Feb

1

S&P maintains its record in jan 2023: since 2011 there have been 714 separate 20-day highs, of a total of 3118 trading days, that's 23%. in jan 2023 there were six 20-day highs of total of 22 trading days.

there is much adulatory talk about Paul Volker. how current chair admires him and wishes to follow in his footsteps. Having met the tall one at Larry Ritter's bedside and studied his record, I can say that nothing would be worse.

The tall man was Chair from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure unemployment, fed funds and the inflation rate started at 5%. they each increased gradually over the next 3 to 6 years to 10%. Interest rates on long term bonds reached a high of 18%, and the stock market performed dismally until the fake doc Greenspan took over.

dismal stagflation and misery was bound to happen . Mr Volker hated technology . he didn't use a typewriter , computer or tv or tape recorder. with a view of stamping out production and controlling the economy by reducing potential supply of goods, the misery was guaranteed.

correction: during his first four years the S&P was relatively constant, was approx 100. during the last 4 years the S&P doubled. perhaps the S&P anticipated the opposite approach of Mr. Reagan.

Vic's twitter feed

Jan

30

there has been a remarkable increase in wealth so far in 2023. jan S&P is up 3%, long term bonds are up, gold is up 11%, nikkei up 10%, dax up 7%, copper up 10%, bitcoin up 50%, sugar up 10%.

perhaps this is greatest increase in wealth ever. note that jan 2023 ends with five consecutive 20 day highs in a row. and to top it off regulatory capture for 2024 is ascending with the guy now leading in the odds. perhaps no consilience that big guy is up 50% in odds.

there will be talk soon about Jan barometer. of course it will be untested. problem with it is that in 2009, jan sp was down big. the next 11 months were up 55%. conversely in 2001 big reverse from jan S&P up 5% to down 25% for the year.

it can't go up steadily, or the public will not be wrong footed. indeed the regularities call for a down feb after a dipsey doodle in the first tow weeks of Jan.

putting it all together i find that when jan S&P is up, the average for next 11 months is up 6%. similarly when S&P is down first month, the average change is up 6%. using bonds as a barometer we find similarly random moves to end of year.

all results are from 1996 to present. there is also the problem of ever-changing cycles and the low power of any study with 26 meager observations.

Vic's twitter feed

Jan

24

>(1) i was often beaten but i now ask myself if each of the defeats which fortune did not spare me was not inflicted at the very moment that it was necessary. (2) if i have sometimes beaten a Tilden or Borotra, it is because i have willed with all my forces to win, mainly and necessarily a meticulous preparation.

(3) on the court a player should always be on his toes. one should never face the net. (4) It is not a rapid movement which allows of imparting a lot of speed to the ball but a long and supple movement carefully executed by taking all the necessary time.

(5) one must be patient and convinced that serious and conscientious work will always give the result which ca be reasonably hoped for. progress for me meant placing my feet better and more rapidly. that made me 15 points a game better.

(6) i never play a stroke standing still but always by drawing nearer to the ball and going beyond the point where I struck it. (7) never be immobile but take up a good position immediately for playing the next stoke. (8) "stay calm above all" - Lacoste on Tennis.

Vic's twitter feed

Jan

18

prob of bicyclist winning rises to 21%.

Logic of Belief Revision

with all the talk about how everyone at the fed is on the same page and is locked into raising rates, the real determinant of their activity will be how the bicyclist is doing and what will help him. apparently they feel that hawkish is good for him now with the S&P harmonious.

The investment biker joins el erian and Mr. Wonderful in that special category of usefuls.

the good news for S&P is that the Ray-Ban bicyclist has advanced to 22.5 % in prob of winning. as mentioned, the more he's in trouble the better he gets, like the S&P.

very good news for the bicyclist: He shows that he has at least 12 more years of life expectancy by getting up from floor without using hands or floor or fixed object.

everything at 1-month high since dec 2: S&P, crude, bonds, gold. fortunately, the Fed is always 3 months behind the form. soybeans at 6 month high also.

Bullard: "I told you so":

Simon Wilding The Policemans Song Pirates of Penzance

Huey Calloway, The Good Old Boys: got to get the herd to dodge before the others get their first and lower the price:

Jim Rogers reveals the 'biggest risk' in 2023, as well as 'cheapest assets'

Vic's twitter feed

Jan

14

how many disparate crucial things have been withheld routinely until after elections, starting with Pfizer having a vaccine before 2000, and the son, and this and so may others. apparently this is not ephemeral as prez prob down by 4%.

if only there was as much grief when a businessman who has enriched the masses with beneficial products passes away, rather than Hollywood stars or football players, the world would be a better place.

Schelling on microbehavior and seating arrangements:

Micromotives and Macrobehavior — Thomas Schelling on the Locks and Meshes of Economics

Have you ever paid attention to the seating arrangements at different venues? People are willing to pay good money, for instance, for front row seats at a concert hall, theater, or sporting arena. In fact, students pay even more money to attend college. Yet when it comes to their seating patterns, many seem to do just the opposite, congregating instead around the back of their lecture hall. It goes without saying that different people apply different rules to different settings.

are the seating arrangements like behavior of speculators deciding when to bring prices up to the next ten level? can one predict based on the behavior? when did specs decide from the seating at the 70 level open to seat themselves above the professor at the round?

tremendous increase in world wealth recently - oil, grains, stocks, bonds at one-month highs - some close to 6-month high - the Fed is always 3 months behind the form. talking about fight against inflation. what's the truth? all political.

Vic's twitter feed

Jan

10

Warnings galore

January 10, 2023 | 1 Comment

warnings galore amid predictions of rates above 5%. as the old timer said, when the brokerage houses are most bearish, that is time for "professor". one wouldn't be surprised is sogi is able to drink some Kona today or tomorrow.

with unanimous predictions of drastic decline in rates, bonds at 50-day high.

"It is only by buying when surface conditions show stocks to be unattractive and by selling when surface conditions are attractive to buyers that one may graduate from the ranks of the lambs." Beating the Stock Market by McNeil, 1926.

lancet study says for adult males above 60, chances of dying is 0.00013 if you dont take vaccine. cox hazard ratio non-significant.

the bed rock is killing inflation regardless of the 1929 where they killed everything.

the Gray Lady is concerned that rate increases will hurt their man in 2024 and be inversely correlated with income of persons.

Vic's twitter feed

Dec

22

Mr. Wonderful

December 22, 2022 | 1 Comment

correct me if I'm wrong : Mr. Wonderful received 15 million to promote SBF + 3.6 million to cover his taxes: he invested 15 million in crypto and makes a big deal about losing 15 million against 18.6 received. amount of money that was lost by those who were influenced by him is staggering.

somehow Mr. O'Leary should not be on the committee to uncover missing money for those who list billions.

thinking of O'Leary vehement defense, i compare it to Stockholm syndrome, "he doth protest too much, put a thief on a horse and he'll gallop." this picture it best: Willie Sutton disguised as policeman in front of bank he robbed. "how could you ask an officer to violate law."

Vic's twitter feed

Dec

14

i have had the pleasure of reading or listening to 1 book a day for the last 4 years. here are the books i find the most educational or enjoyable that i listen to about once a week.

The Time It Never Rained
Don Quixote
On the Origin of Species
Master and Commander
Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism
American Dispatches from the New Frontier
Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined
The Art Of Travel: Or Shifts And Contrivances Available In Wild Countries

all these books are highly recommended and great for education and mollifying anxieties. All i listened to on Audible (i have 470 books ordered from them) except for Origin, Benjamin Franklin, Art of Travel and Infrastructure.

Vic's twitter feed

Dec

14

revelations from start to finish and duration of many years:

Crypto Critics Corner: Sam Bankman-Fried Arrested

as mentioned family frauds are the most difficult to unravel. query: why is quickbooks considered an inappropriate accounting system to a company? it seems very useful to me.

Vic's twitter feed

Dec

11

Fish in the sea

December 11, 2022 | Leave a Comment

thanks to all who wished me happy birthday.

Someone in a Tree - Stereo - Pacific Overtures - Original Broadway Cast

there are so many fish in the sea. five declines in row, followed by a rise, decline. 22-day low since nov 8. in honor of my 80th birthday, 2 patterns both very bullish, t's of 4 five days later. program originally written by Sue and me in 1979. "i was younger then." still here.

The Mikado (Finale)

fish in the sea. last 2 FOMC meetings witnessed S&P down more than 100 big sp each— the serial correlation is 0. on a favorable note the Ray-Ban bicyclist is up to 23% prob of winning versus 12% 2 weeks ago.

Vic's twitter feed

Dec

11

the most demoralizing recent fraud I was victimized by was particularly disturbing as it involved my books which is a tribute to my parents who had a library of books even bigger than mine since my father was paid by all the publishers to thro books in the river but he saved them.

the fraud inflicted on me was a big con. (1) i received a call out of the blue: a book seller told me that I was buying lots of his books so would i mind if he came over to look at my collection. (2) he recommended that I sell my books at a well known dealer out of state.

(3) the book seller i had done business with but she was in mourning — a friend was very sick. she sent me one of her most trusted lieutenants to go thru my collection. (4) the lieutenant told me my books had mold and that i should send them to her principal so that they could be restored and evaluated.

(5) the new book seller in a nice touch told me not to worry too much about it as the mold was not particularly damaging. he also sent me a video of his father who was a very venerable professor like my father. i took aubrey to visit the old book seller.

(6) i received an offer for my books for about 1/5 of what I paid for them (i had held them for an average of 20 years). seeing all my books presumably with mold and taking account of the tragic situation of my book seller i accepted the offer in haste.

