Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - October 13th, 2019

 

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

Lighter Links:

• We May Be Closing in on the Discovery of Alien Life. are We Prepared? (NBCNews)
• An Ant Colony Has Memories Its Individual Members Don't Have. (TheNextWeb)
• Meat is Unhealthy, Meat is Okay: Why Science Keeps Overturning What We Thought We Knew. (Vox)
• Entries in the 2020 Sony World Photography Awards. (The Atlantic)
• Google Has Suspended Its Controversial Field Research' that Allegedly Scanned Homeless People. (TheVerge)

 

Trading Links:

• This Chart Ranks Everyone (Even You) by Their Wealth, and It's a Snapshot of Inequality. (CNBC)
• The Downside to Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade Eliminating Trading Fees. (MarketWatch)
• Job Losses in 2019 Highest in 4 Years as Manufacturing and Auto Industries Falter . (24/7 Wall St)
• Trump Administration Slaps 25% Tariff on Single Malt Scotch Whisky Imports. (Forbes)
• Former Nasdaq Boss Robert Greifeld Says We'll Remember WeWork as When the 'Unicorn' Bubble Burst. (CNBC)

 

 

A Day of Atonement

We're sprinting towards the end of the year. With that, stress and high expectations can lead to anxiety and hurt feelings.

Meanwhile, we just finished the Jewish High Holidays.  A few weeks ago was Rosh Hashanah – The Jewish New Year, and this past Wednesday was Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement.  The practice around these holidays is a good reminder to take account of where you are and appreciate the blessings around you. It was a reminder to me to sprint towards the end of 2019 with the energy of a new year. 

Yom Kippur is a lot like a Catholic confession, but it happens once a year. The service is a mix of contemplation, mindfulness, and contrition.  Ultimately, we apologize for the sins we've committed against ourselves, our communities, our friends, and our faith.  Also important is the promise to do better next year.  On top of repenting, we fast (no food or water) for a full day to make sure we're mindful.  In my case, it also made me sleepy (yes, my son caught me sleeping in synagogue ... I'm sorry for that too). 

 

Looks like I still have some work to do.

It's interesting how little human nature has changed in the past several thousand years. The list of sins is just as relevant today as I imagine it was back then. Even if you have managed to stay on the right side of the Ten Commandments, and haven’t killed or stolen … you have most likely been frivolous, stubborn, hurtful, dismissive, or judgmental (I know I have …).  

To help drive the importance of the day, we ceremoniously read a poem called the Unetaneh Tokef. Below is a brief excerpt because it's a powerful read, regardless of faith. 

On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.

Equally important to recognizing and repenting for your sins, is recognizing and appreciating what you did good as well ... for yourself, your friends and family, or your community. 

All-in-all, it's a nice framework that highlights how you have grown; and, it also shows where you have room to grow. 

You have one quarter left in 2019 to make it your best year yet.  What can you do?  What can you do better?

I hope you all experience growth in your mental state, your relationships, and your businesses.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - September 6th, 2019

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

Lighter Links:

 

• NASA Chief Scientist Says 'We're Close' to Making Announcements about Life on Mars. (FoxNews)
• Which Drink is Best for Hydration? Hint: It Isn't Water. (CNN)
• Why Does Time Speed up When You Get Older? (Sciencefocus)
• Tinder Wants Users to Find Love in the Apocalypse. (Wired)
• If the Louvre Was on Fire, Should We Rescue the Art First or the People? (3QD)

 

Trading Links:

• Which Billionaire Will Be the World's First Trillionaire?(Entrepreneur)
• The US's Quantum Leap to Dominate AI. (FoxBusiness)
• The Future of Cryptocurrencies. (Worldview)
• 2019 Fourth-Quarter Forecast. (Stratfor)
• What a Trump Impeachment Battle Means for Financial Markets. (NYT)

Country Comparisons: Harvard's Economic Dynamics Data-Viz

Harvard's Center for International Development put together a tool that I think is pretty cool. It's called the Atlas of Economic Complexity.  Its goal is to get you to think differently about the economic strategy, policy, and investment opportunities for individual countries. 

