Hey readers. Phil Rosen here. As you might guess about a writer, I love to read.
I've collected hundreds of books over the years, and stacks of paperbacks line the walls of my room. But the most useful knowledge I've learned comes from a very small fraction of those books.
This is the Pareto principle, more popularly known as the 80-20 rule: Roughly 80% of impact comes from 20% of the causes.
Once you start looking for it, the idea pops up everywhere. Twenty percent of your office carpet likely gets used 80% of the time. A small number of employees often power the lion's share of a company's revenue.
We just saw a more extreme distribution play out in the stock market, too. Just 20 names drove 90% of the gains in the S&P 500 over the first three months of the year.
Now that you have your water cooler fact for the day, let's get to the news.