(7) on the train home i began to rethink the situation. (8) i met the new bookseller on the train and asked him why he was at the meeting. he said how was he going to get paid if he wasn't involved?

(9)the next day i called and offered 25% more than the accepted price to cancel. the old book seller (he or she) said that they couldn't accept my cancel and offer since the books were already in play. (10) there were some other turns in the big con. they offered to send me half the books back for a price. so I would be assuaged. but they were the remnant.

i cried about my idiocy for several weeks and haven't gone back to my library in 2 years as it's too painful.

one lesson for the current excitement about crypto is never to let your goods out of your possession. also never accept a recommendation from a celebrity or friend without asking what their piece of the deal was.

Vic's twitter feed

Dec

4

that third person - who asked re SBF, "why aren't you in jail you piece of —" - just won national merit scholar. one is very proud. i've known that 3rd person for a major portion of his life.

why do prices fluctuate so much? to give speculators hope and make them trade excessively.

seems to be sapient piece except for refusal to acknowledge that 90% of spending actual or promised was to bicyclist — which is expected on mayor's site:

11 Hours With Sam Bankman-Fried: Inside the Bahamian Penthouse After FTX’s Fall

also the secret back door exempting Alameda from margin requirements that others had, and fact that FTX invested more in venture capital firms than they invested in him. but mostly how is a person left with only $100,000 if his parents and friends took 87 million from co?

guess they're saving the reduced employment for close to elections. the 44 strategy.

calling out to Mr. E who always lives even when feet first, who always said that he spoke to the then Pres and he was saving the employment numbers for the coming election. we miss him greatly. the Falstaff and always ready to take care of the woke.

finally verification that FTX gave comparable money to R's as D when he gave 10 million to 46 campaign and promised 1 billion more. he said he gave dark money to R's but was it comparable to "second biggest donor to d's next to palindrome"?

here's a pretty kettle of fish: two small daily declines but from a big x-day high but last small decline had a tremendous rise from 9:30. like everything it has happened before but let's say 5 times in last 11 years.

where's it going. not much to make the professor happy. to add to kettle we have bonds at big y-day high putting them all together into kettle — only happened once in last 10 years.

Vic's twitter feed

Dec

1

DealBook to ask SBF "tough questions". perhaps 1 million investors and their counselors who have lost (10 billion?) will be not as forbearing? i would ask verification of his interview that he gave as much to both sides of the aisle. apparently according to interview with Asian reporter he gave money to other side darkly so that he wouldn't be ridiculed by agrarian sources. either way it's deception like the angler fish. i'd also ask him to expatiate on his statement that he doesn't read books.

Mr. Gitarts or Mr. Aiken who knows infinitely more about the crypto than I: "what questions would you ask SBF at end of deal book conference?" to the observer he seems to be the Houdini and the spider of deception.

a third person who knows as much about crypto as anyone answers my query, "why aren't you in jail you piece of — ?"

Barry Gitarts writes:

Yes, SBF was an outright fraud, but there are other things brewing in the space that have been banned a long time ago in traditional markets but have emerged again in crypto.

Remember the bucket shop? Well it's back as a crypto protocol. It pools investors money and will offer a trader a slippage free trade, the trader gets to choose when they enter and exit, however the pool charges 10BPS on the way in and on the way out, they charge double digit interest rates on the position even unlevered and offer up to 150x leverage which of course leads to liquidations.

So how has it done? Since inception in 2021, traders have lost $40m to this pool, and that is not counting interest, trading and liquidation fees. The pool currently holds $375m in assets, one year ago it had $100M in assets.

One would think traders would leave the venue after consistently losing, but trading volume recently hit a new high of $1B notional traded in a day.

Big Al adds:

The question I would ask is, "Who got those billions that SBF lost?" Mr. Gitarts comments may be a trailhead.

Vic's twitter feed

Nov

20

I believe the mad dog and mad money are both in my opinion useless with their predictions but mad dog genuinely likes his viewers while mad money has contempt and arrogence in his seemingly vitriolic opinions. mad money hates his listeners and Wall street unless they are part of his investment club. mad dog is harmonious. it is interesting that mad money berates his listeners for not trading enuf. they're too much buy and hold.

important and informative video about FTX from Patrick Boyle. be sure to check out ncz art (a nyse and shackleton painting behind Patrick Boyle who worked effectively at ncz for 5 years). picture of wood nymph who ran alameda on boyle's video.

Vic's twitter feed

Nov

17

it is good to realize that just as destructive to the speculator is establishing a position that will not be able to withstand a reasonable fluctuation. take crude down 4.00 to a new 60-day low today. it was a boon to those who don't have to worry about margin. not being able to withstand such a move, which creates tremendous vig for the Bigs, is just as significant a source of loss in magnitude and frequency as the HFT front-running and the big losses with bad fills on the open.

while everyone was watching the finagling in FTX, the infrastructure took the occasion to decimate the longs in crude and S&P with a heads up and minor forced liquidation of the grains.

shades of Alfred Cowles: a reasonably big reversal 4 days in a row with the last down 20 in S&P. the Kona smells so good but just as Sogi brings it to the lips, a ripple knocks it out - temporarily. Sogi's reflexes and surfing is very good since he was an amateur champion and a sports adventurer - so he catches it before it spills into the Pacific.

It is interesting how the two major financial publication don't even mention that SBF was the second major contributor to the D's after Palindrome in their entirely empathetic articles about him. If he hadn't promised a billion more to the D's or if the Good one Forbid he contributed 98% to the Outs instead of 98% to the ins, there would be a diametrically opposed story. we can forgive the Mayor's site because Fellow Travelers congregate there. But why should the WSJ suppress?

Vic's twitter feed

Nov

16

Tells

November 16, 2022 | Leave a Comment

i have been asked what signals Mr. Bankman gave of wrongness. khaki shorts, effective altruism, tremendous gifts to 46 and hope of giving 1 billion more, entire family interconnected in supposedly altruistic causes…virtue signaling - what else?

smartest guy in room, stanford professors in family, lover of video games, naming rites. frequent use of curse words. first name basis with head of sec. wanted to be first trillionaire, use of standard of silicon valley " it sucks" in "heartfelt" apology. walked out of meeting with regulators with one crucial demand " need more ubers".

Mr. Bankman's activities and interconnected firms has been compared to Enron, and Madoff, but I would add it to Bernie Cornfeld at IOS. the only thing missing is sex.

Barry Gitarts writes:

- Renaming Miami stadium to "FTX".
- Running a crypto company but sponsoring anti-crypto legislation.
- Talked about how they made so much money arbitraging the "kimchi premium", when no one else in the industry could get around the capital controls of South Korea.
- Badly out of shape and was always visibly shaking (now known to be a result of strong stimulants).
- Goes to congressional hearings with his shoelaces untied.
- Arrogant against critics online, tweets out: "Sell me all your SOL at $3 than F*CK off" in response to an account that asked him what is going on with the price of Solana which he is a big backer of.
- Only achieved a bronze level after playing the video game League of legends for years.
- Playing the video game he is so bad at while on important calls like trying to raise money from Sequoia capital.
- Claims to be frugal only driving a toyota corolla but lives in a $40M condo.

Big Al adds:

Misleading statements?

FTX US, Four Others Ordered to Correct FDIC Insurance Claims
Agency ramping up efforts to crack down on misleading comments
Follows similar action against bankrupt crypto firm Voyager

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation issued letters to five companies, including crypto exchange FTX US, demanding that they take immediate steps to correct “false or misleading statements” about certain products being eligible for insurance protection.

John Floyd asks:

I find it interesting delving into how this can help us become better traders in large part by recognizing the human psychology at play here. Is it as simple as if it looks to good to be true it is? Or a filter on linguistic frequency relative to price movement? Or a filter on price movement relative to one's expectations of prospective fundamentals? I can remember being in a room of 10-20 people in 1998 and saying we all own 85% plus of Russia's local currency debt….is that a bad thing and what can go wrong?

Clearly there were smart and successful investors/traders who waived their usual safeguards….what can we learn from this?

Nils Poertner suggests:

I think every company, every group, etc should have at least one person (better a whole team) which only job is to constantly imagine the complete opposite of what the group is doing or thinking.at the moment…

Big Al again:

It also helps to have experienced people on board:
Ultimate Bet Scandal Lawyer Daniel Friedberg at Centre of FTX Crypto Crash

The poker world was shocked to learn that one of the main players in the FTX crypto crash is none other than Daniel Friedberg, the attorney who was in it up to his neck in the Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker scandals of the late noughties.

Easan Katir writes:

An anecdotal tell with a sample size of one: When I was managing an emerging markets fund, while doing due diligence on the island of Mauritius I met a young fellow who looked a lot like SBF who was guaranteeing his investors that he would profit 50% each year. I advised him to never guarantee anything, since markets are…well, y'know, fickle. He didn't listen and kept repeating his guarantee, with the predictable result: big losses, angry investors.

What strikes me is the same body type: large round head, gangly, same slightly vacant expression… probably coincidence…

Penny Brown suggests:

All movie stars (Matt Damon) and celebrities (Giselle & Brady, Naomi Osaka) the new shoe shine boys Joe Kennedy warned against?

Vic's twitter feed

Nov

13

My work has made it clear that changes in a speculative price may profitably be regarded as arising from two classes of influence, namely disturbing influences and changes in price-relevant economic prospects; and that the disturbing influences generate chiefly negative autocorrelations among price changes, while changes in economic prospects generate positively autocorrelated price changes. The negative autocorrelations generated by disturbing influences occur at lags ranging from minutes to at least several days; changes in economic prospects generate positively autocorrelated price changes at lags within that range, and also at much longer lags.

the preceding letter was from Holbrook Working to VN on 4-11-1969. Holbrook Working, along with M. F. M. Osborne, was a giant in the speculative price arena of the 1930-1970 era.