Each country's profile analyzes its economic dynamics and future growth prospects, including which industries are burgeoning. They made it look pretty as well.  If you're curious about specific questions, you can use their exploration function instead. 

via Atlas of Economic Complexity

Interesting stuff.  Play around. Compare. Enjoy!

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - September 15th, 2019

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

Lighter Links:

 

• New Blood Test Accurately Predicts When People Will Die within 5-10 Years. (BigThink)
• What Brain Supplements Can and Can't Do, According to a Neuroscientist. (FastCompany)
• The No. 1 University in America Now Comes with a Total Sticker Price of Over $293,000. (MarketWatch)
• Tim Cook Used a Specific Communication Strategy in Apple's iPhone Keynote. Here's Why Every Public Speaker Should Too. (Inc)

 

Trading Links:

• Counting on a Black Swan Event? There's an ETF for That. (Bloomberg)
• Jack Ma Ends 20-Year Reign at Alibaba with $41.8 Billion Net Worth. (Fortune)
• China's New Digital Currency Could Encourage Worldwide Use of the Yuan, Says CEO. (CNBC)
• The US Deficit Topped $1 Trillion. the Year's Not Even over Yet. (CNN)
• Trashing Fed 'Boneheads,' Trump Calls for Central Bank to Cut Interest Rates to 'ZERO'. (Politico)

 

Getting Used To A New Normal

In the first part of this exercise series, I talked about mindset and action.

In Part 2, I talked about normalizing your habits and picking consistent, normalized metrics. This doesn't just work at the gym; it applies to life and business as well. 

Today, I want to explain how and why this helps. To do so, we will talk about controlling your arousal states. 

Watch the video, it is only 90 seconds.

 

 

Chemically, most arousal states are the same.  Meaning, the same hormones and neurotransmitters that make you feel fear also can make you feel excited.  They affect your heart rate, respiration, etc.  ... Though, the outside stimuli you experience likely determines how you interpret what is happening.  

In most situations, a heart rate of 170 beats per minute is an indicator of extreme danger (or an impending toe-tag).  If I felt my heart racing like that in a meeting, it might trigger a fight or flight instinct.  I prefer conscious and controlled responses.  So, I train myself to recognize what I can control and to respond accordingly.

One way I do that is by being mindful of heart rate zones during exercise.  

My goal is to get as close to 170 bpm as I can, then stay in that peak zone for as long as possible.

Here is a chart showing a Fitbit readout of an exercise session.

 

As you can see, every time I reach my limit ... I get my heart rate back down.  It becomes a conscious and controlled learned behavior.

Here is a different look that shows effort based on my maximum heart rate.  It is from an app called Heart Analyzer.  

 

 

Recognizing what this feels like is a form of biofeedback; it's not only gotten me better at controlling what happens after my heartrate reaches 170 but at identifying when I'm close – even without a monitor. 

Now, when my heart rate is at 170 bpm (regardless of the situation), I don't feel anxious ... I think about what I want to do. 

I currently use an Apple watch with the HeartWatch app to measure heart rate during the day.  The Oura Ring is what I use to measure sleep and readiness.

These are useful tools.

It's the same with trading ... Does a loss or error harsh your mellow – or is it a trigger to do what you are supposed to do?  

Getting used to normalized risk creates opportunity.  

When you are comfortable operating at a pace, or in an environment, that others find difficult – you have a profound advantage and edge.

Measuring Normalized Behavior – Stop Worrying and Love The Pain

When your doctor tells you that you are fat, it is easy to discount (because you pay them to tell you that).  When your massage therapist tells you that you are getting fat, you've got to listen (because they're trying to be nice to get a better tip).

Well, for the past two months, I've been getting back into fitness.

I used to be a competitive athlete.  In the past, for me, exercise was about gaining an edge and competing better.  In a sense, that is still true (just on a different field).   Now, I work out to stay healthy, fit, and vital while managing the challenges of running a company, navigating an overbooked calendar, and traveling every week.

In my last post on mindset and action, I talked about the habit of conditioning yourself to take the next best step.

This is about focusing on the right things so you can best measure progress.

