IN the opening act of Tom Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” the two characters are passing the time by betting on the outcome of a coin toss. Guildenstern retrieves a gold piece from his bag and flips it in the air. “Heads,” Rosencrantz announces as he adds the coin to his growing collection.…
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STOCKHOLM—This is a high-tax, high-spend country, where employees receive generous social benefits and ample amounts of vacation time. Economic orthodoxy would suggest the dynamics of a welfare state like Sweden would be detrimental to entrepreneurship: Studies have found that the more a country’s government spends per capita, the smaller the number of start-ups it tends to have…
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I have a theory that the easiest job in Australia is to be the head of one of big four banks. On day one of my employment as CEO I would do two things. First and foremost make certain they had the correct banking details so that my grossly inflated salary went into the right…
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Apparently how you spend your money in retirement has a lot to do with your life satisfaction – this is off course assuming you have any money in retirement to spend. Long story made short spending it on time consuming leisure activities where health allows generates the most satisfaction. Overall satisfaction is also increased by…
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Every now and again I get sent a magic trading system complete with equity curve, generally these are some sort of magic system someone is flogging that promises massive returns and never has a drawdown. They are the sort of quit your job with $10,000 and intra-day trade FX and make $10,000 per week. If…
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The good old corporate euphemism of exploring new opportunities has been applied to the resignation of CBA CEO Ian Narev. Apparently you are not allowed to say listen mate under your reign we have had a big arse Ponzi scheme, the bank has tried to deny the terminally ill access to insurance they paid for…
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Interesting graphic from the Investment Company Institute showing the flows of cash into index ETF’s and out of actively managed funds.
Virtu Financial—one of the world’s largest computerized trading firms—made money every trading day last quarter. The problem is that it made less of it than in the past, as volatility in the financial markets has dried up in recent months. Big price swings are good for high-frequency trading strategies, as machines can swoop in and take advantage…
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