S&P has risen a reasonable amount 6 days in a row and has gained 10% since 11-3-2022, such an event is exceedingly rare. indeed has occurred zero times since 1996. and twice above 10 big a day since 1996 is anything but random. it was slightly bullish in past.

Vic's twitter feed

Nov

10

takeaways from the midterm: (1) fortunately for the S&P the senate wasn't reversed. (2) the betting odds were incredibly wrong for the 3rd election in row. (3) the senate probs switched from 75% r to 10% r in an hour. (4) the horse bet wisdom of waiting to bet near post time is shown.

second largest open ever up 120 big pts. only exceeded on 11-9 2020 when it was up 150 big pts at open. (how a little 0.1 change from expectations can create such big change. all we need is the useful idiot saying the fed must be resolute.)

it is fortunate for the outs that the D.O.L. is not responsible for the reporting of the CPI. if they tweaked it last month by 0.1 up, the outs would surely have lost both houses. with every market down about 20% from last month, was the 0.1 decline that surprising?

bonds at 124 at highest level since oct 17,2022. query: did the Commissioners at the fed forecast this and was that why they were adamant that bonds were going higher? stocks still at 20 day hi as 10-28 was 3948.

guaranteed to happen just like in the old days. when the buzz and media are most negative, time to buy, and the opposite. rite out of the books of the corners and propaganda of 50 years ago.

this is the second biggest rise ever in S&P, only 3-13 22 higher up 220 big. seems to be the greatest rise in wealth in one day ever as when bonds up 3 pts or more stocks were never up more than 100 big triumph of the optimists and proof that the market loves agrarian reformers.

alan abelson and the upside down man previously had the record for the worst advice on stocks of all time having lost hundred of billions for their followers. but their losses were over years. the fed people and their followers who have been beating the pessimistic drums. while it was guaranteed to happen, the question arises if they knew that such an increase in wealth was imminent, how many folks were induced to go into cash or reduce exposure to wealth because of their wrongful bearishness.

amazingly crude only up 0.60 after 5% decline in last 3 days. when the sun is shining , the agrarians make hay all around.

its the little things that the 3-letter agencies tweak that make the drift happen and get one off balance.

The Little Things You Do Together

i am thinking of the old fuddy duddies at the Metropolitan Club on 5th avenue who look out the window and cast dark grimaces at the Women with short skits and congratulate themselves on their disapproval and abstinence. The same must be true of all the governors at the Fed who have twisted all the weak longs out of stocks and bonds with their infernal pessimism and wrongful admonitions. Are they congratulating themselves like the boys at the Cosmopolitan?

the final shoe falls: “This time around, the Fed cannot step in and provide stimulus. So I don’t think it’s good news that we’re not going to get anything out of Congress over the next two years,” El-Erian said.

Vic's twitter feed

Nov

7

Three predictions around election day: (1) we will hear much more about P. Pelosi after Tuesday. (2) the ray-ban sunglasses will be used much more frequently by the unifier. (3) based on patterns, the move from day of election to 2 days after is up 13 big or about 1.5%.

Last 6 midterm elections S&P 500 average move from open to close:
MON +3.38
TUE +5.70 (election day)
WED +8.95
THU +4.42
FRI -1.45

[Click image to open for full analysis showing S&P futures data for the mid-term election weeks from 1998-2018.]

Nov

3

very small variations in S&P on Monday oct 31 , 3.5 a half hour versus normal var on 10 a half hour. largest change was 12 pts versus normal largest change of 20 pts. since a major purpose of markets is to move enough to force out weak with big moves that public can't requite. big moves and margin calls will force enuf of them out to feed the top infrastructures. the market will have to make it up with some extraordinary changes next two days [Nov 1-2]. hang on to seat belt.

takeaways from Powell's remarks: inspector general :inflation hurts those in poverty the most: amazing that someone with no economic training can talk such a good game.

"Give a thief enough rope, and he'll hang himself." all the traders that front run the announcement of an easing next month and bought when they got the news release or heard it from their colleagues at the Fed directly or indirectly were caught long and are blowing in wind.

interesting that both the most popular sports commentator and the most popular stock commentator, mad dog russo and mad money cramer, are both proud of their madness and both seem very ethical and both make numerous predictions that are valueless. guaranteed to happen.

nice move from 14:30 on nov 2 at 3899 to nov 3 at 10:00 AM am 3708 - 5% down in blink of eye - thereby making up for the lack of margin calls and volatility in previous days.

Mr. Powell emphasized the integrity of the Federal Reserve in his commentary on wed Nov 2. he spoke of the Inspector General's probity and independence. Will someone please contact the powers that be concerning the 12 pt S&P rise form 13:30 et to 14:00 right before the announcement? it wasn't chance the announcement seemed very bullish and it was obviously leaked. How was it leaked? its inimical to a fair market which is everybody's stated goal. billions were lost and made with the leak.

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

30

Steve Stigler's new book Casanova's Library is a fascinating trip down the history of lotteries, history mathematics, of combinations, and utility theory. It also explains many of the hopes and failings of gamblers in our markets. well worth reading.

how can stocks go up at a much larger rate than corporate profits over time? the reason i think is that companies have developed the art of taking more emoluments from the government each year thru sneaking into more regulatory extracts.

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

29

much talk about the 1900s custom of touting a stock at its high, and selling out. but the contrition this time is as if it was a first time. What i disagree with is the expression "go woke, go broke" quite the opposite it true as all the big companies that prospered typically by adamantly going against Georgia on their election reform. in general they love regulatory capture which is always greater with more regs. watch out if the house and senate are reversed on Nov 8. it's very bearish. I guess 90% of CEOs now are agrarian.

i guess its only fair to relate that I worked for the repentant Meta Bull for one day before I was fired. my lapse was I said that Galton was the founder of correlation and regression and contingency tables (among other things like weather maps, finger prints, psychometrics, biometrics - i could go on). Fortunately John Markman hired Laurel shortly thereafter and I have infinite respect for him.

if only the golfer celeb were to concentrate on the 30 things that unfairly worked against him before the election, we'd all be so much better off. i'll list them daily: (1) The big pharma that withheld the announcement that they had an effective vaccine until the day after the election.

it is good to have a man in power who is young at heart and hit a 368 baseball single in a congressional game as well as a football star who lettered on the varsity team that beat Ohio state. to say nothing about his prowess in martial arts. He would beat the Hades out of his past opponent if he were still in high school.

two of the most entertaining and boisterous and knowledgeable people in their respective fields are Mad Dog Chris Russo and the always certain but not chastened Jim Cramer (who fired me after one day). It is instructive but not by chance that despite all their erudition, both "madmen" are no better than 50-50 in their frequent predictions. It is not chance that they both approach 50% but part of an inevitable tendency for forecasters to approach and breach the 52% accuracy level needed for profits in sports betting. I believe frequent forecasters in markets don't approach the 52% needed in sports and this is guaranteed to happen by evolution.

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

27

Checkers and logic

October 27, 2022 | Leave a Comment

nand from computer circuitry, checkers, or move from 4:00 ET to 4:15. this was my most important post of the week. the circuitry for computers, based on Boolean algebra, has paths for and, not, or, and nand ("not and", false only when all inputs are true). in checkers there are usually two moves that are likely. the checker moves are much closer to real binary decision making than chess.

how is this related to the moves in the last 15 minutes? why is this be a key reason that checkers is more difficult and relevant than chess? perhaps Mr. Millhone will ask some of the computer literate checker players to expand on this theme so that we will never hear again "he plays checkers while the real smarty plays chess."

let us hope in the new regime that the platform will not cancel by suppression any views that are not woke as they do with so many posters like me. I can reach a wide swath only by paying which I'd be much more willing to do if fair play all around.

it is interesting that my post on nand was noticed by 300 people on the platform. perhaps it was mistakenly considered a not (the unifier or his counterpart). what would the platform's earnings be if they had to deduct from earnings like all other companies their salary expense?

the three major problems with get-rich or trading schemes is: (1) multiple comparisons, (2) ever-changing cycles, (3) lack of testing, (4) self interest, or (5) front running. i have to laugh when half of the reviewers of Ed Spec complain and rate it the worst because "he doesn't give you any trading systems that work."

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

27

how can weekend be over without canceling Yankees for: (1) keeping players in lineup with 100 averages, (2) reliance on ridiculous analytics, (3) not resting Judge, (4) the Boston Redsox tape, (5) futility of listening to an old man on the radio saying ridiculous things like "you can't predict baseball".

do you agree or not "the public got a better deal and a higher chance of making a profit in the days of bucket shops and commissions 100 times higher than today" (i.e., circa 1900)?

a fantasy - i see in my mind's eye the boy wonder saying goodbye to his coven of models and disboarding his yacht thankful that one of them had not killed him yet and rushing to Delmonico's.

it is good to view once again Kagemusha to see how a dead or dying warlord can be hidden from the adversary with respect to the Penn race and debate.

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

25

professor and I meet as S&P crosses 3800 amid Bloomberg warning on Friday oct 21 that an armageddon in the market seems likely.

at the turn of the century, it was common practice of Gould and Drew to spread rumors of a catastrophe on the market before buying with abandon to cover their shorts. thus the advice when the papers and brokers were most negative to buy . As I was out visiting children on Oct 21 and Oct 24 and the only contact I had with market was the bearish news and data source, i thought back to the days of the manipulators memorialized so well by Lefevre.

