Masters in Business · Wednesday, August 26, 2026
David Bonson differentiates between economic investing, which derives value from a company's performance, and speculation, which relies on predicting price movements or market psychology. He notes that the proliferation of instruments like prediction markets and single-day option ETFs has amplified speculative behavior.
“But also there's just a lot of investing that is based on a guess of a price.”
“Right now, the instrumentation that exists for speculation with literal speculation and draft kings and sports markets. And now these prediction markets, single day option ETFs, all of this stuff, it's unbelievable. They're all consciously geared towards speculation.”
“A dividend portfolio is saying, hey, I really believe people are going to buy soda pop or they're going to continue needing oil and gas to heat their homes, et cetera.”