The Art of Boring™ was created for curious and passionate investors. We share strategies, frameworks, and insights to help readers and listeners make better investment decisions. Our aim? To provide some bottom-up, long-term investing signal to cut through the short-term noise.

  • China in focus

    Many of the old stories surrounding China are becoming—or are—obsolete. New ones are emerging. China’s economy is very different than it used to be, and this shift, as well as some of the trends occurring there, are worthwhile to understand. We’d be wise to pay attention.

    January 11, 2018

  • 'Twas the week before Christmas...

    ‘Twas the week before Christmas
    And we’re again filled with cheer
    To provide our blog readers
    A review of the year:

    December 20, 2017

  • India in flight: Finding the long investment runways

    How many toilets do you have at home? Or rather—let me put it this way: do you have a toilet in your home? For most people reading this, the idea of not having one may sound crazy, but in India, over half of all households do not have the luxuries of a toilet and/or bathing facility.

    December 15, 2017

  • The skier’s guide to portfolio risk management

    The ski season is officially open and the keeners have taken their first turns. I know our CIO, Jim Hall, is an avid skier so I sat down with him recently to discuss portfolio risk management and how it relates to skiing.

    November 29, 2017

  • Life at railway speed: Lessons from the technology hype cycle

    In 1845, Scottish poet and author, William Aytoun, published his satire, How we got up the Glenmutchkin Railway, and how we got out of it. His story focused on the railway stock frenzy that gripped Great Britain, with the aim of bringing awareness to what he saw as madness, “if anyone ha[d] the sense to see it.”

    November 28, 2017

  • The end of oil?

    With entrepreneurs like Elon Musk pushing for a solar energy future and electric cars on the horizon, many are seriously questioning oil’s dominance. Are we finally moving into a post-oil age?

    November 15, 2017

  • Bottleneck thinking

    As an observational lens, bottleneck-thinking can quickly uncover specific pressure points people may have, such as a holding’s valuation or current management.

    November 8, 2017

  • There’s no such thing as immaculate perception

    Each day we observe events and instantly associate meaning to them. In other words, we are constantly making inferences about the world—usually unconsciously. Unfortunately, we tend to neglect challenging these inferences or even fool ourselves into thinking that they are wholly evidence based. 

    October 25, 2017

  • For bonds’ sake

    Conversations about increasing interest rates and their impact on bond investments have recently spiked in Canada. Since bonds are traditionally viewed as an investment that provides a steady stream of income while acting as a safety net within an overall balanced portfolio, an environment of rising interest rates understandably causes unease: it can decrease the price of bonds and therefore can negatively impact performance.

    October 18, 2017



  • Beakerhead 2017: Up against all odds

    This week we have the pleasure of partnering again with Beakerhead, a Calgary-based charitable organization that “brings together the arts, sciences, and engineering sectors to build, engage, compete, and exhibit interactive works of art, engineered creativity and entertainment.”

    September 13, 2017