May

30

Tipsters

May 30, 2022 | Leave a Comment

Wall Street Stories, by Edwin Lefevre, 1901. the book tells stories of personages very similar to today. the tipster and Pikes Peak or Bust are quite resonant of the useful idiots who proliferate today. In those day, the tipster and the plunger ended up at Trinity Church.

Tipsters in those days ended up in a graveyard, or walking aimlessly from New Street where the bucket shops were to the Brooklyn Bridge. Today they wear suits and are respected columnists and heads of research in big financial firms.

As the result of much thought about his losses Gilmartin became a professional tipster. To let others speculate for him seemed the only sure way of winning. He began by advising ten victims—he learned in time to call them clients—to sell Steel Rod preferred, each man 100 shares; and to a second ten he urged the purchase of the same quantity of the same stock. To all he advised taking four points’ profit. Not all followed his advice, but the seven clients who sold it made between them nearly $3,000 over night. His percentage amounted to $287.50. Six bought and when they lost he told them confidentially how the treachery of a leading member of the pool had obliged the pool managers to withdraw their support from the stock temporarily; whence the decline. They grumbled; but he assured them that he himself had lost nearly $1,600 of his own on account of the traitor.

For some months Gilmartin made a fair living but business became very dull. People learned to fight shy of his tips. The persuasiveness was gone from his inside news and from his confidential advice from Sharpe and from his beholding with his own eyes the signing of epoch-making documents. Had he been able to make his customers alternate their winnings and losses he might have kept his trade. But for example, “Dave” Rossiter, in Stuart & Stern’s office, stupidly received the wrong tip six times in succession. It wasn’t Gilmartin’s fault but Rossiter’s bad luck.

At length failing to get enough clients in the ticker-district itself Gilmartin was forced to advertise in an afternoon paper, six times a week, and in the Sunday edition of one of the leading morning dailies. They ran like this:

WE MAKE MONEY
for our investors by the best system ever devised. Deal with genuine experts. Two methods of operating; one speculative, the other insures absolute safety.

[ … ]

Little by little his savings grew; and with them grew his desire to speculate on his own account. It made him irritable, not to gamble.

He met Freeman one day in one of his dissatisfied moods. Out of politeness he asked the young cynic the universal query of the Street:

“What do you think of ‘em?” He meant stocks.

“What difference does it make what I think?” sneered Freeman, with proud humility. “I’m nobody.” But he looked as if he did not agree with himself.

“What do you know?” pursued Gilmartin, mollifyingly.

“I know enough to be long of Gotham Gas. I just bought a thousand shares at 180.” He really had bought a hundred only.

“What on?”

“On information. I got it straight from a director of the company. Look here, Gilmartin, I’m pledged to secrecy. But, for your own benefit, I’ll just tell you to buy all the Gas you possibly can carry. The deal is on. I know that certain papers were signed last night, and they are almost ready to spring it on the public. They haven’t got all the stock they want. When they get it, look out for fireworks.”

Gilmartin did not perceive any resemblance between Freeman’s tips and his own. He said, hesitatingly, as though ashamed of his timidity:

“The stock seems pretty high at 180.”

“You won’t think so when it sells at 250. Gilmartin, I don’t hear this; I don’t think it; I know it!”

“All right; I’m in,” quoth Gilmartin, jovially. He felt a sense of emancipation now that he had made up his mind to resume his speculating. He took every cent of the nine hundred dollars he had made from telling people the same things that Freeman told him now, and bought a hundred Gotham Gas at $185 a share. Also he telegraphed to all his clients to plunge in the stock.

It fluctuated between 184 and 186 for a fortnight. Freeman daily asseverated that “they” were accumulating the stock. But, one fine day, the directors met, agreed that business was bad and having sold out most of their own holdings, decided to reduce the dividend rate from 8 to 6 per cent. Gotham Gas broke seventeen points in ten short minutes. Gilmartin lost all he had. He found it impossible to pay for his advertisements. The telegraph companies refused to accept any more “collect” messages. This deprived Gilmartin of his income as a tipster.

