I was trolling through PubMed the other day searching for a particular paper when I got distracted as I am want to do. The internet is a wonderful thing for getting lost looking at various papers. Back in the day this sort of distracted quest was impossible simply because you would have to spend hours…
Like a gothic horror story, my tale begins on a dark and stormy December night in Manhattan. My friend “J” had graciously offered to drop me off after the dinner party we’d both attended. As his chauffeur took us across town via a circuitous route, our conversation drifted intermittently. During the lulls my thoughts turned…
OMAHA, Neb.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Answering a question last night about his $916 million income tax loss carryforward in 1995, Donald Trump stated that “Warren Buffett took a massive deduction.” Mr. Trump says he knows more about taxes than any other human. He has not seen my income tax returns. But I am happy to give him the…
I am never surprised when I read of the investment decisions made by various fund managers. However, I was a little agog at finding out that AustralianSuper the nations largest superannuation fund has a 3.2% stake in Tesla. It is the only one of AustralianSupers top 20 investments to have not shown a profit. This should…
Now that the Bogan 1000 has been run at Bathurst for another year I note that there was much weeping and wailing at the imminent demise of Ford which is soon to be followed by the end of locally produced Holden’s. This gnashing of teeth was echoed by the car magazines I subscribe to which…
There are many ways to rank universities, but one that’s rarely considered is how many of their graduates make extraordinary contributions to society. A new analysis does just that, ranking institutions by the proportion of their undergraduates that go on to win a Nobel prize. Two schools dominate the rankings: École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in…
ARE you intelligent — or rational? The question may sound redundant, but in recent years researchers have demonstrated just how distinct those two cognitive attributes actually are. It all started in the early 1970s, when the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky conducted an influential series of experiments showing that all of us, even highly…
The most interesting thing to happen in markets for sometime was the GBP flash crash that occurred last week. I only caught the tail end of the crash as I saw some of my GBP puts leap ten fold in value and then settle back down. Which was followed by me going WTF? was that…
In trading we have a concept known as alpha – that is the measure of skill we bring to the investment process as measured by comparison to a given benchmark. Traditionally we think of generating alpha via our instrument selection or timing. The aim of being a trend follower or momentum trader is to buy…
This is the best explanation of why trends occur and persist that I have seen.
1. “There’s a quick and easy way to test whether an activity involves skill: ask whether you can lose on purpose. In games of skill, it’s clear that you can lose intentionally, but when playing roulette or the lottery you can’t lose on purpose.” 2. “Much of what we experience in life results from a…
One of the mechanisms by which I have learnt to deal with the vicissitudes of the market is to believe that they are actually very generous and that they will tell me everything I need to know if I just listen. When I have gone back and reviewed errors in judgement I have made as…
Zach Hambrick has always been fascinated by exceptional performance, or what he calls “the extremes of human capabilities.” Growing up, he’d devour Guinness World Records, noting the feats it described and picturing himself proudly posing in its pages. By the time he reached college, though, he’d moved on to a new obsession: becoming a golf pro.…
