Jul

31

When you first start learning a sport equipment seems important. After years of practice and finally mastery you realize equipment doesn't matter. I suppose true. I suppose true life mastery makes you realize you don't even need equipment.

Peter Saint-Andre writes:

Recently I visited an uncle of mine for a few days and, to help while away the time, played a cheap guitar he had sitting around in his attic. I sure was happy to get home and play the nice Taylor 6-string I bought years ago on 48th Street (the now-vanished "Music Row") in NYC.

Steve Ellison adds:

I used my skis for 16 years. Good value for money, but in the meantime designs and materials improved. In recent years, my old skis were noticeably skinnier than those of others riding lifts with me. In March I bought new skis, and I hope I can be proficient with less effort.

Larry Williams writes:

Running shoes have made a major breakthrough with the carbon soles, etc. no way will I ever go back to my old Tigers.

Justin Klosek comments:

Musical instruments can improve over time, too — my Nord keyboard has terrific sounds (and effects) that used to require lots of pieces to achieve. now in one convenient package, and more reliable!

Michael Brush says:

Taylors are nice! Jewel used to borrow them from that store for recording sessions in NYC. She helped put Taylor on the map back then, and cutaways.

Peter Saint-Andre responds:

I bought my Taylor jumbo six-string (serial #690, made at their original workshop in Lemon Grove) in 1988, when Jewel was 14 years old and still living on a far.

Jeff Watson offers:

Interesting list of artists who play Taylors. Much more than Jewel.

Michael Brush replies:

Of course. But she put them on the map. I never bought one. I can't stand having to use Elixirs, and they got way to trendy. I have many Martins and Gibsons.

Big Al offers:

Some quotes from Yvon Chouinard:

You perfect a sport when you can do all of these things with less stuff. The most impressive ascent of Everest was by the Swedish guy who bicycled from Stockholm to Kathmandu and then soloed Everest and bicycled back to Stockholm. That is cool, as opposed to this huge multinational guided thing with computers and internet cafes at the base of Everest.

The more you know, the less you need.

The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong – that’s when adventure starts.

Jul

31

Saudi Arabia has sanctioned budgets for a Trillion Dollar Skyscraper. The structure would run 75 miles wide through the desert and it will then likely be the highest mirror structure in the whole world as this skyscrraper will be enwrapped in mirrored glass!

History's biggest hubris ever! What all can one imagine it will mean for this world? With EVs becoming a viable reality by the time this structure comes? Will crude oil settle in a sub 20 Dollar range, forever? Will this setup the final 4th Crescent & Cross wars after a gap of 500 years since the last such war?

Chair can illuminate more. The Hubris Indicator has been originated by him in Ed Spec.

Perhaps, is this announcement of the mega hubristic structure the onset of a phase of super-confidence, not mere over confidence and profligacy will working its way out and by the time they complete this structure a Lobogola would have worked its way up and begun crashing already before the inauguration of the wondrous structure?

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

Sergio Garcia bunker nightmare at the 2022 open

Jul

23

Junk bonds aren’t as junky as investors think – which makes them a good contrarian buy

Tim Melvin writes:

I was looking at BB and BBB shorter-term bonds yesterday…4-6% on five years and less. I prefer to own the bonds because it has a stated maturity….If junk market does go south I still get paid my principal at par at maturity.

Junk closed end fund discounts still well below levels that marked turning points in the past so more volatility and downside not out of the question.

Michael Brush responds:

Thanks Tim always happy to hear your views and I thought of you when I posted that here.

Ethics being what they are, people post our work. Also for future reference we do formally share with MSN so you can often find columns there. And with MW you get a few free hits so you can get around the paywall to some degree by using a different browser.

The T. Rowe manager is overweight CCC for the higher yield and greater rebound potential in a (junk and overall) market recovery, which does seem to be under way now.

Tim Melvin comments:

a gutsy move in the CCC but big returns if he is correct about broad rebound. I just want more one more year of 15%+ junk yields from decent businesses ala 2003 and I promise not to piss the money away this time.