Vic's twitter feed

May

29

Financial Analyst Journal, Vol. 26 No.2, pages 111-113:

The above Tables I and II […] show that the traditional Wall Street belief concerning the market's preference for Republicans is in accord with observed market movements surrounding Election Day.

If this Republican bias were justified, one would expect the market to perform significantly better during a Republican administration than during a Democratic one. To test this hypothesis, we looked at every year since 1897 and classified it by party in power and by its yearly position in the administration. The following table summarizes the results:

Year Republican Democratic
1    6.88%   10.35%
2   10.18%   -1.21%
3   -6.84%   20.76%
4    7.15%    3.50%

There appear to be no systematic differences in the performance of the market during Republican and Democratic administrations, except that during the third year of Democratic administrations the market performs significantly better than during the third year of Republican administrations. Thus, there appears to be no long term pattern in market movements which would justify Wall Street's Republican bias.

For those who would like to know: This article was written by Victor Niederhoffer, Steven Gibbs and Jim Bullock. It was published in the March-April 1970 issue of FAJ.

Zubin Al Genubi comments:

This year is on track with regularity. Will next year be up big contrary to all the bearish pundits?

May

29

you wouldn't know it from the chronic bears and pessimists but the S&P is at a 17-day high and bonds at a 30-day high up for the month.

nobody asked me but…if there is one player in the major leagues who has lost his temper and disgraced baseball more than Josh Anderson, I missed it. and the universal reaction to the latest is indicative of the idea that has world in its grip and other recent events.

terrible news for those who support the idea that has world in its grip this week. we got back 6% this week and end with S&P up on the month and bonds and crude at a high. we finally got a week up and 1600 S&P left for a new high.

chickens come home to roost. all the masters 100 support of taking away parents rites at schools leads to tragedy . and I still say with Donaldson-Anderson, universal condemnation of the former was a key.

to make matters worst for supporters of the idea, the betting odds are now 4 to 1 that one or the other of the top two against the incumbent will win.

Nobody asked me but…the increasing trend of equality and diversity in professional sports makes the average athlete feel anomie as to sports and loses all sense of healthy competition and makes him or her a leaf floating in the wind.

it's hard to feel anything but contempt for your team when your role model athletes are billionaires complaining about the National Anthem and Americanism. That's why I say Donaldson-Anderson had much wider repercussions. query: did recent fatherless give up sports?

Vic's twitter feed

May

29

i will give a cash prize and a signed book to the best answer to the question: Now that the coaches, announcers, and tv and radio stations have joined the masters 100, the disneys, and now the insurance companies, how does this influence the game?

Reply to: Vic's twitter feed

john G
@dukeofoakes
Less opportunity for the white or non-woke as they add no value for the 100. Level of play decreases as the talent/deserving get replaced by those that serve the 100s interests.

Konrad Kuciej - Value Masochist
@KonradKuciej
Over the last several decades, with the advent of cable tv, internet and all of its applications the amount of advertising revenues for sports has skyrocketed, ticket sales and merchandise sales have taken the back seat. Because of the amount of money being generated all sports outcomes have become more and more clustered around a mostly “known” or at least “presumed” outcomes that drive the most “interest/viewers” and that allow the audience to feel they are part of the spectacle…games have become less “random” and more “staged”, all participants know.

Leet1337
@clozzi_24
The suppression of players expression of free views…. Anti secular & anti political except for those that are pro “wokeness”…… Still basketball except for no meaning behind the game that don’t serve corporate media.

packmansam
@PackManSamm
chasing advertising dollars by subscribing to the current thing amidst a decades long decline in viewership adds to the urgency for the league and refs to make sure the large market teams make the playoffs and ultimately the finals.

DarkWeb Trader
@Darkweb_Trader
Wokeness is for winners. A strength that creates competitive advantage. And a prerequisite for winning the right way and future political candidates. The only game in town.

