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Bank of America: Too Crooked To Fail

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Another piece by Matt Taibbi and Rolling Stone, things strike me about this article. Firslty, if even a fraction of it is true then it a profoundly distressing since it is not only a reflection of of BofA but also US society in general. Secondly, why the f#%k cant our journalists and mainstream media be…

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Seven Sins Of Fund Management

Over the long weekend I came across this excellent primer on the behavioural issues facing investors. The link to the original follows at the end but I have snipped part of the first page below. Seven sins (common mistakes) were identified. The first was placing forecasting at thevery heart of the investment process. An enormous…

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Still Paying A Lot For Not Much

People invested in hedge funds are still paying a lot for very little in the way of actual return. Hedge funds were up 0.59% in March although they still trailed the S&P 500, which was up 3.13% for the month and 12.00% YTD. The Hennessee Hedge Fund Index is up 4.59% YTD. “Hedge funds posted…

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This Gives Me The Shits……

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I am a fan of internet shopping – I buy everything I can reasonably buy from the google box. Years of putting up with disinterested, surly and friggen ignorant shop assistants have been replaced by a relaxed approach to buying virtually anything I want in peace and quiet However, when buying a digital book of…

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Ever So Calm

This is the VIX over the past few years – as you can see the market seems to have calmed right down to historically low levels.  

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Poor Returns….Again

There appears to be a growing realisation that fund managers of all ilk are simply not delivering the returns they are being paid for. In fact the evidence seems to indicate that the majority of managers (>95%) are actually a drag on the performance of any given fund. Whilst, we tend to look as this…

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Deceptive Headline Of The Year…..So Far

Large Hedge Funds Fared Well in 2011 Apparently they didn’t – their managers did. I have written about this disconnect before, here and here There is a remarkable and somewhat unsavoury difference between what the people who run hedge funds make and what the people who invest in hedge funds make. As an example consider…

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A Sign Of Life

At last some vague sign of life – the marked bars represent 52 day highs so at least the market has made a modestly pathetic attempt at making new highs. As opposed to other world markets that have been making successively new highs in the past few months.

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A Tale Of Two Brains

I am currently reading the excellent Who’s in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain which delves into the nature of consciousness and free will. Like all good cross over science books it can be read by the lay person without much difficulty. Whilst follow up on a chapter on split brain surgery I…

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Rally

I have been watching the latest US rally with some interest and each night when I review the markets I notice an interesting thing. The rally is extremely lumpy in its distribution. Have a look at the graph below which compares the rally in the major US indices to the FTSE100, ASX 200 and the…

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