The Big Picture |
- Report from Geneva: McLaren P1, LaFerrari & E63 Road Test
- Wall Street Journal Fail
- The Information Age
- Professor Sylla: More Dow Records to Come?
- Are You A Perma-Bear? Take The Zero Hedge Test
- Delahaye Automobiles’ Outrageously Gorgeous Cars
- Wealth Inequality in America
- 10 Weekend Reads
| Report from Geneva: McLaren P1, LaFerrari & E63 Road Test Posted: 09 Mar 2013 03:00 PM PST Motor show reports can be a bit dull, but not if there are new McLaren and Ferrari hypercars, a new GT3 and an Alfa sports car. But even so, we added an E63 road test because, well, we always like some action.
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| Posted: 09 Mar 2013 12:00 PM PST Below you will find today’s WSJ front page. With Unemployment at a 4 year low and the Dow is at an all time high, things are obviously awful. Hence, the reveal of the destruction of America’s best newspaper has now been completed. What was once Wall Street’s paper of record has completed its transformation into the paper of Rupert.
click for larger graphic
Hence, it is no longer useful to investors. The Wall Street Journal was once the greatest American newspaper. Sure, the OpEd writers were insane idealogues, and there was the occasional drunk or pederast on the masthead. But overall, the quality of the writing was so good, and the objective look at business so sharp, investors could rely on it. Today, Fox News seems to write the headlines. The influence of the partisan editorials has completely overtaken the entire paper. In other words, to investors, it has become a gnarly mess of unreliable, EXPENSIVE partisan bias. Nothing is trustworthy on its pages anymore. The problem with this is not political — rather, it is financial. (See my Washington Post article on exactly this topic, submitted on Thursday — before yesterday’s payroll data, and before this idiotic headline). If you want objective, hard hitting business journalism, the role formerly inhabited by the WSJ has been taken over by the Bloomberg terminal and Bloomberg.com ~~~ But there is hope! Given the poor stock performance of the News Corp — unchanged since 2000, and marginally higher than when Rupert bought the WSJ — there is pressure on News Corp to unload their money losing “News” business. If and when that happens, you can remove your the paper from your quarantine list. Hopefully by then, it won’t be too late for the Journal. For now, the paper is best read with a skeptical eye — and a sense of humor. |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2013 11:00 AM PST It’s about what you know. Because Tina Brown is hopelessly lost in the last century, she buried the most important story of the year, putting it behind a paywall in the initial digital edition of “Newsweek.” “Eunuchs of the Universe: Tom Wolfe on Wall Street Today” is not the besuited writer’s best work. The introduction is poor and you’re not sure where he’s headed, and then…Mr. Wolfe reveals the essence of today’s Wall Street. That it’s no longer about Masters of the Universe, but geeks, with computers…and speed. Let’s get this straight. Algorithms are important. But even more so is the speed within which their results can be executed. Let me make this perfectly clear. If you’re trading from Kansas, you just can’t compete with someone in New York City. It takes too long for your message to get through. So there’s been an arms race in communication. Fiber optics. Straight pathway. Tower to tower communication as opposed to underground, because data flows faster above ground. And you know nothing about this. But it’s hiding in plain sight. If you’d just get off of Facebook and YouTube and read. Now the stock market has always run on speed. Back to when Reuters used carrier pigeons. And what is being transmitted quickly is information. And the rest of the world, including the entertainment business, has run on speedy information forever. Prior to the Internet era, an entertainment titan would make in excess of a hundred phone calls a day. Do you think he was making deals? No, he was learning things. Extracting information that would help him proceed. Now most of this information is available to everyone. You’ve just got to do the work. It’s not only music distribution that’s been toppled, something the titans had within their iron grip, but all kinds of information has been democratized, has been shaken free. There’s more than anybody can digest, but you’d better get crackin’. Want to be poor? Be ignorant. I see it every damn day. Whether it be the underclass voting for lower income taxes when they don’t pay any or the person who saves $100 and buys an iPhone 4S instead of a 5, not realizing for a hundred bucks more, they’d get LTE, which is the difference between surfing the net on a tractor as opposed to a Ferrari. And it makes a difference. What you know, how fast you know it, is your advantage. The Tom Wolfe article is now online. But it’s essentially meaningless. Because the publicity occurred when it was behind a paywall and virality was stunted. But now Radiolab has done the story. Everything you think you know about trading is wrong. It’s not men on the floor, it’s quants in suburbs executing trades much faster than you can blink your eyes making tiny sums over and over again. Only the punter goes for the big win. The professional is all about the edge, the margin, finding what is mispriced and going in for the kill. Have you got the time for this? Probably not. You’re sitting at home consuming Kesha, dreaming of striking it big yourself. Not realizing this crap is for consumers, who are ignorant but drive the economy. While the fat cats, those in the know, reap the rewards. We have a winner and loser society because of information, not taxes. We’ve got an educated class and a dumb one. We’ve got schools