Bejan's latest book will be on evolutionary design (e.d.). we discussed the e.d. in the market over the last hundred years. commissions have gone from 10% a trade to zero, but the rake and vig and the chances of making a profit with short term trading has remained near zero.

it is instructive to realize that Livermore went bankrupt 5 times by not realizing the inevitability of the rake and the vig (bid-asked and commissions) to lead to bankruptcy and in his case suicide. The thing I loathe the most is when some well meaning personage says that two favorite books are Reminiscences and Education of a Spec.

guaranteed to happen: the powers that be make sure that, before an election, good news is rampant and reduction of service revenues is off the table forever.

Vic's twitter feed

Steve Ellison adds:

Remembering that the upside down man and his successor are often quoted as being bearish about the stock market, and remembering that they were bond salesmen whose best interest might not be served by clients buying stocks, I recall the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) technique that the 1980s IBM sales force was known for.

My first job out of college was assembly language programming on IBM mainframe computers that were the standard for large corporations. IBM essentially had a monopoly in this market from the 1960s on, but by the time I started in the 1980s, competitors such as Amdahl were nibbling around the edges of the market by offering "clones" of IBM systems for lower prices.

The IBM sales force's primary technique if they were worried a customer might buy from a different vendor was FUD. The IBM sales guys would come in and cast as much fear, uncertainty, and doubt on competitor products as possible. Other technology sales forces adopted the technique, too. In one example I was involved with while working at a technology company, a competitor's sales person told a customer that our product could not be programmed in Kanji. Kanji is not a programming language at all; it's a writing system for Japanese.

One ought to keep this history in mind when evaluating bearish statements about the stock market by bond fund managers.

Jeffrey Hirsch replies:

Appreciate the reminder, Steve and Vic. Been observing Goldman and other firms doing this in recent years.

Oct

19

Benjamin Franklin

October 19, 2022 | Leave a Comment

nobody asked me but…the greatest writer, diplomat and scientist and a man completely indispensable to the birth of America was Benjamin Franklin. I am reading Walter Isaacson's excellent bio of Franklin and it is mind-blowing in so many ways, such as how Franklin dealt with spies at Passy by being honest and good. How long will it be until he is painted and toppled?

From: Spies, Patriots, and Traitors, Review by Amb. (ret.) Edward Marks

More questionable is the characterization of Benjamin Franklin’s activities in France as “intelligence” operations rather than diplomacy. Just because Franklin’s work was often “secret” and just because he was the target of British intelligence does not mean that Franklin himself was a “spy” or intelligence operator. He was an accredited diplomat pursing bilateral negotiations with his official host.

The chapter on Franklin, in fact, is one of the best as it re-interprets a story we all thought we knew. The British were all over the American mission to Paris, surrounding it with spies and observers, but more important inserting an agent, American-born Dr. Edward Bancroft, on to Franklin’s staff. In fact, the British were fully informed of everything the Americans were doing, to the point of receiving full and complete copies of the most secret communications. As the author quotes from another historian, "Franklin’s embassy at Passy, it now appears, was almost a branch office of the British Secret Service."

But this is where the story becomes even more educational. Despite this fully successful intelligence operation against Franklin, he was completely successful in his diplomatic mission.

The book: Spies, Patriots, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

18

barnacles aparently will not be increased on open tomorrow. two big big opens have only happened four times since 2011. and it's not bearish.

a symptom of malaise. the Yankees radio are forced to air commercials that are total promotions, twisted. they have one about diverse groups that get gypped on water, another about wearing a helmet that breaks if not patented, to say nothing about buying a Kar without cred.

a bicycle celebration for a player who has a 100 average but kneels during the anthem.

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

13

The Dark Trader

October 13, 2022 | Leave a Comment

market below the round temporarily.

i join the bicyclist.

the more he unifies the better the market.

today his unification falls to 17%.

after 6 down days in a row, it had a lot of ground to cover on the upside and it exceeds the level 4 days ago by a google.

interesting gain in senate now 50-50. the unifier falls correspondingly.

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

11

phenotype selection: Darwin's theory of evolution explains why living things change over time: the mechanism is adaptation - the tendency for living things to become well designed for reproduction and survival. many factors in the environment cause this including competition.

selection causes: predation, weather. in summarizing the subject, Pfenning and colleagues say selection is common in nature and is often sufficiently strong to cause substantial evolutionary change.

there has been a substantial change in market activity and structure in the last year. From 2019 to year end 2021, the S&P was up 54% of the time for an average of 0.3 a day. During 2022, the S&P was up 46% of days and down -4.8 a day. What are the reasons? Lets start with bonds: at year end 2021 they stood at 159, today at 125.5; nasdaq at 16 500, today at 11 100; crude at 76.5 now at 91.2; eurodollar 1.13 now at 98. yen down 40% , gold down 100.

what are the reasons for this change: the answer from ecology is usually increased competition — in this case it would be from fixed income like bonds. but the answer is somewhat deeper I think: there has been a massive increase in regulatory capture, in agrarian reform.

when will it reverse? the statistic shows that after every bad year, the next year is very bullish. perhaps the November election now at 80% for the non-unifiers is a telescopic date.

Vic's twitter feed

Oct

1

Numb3rz

October 1, 2022 | Leave a Comment

good article:
Raging Markets Selloff in Five Charts: $36 Trillion and Counting
• S&P 500 posts rare third straight quarterly loss as Fed Hikes
• Stocks and bond fall in tandem as investors rush to cash

dark bicyclist now behind baseball player at 17.1% versus 18.1% [as of 1 Oct]. what is expectation going forward? for oct, for 4th quarter, and next year.

Laurel and I once visited Cooperstown and met an idiot savant who knew and told us about the batting average of every player going back to 1894. attending the advanced study classes that a certain offspring of me is taking reminds me of that savant. all formulas to prepare for test.

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

28

The IMF called the UK’s unfunded tax cuts excess in need of revision, while Moody’s warned about the UK. Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz SE, said the Bank of England now needs to raise interest rates by at least 100 basis points its next meeting on Nov. 3.

coordination or lone wolf?
UK Long Bonds Post Record Rally as BOE Moves to Stem Crash
• Yield on 30-year gilts fell 106 basis points to 3.93%
• BOE move follows disorderly selloff in recent sessions

The Bank had been warned by investment banks and fund managers in recent days that the collateral requirements could create a situation in which forced selling drove up the yield on UK debt. ie, money mite be lost by longs.

all concerned that the English wish to lower service rates:
Bank of England Buys U.K. Government Bonds, Intervening to Stabilize Market after Huge Selloff

cotton joins lumber and copper and every other market:
Cotton Prices Drop Amid Economic Worries, Strong Dollar Pressure
Futures shed one-fourth of their value in a month as slowing consumer demand overshadows potentially poor harvest

service cuts could create deficits: "US 10-year yields gained almost 80 basis points to head for largest monthly increase since 2003. The yield rose to 3.97% later in the day. global bond rout accelerated this as the UK’s plan for large tax cuts reinforced fears of more rate hikes."

us putting pressure on IMF to remove lowering of service rates:
US Encourages UK to Dial Back Tax-Cut Plan
• UK bond plunge has forced emergency Bank of England purchases
• Selloff in gilts, pound reverberated across world markets

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

27

The historical moment is France's declaration of war against England and Holland in 1793. From Cochrane: Britannia's Last Sea King, by Donald Thomas, p. 37:

However, a young officer in Cochrane's position, joining the navy with a hope of enriching himself with prizes, faced a more powerful enemy than France or Spain, and one whose weapons were a good deal more sophisticated: the Admiralty and its prize courts. In the view of many serving officers, these courts were at best unsympathetic and, all too often, cynically corrupt. It was relatively common for a hopeful young commander and his men to find that, after a hard-won capture, the Admiralty proposed to appropriate the entire value of the prize. It was always open to the heroes to fight for their claim in the prize court. But even if they won the case, they might hear that the cost of the proceedings had swallowed up more than the sum due to them, so that they were now in debt to the court as well as having been robbed of the proceeds of their valour.

A man might complain publicly or privately against the prize system. But before he set himself up as a "sea lawyer", he was well advised to remember that this very employment, let alone his promotion, lay in the hands of the Admiralty itself. In consequence, there was a good deal of private grumbling and very little public campaigning.

Vic writes:

very much like the market where often the only way to receive or fight back is to sign away your rights in a preliminary hearing or arb.

Sep

27

events i am looking at: (1) Pres prob of winning at new high, (2) 3 20-day lows in a row in S&P [as of Sunday], (3) almost every commodity down 20% in last month, (4) 30-year bonds and crude down 7% to new yearly low on thur to new 120-day low, (5) bitcoin below 2000, gold at new lo at 1652.

with every market down 20% from a few weeks ago, how insensitive and virtue-signaling are the CBs with their unanimous and irrevocable stance to beat fixed income down. and will we have to wait for friday before they stop their virtue signaling?

like the dark bicyclist they ride the wave, and he's now for the first time more likely than the baseball player from florida at 17%.

there's something apropos of all the CBs reaffirming their idolatry of the tall chair from 1986 who hated capitalism like they do and so many others these days. but eventually the "preferred measure of inflation" announced on Friday will hit the real world.

don't believe that I have approx 9200 followers normal way by gradual accumulation. only way I could stop the decline was by promoting at $5 each increment. on the other hand all of my tweets are canceled because the algo doesn't realize that the more the unifier rises, the better for the S&P.

a typical recent commodity move:

Lumber Prices Fall Back to Around Their Pre-Covid Levels
Rising interest rates have taken an ax to one of the pandemic's hottest commodities

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

20

it used to be a given that when the private sector performed a job, it was much more efficient than the alternative. a variation of the broken window fallacy. thus the estimate that 100 executive orders of the bicyclist cost the taxpayer 1.5 trillion understates.

the reason for inflation is the decreased trade in the economy that by the quantity theory leads to higher prices.

nobody asked me, but…it used to be that the money supply announced thur after the close had the greatest influence on the market. now it's not even published anymore and M2 is not published either. in the old days, say 2000 and before, a spec paid commissions of $10 or so a side. now one pays 0.25 + 1/75 a side to the CME vig. but in the old days the members on the floor wouldn't give you a fair deal. now it's the high-frequency persona. I liked the 20th century better. it was a fairer deal.

and yet the chair is proudly following Volker who caused the 1987 crash along with Baker and wished to stamp out all technology. he didn't use a typewriter nor tape. i met him at Larry Ritter's bedside and it was a dismal experience to meet someone who lived in an era 50 years receding. and yet he is idolized. he should be ostracized. no wonder chance gardener tore up his speech and gave us Volker. fortunately the FOMC is very bullish for bonds and S&P.

