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Letters to the Editor Competition

Daily Speculations is a benevolent forum to encourage good thinking about the market. Material is provided free by us and our readers. Because incentives work, and to augment the mutual benefits of participating in the forum, we offer awards each month for top contributions or letters to the editor. Past winners:

June 2006:

1. Keep Out of Those Switches! by Martin Lindkvist with the Assistance of Victor Niederhoffer

May 2006:

1. The "Seven Deadly Sins of Poker" by Nick Marino are right on, and can be applied to many activities.
2. George Zachar has fun with "Tradition."
3. Nice use of literature from Andrew Moe to illustrate the grave descent of the market with "Helm's Deep."
4. Deep thinking on Domino Effect from Jan-Petter Janssen.
5. Antti-J. Pohjonen offers great fatherly advice, especially the part on aromatherapy.
6. Lessons to remember from a tugboat captain, by Michael Olagnon

Each winner will receive $250.

April 2006:

1. Debra Moon for her Donut Testimony from a Single Woman, a candid and humorous account of her insights into personal patterns and trends, the psyche of a woman, ambushes, men and markets.
2. Twenty Ways to Lose in Good, Equal and Bad Chess Positions, by GM Nigel Davies, has many parallels to trading.
3. Allen Gillespie offers some Good Lessons for Speculators gleaned from his visit to the Wright Brothers Memorial.
4. Applying the 'Rules of War' to the Market, by David Baccile, concentrates on identifying weaknesses of the Mistress and attacking them.
5. Henry Carstens's thoughts on Predator-Prey Model has interesting possibilities.
6. The "Music" of the Track? Kedrick Brown gives a nice overview of Bacon's "Secrets of Professional Turf Betting" and adds a twist of his own.

All winners received $500.

March 2006:

• $1,000 to Rodger Bastien for 'Another Lesson Learned,' a powerful short essay on passing along knowledge.
• $500 to Tyler McClellan for three thought-provoking posts: 'Easter Menu,' a contribution to our ever-popular speculative pursuit of barbecue; 'Benevolence,' which goes to the heart of why we speculate; and 'Avalanches,' a post that inspired an excellent augmentation from the Chairman's partner Duncan Coker.

February 2006:

• The discussion on cycles in late February was one of the best ever on Daily Spec. Special recognition and thanks to Phil McDonnell, Bruno Ombreux, Jim Sogi, Tom Ryan and John Bollinger for their elucidating comments.
• Jim Sogi gets deeper and deeper, while helping us and others stay afloat. We thank him for his posts on binary modeling and rogue waves, which elicited a post from a very interesting and erudite new contributor, mathematician Michel Olagnon.
• Tom Ryan, known to Daily Spec readers for practical and scholarly insights on geology and trees, startled us with a thought-provoking post relating Shakespeare's playwriting to speculation. (Feb. 3)
• Alex Castaldo consistently enlightens readers with essays that present the results of his intense study and thought with great clarity and wit. We recommend his latest, “Fibonacci’s immortal contribution to Finance” (Feb. 12).
• The Letters to the Editor section drew a highly interesting comment (Feb. 21) on the racial element in the opposition in Europe to the acquisition of Arcelor by Mittal of India. The author requested anonymity.
• Shane James’s letter on destructive memes (Feb. 16) offered a highly entertaining inside view of medium-term currency forecasting at investment banks.

January 2006:

• U. Maryland sophomore Henry Magram on Thoreau's market observations.
• Brief and elegant: Steve Leslie of Melbourne, Fla., on old gamblers; G.M. Nigel Davies responds to a fellow Spec's question on how many balls to juggle.
• Mike Good's correction to our piece on crocodiles was such a pleasure to read that it took away the sting, while the Las Vegas Whale's extension of the subject to long-short and equity-neutral funds made us shake for the folks on the other side of his trades. The Whale also weighed Byron Wien's list of predicted New Year's "surprises" in the scales and found it wanting, and shared his own forecast for 2006.
• "Top Ten Daytrading Lies" by Craig Maccagno and James Lackey, augmented by Nathan Stewart, set off so many bells that we thought it was noon.
• Rod Fitzsimmons Frey's first-hand account on riding the public bus in Madagascar; the last line applies to markets as well as jungles.
• The modest self-styled Assistant Webmaster Steve Wisdom set the standard, as usual, with a Friday the 13th counting piece, ending with an explanation of why he does not write almanacs. Dr. Kim Zussman also continues to generously post distinguished countings.
• Jim Sogi of Hilo, Hawaii, a regular and honored contributor, started off a noteworthy counting exchange on private jets, "The Friendly Skies," among George Zachar, a Las Vegas Whale, and the Assistant Webmaster.
• The exchange among J.T. Holley, John Lamberg and Kim Zussman on parent participation in the Pinewood Derby and classroom science experiments is a Daily Spec classic.
• Russell Sears' post "Tying Your Shoelaces" was a standout and a meal for a lifetime.

We award $1,000 to Russell Sears for "Tying Your Shoelaces," and $250 to the honorable posters mentioned above.

December 2005:

So many worthy contributions came in that we awarded $500 prizes to five people:

• Robert Aliber, "Value vs. Growth"
• Joe Hughes, "Captain Weird"
• John Kuhn, "Secrets and Lies"
• James Lackey, "Get the Joke Posts: 2005 in Review"
• Kim Zussman, "The Irony of Scrooge"

November 2005:

"Exploring Fama-French in R: Visualizing the Difference between Traditional CAPM and the Fama French Three-Factor Model in Estimating Cost of Capital., using R" (by an objectivist researcher who requests anonymity because of his job, Nov. 23)

October 2005:

Shane James, for a post on his wife's correlation work in shoe buying and marital intimacy "Shameless Ploy for Letter of the Month," Oct. 19)

September 2005:

• $1,000 to Nassim Taleb: "Music and Colors"
• $500 to Mark Mills: Response to Taleb's "Music and Colors" post
• $500 to Tom Ryan: Fly Fishing in Big Sky Country

August 2005:

• $1,000 to Andrew Moe:  "Bullish on the Big Easy"
• $500 to Jim Sogi: "Drowning"
• $500 to Phillip J. McDonnell: "Competition"

Letters to the Editor archives

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