Michael Brush responds:

P*ssing money away can be a lot of fun, but I don’t know what you bought and I am definitely not asking.

Kim Zussman scores:

"decent businesses ala 2003 and I promise not to piss the money away this time"

Jul

23

97-year-old Billings billiards player not letting age slow him down

Nils Poertner responds:

good for him. an inspiration for others.

"It just astounds me the shots he makes. When you’re 97, usually your vision isn’t real good. And to make the shots he makes you have to have good vision. You have to be able to see the ball, you have to know where to hit exactly and he does," Asleson said.

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

23

You have to admire a state that distinguishes is BBQ intrastate between eastern and western styles. Ole Time BBQ on Hillsborough in Raleigh serves an excellent example of the former for those in NC. (ie Stefan)

Reading The Boys in the Boat about the 1936 U Washington crew team and their journey to compete in the Berlin Olympics. Some great coaching and lessons from Ulbrickson the Washington coach. The downplaying of expectations before big races, "My boys are not ready for the race but they're the best we got", the quiet in the boatyard before the competitions, the practices at night in brutally cold conditions to avoid observation from competitors. The Stoicism in the face of victory and defeat.

Art Cooper responds:

I enjoyed The Boys of '36 by PBS on their American Experience series very much.

Jeff Watson adds:

I’ve been rereading Finnegan’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning Barbarian Days, arguably one of the best autobiographies I have ever read. The best surfing literature.

Nils Poertner writes:

good to read a book at all. most adults I know, in particular - males, and from a certain age onwards, say 40 - often give up on reading long text. why? hm, I guess visual stress during the day from excessive near vision these days so overwhelming (screen time), and made worse by poor visual habits etc (ppl don't blink enough when they read text etc) maybe other reasons, too. lack of curiosity etc.

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

A 3-4 hour TSA line stretching past baggage claim. Horrifying. Some problems in the transportation industry. Its apparently widespread.

Laurel Kenner responds:

Guaranteed to happen when government goes full authoritarian and shuts down the economy for iffy epidemiological reasons.

Mind owner. Mother of fire kid. Hardened gardener.

Bo Keely recalls:

i had a flight out of SF to JFK on the morning of 9/11. i was sleeping on the couch of an executive hobo named 911 who was in charge of Bay Area disaster response. he shook my shoulder awake, and said, 'roll over and go to sleep. they've cancelled all flights into NY because the world trade center was just blown up.' so, i got to sleep in, and rescheduled for a few days later.

on arriving at JFK the security was crazy. we had to go into a tunnel and wait for about an hour, and then through a metal detector before boarding. as an experiment, i stuck a piece of metal in my cap that should have set off the detector. but it was too high on my head and passed without detection. I probably visited u & vic on that trip.

Jul

17

Always progressing. Meals for a lifetime can be found in this story of a mathematician. Not settling. Changing in midstream. Not accepting norms. Intense focus. Then passing it on to the next generation.

Alston Mabry adds:

A trader should enjoy numbers:

A Solver of the Hardest Easy Problems About Prime Numbers
On his way to winning a Fields Medal, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries.

James Maynard on Numberphile.

Jul

17

I notice many people don't really pay attention to others, or listen at all. They often talk, without listening. Or their attention wanders to something else. They are busy with their own train of thought and basically shut off the outside world.

It's important for traders to get out of their head and see what is going on around in price, in the world, in other people's minds.

Larry Williams agrees:

So true and more so when communicating with the market we never listen to it.

Nils Poertner comments:

quite insightful what you said. good to have other ppl remind us of that since humans (on their own) tend to have a tendency to go into their imagination we all do this more or less. painful to hear that from another person in the moment though.

Zubin Al Genubi adds:

Or worst of all, their smart phone. It's a pandemic size problem.

Henry Gifford recalls:

When I was a kid I lived a few blocks from a very large park in the Queens part of New York City. The park is a couple of miles long, mostly woods, and was crisscrossed by a network of trails at least six feet wide that were perfect for riding on our bicycles as teenagers. There was one very hilly part where the bushes and trees were largely missing, as it was heavily trafficked by motorcycles and bicycles going up and down and over the jumps.

