A selection of the best business books of the year, a few tips from readers and the titles DealBook looks forward to reading in 2023.

The two men — high-profile personas at big-name firms — are the public faces of what can only be described as the blindsiding of Wall Street. With few exceptions, the best and brightest in stock and bond markets failed to appreciate how the inflation outbreak would upend the investing world in 2022. They failed to anticipate how the Fed would react — the rate increases came at a torrid, not measured, pace — and failed to foresee how that, in turn, would trigger the worst simultaneous rout in stocks and bonds since at least the 1970s.

No one can predict what the stock market will do next.

Italian health authorities will begin testing all arrivals from China for Covid after almost half of the passengers on two flights to Milan were found to have the virus.

They are also sequencing the Milan tests to see if there are new variants, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Not a headline you want to see three years into this thing...

These attempts at clairvoyance are stymied by a fundamental problem: It’s simply impossible to forecast the path of the markets six months or a year ahead with accuracy and consistency, as many academic studies have shown. That the financial services industry continues to label these unreliable numbers as forecasts is a triumph of breathtaking chutzpah — a technical term for shameless audacity.

The best investing advice I've seen all year.

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried landed in the US late Wednesday to face a range of criminal charges just as two of his long-time associates said they were cooperating with prosecutors.

The revelation that Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang had pleaded guilty to fraud and were working with federal officials probing the collapse of the crypto exchange is an ominous sign for Bankman-Fried. The 30-year-old is facing an eight-count indictment in New York.

This guy is done for.

While 95% of millennials who rent want to own a home, they’re doubtful they’ll be able to pull it off any time soon.

First there was the pandemic housing frenzy, with bidding wars and cash offers dominating an under-supplied market that was too hot for many first-time buyers to crack, even with historically low mortgage rates. Then came interest rate hikes, which have driven up borrowing costs. And while the Fed has managed to cool housing demand, the supply of available properties is still low and monthly mortgage payments have spiked out of reach for many potential buyers.

Left unstated in this article is that this result is the explicit and purposeful goal of current fed policy. Rates go up => people buy less things. The only interesting facet here is how such policy affects different groups disproportionately:

Across age demographics, 88% percent of people who bought a primary residence between July 2021 and June 2022 were White, according to the National Association of Realtors. Among first-time buyers during that period, 82% were White, the highest share in at least 20 years.

What is the problem with “Yes Men?” They tell their masters what they want to hear, fail to challenge their worst ideas, and generally encourage their patron’s own bad instincts. As we have seen in 2022, “Yes Men” are disastrous for titans of industry, billionaires, even monarchs.

Some of 2022’s most disastrous situations occurred because these people failed to have anyone around to challenge or push them to come up with better solutions. They needed to have some “No Men” around.

Incredibly good advice, albeit difficult to follow. Always have someone that can comfortably and safely disagree with you.