Seen on The Street: One heck of a sign off

"This is my final out-of-office message. I will withdraw from [major asset manager] on June 28. No longer will I rise before dawn to read overnight tweets, five newspapers and 600 emails on the European dysfunction du jour in order to be ready for the daily 30 minutes of actual stock price movement from 930-1000 EST.

My next adventure is undetermined, but it clearly does not include any of the above. Google me in a year and it's likely that I will have resurfaced in some role where I answer to no one but myself.

My takeaways from 35 years of investing, reading 10K 10-Ks (really) and hundreds of books on the history of financial institutions: * group think kills. If other people are making the same trades as you, you're not really a contrarian. * beware spurious correlations. Just because two things correlate as far back as Bloomberg goes, doesn't mean they will keep doing so. Or that you will be smart enough to act the moment when they stop correlating. * if you want peace, prepare for war. If you want to succeed, risk failure. * salaries are sustained by hugging the benchmark. Fortunes are won or lost on the tails. * regulations are written by governments to serve their interests. Once they hinder the government, they will be ignored or changed. * making money from serving customers is much more sustainable than making money from outguessing markets. * focusing solely on shareholder returns to the exclusion of all societal values will make you the first against the wall when the Revolution comes.

I can't wait to see what happens in the next 35 years. Be well, be smart, be good. Don't behave - it's unAmerican.

Redacted withdrew from [major asset manager] on June 30, 2019 and no longer has access to [major asset manager] email or voicemail."