Recently I went there on a mountain bicycle that I had bought when I was spending time in Colorado. Now the trails are one or two feet wide at most, with lots of poison ivy all over. I found a spot wide enough to turn around without touching the poison ivy, backtracked, and took streets to the other end of the park where the open area and jumps used to be. The trails there were no wider, and I never found the hilly, open area with jumps, as the whole place is heavily overgrown now.

Remembering that falling is a regular occurrence when I ride a mountain bike, and realizing that one fall into those bushes would likely result in poison ivy all over my face and neck and arms, yielding a summer to remember, I got out of there and sold the mountain bike a few days later.

The guy who bought the mountain bike explained why the trails are so overgrown now: video games, cell phones, etc.

Bo Keely writes:

better poison ivy than video games.

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

This guy does great vids:

But what is the Fourier Transform? A visual introduction.

Stefan Jovanovich appreciates:

Wonderful. Thank you.

Zubin Al applies:

And what do you do with it?

Fast Fourier Transform in Predicting Financial Securities Prices

Turns all the conflicting signals into a nice oscillator.

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

what could make it go up? real wages? repatriation of companies? a better modus operandi how employees are treated? those graphs should be on a front page of WSJ and not how to send more arms to Ukraine.

A reader writes:

How about ending or at least curtailing the welfare state. It is mind boggling to count all the handouts and public assistance that otherwise middleclass people drink up. Look at various housing assistance programs, prescription drug benefits, free breakfasts and lunches. It has gone from helping the truly misfortunate to subsidizing at least half the country.

Alex Forshaw comments:

What's the issue? It went from 63.5% to 62.5% in 7 years. Probably entirely explained by avg age / boomers (who stick around longer than priors) finally aging out.

Nils Poertner responds:

why? there is monster public and private debt plus tons of entitlements…and then we are at the beginning of a long rise in yields (nominal and real) - so better to have a high participation rate. same as in Europe.

Zubin Al Genubi writes:

Its demographics and those are hard to change. Immigration would help, as would education.

George Zachar clarifies:

please only look at the PRIME AGE labor force participation rate, ages 25-54.

Larry Williams offers:

Prime age rate looks strong:

Bud Conrad asks:

So now what does this mean? The almost pre pandemic participation level suggests that the populace is finding jobs, and that the economy is not in such bad shape.

But I see:
- Inflation wiping out savings, Real wages declining from inflation, Rising Rates changing basic discount rates making stocks vulnerable, Demand destruction from rising prices. Import prices rising faster than US CPI, (CPI is cooked books lower than reality closer to 20% per year), Deglobalization.
- Many of the bubbles popping in the last six months: Stocks, Bonds, Cryptos, High yield debt, Housing starting down, and the reaction of collapsing Consumer confidence, Earnings in contraction.
- Debt overhang indicating generational Sovereign Debt collapse (Over 100% of GDP in US).
- Failure of Fed and its sham of fixing inflation, which it can't. Probable Fed "pivot" this fall and returning to money creation to fund the government deficits. Displeasure with the government.
- Tax receipt decline from less income (Bill Rafter's detailed work). International conflict, (Russia, China).

Is the participation rate more important or a better indicator or more predictive than all the other problems?

George Zachar adds:

and the cleanest measure imnsho is the prime age employment/population ratio, which sidesteps the issue of who is technically counted as being in the 'labor force'.

the labor market is quite healthy. otoh, pmi new orders are collapsing. the former lags, the latter leads.

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

9

For those who are interested, I thought it would be good to share the link to dowload the ebook from Mit Press.

Algorithms for Decision Making

This book provides a broad introduction to algorithms for decision making under uncertainty. We cover a wide variety of topics related to decision making, introducing the underlying mathematical problem formulations and the algorithms for solving them.

Jul

7

July in Greenwich

Jul

7

The Fed Fights Recessions by Dropping Rates. Unless Inflation’s Out of Control.
The Federal Reserve has eased past recessions by cutting interest rates, but right now it’s committed to raise rates to bring inflation under control.

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

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