Jan

14

One concept common in turf handicapping is the speed rating. It's not so much whether the horse wins the race, but what its fastest time was for a given quarter or some such. One wonders what the ideal predictive speed ratings for markets are. If we come up with the answers, we may be able to contribute to the ecology of the system and possibly prevent our losses from being as great as the public.

Gary Rogan asks: 

At first glance, I'm wondering is the history of speed ratings for any markets likely to be as predictive of the future as it is at the track?

Russ Sears writes: 

When someone is starting training for distance running, it is important to understand the maximum heart rate. Then training is geared around this number. The pace you should run to achieve different objectives is a range of percentage of this number. For example a speed workout, you might want to hit 90-95% of this rate. For a recovery run, maybe 60%. As you learn the pace to achieve these objectives you can stop measuring your heart rate and then go off feel.

However, as you get fitter, it becomes more about the recovery time to a base rate. The time it takes for your heart to get close to pre-workout rate will get shorter as your fitness increases. Then as this get shorter, you can increase the pace or shorten the recovery time between faster intervals.

It would be interesting to carry this over to individual stocks with volatility analogous to heart rate. Shocks such as earning numbers analogous to workouts. I hypothesis "fit" companies are ready to take more risk and have higher expected earnings. Whereas those whose long vols are increasing may be more likely to fall apart if they take more risk.

Anatoly Veltman writes: 

I think that Chair is often faced with an exit problem. Statistics prompt justifiable entry– but then one is prone to take profit too quick, or not be sure what to do about a loser, which only looks statistically better and better the more it's losing.

Therein lies the huge difference between binary outcome in most sports/games, and the investment field. I recall one Palindrome saying: "it's not whether you've picked a loser or a winner; it's more important how much you have ON when you're having a real winner".

An avid observer of track and field legends since watching my first Mexico Olympics live on Soviet TV in 1968 (the black power pedestal protest contributed to airing of that broadcast!), I always attempted to grade medal performance against the world records. I can name dozens of great Olympians, who peaked out during certain Games (sometimes 4 years apart, and even 8 years apart!) — and never held a world record in their event; and vise versa…phenomenal record holders, who've failed to taste Olympic success. But most of them did achieve both — which, again, makes statistical sense.

Alston Mabry adds:

A core "speed rating" question is around the effect of news events such as earnings surprises. The nature of earnings surprises has changed over time, as companies have learned to manage earnings more precisely: "Rich Bernstein Explains Why Missing Earnings Estimates These Days Is Such A Disaster". And then there is an assumption that market efficiency means any true surprise will be reflected in the market within minutes. But is this true?


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