One of the most misunderstood issues in trading is the notion of diversification. I can distil the standard mantra of how the sell side of the industry defines diversification into – so long as your stocks have different names you are diversified. So no need to worry. Unfortunately, this is not true. In small closed…

Markets are always interesting – even when they are not doing anything they are interesting. The thing that interests me most about this is that the Dow did not go down, although one possible interpretation of this could be that it is simply a relief rally. That is we are relieved that we didn’t wake…

As an unabashed fan of extreme weather I bring you Sandy-Cam courtesy of a camera on the 51st floor of the New York Times building.

I think a much better idea would be to allow disgruntled clients to pay to punch their hedge fund managers in the head.

Not mine….someone else’s. The chart below dropped into one of my junk email accounts. This is a chart of the S&P500 PE ratio – I can see what people are attempting to do when they construct such charts. My interpretation is that they are looking for signs of mania – that is a distortion in…

Why didn’t I see this before seeing the damned film………….  

As we near the end of the magic month….according to some. I thought it might be interesting to see whether October is all its cracked up to be. Apparently it isn’t, below are the average monthly returns generated using as much data as I could get. Data trumps bullshit once again….

One of the markets I trade is the S&P 500 which has been in recovery mode since 2009. However, the action this week seems to have put the wind up a few people – the merest mention of a market going down in October seems to send everyone running for the shelters. Channel breaks are…

Not quite on the close but apparently I have been told something.