Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 9th, 2025

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• China’s Autonomous Agent, Manus, Changes Everything. (Forbes)
• AI Companies are Copying Each Other's Homework to Make Cheap Models. (Insider)
• What Makes the World: Mind or Brain? (PsychologyToday)
• Stephen Hawking's Grim Prediction for the End of the World. (Sciencing)
• China is Building a Massive ‘Space Station’ at the Bottom of the Sea. It Could Herald an Energy Breakthrough. (PopularMechanics)

 

 

 

Trading Links:

• A Non-Crypto Person's Guide to the 'Bitcoin Strategic Reserve'. (CNN)
• The Hottest AI Companies Right Now are ‘Apps’. (Bloomberg)
• How Trump's '51st State' Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious. (NYT)
• Are We Suddenly Close to a Recession? Here's What the Data Actually Shows. (Forbes)
• Billionaire Ray Dalio's Blunt Message on the State of the U.S. Economy Turns Heads. (TheStreet)

 

Triumph Through Trials: Becoming Anti-Fragile

Many of our best decisions, timeliest course corrections, or significant innovations occur after a seemingly disastrous occurrence. That's why many psychologists and self-help gurus encourage people to focus on the hidden gift that many of these experiences provide.

It's there if you look for it. That painful event becomes the catalyst for either something new, a better way, or a level-up.

The goal isn't just to survive - it's to thrive. While a robust business can withstand shocks and a resilient business can recover from them, an anti-fragile business improves and grows stronger when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors.  The interesting thing about this concept is that it doesn't mean not fragile. It means things that weaken other systems are actually the things that strengthen you. 

Of course, that's not the case for everyone or every event ... It takes the right mindset and the right actions to turn a trial into a triumph. 

As we see the world changing rapidly, both through AI and through Trump's presidency, I think back to 2008 and how a prior incarnation of algorithms fared against it (spoiler alert: not nearly as well as this time). They say the things that don't kill you make you stronger. Here's my trial into triumph story about that. 

 

Via Howard Getson's YouTube Channel.

Too many people become victims of their circumstances instead of choosing to be the master of their destinies. 

Life is harder for people who live a life of least resistance. Doing the hard things and making the most of bad times makes life better and, ultimately, easier. 

Tony Robbins calls this the Threshold of Control. If you push through the fear and the struggle ... as you persevere, eventually, what was scary becomes easy. You've increased your threshold, and that's often a permanent improvement.  

Here is a list of the seven steps I use to transform almost any situation.

Seven Best Practices for Uncertain Times.

1. Accept Reality: We are where we are. Focus on being complete with what happened before this – and think about this as a new beginning with an even bigger future.
2. Do Something Positive: Take action and build momentum and confidence. Big wins are great. Yet, in scary times, even small items are worth noting, building upon, and stacking. Let progress build positive momentum for you.
3. Take Care of Yourself: Increase your physical activity, meditation, and massage. Take time to eat and sleep well. Many studies show decision-making suffers when you're stressed. Caring for yourself goes a long way to improving many other things.
4. Communicate More: The natural tendency is to hide or to recuperate in private. Instead, be open and receptive to help and ideas from friends, partners, or wherever it may come.
5. Creative Destruction: The old game and the old ways of thinking are over. Shift your energy to what is working. Commit to the result you want rather than the process.
6. Increase Your Options: It often takes a different level of thinking to solve a problem than the level of thinking that got you there in the first place. So, be open to opportunities, new possibilities, and more ways to win.
7. Choose a Bigger Future: Instead of resigning yourself to playing small and doing with less, recognize that a clearing creates space for something even better. Choose what you want and call it into existence through your thoughts and actions.

They say everything happens for a reason. The secret is that you get to choose the reason, what it means to you, and what you're going to do about it. Choose well, and someday, you could look back on this time as one of the best things that ever happened to you.

Are we in a Stock Market Bubble?

The S&P 500's price-to-earnings ratio (CAPE) has recently been nearing historic highs. Traders think that signals that market valuations might be overheated. 

In December of last year, it hit 37.9, over double its long-term average of 17.6. For context, it has only exceeded that level during the Dot-Com bubble and in 2021. 

 

via visualcapitalist

Overheated prices mean that there's a significant gap between company earnings and stock prices. That disparity translates to speculation and hope driving the stock price instead of more quantitative data. 

For some historical perspective, after the Dot-Com bubble, the S&P declined by 40% in the following two years. And after its 2021 peak, the S&P sank almost 20%. 

While AI enthusiasm has brought a spark to the markets, the question is, is that hype hiding deeper issues?

