Mar

15

A voice from past asks "what can we learn about markets from birds". Do you have any insights? I'll donate $50 payable at the spec party for each of the first 20 insights.

Alan Millhone writes:

Dear Chair,

Birds of a feather flock together…

I wonder to what degree that adage is driving the Market Mistress to rise?

Do stock traders like birds have a pecking order?

Sincerely,

Alan

Art Cooper writes: 

I've long been impressed by the extraordinary efficiency in flight obtained by many birds (the albatross is a great example), which they achieve by taking advantage of their environment, through such techniques as "dynamic soaring":

and taking advantage of "ridge lift":

For a speculator, dynamic soaring is analogous to easily changing trading style between different types of markets (e.g., shifting from trend-following to reversionary as the market changes), and ridge lift can be seen as holding leveraged long positions during a parabolic blow-off move, or long puts during a crash.

anonymous shares a link:

"why a crow will never forget your face"

Pitt T. Maner III writes:

A recently-released book by Jennifer Ackerman called The Genius of Birds contains many examples of
bird intelligence and looks to be a good read on the subject. 

For example, pigeons use all available information: "They have to process multiple, different types of information: the sun and the stars, magnetic fields, landscape features, wind, weather, even smells." 

I've also read an interesting article about optimal flight pathway calculations. Life and death decisions made by migratory birds with respect to energy output/budget–when to seek and glide with tailwinds, when to change directions to avoid headwinds, when to take advantage of thermals to gain altitude, etc. Yet to be completely figured out by the ornithologists. Perhaps bearing some resemblance to long-term drift and innate sense of beneficial flow patterns and efficient trajectory:

"These results lead to the inescapable conclusion that honey buzzards make large-scale detours in anticipation of favourable future wind conditions. It is clearly implausible that animals can forecast distant wind patterns, so how could these routes arise? The wind systems that the honey buzzards exploit are highly consistent across years, and so if flying further to take advantage of wind assistance does increase energetic efficiency and/or survival, then natural selection would tend to produce these more complex migration pathways."

Laurel Kenner writes: 

The single file affords birds the same benefit bicyclists get from drafting. The followers don't have to work as hard. Very similar to market groups.

One could also explore the ancestry of birds. They are living dinosaurs. Why do they survive after T Rex and the giant plant eaters died out? Innovation is one answer. Adaptability. Behaving outside norms.

Chris Tucker writes: 

For me, it seems that birds have a unique perspective on the world, their ability to fly above the fray gives them an ability to survey the entire landscape, giving them access to a "big picture" that land based critters will never have. It also gives them access to an exit from catastrophe that is unavailable to the rest of the crowd.

Greg Devaux writes: 

we can learn from the Murmuration also seen in fish. Use the herd to let most of the individuals survive.

Victor Niederhoffer writes: 

They learn to keep out of danger or else they get killed. The survivors have it in their DNA.

Whenever you take a break from watching a beautiful bird to take a drink of coffee, they fly away. Birds migrate like the market. Lobogola lives. 

Orson Terrill shares his thoughts on birds:

Apropos to the benefits of analogous studies in birds, and the question of whether or not the existence of a "Collaborative" cannibalizes the benefits:

Birds that eat fruit and seeds often forage for food in flocks, whereas birds foraging for insects tend to not forage in flocks. The nature of fruit and seed payoffs are spatially and temporally ephemeral, so the information costs are reduced while the negative costs of competition from your flock are also reduced (because the payoff of the targets are "patchy", there is no lasting benefit to those who now know of the location).

So, sharing a specific statistical anomaly, that you expect to use again and again is self defeating. However, collaboration over the discovery of a potential theme in the economy, sector, or specific stock; that is for a time, is specific to that area of exploration -this is exactly the situation where voluntary collaboration should have a higher payoff relative to the costs of increased competition for the discovered returns.

For instance, if we all decided a special situation that was worth our time was to investigate whether or not retail real estate was hitting a tipping point, and would generally implode in certain areas. Gathering intelligence that is required in person, knowing what financial instruments available to enrich ourselves from such plight, how those would work, and who/what will be affected; that is exactly the type of foraging activity that the foraging activities of birds implies is likely to have a higher payoff, a payoff greater than the increase in competition costs.

anonymous writes: 

We kill ducks by deception. That is site (decoy) and sound (call). Speculators everyday have their money separated by site (charts) and sound (tip).

anonymous writes: 

Briefly reading over the migration of Canadian Geese on google links that popped up there seemed to be similarities to speculating the markets.

- Fly on average 40 mph but can get up to 70 with tailwinds (volatility)

- migration is for food (profit and/or incentive)

- pattern is up and down coast (lobogalessque)

- V shaped pattern is to fight wind resistance. Each bird takes turns and rotates when tired (speculators together meeting bids and asks breaking through stops)

Victor Niederhoffer writes: 

Thank you all for your ideas about birds. Brings back the many pleasant days I spent listening to the Macquarie President of the old duck hunters society. I am happy to say that for spec party we have in NY Adrian Bejan talking on may 5th, Kino Ayaka singing on may 6  and a party in Conn at my estab May 7 all invited with partners and kids.


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  1. Bill Craft on March 23, 2017 7:07 pm

    Why do flocks of migrating birds keep their separation on a power line. Oddly enough it is similar statistically to cars parked in an urban setting. Here is a study by Petr Seba, “Parking and the Visual Perception of Space” https://arxiv.org/pdf/0907.1914.pdf
    In the article he concludes, “To summarize We have demonstrated that the clearance statistics between parked cars and perching birds is very similar. This surprising observation can be understood as a consequence of an universal inborn distance controlling mechanism shared by man and animals” Whether you are a day trader, swing trader or long term investor your distance to/from the Market Mistress depends on spacing and time.

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