Rodrigo Sotomayor
@Soto888
Favorite teams tend to generate higher commercial and marketing revenues, putting natural pressure on the refs calls even if unintended./p>

Ox
@OxEquities
Please the advertisers.

john G
@dukeofoakes
The 100 would favor most any team playing against the outspoken vaccine critic Aaron Rodgers.

the winner of the contest is John G. He will receive cash prize of $1000 and signed book. All the other contestants were very good also. They will all get signed books. send me address so I can send it.

May

27

i haven't seen an update on this in 20 years. i believe its relevant.

The World in the Grip of an Idea Revisited
Socialism Destroys Institutions, Societies, and Individuals

chalk up the losses of the yankees to the unholy assuaging of the idea that has the world in its grip. its shameful that a manager can't support his players, but this is part of the idea that certain personages are entitled because of the masters 100 and disney syndrome.

Vic's twitter feed

Laurel Kenner writes:

I have long wanted to do a study of Sweden, the darling of US socialists.

Peter Saint-Andre adds:

I read an article in the last ~2 years about Sweden (perhaps in Reason magazine?) which argued that these days the country is not nearly so socialistic as "progressives" think.

Jeff Watson comments:

I like Sweden’s system of private roads, and the fact that everyone, rich and poor, has to pay the same rate of taxes.

Andre Wallin writes:

my parents immigrated to the US when Olof Palme was prime minister. they claimed they moved in large part because of his socialistic policies. he was assassinated in 1986 by "Skandia Man" who they only figured out who it was in 2020 posthumously. my uncles do pretty well in sweden as small business owners these days, but nothing compared to what is possible for so many in the US.

Henry Gifford responds:

Some years ago I attended a lecture by two people from Sweden, who argued that Sweden has high taxes, but it is worth it for all the services the government provides. But they did not convince me that they paid lower taxes than we pay in the US – sounds like we pay higher taxes here. They were shocked to hear about paying high real estate taxes with money that has already been taxed.

Yes, Sweden is the darling of socialists in the US. But most articles I’ve read say that Sweden is an example of socialism that works, then include nothing to back up that claim, and don’t even reference it later. I’ve heard that Sweden toys with socialism every 20 or 30 years, finds it is a disaster, and gets as free of socialism as fast as possible. If this is true, it wouldn’t discourage a socialist from claiming that Sweden is socialist.

One time I was talking about “government” schools in the US. Politically incorrect to call them what they are. I might have quoted Cato’s finding that government schools cost twice as much as private schools. A guy was talking about a wonderful “public” school, and I asked if it was a government school. He said he didn’t know. I asked if it was on land or floating around on a boat. He said it was on land. I asked him who owned the land. He said he didn’t know. I assured him that his level of dishonesty qualified him for being a very good comrade. He didn’t object. Some level of dishonesty seems a prerequisite for people who claim to believe that socialism is a good idea.

Bo Keely comments:

After traveling the world to 105 countries, I've concluded it's not a matter of Socialism vs Capitalism. It's a matter of people. Some peoples can make a socialism work and do it. Other peoples at their best cannot make capitalism work nor desire it. So, one should look at squares and circles before deciding which hole they should fit into. I personally prefer the lone wolf life.

May

26

Symmetry is a characteristic property of the universe. The 24 May dip and bounce was good as it reflected a similar move 19 May. Question is will the big bar move of 18 May get reflected back up soon? Bears seem tired. Plus the news is all bearish and my brother is law wants to sell.

Getting the start today of completion of symmetry big bar.

Doug Martin suggests:

Maybe the folks at Davos gave the all clear signal, last friday's low was a nice looking pattern.

Michael Brush is bullish:

Let's get ready to rumble. This is from noon yesterday:

Strong insider buying suggests a 15% rally in the S&P 500 from here

One of the troubling things about this market downturn is that as brutal as it got, corporate insiders never showed much interest in their discounted stocks. That’s changed in a big way. They’re bullish now — signaling the stock market is oversold and due for at least a short-term bounce if not more. Using history as a guide, the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq Composite stand to advance 15%-20% over the next three months.

May

26

‘Atomic Annie’ Was the World’s First and Only Nuclear Gun
Twenty were made, but only one fired a nuclear shot.