On a broader note, my message to you would be that if you don't know what your edge is, you don't have one. Investors and traders should understand market indicators, economic trends, and other world factors – mainly because it's important to be educated (or at least informed). Of course, merely understanding these things does not translate to a reliable trading strategy or an edge in today's environment. 

Lastly, just because something has been true in the past does not mean it predicts the future. In trading, we use the phrase "past performance is not indicative of future results" to remind us that there is a difference between a coincidence and a correlation. Indicators like CAPE study the past, so it is dangerous to assume you can use them to predict the future. For better or worse, whether markets go up or down is based on much more than earnings and stock prices. 

But, with that said,  Warren Buffett just did something worth noting ... He sold his holdings in the S&P 500 index funds he tells everyone to buy. So why did Buffett just sell them himself?

We live in interesting times.  

Onwards!

Is The NYSE Moving To Texas?

While I mainly discuss entrepreneurship and technology trends, I still have a soft spot for trading, which remains a large part of what we do at Capitalogix. While we've broadened the industries in which we use our Capitalogix Insight Engine, it was originally built with trading technologies in mind. We have exciting new partnerships there, including a new fund.

As we look forward, I thought it was a good time to look back as well.

I'm sure you have heard about open outcry trading pits in Chicago and New York—where traders flashed hand signals lightning quick to buy and sell commodities like cattle, corn, gold, and pork bellies. Those pits, which were made famous in the movie Trading Places, thrived for decades. Nevertheless, the practice has lost out to a faster, cheaper, and quieter competitor: the computer and electronic trading.

In 2016, I visited the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and took this video in front of the S&P trading pit during live trading hours. 

 

via my YouTube Channel.

In the video, I remarked that even though it looked empty - trading volume was higher than ever. Meaning that trading had once again evolved beyond the way it used to happen. According to the CME Group, by 2015, public outcry had fallen to 1% of total volume. Here is a video of what the S&P trading pit used to look like.

 

"...the change in the pit isn't a harbinger of death for futures trading;  it's the signal of a new era." 

 

At the time, it didn't feel like a bold statement to me – because what was coming felt inevitable. And it has proven to be true. Markets have changed radically since 2016. And you can bet that the changes aren't done, as AI and exponential technologies promise to transform markets and trading again.

The process of trading and clearing is moving beyond human capabilities. As the old duties of the Exchange fade away, the focus must be on the dangers, opportunities, and strengths of a bigger future. That means new games to play, new risks to navigate, and a new set of rewards to capture.

 

Nearly empty CME trading pits in 2016 (specifically, the S&P and Eurodollar)

The new game involves not only new players, methods, and markets ... but also a new geography.

Yes, as more things become digital, geography still matters.

In 2018, the Intercontinental Exchange acquired CHX and rebranded it to the NYSE Chicago. Now, that branch of the NYSE is moving to Dallas. 

This follows announcements in 2024 of the launch of the Texas Stock Exchange, which has backing from people like Rick Perry. 

Texas is rapidly becoming an even larger economic hub. It boasts the highest number of NYSE listings, Nasdaq recently established a large base here, and companies representing more than $3.7 trillion in market value list Texas as their headquarters.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are pushing to make Texas even more business-friendly. With no corporate or personal income tax, Texas has one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation. The state also offers incentives for corporations to relocate.

All of this can be taken as a reminder that opportunities, talent, and resources concentrate where energy and funds flow. 

If you want to talk more about how to launch a business in Texas or anything Capitalogix is working on, reach out. 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 2nd, 2025

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• We've Figured Out the Basics of a Shape-Shifting, A Pack of Small Robots Can Do Liquid/Solid Transitions and Adopt Different Shapes. (ArsTechnica)
• Google Co-Founder Says 60-Hour Weeks Needed to Achieve AGI. (PCMag)
• What Fully Automated Firms Will Look Like. (DwarkeshPatel)
• Forget Startups – Maybe the Most Adaptable Companies Are Those That Last Centuries. (Crunchbase)
• The Science of Becoming an Elite Special Forces Solider: New Study Reveals What It Takes to Make the Cut. (TheDebrief)

 

 

 

 

Trading Links:

• Billionaires Earning $10 Billion Per Day in January are Suddenly Watching Their Net Worth Get Wiped Out—Elon Musk Has Lost $90 Billion Alone. (Fortune)
• Warren Buffett Makes Stunning Move by Selling S&P 500 Funds He Told Everyone to Buy (DailyMail)
• Are the Financial Markets the Only Real Check on Trump? (Forbes)
• AI Will Upend a Basic Assumption About How Companies are Organized. (Bloomberg)
• Everything Old Is New Again. They Crashed the Economy in 2008 – Now They're Back and Bigger Than Ever. Wall Street Expects to Sell More Than $335 Billion in Asset-Backed Debt This Year. (Wall Street Journal)