 

 

Normalizing your habits and picking the right metrics isn't just a habit for the gym.  It's a habit you should pick up in life. If you don't set the right measuring stick you'll always be unhappy or underperform. 

Plan forward – but measure backward ... you have to make sure you're not so focused on the horizon that you don't track what you've accomplished. 

Normalizing the result makes this easier and better.

In running, for example, it is the time it takes me to finish one mile, while never going above 170 heartbeats per minute.

Meanwhile, in trading, we do this by comparing different opportunities based on a constant risk level (for example, the expected return for the next day of $1M, assuming a 2% maximum drawdown).  It doesn't matter what market we trade, or how many trades the system makes ... we can make a fair comparison and get better insights about performance.

Hope that helps.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - August 18th, 2019

Larry Kudlow confirmed that Trump wants to buy Greenland.

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• MIT's New Interactive Machine Learning Prediction Tool Could Give Everyone AI Superpowers. (TechCrunch)
• Why You Need Innovation Capital and How to Get It. (HBR)
• The Myth of Rational Thinking. (Vox)
• The Hotel Hackers Are Hiding In The Remote Control Curtains. (Bloomberg)
• Watch the Meaning of Life: One of the Best Animated Short Films Ever Made Traces the Evolution Life, the Universe & Beyond. (OpenCulture)

 

Trading Links:

• Amazon's Most Lucrative Business is Headed to Space. (Quartz)
• Training a Single AI Model Can Emit as Much Carbon as Five Cars in Their Lifetimes. (TechReview)
• These Indicators Show Where You'll See the Eventual Recession Hit First. (Globe&Mail)
• Big Techs Raise Important Issues Globally beyond Traditional Financial Risks. (Forbes)
• We are Very Close to Peak Fintech, with More Than 10,000 Startups Jumping into the Boom. (Quartz)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - August 4th, 2019

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Being and Drunkenness: How to Party Like an Existentialist. (Aeon)
• When Navy Sailors & Marines Share a Ship, Karaoke Night Gets Complicated. (WSJ)
• Fewer American Women are Working Than Two Decades Ago. (Economist)
• Now Calling Balls and Strikes: Robot Umpires. (Wall Street Journal)
• The State of AI in 2019: Breakthroughs in Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Games, and Knowledge Graphs. (ZDNet)

 

Trading Links:

• This VC Firm Just Raised More Than $1 Billion to Invest in Moonshots: Term Sheet. (Fortune)
• Pentagon Puts $10B Contract on Hold After Trump Swipe at Amazon. (Politico)
• The Two Times in History Stocks Have Been this Expensive: 1929 and 2000. (Fortune)
• Stocks Plunge After Fed Cuts Rates for First Time since 2008. (CNBC)
• Opinion: This Highly Accurate Stock-Market Predictor Just Hit Its Most Bearish Level since the Internet Bubble. (MarketWatch)

Living Longer, Healthier, and Better

Each year I get a little bit more focused on what I can be doing to get more out of my time and to increase the quantity of time left.

Even with a renewed focus on health, it isn't always easier. As my friend Ben Hardy says, Willpower Doesn't Work - you have to identify goals that are bigger than yourself, create consequences and rewards for achieving or failing to achieve those goals, and change your environment to make success easy.  

I don't just want to be healthier to increase my time on earth, but to better support my family, my business, and to create a positive impact on those around me. 

When you have a vision of who you want to be, and what you want to accomplish, achieving your goals becomes a lot easier. 

When the goal is health, there are definitely some decisions that are proven to help. You can click to see the image in full-size. 

via informationisbeautiful

 

On top of the science, here are some of my anecdotal opinions on living longer, healthier, and better:

• Losing weight is as simple as calories in, calories out. It doesn't matter if you're on keto or eating only twinkies if you can keep your calories ingested below your calories burned
• In life, and in diets, shortcuts end up hurting you long-term more than they help you short-term
• Living "right" doesn't mean you can't let loose, it means that it's the exception instead of the rule. If your lifestyle doesn't let you have fun with your friends or family, it's probably not the healthiest lifestyle. Mental health is just as important as physical health

 

I'd love to hear your favorite "trick" to living better. Feel free to send me an e-mail. 

Thanks! Live Long and Prosper!