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8/8/2005
Briefly Speaking, by Victor Niederhoffer

1. We return to our roots here because Briefly Speaking was inspired by the Sage's admonition that he was never briefed on anything illegal relative to the transaction with AIG. However, an article about Berkshire read '"... the government is inquiring about its bookkeeping. BRK has always been viewed as a company that's above the fray and operates on a higher level" said Christopher Bebel, a former prosecutor.' Yes, who else could refer to this investigation as a bookkeeping problem. '"It is inconceivable to me that Buffett would have allowed any improper accounting" said Fairholme's Trauner.' May I suggest that the worst taskmasters are often your former greatest admirers.
2. Henry Gifford made a nice contribution to the Spec Party by describing the random behavior of the flows and spouting of a fountain that seemingly contained patterns. He's augmented his real estate with stock investing and says he gets many insights from the plumbers that he associates with as the world's leading expert on boilers. They're always talking about how their broker told them this, and they told their broker that and that taught him a lesson. It seems they get more satisfaction about having the most prestigious brokers and outsmarting them then they do about making profits. Henry bought a stock where he spends most of his money.
3. More and more I believe Babson's theory that the state of happiness is a key to stock market movements. We've had a terrible spate of bad weather in New York, with a run of four days with a high above 90. The heat is such that in France there would be many excessive deaths. I hypothesize that excessive runs of miserable weather in New York are associated with inordinate future instantiations of large multi-day declines.

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