As someone who comes from a data driven background one of the things that has always intrigued me about financial markets is that despite being a wellspring of raw data it is driven by narratives. Humans do seem to prefer stories over data – in effect we are a hairless ape that prefers stories to…
After a thirty-year study of time diaries, two sociologists found that Americans were actually working fewer hours than we did in the 1960s, but we feel as if we’re working more. We have the sense, too often, of running at top speed and never being able to catch up. […] We’ve lost our Sundays, our…
Forex Magnates have done an excellent job collating the losses incurred by various firms during the recent upheaval in the CHF
There is an excellent piece by Fairfax media doing the rounds this weekend that looks at the problems Macquarie Bank seems to have complying with the law and the difficulties its financial planning division has in acting honestly. The thrust of the story is that Macquarie has been the subject of an enforceable undertaking due to…
I came across this article and the end part which I have copied below caught me eye. Australian regulations under fire In the wake of the global financial crisis, the United States put a handbrake on the retail foreign exchange industry, limiting it to a maximum leverage ratio of 50:1. However, in Australia, foreign currency…
Tim Harford takes a look at one of my favourite topics – the perils of prediction and why experts suck at it.
All market participants have little myths that they cling to and it doesn’t matter whether your investing is based upon the narrative fallacies generated by fundamental investing/news or whether you take a more technical approach. All humans are subject to inaccuracies in thinking – making mental mistakes is universal. One that has always intrigued me…
The Large Hadron Collider is the largest machine ever built with a circumference of 27 kilometres and when operating at full power particles whiz around the circumference 11,000 times per second.
The athletes identified 12 key attributes as key to mental toughness in sport, ranked in order of importance: Unshakeable self-belief in your ability to achieve competition goals(“Mental toughness is about your self belief and not being shaken from your path. . . . It is producing the goods and having the self belief in your…
The perils of being sedentary and its associated lack of movement are well documented – you dont need to be Einstein to realise that doing nothing all day is bad for you. However, as with trading folks find any number of excuses not to move or do anything. One of the arguments I often encounter…
This little piece interested me and I don’t have any real problem with its basic thrust which is that the financial planning industry is failing its clients in search of revenue. After all, this is an industry that lobbied hard not to be forced to act in the best interest of the client. However, my…
The stories we tell ourselves are integral to our wellbeing, too. Depressed people often cling to long-established internal narratives with refrains like ‘I’m not good enough to achieve much,’ or ‘My mother dashes all my most important dreams.’ Counsellors who practice psychodynamic therapy help clients discard these stagnant inner monologues and substitute fresh ones. In…