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

18

anatomy of a city, infrastructure, and the road not taken from a trio that will alert you to the engineering, planning, and beauty of the things that make life work:

The Road Taken: The History and Future of America's Infrastructure

In The Road Taken, acclaimed historian Henry Petroski explores our core infrastructure from historical and contemporary perspectives and explains how essential their maintenance is to America's economic health. Recounting the long history behind America's highway system, Petroski reveals the genesis of our interstate numbering system (even roads go east-west, odd go north-south); the inspiration behind the center line that has divided roads for decades; and the creation of such taken-for-granted objects as guardrails, stop signs, and traffic lights - all crucial parts of our national and local infrastructure.

A compelling work of history, The Road Taken is also an urgent clarion call aimed at American citizens, politicians, and anyone with a vested interest in our economic well-being. The road we take in the next decade toward rebuilding our aging infrastructure will in large part determine our future national prosperity.

the move from 4:30 to 5:00pm is very diabolical as it leaves options at 3900 uncovered. perhaps someone knowledgeable about options can explain the intricacies of who's hurt and who's naked as well as the CME rule that allows members only to execute options after 4:15 pm.

looking back at the pools and cliques of the 1900's, and comparing that to the deal that the public gets today relative to the insiders, I believe that 1900 was better.

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

17

nobody asked me, but…(1) as always the more the dark bicyclist gains, the better for the market. he's now up to 15.2% prob versus 9% 2 weeks ago. (2) the professor could not be denied as he refuses to allow the round number of 3900 to be undefended. but he does it in the company way so only the member can profit as it goes above the rounds at 3900 at 5pm closing time so the members can rake the shorts on Monday. (3) I read The Book of Daniel Drew, and it's amazing how evil and unrepentant Drew and his associates Fiske and Gould were as they formed pools to rake, deceive, and break the public and repeatedly tried to turn on the partners out of vengeance for past misdeeds.

The saying, "selling watered stock," has now got to be well-known in the financial world. So I've wrote down in this paper about the affair of salting my critters. Some time later I became an operator in the New York Stock Exchange; I hung out my shingle on Broad Sweet. And the scheme was even more profitable with railroad stocks. If a fellow can make money selling a critter just after she has drunk up fifty pounds of water, what can't he make by issuing a lot of new shares of a railroad or steamboat company, and then selling this just as though it was the original shares?

- The Book of Daniel Drew

I have an updated study of the likely performance of the market the rest of the year based on the last 50 years. in sum, its much better for the market to be up the first 9 months. neutral if down, but very bullish for year following - never two downs in row.

For a story that you will want to share with your kids and have a good joyful cry about:
Mom's reaction to son's long-awaited callup is priceless
After 863 Minor League games, Wynton Bernard stars in debut in Rockies' win

nobody asked me but…(4) when are speculators going to learn that a bad earnings guidance or report after the close is just one S&P arrow in the spring and is not a cause to panic? (5) after a tremendous decline in the previous week ending Friday, is it the time to be bullish or bearish? (6) dark bicyclist unifier continues to climb in the prob of winning. a hypothetical: if the R's lost the senate and house in November, the market would have its greatest rise ever. the worse the market looks, the better it is for the future - the more agrarian the mojo, the better it is.

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

10

every morning I wake up to another solved mystery where Sherlock Holmes applies the powers of deduction and observation to solve another crime thinking backward to see what chain of events led up to the current crime scene. I try to apply that same reasoning to the market.

what led to the amazing rally in crude today and the hyperbolic rise in S&P from 3900 at 9:A.M EST on wed sep 7? it had to be the rising prob of the dark bicyclist winning the 2024 election to 15% from 11% a few days ago.

Victor Hanson says the reason is the increasing woke everywhere. He details 10 examples of this in his current. as I have mentioned many times, the more woke it is the more regulatory capture there is. the big corps, the prof leagues, the Ivys are ecstatic.

nobody asked me but…why is the tall chair Volker lionized for fining the economy by raising rates to 18% in his tenure and trying to make the world free of technology and innovation and growth? No wonder the current chair tries to emulate him to the dark bicyclist's ascent.

now dark unifier at 17.2% prob same as desantis. an amazing increase. doing the rite thing for improvement in his chances and it follows the market nice 4%+ move this week in S&P and Nasdaq but strangely bonds are down 7 percentage pts at 60-day low. somehow the signaling of the bears in bonds to help the dark one are believable. the chair mite be switching his allegiance to 30-year bonds.

query: the traders instruction book is full of signals to buy grains around the new moon. has it worked for grains and others markets? someone would kindly explain this study to me:

Impact of the Moon Phases on Prices of 110 Equity Indices and Commodities

looking at the 4 years since 1996 that as of sep 15 were down for the year: 2000, 2008, 2011, 2015. the change to the end of the year was approximately -100 points with 3 of 4 down for the year. before 1996 the same qualitative expectation.

for the 11 years it was up from the beginning of the year, all were up from sep 15 to the end of the year about the same 100 S&P pts as the move when it was down for the year. note that 4 observations is not statistically meaningful.

of all the Sherlock Holmes stories, my least favorite is The Hound of the Baskervilles. however, there is some great advice for speculators in it. Lord Baskerville had made back his fortune by speculating in S. African equities. "however knowing that after a big win it is good to stop, he withdrew his money from S. Africa at the top and lived comfortably and generously in his mansion" (i paraphrased). the question of the ideal stopping point is a very good one. Certainly not at the bottom like most gamblers but perhaps not at the top.

a correlation between being the first on Yankees to kneel during the National Anthem and subsequent quitting? and Boone was his usual self in praising Hicks when he benched him. was it partly because of the kneeling?

Yankees' Aaron Hicks benched after terrible mistake leads to runs

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

7

Timely advice

September 7, 2022 | Leave a Comment

timely advice from 1904 Wall Street Speculation: Its Tricks and Tragedies:

By the time the insiders are ready to sell their stocks, the insiders have the public all deceived into believing that it is now just the time to buy and on the other hand when the insiders are ready once more to buy stocks, it is as easy to have the public again misled into thinking that now it is the time to sell if they would get out before the crash comes.

many persons don't have the dignity of receiving my tweets since they are held because they are not uniformly in favor of the bicyclist. the only way persons get my tweets is if I pay to promote. while I have 9000+ followers because of my payments, a normal tweet of mine will only receive 4000 impressions because the tweets are restricted. now that the bicyclist is at a max of 15% in his prob of winning, perhaps the canceling will not be as egregious.

it was a jay powell day, "green all around except in Texas." methinks he doth protest too much as do the colleagues especially now that they see the bicyclist has the weather gage.

Sep

6

by the way, unlike the contrived biases of the Harvard pseudo-stat, master of self-fulfilling questionnaire to college students, the stock market shows real biases. one is the tendency to take small profits after a big loss. all who sat thru the depression succumb.

free associations: 37-day low in S&P at 3941 (july 18, 2022, was 3811), fake hecklers, blood red, 2 marines, unifying, semi, amnesia, founder of regression, senate prob of 38%.

application for drs. these days: "what have you done to stamp out and reverse?"

a good essay query for incoming students: compare and contrast the post-game interview of the home run champion with the beaten female star. pay particular attention to the compliments to competitors and teammates. what is the signif of this for market and crime?

Sherlock Holmes has numerous gems of advice for market people. My favorite is how he discards useless knowledge for useful ones. Let us not allow the useless to crowd out the useful ones. In this he was very similar to Emanuel Lasker the champion chess player of Victorian times.

How does this apply to markets? remember when the whole world is giving you one reason after another to sell like now and symbolized by El Erian and the always-bearish former mayor's news and data service - remember how the old time cliques worked. when they wanted to accumulate, they fed the newspapers and important players bearish but very persuasive news. and when they wanted to sell, the opposite. what is the solution? discard the ephemeral and concentrate on the 10,000-fold a century drift - especially when the market is at a 30 day minimum.

Lasker like Sherlock never studied opening games or book games as it crowded out his creativity during games. I hated to get coached in between racquet games as it dampened my free style.

Vic's twitter feed

Aug

30

1. telling marauding children in back of a car (when on longer trips) to count number of green vehicles….and then red and so on (or let them experience boredom and don't give in and hand over a tablet).

2. for natural vision building -so ppl who lost ability to see far ahead (myopia), they would benefit from counting leaves of a tree or anything they can see - and don't worry if it is still blurry…it is getting better - coz nature rewards those who at least try….but once we believe something (that it can't get better - well, then it won't) - same for presbyopia (start counting tiny letters font size 1 btw).

counting can be wonderful for the brain and the brain is the motor that keeps it all together….millions of other applications. I wish ppl would do more counting - we are just going (as society) in the complete other direction. but the individual can escape that trend.

