This Is Water
This is a piece by David Foster Wallace. I believe that it is part of a commencement address he gave to Kenyon College a small US college. Someone took his address and turned it into this interesting little short film.
Math As Myth
For all of the appearances of the golden ratio, there many be even more erroneous sightings of it. The spiral of the nautilus’ shell is often said to fit precisely within a golden rectangle regardless of its size. But that is untrue. Each nautilus shell does maintain the same proportions throughout the animal’s life (that…
DetailsBehavioural Finance Experts
I was not able to embed the video so click on the image below to be taken to the WSJ Watch: How to Tame Your Emotions When Investing Watch three Experts–Meir Statman of Santa Clara University and author of “What Investors Really Want,” Terrance Odean of the University of California, Berkeley and consultant, writer and investment adviser Tom…
DetailsFear Or A Lack Of Discipline
Following my piece on fear I got a few comments from people that indicate that many confuse a lack of discipline with fear. To me fear is a visceral experience, it is almost tangible in the way it can paralyse ones actions and distort thinking. A lack of discipline is a behavioural trait and is…
DetailsGilligan And The Prediction Of Markets
With some folks now proclaiming that Google trends can predict markets…..after they have moved which does defeat the purpose of a prediction system I thought it worth revisiting something I wrote awhile ago about the idiocy of predictive systems. PS: Mary-Anne and Ginger included only for reminiscing. I have a new trading system and judging…
DetailsGoogle Trends And Predicting Markets
There has been a story doing the rounds in the past week about researches demonstrating the efficacy of tracking key word searches to predict market direction. One news report proudly trumpeted that it was more effective than a stockbroker in making you rich, you can insert your own snarky remark about this. The use of…
DetailsSelf Herding
I have been rereading parts of Dan Ariely’s The Upside of Irrationality. For those who don’t know of Ariely and his work you can catch up with him on TED. One of the great cognitive biases we face as traders is the notion of herding – that is we run in groups. Institution’s are particularly…
DetailsHow Much Should We Trust Economics?
I was in the process of writing a piece on this very subject.As luck would have it someone has done a much better job.
Game Theory: Jane Austen Had It First
From the NYT – It’s not every day that someone stumbles upon a major new strategic thinker during family movie night. But that’s what happened to Michael Chwe, an associate professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, when he sat down with his children some eight years ago to watch “Clueless,” the…
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