Hurricane Matthew hit the east coast this week. It was the strongest storm we've weathered in 12 years (with 125 mph winds).
As a trader, I've often thought that weather and market conditions share similarities. As a result, the techniques used to understand and predict them are similar.
Have you heard the term "Eye of the Storm"? Well, in the context of Hurricane Matthew, it went directly over a weather buoy (Station #42058).
The chart is interesting. Imagine being a person observing the storm. It builds, and builds until you don't think it can get much worse. Then, it appears to stop. You can breathe. You can see. You relax … Then it comes back faster than before. Your nerves and reserves were already diminished. So, it is worse.
Similarly, it's easy to mistake the eye of the storm (in a major market move) for a sign of safety and opportunity.
I remember 2008. Storms like that caused many to buy wrong and sell wrong.
Humans see clear skies and walk outside. Perhaps we can teach the computer to know better (or at least to measure and recognize what is happening better).
More recently, a 240-year-old doll was found that can write any custom text up to 40 letters long using a goose feather and has eyes that follow what it writes. Imagine what the creator of that gadget could do with the tools we have today.
Seems pretty simple in comparison to all the different applications of A.I. we have today.
But as smart as Artificial Intelligence has become, it doesn't take much to thwart its purpose.
For example, iRobot's Roomba seems like a pretty cool piece of technology, right? It'll vacuum for you, learn where your furniture is, etc.
Unfortunately, it's not smart enough to tell when your pet has left a "present" on the floor for you … in which case, it just might spread poop over your whole house.
Yup, that's a real Roomba story, worth a chuckle while you read it here.
This image shows A.I. isn't always a substitute for lack of the real thing.
People claim that they fear Artificial Intelligence … I think artificial stupidity is pretty scary too - even when it doesn't result in smearing poop across your carpet.
One of the biggest challenges in automated trading is how quickly we can recognize when things aren't going right, and get back to doing the right thing again. It isn't just about making money, it's about making and keeping money, consistently.
As for the iRobot, they are aware of the automated poop-spreading issue and are working on a fix.
Sometimes it helps to employ unconventional perspectives when thinking about the size of things.
So here's an interesting map from the American Enterprise Institute that shows how massive and productive America's $18 trillion economy is on a global scale.
The map compares the gross domestic product of U.S. states with the national GDPs of other nations.
America's largest state economy is California. In 2015, the Golden State's GDP was about $2.46 trillion. As a separate country, California would have been the 6th largest economy in the world last year (just behind the U.K. and slightly above France's GDP of $2.42 trillion). But France's population is about 66.48 million, while California's is only about 39.14 million — meaning California produces about the same as France – with about 40% fewer people.
America’s second largest state economy is Texas. In 2015, the Lone Star state's GDP was about $1.59 trillion. This would have ranked Texas as the world’s 10th largest economy last year. To compare, Canada’s GDP last year was $1.55 trillion. However, to produce about the same amount of economic output as Texas required a workforce in Canada (18 million) that was 50% larger than employment in the state of Texas (12 million). That is, it required 6 million more workers in Canada to produce the same output as Texas last year.
Check out the rest of the states in the map below:
The map, below, is interesting in a different way. I'm sure you've heard that "a picture is worth a thousand words." Here, a couple dozen words capture the world.
via TNW
