March 2014: Why do we keep repeating ourselves?
Why Do We Keep Repeating Ourselves? Answer: because on average, a gold fish has a longer attention span. The latest scores on American attention spans are in, and they are not encouraging. Since 2000, the average American attention span1 has fallen from 12 seconds to 8. The average score for a gold fish is 9 seconds. Most educators and psychologists agree that the ability to focus attention on a task is crucial for the achievement of one’s goals. It’s no surprise attention spans have been decreasing over the past decade with the increase in external stimulation. And it’s not just the...
Read MoreMarket Summary – Q1 2014
It has been five years since the stock markets of the US and most of the world hit bottom and began an astounding recovery. On the heels (fins?) of our recent message highlighting how short our collective attention spans have become (see: Do We Keep Repeating Ourselves? emailed March 17th), we dusted off our quarterly review from five years ago to see what was capturing our attention. Here’s what we wrote on April 12, 2009: … The first two months of the year were the worst January and February on record for the US Stock market, while March was the best month since 2002. The four weeks...
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