As we finalise our predictions for 2021, it would be prudent to consider what our expectations were for 2020 and how those played out. Markets, economies and people are far too complex to foresee with any level of confidence or accuracy. Making predictions about financial markets is one of those activities that we perform in…
What is interesting about trading and investing is that its participants largely think that the things they experience are unique in some way when in reality they have simply found another mechanism for expressing all the foibles of being human (read stupid). These displays of being all too human result in traders being subject to…
Pop quiz. If someone suggested to you that you should undergo a mandatory 28-day quarantine to come and give a presentation to them in person that could be done over Zoom would you – a) Tell them to get stuffed. b) Tell them to get stuffed. c) Tell them to get stuffed. If you answered…
Recently some commodities have been on a bit of a tear as a consequence any index that tracks commodities has been showing signs of life. A day or so ago the chart below appeared on my LinkedIn feed. It is the Bloomberg Commodities Index with a trendline and an arrow is drawn on it because…
Visual Capitalist has generated a graphic on the world’s largest IPO’s – they also include this listing in tabular form which I have scrapped and dropped into Excel for readability.
Among the many previously unthinkable moments of 2020, one of the strangest occurred on April 20, when the price of crude oil fell below zero. West Texas Intermediate futures, the most popular instrument used to trade the commodity, had started the day at $18 a barrel. That was already low, but prices kept tumbling until,…
…Nick Leeson wasn’t the first rogue trader in history and, despite the controls put in place after he’d brought down Barings, he wasn’t the last. Not six months after Leeson was caught, a trader in Daiwa Bank’s New York office confessed to over ten years of unauthorised dealing activity, leading to losses of over $1…
“Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.”—Paul Brandt More here – Psychology Today
….The idea of a “true self” and a “false” or “shadow” self has long preoccupied psychologists. For example, Carl Jung introduced the notion of the shadow side of our personality. He viewed “the shadow” as our unknown, dark side—made up of the primitive, negative, socially depreciated human emotions such as sexuality, striving for power, selfishness,…
If you have ever wondered why most people are perplexed by the modern world look no further than the following headline. You can find the full article here – BBC News
Some time ago I had the chance to sit down and chat with Kirk Chisholm at Money Tree Investing. I am not able to embed their player but you can click here to be taken to the episode.
Vaccines have a behavioural problem. If they are effective then they can eradicate a risk from our lives. The successful development of vaccines means that we are no longer exposed to a variety of illnesses that were debilitating and devastating. Yet because we don’t experience these traumas, it is easy to overlook the incredible benefits…
Most people in life go nowhere that is a given and they go nowhere because even when given an opportunity to make a small difference to their lives they do something stupid. I have had the graphic below sitting on my junk file for awhile cluttered in with all the rest of the detritus I…
