Managing Mistakes
Somewhat appropriate given a cock up I made during the week….
Trend Following Is Dead…blah.. blah.. blah…
Before I head off to Fiji for a week I was cleaning out an image archive I keep when I came across this chart of Poseidon from the 1960’s. Source: Reserve Bank of Australia Despite what people say nothing ever changes…..
Bulls, Bears & Charlatans
The word ‘charlatan’ is supposedly derived from the Italian word ciarlare, which means ‘to babble.’ Some of the original charlatans were confidence men who would prey upon people’s misunderstandings about healthcare before modern medicine existed. There used to be traveling medicine shows where the salesperson would make promises of magic elixirs that would heal all wounds. It…
Habits vs Goals
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice.” — Octavia Butler More here – Farnham Street
The Reality of Statistics
I snipped this table from Business Insider – it shows the likelihood of various sorts of maladies befalling the average American. Apart from the appalling statistic for gun violence my guess is that it is roughly transferable to Australia. It highlights the profound disconnect between true risk as expressed as a number that is harsh…
Guru Predictions Chart
Following on from using sentiment to try and predict the future Jon Boorman has updated his wonderful guru predictions chart. Source: Jon Boorman
Investor Sentiment….Who Cares….
This is a chart of investor sentiment as produced by the American Association of Individual Investors. Each week the association polls its members with the question where do you feel the stockmarket will be in the next six months. The results are tallied to give a percentage bullish, bearish or undecided. These sorts of metrics…
A Short Lesson In Compounding
A conversation arose recently regarding the idea of taking funds out of your trading account as a mechanism of providing yourself with a buffer. I have to state at the outset that I am diametrically opposed to taking funds out of a trading account except in the direst of circumstances. The reason for this is…
Where are all the space hotels?
JUNE 1, 2017 —If all had gone according to plan, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would be celebrating its 10th anniversary of capturing stunning portraits of distant galaxies, NASA would be hard at work on its dark energy detector, Virgin Galactic would be running two daily tourist flights to the edge of space for just $50,000…
The Secret to a Long and Healthy Life
The idea that what a person eats influences their health no doubt predates any historical accounts that remain today. But, as is often the case for any scientific discipline, the first detailed accounts come from Ancient Greece. Hippocrates, one of the first physicians to claim diseases were natural and not supernatural, observed that many ailments…
What Crisis?
In somewhat of a similar vein to the post on scary charts I came across this piece yesterday – For the past 40-50 yrs, those years ended with “7?” always spell trouble. 1977? – International Currency Crisis 1987?- Oct 19 Black Monday Crash 1997?- Asia Financial Crisis 2007?- US sub-prime Crisis 2017? – ? There…
The Unfortunate Rise Of The Misleading ‘Scary Chart’
Wish I had done this….. In early 2014 charts were circulating around the internet comparing the 2014 market to 1928-1929. One such chart is shown below. The below chart was taken from an article that highlighted the fallacy of these comparisons. In fact, this type of scare tactic infiltrated the main stream media where a…
