Ben Carlson
Ben Carlson writes about investing as a practitioner who aims to bring common sense to the world of finance. At A Wealth of Common Sense he focuses on wealth management, investments, financial markets and investor psychology, using market history and plain language to explain long-term decisions for both institutions and individuals. His coverage turns abstract market behaviour into concrete guidance on risk, diversification and wealth building, with a consistent focus on how investors actually react to gains, losses and headlines. He carries the same themes into podcasts, interviews and speaking, giving him a multi-format presence on market history, asset allocation and practical investor behaviour.
$1 Trillion ETFs, Wealth Inequality and the Shrinking Middle Class
Carlson’s work often connects the scale of modern investment products to household-level financial realities. In $1 Trillion ETFs, Wealth Inequality and the Shrinking Middle Class he ties the rise of massive exchange-traded funds to widening gaps in wealth and the pressure on middle-income families.
He treats ETFs not only as vehicles for market exposure but as part of the infrastructure that shapes who participates in growth and who is left behind.
Related pieces on dividends and true wealth show the same concern with how investment structures translate into lived outcomes, rather than remaining in a purely institutional frame. His beat is finance, but he repeatedly returns to the distribution of wealth and the gap between market performance and the financial resilience of ordinary investors.
Missing the Best & Worst Days in the Stock Market
Carlson uses market history to show how timing decisions sit at the centre of investor experience. In Missing the Best & Worst Days in the Stock Market he focuses on periods of sharp market moves and what they mean for anyone trying to get in or out at the right moment. Pieces such as The Probability of Loss in the Stock Market and The Stock Market Doesn’t Care What You Say push in the same direction, stressing that markets follow their own path regardless of investor narratives or short-term forecasts. His writing favours long data series and simple framing over intricate models, showing how loss probabilities, outlier days and long cycles combine into a picture of risk that investors can actually act on.
This historical, probability-based lens distinguishes his coverage from more reactive market commentary on the same beat.
The Diversification Test
Portfolio construction and behaviour under stress are recurring subjects in Carlson’s work. In The Diversification Test he asks how investors respond when a holding falls in value, and whether they are willing to buy more into short-term pain. That framing links diversification directly to behaviour, not just to textbook allocation rules.
His broader writing on asset allocation and organizational alpha for institutions reinforces the idea that portfolio design only works if investors can live with it through drawdowns. He writes from an institutional asset management background, reflecting years of work with endowments, foundations, pension plans and other large pools of capital.
This mix of institutional context and individual psychology gives his diversification pieces a different weight than generic asset-allocation columns.
Animal Spirits: The Next Michael Burry
Carlson also works in an audio and conversational format, which shapes his influence on the finance audience.
Animal Spirits: The Next Michael Burry shows him engaging with personality-driven market narratives and how investors latch onto figures who seem to represent the next big call. On the Animal Spirits show he discusses topics ranging from underrated dividends to major corporate moves and what “true wealth” means beyond consumption.
Guest appearances on other podcasts feature him walking through bear markets since 1929, the role of inflation and volatility, and the case for surviving rough periods rather than trying to predict them. Across these conversations he stays close to the same through-line as in his writing: using history, behaviour and clear talk to separate durable investing ideas from noise.
Carlson’s overall body of work sits at the intersection of market structure, investor psychology and long-term portfolio design. He writes frequently, in a column and blog format, and complements that output with regular speaking on industry trends, market history and investor behaviour.
For story ideas tied to stock market cycles, ETFs, diversification, risk framing and how investors actually act under pressure, his coverage offers a grounded, historically informed perspective on the finance beat.
4 more finance journalists.
Abigail Summerville
Abigail Summerville brings a leveraged finance background to her work covering consumer and retail mergers and acquisitions for Reuters. She reports on deal-making and capital markets across food, beverages, spirits, personal care, skincare, bath products and pet food. Her stories focus on transaction terms, ownership stakes, valuation, debt structures and funding sources. She often breaks news on potential sales and strategic reviews before formal announcements. Notable coverage includes Sazerac’s acquisition of Au Vodka, Blackstone’s exploration of a ZO Skin Health sale, CVC’s efforts to sell the parent of Dr Teal’s, and Colgate-Palmolive’s planned divestitures. She also covers consumer IPOs, including Jersey Mike’s and Black Rock Coffee, and co-writes Wall Street market reports. She joined Reuters in 2022 after three years covering leveraged finance and primary debt markets.
Adekunle Agbetiloye
Adekunle Agbetiloye is a senior reporter who connects capital flows, hard numbers and energy transition to the wider African economy. He works at Business Insider Africa, covering how money, technology and energy reshape economic growth, jobs and living conditions. His beat spans the African economy, technology, energy transition, climate change, startups and critical minerals, with a focus on concrete deals and data-led stories. He reports on African startup funding cycles, sovereign wealth funds, billionaire investors, multilateral and private investment programs, energy and power markets, Bitcoin mining, and economic policy choices. His work follows how governments finance spending, manage debt and respond to social pressure, and how sector snapshots and health and development metrics reveal links between macro indicators, corporate strategy and everyday costs.
Aimee Picchi
Aimee Picchi connects Social Security, retirement programs and economic policy directly to the financial security of ordinary Americans, showing how macro decisions hit household budgets. She is associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch at CBS News, covering business and personal finance with clear, accessible explanations of complex money issues. Her core beat is Social Security and retirement, interest rates and inflation, and how policy, markets and company strategies affect workers, retirees, savers and investors. She reports on benefit adequacy, looming Social Security cuts, COLA changes, Federal Reserve rate decisions, fuel costs, trade tensions and labor’s share of income, always framing coverage around pocketbook impacts. Her background includes retirement reporting fellowships, prior staff reporting on technology, media and business, an Institutional Investor book on affluent investors, and freelance work for national outlets. She also writes science fiction and fantasy and is a Nebula Award finalist.
Alex Harring
Alex Harring turns fast-moving market, economic and corporate developments into clear pre-market briefings that show what will matter when U.S. trading opens. He is a markets and economics reporter for CNBC’s digital platforms and writes Morning Squawk, a flagship daily newsletter that gives readers five key things to know before the stock market opens. His beat spans financial markets, investing, consumer trends and the U.S. economy, with coverage of central bank decisions, inflation, corporate strategy, sector moves and geopolitical shocks. He focuses on how policy, data and earnings shape equities, interest rates, currencies and investor positioning, linking price action with underlying drivers in real time and in reported features. Harring’s background reporting on corporate news, business and the economy across print, digital, broadcast and streaming informs his habit of connecting markets, companies and geopolitics in one frame.