Vic comments:

very Galtonian who said "always count" and he kept a little pad and pricker with him at all times. counted the number of fidgets in the audience at 90.

Big Al offers:

I practice counting steps to measure distance, say around the park with the dogs, or on a hike.  I count only lefts or rights (switching between the two at intervals) so that for me one "pace" is two "steps".  I calibrated my pace counting against a wristband GPS and found that a mile is about 1100 paces for me.

Another practice is to count breaths, on the exhale, following the breath with one's attention.  It is focusing and relaxing.  One can calibrate one's breaths to measure time.

Nils Poertner writes:

love that counting for breathing - it is not that the drama outside does not exist, but in order to see things more realistically and go with probabilities also for trading… one better improve own mental health….. and many people (not just traders) are so fickle.

eg one of my trader friends would call me in the middle of the night and leave a voicemail that this and that is going to happen since he saw it on TV - mostly pictures that have a strong impact on his amygdala…

Zubin Al Genubi adds:

I count breathing 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 second out, 5.5 breaths a minute, and 5.5 liters per breath.

Andrew Moe writes:

I count seconds during cooking, particularly when operating on multiple dishes simultaneously. Also count seconds when trying to squeeze out an extra minute or two in the sauna.

Duncan Coker notes:

Watering the plants with a garden hose. 10 seconds about half gallon with my
sprayer.

Aug

29

H. L. Mencken's ideas very relevant now: "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."

Heard on racquetball courts at Jackson hole: "how do we pretend we are harsh on inflation without hurting the big guy?" correction. lost in time. only pickle ball and paddle now. racquetball going to zero play. play in Jackson Hole is golf.

"when i came back to the Fed i saw that they needed a published paper by a senior guy to say that they shouldn't pay attention to economic models" (saying to worry about recession - a typical comment from the bearish former mayors site).

all smiles at Jackson Hole. "have to help that man." especially now that senate is a lock. crude takes a break. went so far as to edit dissenting opinions out of the official minutes of its meetings. one queries if the minutes of the FOMC are manipulated this same way to stop the "bad brash man."

But the ex-Chancellor also points to a failure to understand the scientific models they were being fed. How true of many supposedly quasi-scientific conclaves and minutes.

Some virtual definitions. a Texas Hedge: long stocks and crude. a new mexico hedge: long crude and long bonds. a Baron Coleman hedge: long stocks, bonds and crude. a Powell hedge: long stocks and bonds. what else do you propose?

bullard hedge: short bonds and S&P. Interactive hedge: margin call at 3 am then reverse, after down 150 pts from 20 day high 8 days ago - we call for an interactive hedge Mon 3am.

Kerry Packer Hedge: long everything and persists in it. margin calls may already have taken their toll: possibly no longer bear.

bonds were up on 2-day and 5-day as of Friday close but S&P was down 100 big and 200 big respectively…what's the panic? we'll know perhaps on the next margin call. looked pretty hairy at 4110.

Vic's twitter feed

Aug

24

Non-Zero, by Robert Wright, shows persuasively that there is an élan vitale of history with non-zero-sum games of mutual benefit leading to sustained growth especially fomented by gains in information like printing press and internet. wright's book is another reason like the grandeur of evolution of Darwin to believe that the 10,000-fold gain a century will continue.

an interesting study: Hidden Cost of Free Trading? $34 Billion a Year, Study Says. of course the maximum is going to be greater than the average. but this is the tip of the iceberg. study should have compared to brokerages like Interactive that make money off commissions and margin calls rather than kickbacks.

From: Laurel Kenner
Sun, Aug 21, 5:25 PM
To: me

I was at a dinner party last night, with a neurologist. He said that medical people have been forbidden to use the words "sir" or "madam" for patients, and nobody knows what to call them. "Patient 6074?"

I suggested "comrade."

fellow travelers and agrarian economists all around. the more prevalent it is the better for regulatory capture and the market. amazing how none of my tweets are transmitted to an audience except when I pay $5 a follower. apparently I am on a x-list with the algorithms not knowing that whenever reg capture increases, the better it is for market.

the best way for me to approach the market is by paying attention to the interactions between the bonds and stocks. I believe that the fed is mainly interested in stocks and how that will affect the elections. rite now the S&P is down 3 days in a row and the life expectancy hazard ratios are very bullish. a former female associate of mine used to say that the Fed doesn't care about bonds because they all trade stocks. I have found that a good theme to follow even if its only true in part. But no way will they hurt their young-looking boy.

so far the Ibiza trade was rite on only 1 of 3 markets but Dr Brett told me that it gets more and more frenetic in Ibiza as the nite progresses.

My history with Victor is far more personal, as it was his influence and inspiration that brought me to financial markets nearly 20 years ago. It was then that he and co-columnist Laurel Kenner announced an online competition for the best market indicator. I had some free time in my medical school office, thanks to a couple of students who had canceled their counseling meetings, so I assembled my submission. It tracked the average beats per minute of popular music and the level of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. I surmised that we could be near a market peak, citing the growing popularity of the electronic/rave scene, as epitomized at the time in Ibiza. Victor and Laurel declared me the winner, the year 2000 did fortuitously turn out to be a market peak, and the valuable prize I collected was a visit to Victor's trading office in Weston, CT.

From: 3 Things To Learn From Market Speculator Victor Niederhoffer

ibiza not working on bonds yet. don't they realize that when long-term bonds go down, it is self-correcting because it brings economy and stocks down? and remember they have to pretend to help the young-looking bicyclist.

Vic's twitter feed

Aug

20

Arthur Niederhoffer
1917 - 1981

Dad would love this ceremony. He wishes me to thank all of you for coming and taking out so much time from work and family. The family deeply appreciates all of the very generous contributions to the memorial fund. But he quickly adds "that's enough" and truly the tribute would be more appropriate for others here today like Alex Smith or Al Danoff or Mother; that he's just an ordinary man and he doesn't understand why so many people love him.

Read the full text.

Aug

17

the Yankees fortunes losing 9 of last 10 are similar to the bear stock market people gartman and el erian. Aaron Boone's decisions are like those of the ray ban bicyclist - yet they are both in first with senate odds now almost 60% in favor of D's.

what is the best explanation for the 100% correlatioon betweeen the yankees losses since the all-star game 11 of 15 and the steady gains of the dark bicyclist in the pres odd (now up to 13.2% of becoming 47)? the degree of advocacy for social justice is paramount and at a maximum for Hicks and the GM.

Benjamin Franklin was a most admirable and accomplished man and his advice on all matters is well worth taking. His thoughts on markets rested primarily on the power of compound interest and frugality and industry leading to wealth and success.

Here is some advice he gave on exercise: there is better exercise in walking one mile up and down stairs than five on a level floor. He recommended a cold bath naked in cold air each morning and silence as a virtue that should be practice by all the young. He practiced all virtues each day and in a Galtonian way, made check marks on his favorite 15 each day to count how he was doing and develop the habit.

fallacies about S&P most harmful: (1) when an announcement in the past has been predominantly bearish but the markets since the last announcement have been bullish, go with the markets. they are at least 2 months ahead of the announcements.

(2) The alphabet agencies are peopled by fair-minded employees who will go beyond their 95% political bias to be fair. (3) a rise in the prospects of the ray ban bicyclist party is bearish. (4) a big decline in bonds overnite is bearish for S&P. (5) a decline in crude is bearish for S&P. (6) an overreach by law enforcement is bearish for S&P.

(7) the professional sports leagues are all in what they espouse. (8) a 50-day high in S&P is bearish. (8) El erian and the congo dancer can be followed with profit.

(9) a bear market in S&P or NASDAQ is bearish for the future (10) you can make money in markets by going for a 1/2% swing. (12) the public get a much better deal because of HFT.

(13) the degree of followership and notice on social media is related to the intrinsic interest in its content.

(14) the minutes of Fed meetings are bearish for S&P when there has been a big rise recently.

Vic's twitter feed

Aug

11

only question is how long to all-time hi. i don't know but it looks like another big hi in 10 trading days. if bicyclist and senate continue to gain, could be sooner. you have to admire the full court press of the dark bicyclist and of course this is very bullish.

the bonds have arabesqued very quietly to a 17-day low, and crude is up 5 days in a row with stocks at a 120-day hi.

as grandpa Martin would say: Martin served as court interpreter and spoke 25 languages. he didn't like that court interpreters were paid 1/2 of court clerks so he took the exam at 70 years of age and came in second out of 5000. he was a genius. still have his old math books.

He served as controller for Irving Berlin's music firm and there he met his wife who he proposed to on first meeting her. he traded with the boy wonder and liked to buy stocks such as allis chalmers, air reduction, and american standard.

he liked to use the theory of least effort to guide his speculations. "i believe the least effort would be for stocks to go down" he would say. Having lost his fortune in the depression, he always feared a repeat and never took more than a 10% profit on any holding.

like so many others I was fortunate enough to know well, I wish I realized his greatness at the time. Some unsung heroes I have not written about are the Schrade family, Herb London, and Harvey Sellers. "a kite not caught on a tree is like an ice cream cone not eaten."

Vic's twitter feed

Aug

10

young-appearing bicyclist up to 12.6% chance of victory and his party now 53% to take senate. regulatory capture looks good. the dark bicyclist pulling out all stops to suppress competitor like brumfield.

Joe Torre says the most important thing for winning baseball is to adjust to new conditions. same is true in markets. Elmer Kelton says same thing.

el erian, ms. meister at max of bearishness. only up this much at 930 11 times since 2011. Nice kitchen talk and delphic forecast from bearish site: "i'm no economist but when I go to the supermarket i am paying higher prices."

