Personal finance advice reaches most people through magazines, TV, bestsellers, podcasts, and radio, not through academic researchers.

In this episode of The Behavioral Divide, Professor Hal Hershfield talks with Yale finance professor James Choi about what he found after analyzing the 50 most popular personal finance books. They discuss where the books get it right, where they diverge from the evidence, and which academic findings could meaningfully strengthen real-world advice.

This podcast is a clear reminder to stay grounded in what the data supports, especially when the loudest guidance is often the easiest to oversimplify. Looking for additional research? Reach out to us to talk more about this. 

If you want a resolution that will actually help your investing life in 2026, start here: clean up your media diet.

Not because we’re suggesting you avoid reality or pretend the world is calm. We mean something more practical: be ruthless about who gets access to your attention and what they’re trying to do with it.

Most financial media isn’t designed to help you invest well. It’s designed to keep you watching. So…

Everything is urgent.
Everything is breaking.
Everything is either a bubble or a collapse.
And the “right move” is always: stay tuned.

Your long view plan runs on a different fuel. It’s built on evidence, diversification, and the actual life you’re trying to fund. It’s built on what lasts, not what trends.

The best long view investors are not the ones consuming the most content. They are the ones protecting their attention, staying consistent, and making changes only when the facts change.

A simple filter for 2026:

Before you read or watch anything money-related, ask:
“How is the author trying to make me feel?”
If the answer is “anxious,” close the tab. Move on.

Attention is a financial asset. Treat it like one.

My 18-month-old son’s favorite song right now has a catchy chorus that goes, “Bubble, bubble, bubble… POP!” and as with any toddler favorite, we sing it constantly, so it’s always stuck in my head. Lately, every time I open my WSJ app and see the word “bubble” splashed across a headline, the soundtrack kicks in automatically.

In the song, the bubbles always pop. So, should we be preparing for a big pop in markets, as the headlines suggest? Part of taking the long view is refusing to react to headlines. Our philosophy centers on tuning out the noise and anchoring decisions in evidence. But with all the AI “bubble” chatter, it’s worth taking a moment to examine this idea from a research-backed point of view, one that might surprise you, but ultimately help you rise above the noise.

What If Bubbles Don’t Exist?

Eugene Fama, Nobel laureate and architect of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (and a major influence on Hill’s investment philosophy), has a view that stops people in their tracks: He doesn’t believe in bubbles.

Not because he thinks markets are perfect…they aren’t. And not because prices never fall…we know that they do. He challenges the idea of bubbles because, as he puts it, you can’t scientifically prove that a price was ‘wrong’ in the moment.

Here’s what this means:

1. We only call something a bubble in hindsight.

When prices rise sharply, no one knows if it’s irrational because future growth could justify it. We only label it a “bubble” after a drop, which means we’re using new information to judge old prices.

2. A crash isn’t evidence of a bubble.

A sharp decline doesn’t mean earlier prices were foolish. It may simply reflect changing expectations, new information, or shifting economic conditions.

3. If something looks obviously overpriced, markets should correct it.

Nobel Prize winner, University of Chicago Professor, and Dimensional Director Eugene Fama argues that calling something a bubble implies that most investors were collectively irrational, something he’s deeply skeptical of.

Whether or not you fully agree with him, his perspective matters because it reminds us of something essential: the story of markets is driven more by narrative and emotion than data.

How this Connects to Your Plan

At Hill, we don’t spend time predicting bubbles. We don’t try to guess where the top is. We don’t build your plan around today’s headlines. Instead, we build portfolios (and relationships) around a different set of ideas:

• Evidence beats emotion.
• Your financial life shouldn’t be swayed by headlines.
• And you don’t need to predict what comes next.

So, Are We in a Bubble? The honest, evidence-based, answer is that no one knows. And we don’t need to. The goal isn’t to call the top. It’s to stay invested, stay disciplined, and stay focused on your long-term vision, the one we’re building together.

If you’d like to talk more about this, call us or email at askanadvisor@hillinvestmentgroup.com to set up a time.