that teach business as opposed to how to think. The populace believes a degree is the key to success. No, that’s just an entry ticket. Information and analysis is the way you succeed. If you’re not going to an educational institution that teaches you how to think, you’re wasting your money, you’re going to a glorified paper mill. You’ve got a degree, then what! But the media has snookered you. Told you you can’t succeed without said sheepskin. You’ve been diverted from the truth. Which is it’s now every man for himself, and who you know is important, but what you know is what truly counts. And almost everything you need to know is available for free, online. Sure, you’ve got to dig deep in your area of interest. But you’ve got to be a generalist too, in order to figure out how it all fits together. And I believed my enterprise, my newsletter, was about reaching out. But even more important than that is the feedback loop. I can’t know everything. I didn’t know that that coding video was advertised all over Facebook, driving views. My readers told me that. Yes, I’ve established a Grand Central of information. If you say you talked to me on the phone, you’re lying. Because I almost never do. Maybe one business call every other week. Usually to an oldster who is not net-savvy. You see just like the Wall Street traders I know it’s about speed. I haven’t got the time to waste on the phone, where you take twenty minutes to talk sports, kiss my butt and then ask for the favor. Let me know in an e-mail, instantly. As for self-promoters? I ignore them. Completely. It’s meaningless. Google ranks results based on links. If you’ve got none, I know you’re not happening. That you’re going nowhere. You think it’s about the marketing economy, when we live in the information economy. Can I see the bread crumbs of your information on the net and follow the trail back to your work? If you want to win at this game, and most don’t, they’re not shooting that high, they don’t want to work that hard, you’ve got to be reading all day long. You’re looking for an edge, that no one else has. The baby boomers are already toast. Who else would waste all that time at lunch? I’m not saying it’s fair, I’m just saying it is. It’s not about pay or free. It’s not about piracy. It’s about information. What’s the story behind the story? Used to be only the fat cats knew. Now you can too.
Radiolab podcast (fast-forward to 22:00 to hear about Wall Street trading speed): “It Takes a B.A. to Find a Job as a File Clerk“: “Pop Star’s Single, ‘Booty Wave’, Most Likely Civilization’s Downfall“: – – |
| Professor Sylla: More Dow Records to Come? Posted: 09 Mar 2013 08:00 AM PST Richard E. Sylla, financial historian and professor of economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, discusses the likelihood of a series of markets highs, the impact of the Fed’s ability to keep interest rates down, and the tendency for investors to buy high and sell low, in a big interview with WSJ’s Jason Zweig.
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| Are You A Perma-Bear? Take The Zero Hedge Test Posted: 09 Mar 2013 06:30 AM PST Take The Zero-Hedge TestBeing permanently bearish on equities definitely pays. Just ask Zero-Hedge. Unfortunately, for wool-dyed pessimists and the other overly-skeptical black sheep of the thundering herd, it pays apocalyptic newsletter writers’ paychecks, and Zero-Hedge/Tyler Durden’s Manhattan bar tabs rather than those who permanently position against market priapism. And it’s worse than zero-sum because those who are optimistically-challenged often pay for the bad advice – whether directly in subscriptions, inflated margins on retail bullion products, or indirectly via page-views and click-throughs AND then they get hosed by the market. The first step to improving behaviour toxic to one’s own self interest is admit one has a problem. As an aid to help those who have difficulty in distinguishing “a bearish trade” from “the lead boots of anger and pessimism”, I’ve devised a little something I call the Zero-Hedge Test to determine more precisely whether readers objective realities are sufficiently paranoid, pessimistic, anti-social and rantingly angry to warrant more serious help. Instructions: Circle the letter that best describes the adjacent image:  a. a glass of water
 a. First black elected (and first to be re-elected) President of the USA
 a. Something that still buys a 12oz can of Coca-Cola
 a. six would-be wedding bands
 a. ummm Europe?
 a. a bull market
 a. beginning of a 5-year bull market
 a. a pooled investment in Gold
 a provider of goods for the shelves of Walmart
 a. a man with a beard
 a. impractical fashion trend
Interpreting the results:
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| Delahaye Automobiles’ Outrageously Gorgeous Cars Posted: 09 Mar 2013 05:00 AM PST Click to enlarge 1936 Delahaye 135 Competition Court Figoni et Falaschi Coupe ~~~ 1938 Delahaye 165 Cabriolet ~~~ 1948 Delahaye 135 M Figoni et Falaschi Cabriolet Narval ~~~ 1936 Delahaye 135 Figoni et Falaschi Torpedo Cabriolet ~~~ Image1949 Delahaye 175 S Saoutchik Roadster ~~~ 1937 Delahaye 135 Figoni et Falaschi Torpedo Cabriolet ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ 1948 Delahaye 135 M Figoni et Falaschi Cabriolet ~~~ Source: Dream N Fun and Dream N Fun |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2013 04:00 AM PST Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is. More info: YouTube I’ve had this queued up for awhile, bit its gone viral and there is no longer a reason to wait . . . |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2013 03:00 AM PST Some longer form reads to start your weekend off right:
What are you doing this weekend?
Hockey Stick Graph Now Even More Stickish |
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