May

26

a representative bearish story from the bearish data provided:

The Tech Rout Isn’t Just Cyclical—It’s Well-Earned, and Overdue

30-year shows amazing strength given strength in crude and stocks. only down 1 tick on a day at 20-day high.

in retrospect the bell weather for crypto was when it didn't soar in the face of big Florida convention and Rumpelstiltskin saying that crypto was his major bull thing. and laudatory article saying Rumpelstiltskin is always rite on the future memes.

Vic's twitter feed

May

25

last minutes were down 16 on day and -60 on 2 days. serial corr is -0.52 on one day and -0.44 on 2 day basis.

nobody asked but trash talk in other major sports like basketball and football is infinitely worse and more prevalent than baseball.

minutes apparently revised to help masters 1000 and professional sports and alphabet agencies and regulatory capture boys along—- but nice deception at 3915.

in old days a company currently an acquisition candidate reported earnings without deducting expenses for salaries. one notes that there is a negative provision for Service expense and negative operating revenues. query: are they still able to report with this largesse?

many lobogola:

i didn't know how to read that cryptic chart myself. like most brokerage houses i have been unable to speak to a human there. but their margins of 5% of the big options house is alluring.

so much disappointment that we will not have a seventh down week in row for sp. all because of backlash against donovan. everyone who plays a team sport is kidded with a nickname highlighting an exuberant or weak moment.

nobody — the mad dog sports announcer is about as useful as El Erian — and both are very knowledgeable and predictably with the idea that has world in grip. makes professor particularly useful tomorrow.

Vic's twitter feed

May

23

“You are a ‘Specialist in Panics,’ which means you buy in panics and at no other time. Whenever you are tempted to go in, ask yourself whether a panic exists. If the answer is Yes, then buy; if No, don’t buy.” – from the Magazine of Wall Street, circa 1908.

“Bull markets start in panics and end in booms.” [From the same source. -Ed.]

May

22

a page from past:

Fishing in Troubled Waters: What is a Selling Climax?

make mine an old fashioned…

how common are selling climaxes? I looked at it in multifarious ways. (1) it never happened on a non-quarterly expiration. (2) if one defines it as down 50 big S&P points from close to 1 pm, and up 50 big S&P points from 1 pm to close, it happened 5 times since 1996.

(3) you mite think I should use % rather than algebraic but I don't think so. You lose and make the same amount relative to margin and capital regardless of the % move. (4) what was particularly nefarious about this one was that it was down 120 big S&P points from open before closing up.

(5) Nasdaq closed down 1% on the day after being down 3% as of 1:30, and bonds closed at a 20-day high moving up continuously thru the day. (6) The S&P was down 7 weeks in a row. never before. (8) Putting it all together and looking at expectations going forward, what does one see and why?

many things that never happened before make predictions difficult. especially never before 7 weeks in a row down, and big reversal during afternoon during non-quarterly expiration. the one thing that trumps everything is stocks going down big because bonds going down big. but bonds way up.

the one constant is bonds are at a 20-day high in reality. that's extremely bullish for stocks. happened 29 times since 2019 and 81 times since 2011. S&P up 3/4 of time one week later. about 1-2% in magnitude.

you can almost feel the unholy desire of the establishment to see a close at a 20% low bringing us to an "official bear".

After Meltdown, Tech-Bottom Signals Have Yet to Scream ‘Buy Now’

the betting odds remain at more than 2 to 1 in favor of 45 versus 46. (39% versus 15%) and the one constant is no matter what a company does they are urged to unionize above all.

Vic's twitter feed

May

18

it was a time when the best brokerage houses of the 19th century hastened to get prices to their customers:

There were no tickers in those days. The quotations were circulated by men who got them from the brokers, wrote them down on pads and then went from office to office or from man to man with them. These men, who had the latest prices, were called pad shovers. They came up to you and shoved the pad with the quotations on it right under your nose, hence the appellative. They were the walking tickers. Rushing the pad, they used to call the process. It was not so quick as the ticker, but the brokers who furnished the quotations to the pad shovers were conscientious and careful, and nobody could or ever did question their honesty. The pad shovers were paid for their services by a commission on whatever business they took to the two-dollar brokers, from the offices of other brokers. They received one dollar per hundred shares; hence the term, split-commission broker. The Stock Exchange ruled against this kind of business eventually, and with the advent of the ticker the pad shover went the way of the fluid lamp and the stagecoach.

