A company will buy back shares of its stock to increase shareholder value by decreasing the number of shares. Each share represents a small stake in the underlying company. A portion of the company’s profits may then be distributed to all shareholders in the form of dividends. When the number of shares is reduced, the shareholders will receive a greater share of the profits.

To win as investors, we must fight a mental and emotional battle with ourselves. Understanding our own psychology helps us make the right decisions for our unique set of goals.

To paraphrase Adam Smith, if you don’t know who you are, the market is an expensive place to find out.

We’re throwing it back to Real Vision’s second Festival of Learning.

Economist Dr. Pippa Malmgren and renowned investor Jim O’Shaughnessy sat down to discuss the 2 common traits that have informed every stage of their decorated careers: curiosity and a lifelong commitment to learning.

We’re covering the business cycle — and how understanding the ebbs and flows of economic activity can help you analyze markets and build a sustainable portfolio.

This is a special guest post from Raoul Pal, our co-founder and CEO at Real Vision, and founder at Global Macro Investor. It might actually be the first blog post he’s written for us, and the reason for the special occasion is that we have just launched How to Unf*ck Your Future, a 2-week limited series that aims to do exactly what the name says.

Take it away, Raoul…

We’re going deep into the way-back machine of Real Vision — our chosen interview [paywalled] was filmed in 2015, but given that human nature takes millennia to change rather than years, it’s as valuable today as it was back then.

In it, Raoul Pal sits down with legendary fund manager Mark Hart and Tim Ferriss, the impressively multi-hyphenate entrepreneur-investor-author-lifestyle advisor.

At its core, the key lesson in this interview is how we all should be re-examining our habits and priorities in order to optimize the most valuable currency on earth: time.

Think of this episode as an evergreen lesson on ways to invest in yourself no matter what’s happening between the bells. Enjoy.

We’re back in the options game. Last week we covered:

The Basics — from the various use cases for options to a contract’s relationship with the underlying asset.
Premium pricing and how profiting from options comes down to understanding things like probabilities and time decay.
How to read an options chain to better understand demand and how premiums move.

This week, let’s dig into exactly how Imran Lakha, founder of Options Insight, uses options in his own investing process.

We’re looking back at the moment that retail investors, social media, options trading, and frauds collided to create pandemonium in markets.

Why? Because the meme stock craze is back. So far this year, message board darlings such as $BBBY, $AFRM, and $CVNA are surging higher as growth stocks lead a rally that’s beginning to show signs of sputtering out. But what are those signs? And how do we know when momentum is built to last?

“We’re talking options — and how they can help your portfolio when used correctly.

Imran Lakha, a former market-maker turned educator and the founder of Options Insight, will serve as adjunct professor in this issue. Here’s Imran on why understanding options is so important…”