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Friday, October 25, 2013

The Big Picture

The Big Picture


Unemployment and Business Cycles

Posted: 25 Oct 2013 02:00 AM PDT

Teaser: Big Announcement Next Week

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 04:30 PM PDT

Since the summer, I have been working on a skunk works project that has been kept under wraps during the negotiation process. It involves a a combination of media — sort of a mash up of blogging, podcasting and radio.

I think it will be way cool.

The fact that I am discussing it here means that, yes, we have a done deal — I signed the docs and made it all legal (guess what top flight legal counsel costs in this town?!). There should be an announcement towards the end of next week.

I am super jazzed about it.

I am under NDA, so I cannot reveal what the specifics are until then — but I can say it is a pretty big deal. Hopefully, something like this stay tuned.

I hope this project ends up being as innovative and unusual as I envision; there is the possibility  of crashing and burning, egg on my face, failure / horrible embarrassment/ showing up naked for high school finals sort of humiliation.

But WTF, if you never take risks, you will never grow!

What might change? I expect the blog might see some small changes in some ways, and for sure, my schedule will, as well as my interaction with media. Other than that you are just going to have to come back a week from now and see whats up.

I am very very excited about this!

 

10 Thursday PM Reads

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 01:30 PM PDT

My afternoon train reading:

• Good stock advice doesn’t come from TV (The Guardian)
• Where Sea Monsters Live (TBP)
• Low Fees Help ETFs Attract Affluent Investors (ETF Trends)
• 18 signs you’re reading bad criticism of economics (Chris Auld) see also The Scholars Who Shill for Wall Street (The Nation)
• Why the 1% should pay tax at 80% (The Guardian) see also Recalibrating the poverty line (LA Times)
Oxford University prof asks: What went wrong with the USA? (Mainly Macro)
• The Biggest Economy Killer: Congress  (NYT)
• IT’S OFFICIAL: Keynes Was Right (BI)
• What is the most amazing photograph you have ever taken? (Quora)
• OS X 10.9 Mavericks: The Ars Technica Review (Ars Technica)

What are you reading?

 

Gains in NonFarm Payrolls Are Sliding
P1-BN665_ECONOM_G_20131022184509
Source: WSJ

 

Long Term Unemployed

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 11:30 AM PDT

click for ginormous graphic

Source: Economist

Another interesting datapoint worth discussing

What Indices Are At All Time & 2013 Highs?

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 09:30 AM PDT

A hedge fund manager friend had mentioned a research report that had noted the Dow, FTSE and Nikkei were at neither all time nor 2013 highs.

Those there indices sounded like it a bit of cherry picking to me. So rather than succumb to the usual confirmation bias, I decided to see what major indexes were or were not actually making 2013 and all time highs

These are the results:

 

Index All Time highs? 2013 highs?
Dow Composite No No
Dow Transports Yes Yes
Dow Utilities No No
Nasdaq 100 No Yes
Russell 1000 Yes Yes
Russell 2000 Yes Yes
Russell 3000 Yes Yes
S&P 100 No Yes
S&P 400 Mid Caps Yes Yes
S&P 600 Small Caps Yes Yes
Wilshire 5000 Yes Yes
EAFE No Yes
EEM No No
Brazil No No
China No No
France No Yes
Germany No Yes

Source: Ritholtz Wealth Management

10 Thursday AM Reads

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 05:45 AM PDT

My early morning reads:

• Europe Bulls:
…..-Simple math does not support US bulls (MarketWatch)
…..-Wall Street Analyst Crams 700 Years Of Data Into 12 Charts ‘You Can’t Ignore’ (Business Insider)
• Most Americans accumulating debt faster than they're saving for retirement (Washington Post) see also  Pension Funds Love Wall Street (Bloomberg)
• A Moot Effort to Burnish the Reputation of Goldman Sachs (Dealbook)
• Hamptons Sales Surge Fuels High-End Home Tear-Downs (Bloomberg) see also These houses aren't bear traps, US optimism du jour (FT Alphaville)
• Return to Reaganomics Seen Reviving U.K. Biotechnology (Bloomberg)
• WSJ Two fer:
…..-Treasury yields fall below 2.5% as investors expect later Fed taper (WSJ)
…..-Investors fretting that companies will find it tough to maintain sky-high margins could be missing the real problem. (WSJ)
• Most of what you are going to do or say today is not essential (Farnam Street)
• Microsoft’s official blog says the latest iPad event was an attempt for Apple to play catch up with Microsoft’s offering (TechNet Blogs) see also How Much Longer Can Apple Ignore The iPad’s Competition? (Buzzfeed)
• Data Visualization Awards (Kantar Information Is Beautiful Awards)
• 27 Actors Who Got Their Starts on Miami Vice (Mental Floss)

What are you reading?

 


Source: NY Times

Look Out Above, I Dont Know Why Edition (part II)

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 04:29 AM PDT

click for updated futures
10.24.13 futes
Source: Bloomberg

 

 

Yesterday morning I wrote Look Out Below, I Don't Know Why Edition. Today, the market half is a mirror image — up about as much as yesterday was down. The only thing that remains the same is my ignorance — I really don’t know why markets are up today or down yesterday.

One headline notes that “U.S. Stock Futures Rise Amid Earnings, China Factory Data” — but we had mixed earnings yesterday, and so far, earnings are mixed  today. And Chinese economic data was good yesterday. This leads to my regularly offering up my insight with a big fat I don’t know.

All too often, investors try to construct a plausible explanation, typically in narrative form, as to what is going on. The danger is not so much that they fail — that to be expected — but rather that they confuse their confabulated narrative for truth, and mistakenly believe their own bullshit for reality.

This leads to a combination of ill informed decisions making which cannot help but produce poor judgements.

Rather than focus on what is unknown, and perhaps unknowable, I would counsel investors to focus on techniques that eliminate the noise to focus on signal. Eliminating known errors is a good start, as is reducing the consumption of frivolous, consistently wrong, or merely useless junk.

How can you get more signal, and less noise in your day? There are ways to accomplish this, which I hope to detail tomorrow . . .

TDS: A Nightmare on Wall Street

Posted: 24 Oct 2013 03:00 AM PDT

The government executes a shakedown-witch hunt-scalping-jihad against JP Morgan Chase.

October 23, 2013 (05:05)

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