(from Edwin Lefevre)

The worst brokerage house today won't let you get current prices unless you pay $1000+ a year to the Exchange no matter how many times you're already paying for it. there were panic sin those days as in current. The best brokerage houses would carry their customers and allow them to be way below required margins on grounds that their customers were friends and would rise again. Some panics were the Northern Pacific where the stock rose from 40 to 2000 in one day, the start of the first world war and the 1907 "silent panic". The worst brokerage houses today will not give you the sweat off their testicles if you are under margin for a second.

Vic's twitter feed

May

17

It was the best of brokerage houses. It was the worst of brokerage houses. It was the age of brokers refusing to let their customers panic. It was the age of giving customers 1 second to meet their 10-times-as-high margins. it was the season of raising money for the great coming industries: the railroads, the autos, the chain stores. It was the age of assuring customers that there was nothing before us but inevitable declines. It was the time when brokers would fight for the best executions for their customers. It was the time when it was impossible to speak to a human.

one brokerage house was memorialized by Edwin Lefevre in The Making of a Stock Broker, written in 1909, and is apparently the forerunner of Merrill Lynch. The other is the notorious present day options leader.

Lefevre tells the story of a dentist. he was long steel at 40. it reached 39 7/8. the dentist did a 4-inute mile to the broker's office. "sell everything!" he shouted. he was still studying the quotation and smiling, not because he had lost but because everything had gone still lower. Next to making money is the pleasure of watching others lose much more. "what did you do with your patient? leave him in the chair?" "Like hell! He heard you say 39. He was long one thousand steel. He beat me to the building by 20 yards."

A lot of the business of the Street in my youth was done in the open air, particularly in Broad Street, where we had the original and real curb market. Business there began right after the close of the Exchange at three, and lasted about an hour and a half. It was a sort of postscript market and at times the volume of business was quite large, almost as much as we did on the floor. In a way it was like a big fair, where everybody was acquainted. The small fry may have admired the big fish, but they usually called them by their first names. Most of the habitués were members of the I-Knew-Him-When Club. The ticker did a lot of social leveling in those days. I might be walking down Wall Street and I’d hear somebody yell ‘J.G.! J.G!’ Looking up, I’d see one of the alert split-commission brokers hurrying after a dark little man with very bright eyes and a black beard - the great Jay Gould, one of the greatest geniuses that ever operated in Wall Street, the sinister figure of whom old Daniel Drew in a moment of financial agony said, ‘His touch is death!’ A very rich and very powerful person, and yet all a man had to do if he wished to speak to him was to yell ‘Jay Gould!’ and the great Jay Gould would wait for him there in the Street.

Vic's twitter feed

May

15

Friday close happened 8 times since 2015. bullish for monday.

it was unique week for markets: bonds up 2 1/2 big points, S&P down 100, crude up all-time hi at 110 a barrel. S&P down 6 weeks in a row as of friday. never happened before. much bear commentary. putting it all together, very bullish. especially 5 weeks in row down-very bullish, only 5 times since 2011.

The Winds of War, by Herman Wouk - very good audible - shows FDR to be completely duplicitous: "i will say again and again, your boys will not go to Europe." against certain faiths. Like 43. very shrewd, only 300000 lost very similar to current. highly recommended.

nobody asked me but there is a terrible flaw in analytics that suggests closers like Chapman for Yankees rather than letting the pitcher from the eighth inning pitch one more good inning. same is true for markets. stay with it. (recency bias for Yankees re Riviera.)

