Peter Lynch on economics

 “If you spend 14 minutes a year on economics, you just wasted 12 minutes.”

— Peter Lynch

Of course, he means macroeconomics, and that may have been the case when stock-picking was supreme and generated strong alpha. You still need to know the economics of the firm and industries. Still, with the focus on beta and risk premia, there is also a need for understanding the business cycle, the credit cycle, and monetary policy. Can investors predict the macroeconomy? That is a tricky question, but understanding where you are in the macro cycle may make all the difference between success and failure.

Perhaps analysts need ot spend 28 minutes on economics per day and learn not to waste any of them.