Vic's twitter feed

Aug

9

How to win

August 9, 2022 | Leave a Comment

guaranteed to happen: measures willl be announced to require mail-in voting and ballot harvesting. only question is when is the Doc who loves the cattle trader going to weigh in?

First they came for the Fordham agents, and I did nto speak out because my father was in law enforcement; then they came for the Collective Bargainists, and I did not speak out because I had a small number of emloyees. Then they came for the Scholars, and I did not speak out as my daughter went to Holly cross; then they came for the Service people by increasing their budget by 500% - the goose has no more flesh.

how to win a competition: legend has it that Brumfield broke the finger of his opponent in between games of the finals. same thing apparently happens in music competitions. good to see it hapenning in politics. bullish.

Vic's twitter feed

Jul

28

A Horla

July 28, 2022 | Leave a Comment

from out my window i see a Horla involving regulatory capture senate - a bycyclist rising apace and it bullish.

Vic's twitter feed

Jul

24

From Gilbert And Sullivan: A Biography:

The constant repetition of exalted sentiments has a most dispiriting effect on fallible human beings, and it is not surprising to learn that during the rehearsals of this play, John Hare, the actor, and William Gilbert, the author, developed the habit of flying into a temper on the slightest provocation. Once they quarreled so violently that each of them left the Court Theatre for the Underground Railway, stamped angrily up and down the same platform while waiting for a train, suddenly decided to make it up, shook hands, returned to the theatre with the intention of continuing the rehearsal, and found that the company had gone home.

reminds one of days when bonds and S&P are way down (red) and then they both go up like last week but there's no one left to requite their buys.

Vic's twitter feed

Jul

23

important visual image coming up. regulatory capture and young looking bicyclist - need to wait for visual expertise from daughter victoria and perfect wife.

notice the teleprompter and titanic in background:

[Jul 21] first 20-day hi in 4 months and first 20-day but not 150-day hi since oct 20,2021.

ray ban bicyclist now 1 in 9 to be pres, according to betting odds. it's even money on harris and newsom versus bicyclist.

tour of the court: race starts at round number 4000.

nobody asked me, but…it is nice to report earnings without deducting salaries as an expense. how do you fool analysts with such a mulligan? next we will see earnings reported adding bak the cost of goods.

bonds at a big maximum say 60 days with S&P down a moitié say between 50 and 20. it's good for next week.

Vic's twitter feed

Jul

19

do the city's blocks, streets, walls, stoops, and parks have anything to teach us about markets? the corner store is the place where kids go for lunch and there is a concentration of activity at corner stores. what about price movements around 12 noon or other corner store times?

rumpelstiltskin says his favorite market is crypto. compared to the bird it looks good albeit way premature.

partial limited hangout on victory lap for crude by cyclist before it goes rite back up.

professor drops in to september crude now that he finished up on S&P.

mr. convex grabs me by the beard with a message form Alf saying that he's equally happy whether bull or bear. now that half my beard has been pulled off I refer my followers to the triumphal trio and Lorie and Fisher as I attempt to regain my equilibrium and hair.

Vic's twitter feed

Jul

17

partial limited hangout setting base for inevitable big rise as useful idiots realize that despite inflation numbers, the average market is down 20%.

baseball mistakes are market mistakes. take the Yankees. stick with old news (el erian is bearish; gallo wasn't good). use relative frequencies rather than conditionals based on current form (take out cortes after giving up 1 run in 7 innings because he threw 89 pitches)

lets be progressive. chap and gallo hate America so lets keep them in lineup as they are GM boys. The manager has dementia like the bicyclist Ray-Ban so keep him in dugout and don't let him make any on-field decisions. what else?

looking at last 100 games, after 90 pitches the pitcher weakens (el erian is bearish).

The upside down man is rite about his former partner always leading from behind.

Lets have announcers all be over 100. and reminisce about things that happened 50 years ago while saying you can't predict baseball. lets have all commercials encourage gambling or other misdeed. you can win if you bet on either team. donate your car even if no title.

don't look or call attention to it above all but S&P no longer in bear a market 3860 versus 4780 high on jan 4, 2022 - down 19%.

i've ordered a ray-ban for myself. will show pictures and will wear it at next spec party.

baseball and markets: the torture of watching Gallo and Chapman as they guarantee a loss with boone idolizing them is similar to watching el erian interviewed on one of the uniformly bearish sites with a Blg columnist idolizing his uniformly wrong calls. oh the torture.

the price is following the news rather than the news following the price. a symptom of hate America.

Vic's twitter feed

Jul

14

Nobody asked me, but…the difference between the W.S.J. and the former mayor's data providing service is the same as the bicycling Pres with his normal hair and wearing his Ray-Ban Glasses. he looks 100 yrs older without the Ray-Bans.

The Ray-Ban bicyclist is at an all time low in the probability of triumphing. It reminds one of how bonds used to be "how low can bonds go" in the artificial voice simulator from my brother. but its up and down for S&P next week [July 11-15]. but old gray mare of bonds is bullish.

the price is following the news. even though there has been tremendous decline in metals and crude and food, price of S&P is down big. setting up for big rise.

Nobody asked me, but…Joey Gallo is an albatross on the Yankees team and when he plays, all the other players weep. what is the pc reason that Boone continues to play him?

The older we get the more Ray Ban pictures we take. who's fooled?

Vic's twitter feed

Jul

14

The Secrets of America’s Greatest High School Math Team
A teacher obsessed with identifying talent, maximizing potential and optimizing education has turned a Florida public high school into a dynasty

Former Trader Turns High School Math Team Into Wall Street Pipeline

The Buchholz team won its 15th state title in 17 years at the Mu Alpha Theta math competition. In the 2020-21 school year, a larger number of its students qualified for a rigorous nationwide event called the American Invitational Mathematics Examination, which accepts the top 5% of scorers on a qualifying exam, than all but three other elite schools.

Vic's twitter feed

Jul

9

we are not in the 70s of course coz every era is different anyway, time to sharpen up. [Click on image to see full table.]

Zubin Al Genubi writes:

The 70's were bad: We just lost a 10 year war; Riots crime burning cities, hi crime stagflation, price fixing, crooked president and VP, CIA domestic assassinations.

Vic adds:

interest rates about 4 times the current as of then. the e/p minus the long rate is predictive. works every year almost.

Nils Poertner responds:

yes, and then there are non-US equities out as well - which will represent great opportunities.

Jul

3

nice improvement in bicyclist chances in senate looming. bullish for regulatory capture and elections and market.

long duration without a big hi - bullish.

tremendous decline in chances that senate will turn around - now only 55% was 78%. very good for full court press from young looking bicyclist.

bonds at 30 day high. bullish for stocks.

missouri hedge: long sp, short crude. [Before Friday, July 1]

daughter dr. katie tells me that one of key findings of psych research is that natural ability is king. the first time is the best predictor.

test for S&P: when sp up more than 5 in first minute versus down 5 in first minute. difference of 30 big pts in prediction for close. t of 2.1, 2019-present.

all good things must come to end - re missouri hedge. [After Friday, July 1]

query: what would happen to crude if war were to end?

nice 25% decline in wheat futures in last month from 1100 to 850.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

26

Excellent book written by a geneticist, entomologist, and economist with applications to every aspect of markets.

The Trees in My Forest

Boulders now protrude all over my hill. As I lingered under the red spruces on the sun-dappled ground I heard soft breeze through the branches above me, and I marveled at how the glaciers, lichens encrusted the rocks. Vines of crowberries, blueberries, cranberries and sedges grew on gravelly soil. They held moisture. Mosses took hold, retaining even more moisture. A layer of brown humus accumulated through the ages. Spruce, fir and birch seedlings sprouted. Vines and roots, building soil and supporting moss, crept over the rocks, building yet more soil.

a boulder:
El-Erian: ‘It’s uncomfortably possible’ that the Fed will push the economy into a recession

it is instructive to look at a long-term chart of S&P. it was 1000 in 1996, 2000 in 2007, 2600 in 2016, 4000 these days.

dividing the period up into 4 non-overlapping periods, one finds that in none of them have gone more than 109 days without an 80-day high. in each period, the longer we went without an 80-day high, the more bullish it became. we last hit an 80 day high on 3-18. that's 70 days ago.

it is not often that we go 100 days without an 80 day high. indeed since 1996 it has only happened 9 times. when we go 70 days or more without an 80-day high, it is very bullish. indeed the expectation to the next-80 day high has a t of 16. if you haven't had a recurrence of cancer within 70 months, your survival expectation and probabilities are very high. this is useful and regular use of survival statistics.

despite the backlash, the youthful, biking 80-yr-old, 14.1%, is still only behind the Florida Man by about 6 percentage pts. what can we make of it? The regulatory capture looks bad for Nov. 2022 but we still went up 5% last week. a new meme seems to be taking hold. Perhaps Heinrich on mosses is relevant.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

26

History Lessons for Investors, By gene epstein

Steve Ellison comments:

The most valuable things I learned from Livermore were:

1) Do your own work in the market; never seek out or act on tips
2) Old Man Partridge's admonition, "But it's a bull market", lest I ever contemplate selling or going short

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

26

Metals Haven’t Crashed This Hard Since the Great Recession
Prices for copper, tin and other metals plummeted last week as recession fears grow.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

26

A Century of Stock Market Liquidity and Trading Costs
Charles M. Jones, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University
First version: May 1, 2000
This version: May 22, 2002

I assemble an annual time series of bid-ask spreads on Dow Jones stocks from 1900-2000, along with an annual estimate of the weighted-average commission rate for trading NYSE stocks since 1925. Spreads are cyclical, especially during periods of market turmoil. The sum of halfspreads and one-way commissions, multiplied by annual turnover, is an estimate of the annual proportional cost of aggregate equity trading. This cost drives a wedge between aggregate gross equity returns and net equity returns. This wedge can account for only a small part of the observed equity premium, but all else equal the gross equity premium is perhaps 1% lower today than it was early in the 1900’s. Finally, I present evidence that the transaction cost measures that also proxy for liquidity – spreads and turnover – predict stock returns one year or more ahead. High spreads predict high stock returns; high turnover predicts low stock returns. These liquidity variables dominate traditional predictor variables, such as the dividend yield. The evidence suggests that time-series variation in aggregate liquidity is an important determinant of conditional expected stock market returns.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

24

news that will not be highlighted. market no longer in a bear. down 19% from beginning of year at 3854 versus 4750.

highly relevant quote of day from Beating the Market, 1926, R. McNeil: "It is only by buying when surface conditions to the market show stocks to be unattractive - that one may graduate from the ranks of the lambs."