Vic's twitter feed

May

12

does anyone share my belief that the camp kindergard people at the Fed and Treasury will do everything in their power to help the november along? and that they have plenty? in the old days they asked all the dealers what they wished for.

a real behavioral bias, not the contrived ones that Kahneman and colleagues validate by giving college students self-validating questionnaires, is the envy phenomenon. much more than the endowment effect but related to it is unholy wish to see others who once were rich fall and fail.

Vic's twitter feed

May

10

…also get sold: spring 2001 and fall 2007.

Zubin Al Genubi responds:

The great bull market ran from 82-2000, but during the mid 80's Volker ran rates up to 17% T Bonds. Lots of pain in real estate but the stock market stayed strong.

Laurel Kenner comments:

I still remember the free toasters banks gave out in 1979 and the 13% money market rates. My dad lost his job and pension for refusing to give inflated commercial RE appraisals for his REIT. The California government, perhaps greedy to participate in the housing bubble, raised property taxes so high that it led to the Prop 13 revolt in 1978, helping set off the Reagan revolution. Oh how the bureaucrats cried over that. By 1984 the Fed had to turn the money back on.

Inflation can result from a complex of factors. Supply issues, government spending, demand for the nation’s products (as in WWI & II, though the latter was temporarily suppressed by price controls). John Steele Gordon did a nice summary of US inflation this month for Hillsdale College’s Imprimus.

Steve Ellison provides the link:

Inflation in the United States, by John Steele Gordon

May

9

nobody asked me but…many of the great composers - brahms, beethoven - say the way to write great music is to spend hours in the woods.

Nobody asked me but same true of trading on day like this. it was what i like to call a healthy day. all inflation things were down highlighted by 8% down in crude and 2% in all the grains. S&P tucked in slightly below the round one monday min - very bullish.

nobody asked me but at least there's one federal agency that's apparently very competent. the Federal Marshalls service always gets their quarry. crude goes from 20 day high to 8 day lo in one day. bonds up 2 1/2 from Monday low of 13500 to close 137 1/2.

Vic's twitter feed

May

7

it was most unusual of times on Friday. S&P closed basically unchanged for the week, while bonds were down 3 big pts on week, 7 big on 2-week basis. S&P is down a bit over 10% and the bonds down 25 big pts since the beginning of the year. calls out for systematic quantification of the regularities.

Here are regularities: S&P down a little on Friday but at 20-day low - bearish for Monday until 1 pm, but then bullish for next days. S&P down 10% in last 90 days and bonds down 20 pts - bearish for next 90 days. One cautions against selling short as that loses 10,000-fold a century.

Vic's twitter feed

May

4

Baron Coleman:

Served as a teacher to the illiterate. CEO of family business, Tennessee Building Products, Inc. with subsidiaries Tennessee Glass Co., Better-Bilt Aluminum and Kabinart Corp. One of the Founders and Chairman of Hospital Affiliates Int'l. One of the Founders of Health America. Involved in numerous organizations and charities: Board Member of The Temple for many years; Board Member of The Jewish Federation of Nashville & Boca Raton, Florida; Board Member of the Jewish Community Center; President of the Woodmont Country Club; Chairman of the Israel Bond Drive for many years; Life Director Emeritus of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra; Honorary Benefactor of Lynn University Conservatory of Music.

one of great unsung heroes of america. started out as a peddler and became multi-billionaire. no mention of him on Wikipedia. He had a great sense of humor. when you asked him how he was, he'd say "everything's up except my widdler." i wish I had revered him more when i sold one of his businesses but didn't realized his greatness. It was a Barron Coleman day. My perfect wife is still sexy to me after 50 years. but my stroke makes it a Barron Coleman day all around.

Vic's twitter feed

May

4

This is the most positive and heart warming thing I’ve seen in months. This guy’s spirit is noteworthy.

100-year-old NJ native and WWII veteran runs in Penn Relays

Jeffrey Hirsch responds:

Amazing!

Paul O'Leary concurs:

Indeed. Looking forward to Larry’s victory in the early 2040’s!

