The recent tumble in the market is being attributed to the wage report, a rise in interest rates, and concern about inflation.

Investors tend to focus on the most likely outcome. As a risk manager, I spend time focusing on the unlikely, on the bad things that might possibly happen.

If bitcoin doesn't find its way back into the shadows of the drug trade and underground economy on its own, it will be banished by the stroke of a pen, actually, of many pens.

Finance is not actuarial science. It is not predicated on repeatable, or even known, probabilities. There is no appeal to the law of large numbers for the systematic risks of the financial system.

In case you haven't noticed -- and I haven't -- we apparently are in a world of exceptionally low risk. To see this you need look no further than the volatility of the major markets.

On October 19, 1987, the stock market crashed, the U.S. equity market dropped 20% in a single day.

What is the magic that allows us to have intraday liquidity through an ETF on a market that itself trades more or less by appointment? Case in point: the high yield bond market. Or emerging markets.

Demographics can be like a slow motion tidal wave that washes over society. Look at how our institutions have changed as the baby boomers moved into school age and then college age, and then became home buyers.

Uber at the core is nothing more than a bunch of guys who came up with a clever app for streamlining the way you call for a car.