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

23

another shibboleth beats the bush:

Huge Global Studies Find Low-Carb or Keto Diets Could Lead to Shorter Lifespan

i use know everything about racket sports. hobo keeley dubbed me the greatest all round racket player of all time (i beat Marty Hogan in a showdown when I was limping from an injury) but now i don't know anything about racket sports either. the games and strikes have changed.

in the supreme insult, my son aubrey won't listen to me about tennis. he says his high school coach disagrees with me about belting every shot. She says it's good even though he misses 99% of first serves.

tremendous deflation in last hew days. its good for whispering guy with a temper. regulatory capture will be greater. and his betting odds increased by 4% to 14.4% versus field for big position.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

22

Virginia Postrel has it right as always, and this calls for a proper scientific study of how the extent of shareholder values that a company strives for versus stakeholder values effects shareholder return. somehow this study will not be undertaken at Harvard.

Stakeholder Capitalism Isn’t Working as Planned

It’s a prescription for culture wars, political backlash, managerial paralysis and human-resources nightmares. And it’s anything but nice.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

20

There is a doubting Thomas in everyone's heart, since no one ever has taken any trades without some risk. It is this risk that always creates doubts in all minds. In day to day flow of the markets the doubts do not get much chance to surface up. But whenever there is an unusual holiday gap, i.e. a longer than normal weekend, a significantly large enough number of minds get the chance to live up to their subdued doubts. Irrespective of whether one is long or one is short, the extra holiday provides the opportunity for one to think enough to choose to act differently than one had been. So long holiday gaps tend to create reversals. Someone might choose to test this. Perhaps a good way to do this might be to create filters such as If prior 5 day returns before a long weekend were <0, then 5 day returns after the long weekend are >0 or vice versa.

Vic responds:

Sushil Kedia elicits an ingenious theory that before holidays humans tend to change their minds. I tested the theory as it mite be highly relevant today. fortunately the multivariate thing i discovered and used for forty years is perfect for testing the theory.

From 2011 to current there were 43 occasions when S&P was up big in 10 days before holiday, and on average 20 days later the market was down 6 points. there were 21 occasions where S&P was down big in 10 days before holiday. after big down, the average 10 days later was up 2% and up 3% 20 days later, with probabilities of 80%.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

20

Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) made diversified contributions in many fields of resonance and relevance today including chaos theory, graphical solutions of differential equations, special relativity, topology, astronomy, probability theory. He made discoveries by ignoring detail and pretending that he was mountaineering, going form one peak to another. "logic limits ideas": he believed in the subconscious solving problems. he worked 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in late afternoon every day. he went from onw peak to another and while mountaineering, the facts he discovered clustering around the center of the mountains were instantly and automatically pigeonholed in his memory. he visualized everything and his creative habits were similar to the great 19th century musicians like Beethoven, Brahms.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

15

nobody asked me, but: (1) the Fed and the boy who cried wolf bark bigger than bite. (2) so typical of an agrarian admin to go for price controls. see The speculator as hero and why Antwerp fell when specs stopped "drilling" and citizens stopped economizing consumption with high prices.

the 'chairman' back from Kinderland but still ignorant of economics says that "core inflation is a much better prediction of future inflation than headline inflation." what evidence is there that is true? why are energy and food transitory? are they more effected by policies? when were the studies updated? and what is the confidence that commodity and energy regress?

half of the monetary economists in the world are on the Fed's payroll, but I would be willing to provide an objective evaluation of the fed's view about core inflation being a better predictor.

S&P is a long way from 3801 yesterday at 3pm est. perhaps there was a leak of positive info that caused the 140-pt rise. that's 4% - are we not still in a bear market? perhaps suppress that.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

14

there's a bit of deflation in grains and oil and crypto.

the ppi gang got the message to tweak the comparisons favorable to the Big One after the cpi gang forgot. too bad the cpi announcement came before the ppi announcement. the importance of the path.

with a major pharma self reporting that one of their major treatments for Covid doesn't work, the time has come for an outside, unbiased statistician to perform an unbiased estimate of the costs and benefits of the panoply given the number of boosters and original dose. a study that will not be covered.

ok we're in a definition of a bear market. but what is the expectation going forward? i don't use % so i will rely on the wsj report that it's up an average of 3% with a 70% prob one month later and even more bullish for 2 months and end of year.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

12

It now attracts tourists posing for photographs and investors superstitiously rubbing its horns for good luck. The bull is now seen as a symbolic mascot for New Yorkers and for world.
Originally published on TheWelcomeBlog, 03/19/2020.

much touching of bull this weekend and myself at near 100 for good luck

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

10

one is almost speechless. with 3 big down days in a row. only happened 3 times since 2011: 8-24-2015, 3-9-2020, 1-21-2022. all three up big on next day. I have an unusual, unique take on why it happened. has to do with the Jan 6 Hearings. Not good enough to to sink the opposition, violence engendered by those incentivized to teach Kavanaugh a lesson, too close to home. So only thing that will save the fair party is a desperate remedy. Not a smiling performance with friend on TV.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

9

looks like all the kings horses provided input to tweaking the cpi number, especially with the recall it becomes triply important to unravel the decline in it.

the 3 musketeers championing the Idea that has world in its grip are as concerned about Inflation as they have traditionally been about equality, diversification, and climate. with their laser-like attention on inflation, and the track record of helping their mentors along, one looks for some finagling on the cpi on Friday. It would be bad indeed to start another weekend off with the weather gage with the quarry.

one finds that since 2011 there have been 11 occasions when there has been no 50-day max within 110 days. as for the forecast going forward on those occasions, we'll leave that up to ags and other bears when they wish to kibitz with a foundation.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

7

SEC Weighs Sending Retail Stock Orders to Auctions for Execution
• Plan under consideration could impact major trading firms
• Agency has been reviewing rules underpinning stock market

that's not cricket. the major purpose of markets is for the infrastructure to prosper at the expense of the public.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

5

How are they going to paint this as a strong economy?

[Data source. -Ed.]

Andy Aiken responds:

It's not, but it gives the Fed a pretext to hold off on rate increases in an election year.

Vic adds:

46 leaked the numbers in his speech on Powell. they get the numbers several days in advance.

A reader asks:

Bill, how have ten year yields reacted in the past when the number is both negative year over and continuing to accelerate down trend? It seems this could be the catalyst that causes the long end to flatten out/rally as the Fed continues to raise the short? Does that hypothesis bear out in testing?

Bill Rafter replies:

Thanks for the question. I will not know until I test.

George Zachar asks:

oddly, the y/y% change in private eci wages has roughly doubled since late 2020, now at 5%. can you square the circle?

Bill Rafter replies again:

I will have to look at it. The payroll taxes are most the macro I can tap, so I tend to put their veracity on top.

Paolo Pezzutti comments:

I was hoping an Api could download the file from the treasury website. There are a number of Api's in Python or R to download datasets in json, csv, xml from FRED and other websites as alternative data to find relationships and regularities with stock index prices. Some of these keys are premium. I wonder if this approach provides real added value with respect to counting based on the idea that prices represent the synthesis of all market players actions and views.

Jun

4

it seems that even more than usual, bears permeates the firmament. the three times that employment has been bad for S&P since 2011 (after thur up), the market has gone up abut 4% the next 4 days. Please tell me why bonds were way down and why they are not bullish.

nobody asked me but… (1) The Yankees are much overrated and ultimately their holes in the lineup with gallo, chapman, and Hicks will cause losses. (2) Having read Joseph Campbell who was fastest half miler in US in 1925, I don't understand the relevance of his main themes to actual myths. plse help. (3) Suzyn Waldman 76 and John Sterling 85 are very good to me as a calming influence while trading in the nite. Their relation is like that of a caretaker (Suzyn) taking care of parent (John) in an old age home. and he is very appreciative and can still keep score.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

3

my daughter Kate just asked me if the first strike is significant. the team that scores the first basket in basketball wins something like 60% of time. i tested it for the first tick in the S&P, i.e., 930 to 931. if up, quite bullish for the rest of the day. if down, quite bearish. the difference in means is 3. can you think of any others?

the first strike is half the battle. now that i think of it, i always tried to get the first point in squash. then i'd continue and try to get up 5-zip. was very successful that way forcing myself to try hard at the beginning.

Vic's twitter feed

Jun

2

I keep a tennis racket and ball in my desk so I can entertain my 13 grand kids. today I got some extra use out of the racket as the lawn mower people come on tues at the close and the only way I was able to stop them was to alert them to stop with a backhand lob.

of all the schools that my family has matriculated in I have often believed that Williams was the one that gave them the best ed and happiness. The reason to me is the policy of making everyone there participate in at least one sport. if secondary schools insisted that all students joined at least one sport I predict that there would be 99% drop in violence.

Vic's twitter feed

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