May

3

Supreme Court chief justice directs marshal to investigate leak, calls out 'egregious breach of…trust'
Chief Justice John Roberts called the leak a 'betrayal of the confidences of the Court'

The Marshall of the supreme court strikes me as likely to come up with deleterious info on the colleagues as the Inspector General of the Fed or comparable self-policing people as the alphabet agencies. The one we could trust is the Handicapper General of Kurt Vonnegut.

Vic's twitter feed

May

3

all across the spectrum from Tudor Jones to art Laffer (as well as all the useful idiots and chronic bears, all bearish). I only lathered half of my face and didn't shave when I noted 4129. bullish.

Big Stock Bears Say S&P 500 Bottom Still Another 700 Points Away
It’s a fact of life in struggling markets: someone is always saying things will get worse. According to a number of prominent equity strategists, they’re about to get a lot worse.

The final plank:
El-Erian: Fed Has No Choice But to Raise by Half-Point
Mohamed El-Erian, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, says the Federal Reserve's long-term policy decisions will get harder.

looks like camp kinderland meeting decided to help usual suspects along mainly by bonds.

Vic's twitter feed

May

3

Max Brand

May 3, 2022 | Leave a Comment

Max Brand was a giant who wrote 5 million words at 5 cents a word about mythic cowboy heroes who grow from ordinary people into Homeric heroes in the course of his 250 novels. Faust (one of his 15 pseudonyms) was in writing what Babe Ruth, Red Grange were in sport.

max brand wrote 75 novels, many of them westerns The Untamed and The Black Muldoon, Dr. Kildare. "a good tennis and squash player, he lived in a Olympian villa in Florence, could write a novel in a week, a short story in an hour, i rec." (The Life and Times of Fred Faust)

None of his novels have a locus of place or nature in them like Kelton or Schaefer (or even Lamour) but they are always pure adventure of a Greek-like hero.

Vic's twitter feed

May

3

i am an active trader but get live prices from my two brokers. this is a symptom of Bacon's rule that the public has no right to lose this much. somehow my prices are sticky and all sorts of firewalls exist to prevent live prices. No wonder the big social info company was bought into the Exchange. As mentioned all the rules that are designed to put the public at a disadvantage will ultimately backfire.

the way required margins are implemented is particularly reprehensible for the public.

Vic's twitter feed

May

3

The sage says crypto investing is stupid and evil— why? it doesn't give tangible wealth like a factory or railroad or ice cream slurry. some one is going to explain to the two old timers that liquidity and accessibility and hedging against disaster is valuable. the two centenarians are likely to join the big guy in a cry of "get off my grass". Didn't hear the almost centenarian bemoan that his secretary pays higher service rate than him — and promote an increase in service rates as a panacea. meeting at camp Kindergard right now to see how they can help big guy along.

"a gambling problem," that's the diagnosis of the two centenarians. but the real cause is not greed. It's a symptom of the market infrastructure, the strong being set up to take from the public.

Vic's twitter feed

May

1

Bob Mitchell chasing PBR rookie honors

"I try not to think about much at all, just staying on," Mitchell told The Billings Gazette and about the moments before he climbs on a bull.

"I just stay focused and always say a prayer before I get on. When you start thinking, it never turns out very good at all."

May

1

Letters From A Self-Made Merchant To His Son (also online here): This is a wise book which every father should share with his children when they reach teen age. Many of the kids won't appreciate it until they are fathers and they have suffered the slings and arrows of business. It was written by George Lorimer who brought the Saturday Evening Post from a 1000 subscribers when he took over in 1902 to more than a million when he passed away in 1938. Lorimer must have been a friend of the Head of Armour or Swift and learned a lot from the road to success these meat packing and processing giants. As a side I note that many of the fortunes on the Chicago commodity exchanges started out in these packing plants. By following the advice of the self-made merchant, no wonder they were so successful.

Having been in business and visited many of the principles that Lorimer teaches, I can attest to their wisdom. The book consists of a series of 20 letters to his son which starts out with his son telling his dad about a business idea, his father warning him against pitfalls, then telling a story with metaphors that illustrates his point.

I will concentrate on his advice about Change, the commodity pits, and Wall Street.

