoga on the outside, pure capitalism on the inside,’ as one former Area employee puts it.”

Okay, that’s all we have for today. But I’ll be back again tomorrow with more stories from the world of personal finance.