What every man does need once a year is a change of work—that is, if he has been curved up over a desk for fifty weeks and subsisting on birds and burgundy, he ought to take to fishing for a living and try bacon and eggs, with a little spring water, for dinner.

He relates stories about gambling systems, gold brick speculation, and short squeezes engineered by his son and himself. His son asks for advice on a system his friend had figured out by logs and trigs and calculus that he learned at Harvard but he just didn't have enough money to carry it to its inevitable profitable conclusion. Graham tells the kids that the only thing the system provides is losses: "All the men who come to me with systems can only tell me about the losing end. The race horse, the faro tiger, and the poker kitty have bigger appetites than any critter has a right to have. Following these systems is apt to lead to the poor house or the Jail House." He gave hs son $1,000 to lose at 5% interest which he took out of his salary.

There is further advice about never selling short and never investing in a mining business you don't know about. Highly recommended.

Vic's twitter feed

May

1

For a finite-size system to persist in time (to live), it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed (global) currents that flow through it.

- Adrian Bejan

At Chair's suggestion I am enjoying some of Prof Bejan's books:

Time And Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies

Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organizations

As applied to current markets it had some trouble breaking the 4500 big round last few times and that is a big constructal round.

The "Professor" defines the Constructal law: Every system flows in a design that evolves to improve flow. Examples of flow systems are river deltas, blood circulation, heat transfer, economic systems, and the stock market. The "flow" of the stock market is to provide capital transfer from investors to companies to run business. Chair says that the flow has evolved to transfer wealth from the public and to cause them to do the wrong thing.

The standard time price tape bar chart might not be the best visual to track the increase in capital flow. A good type of chart would be in money flow defined as dollars flowing to companies ie total net stock sales less vig which would measure the increase and decrease of capital flows in and around the system. The underlying principle is based on simple economics. Growth leads to higher profits and prices.

The variations in price are needed to maximize the flow so participants can put money (energy) into the flow at a price they like. Sometimes buying the bottom isn't best if one needs a lot of money. Stated another way there may not be sufficient liquidity at bottom tick. Our new chart should show available and new liquidity or loss. Analysis should find areas/times/ prices of liquidity and when that leads to higher prices and profits. I'm not sure if the standard money flow charts do this.

Flow systems often look like trees or rivers. Binomial statistics would be a useful tool. Ralph Vince used binomial statistics and branch analysis for his risk analysis. I don't fully understand the derivations but appreciate the outcomes. A branch chart would show points of high and low money flow and branch to profit or loss outcome at each branch. Binomial analysis would show direction for profit higher price path.

In markets infrastructure is to flow commissions to brokers. Maximum flow will occur in a range. That is why ranges around 50's are so common. Its in the middle. Its a time of uncertainty.

Jeff Watson adds:

Which segues nicely with what my mentor told me in the 70’s that markets will move in the direction that will maximize the number of trades in that period. If there is more stuff to be traded at .6, the market will not be moving away from .6 to trade at .2, it’s going to clear out the .6 trades before it moves away, either way, from the price. This supports the maximization of commission for the brokers.

May

1

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.” - H. L. Mencken

(Quoted in Bejan, Time And Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies)

Duncan Coker writes:

I recently spent time at a conference on a college campus that included input from many grad and undergrads. I was expecting intolerance towards any but the most agrarian of ideas. I was pleasantly surprised to find more openness, nuance, and free speech that I had anticipated, leading me to change a few my own preconceptions. Point is, it's good to get out in the wild and test long-held beliefs, empirically. The virtual world can become a confirmation bias factory.

Nils Poertner comments:

quite often we just learn things from our ancestors (societal beliefs) which we take for granted - but by closer inspection, they aren't necessarily true and are far more fluid. it seems as if society is run by the lowest common denominator at any point if time (as if we are afraid of ourselves or the greatness of the other human fellow). but perhaps one needs to see "through" this and try solve some of our own little paradoxes and take it easy. see also the early Carlos Castaneda on that - before he experimented with drugs.

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