Capitalogix

Fueling Alpha: A Revisitation

Last year, around this time I shared an article on data as the new precious commodity. In case you missed it, I thought it was worth revisiting. The closing feels even more relevant today than when I wrote it. Below is the article in its entirety

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Data is becoming a precious commodity.

A staggering 90% of all the world’s data (2.5 quintillion bytes per day) has been created in the past two years alone ... and its value is rapidly rising.

With IoT growing from 2 billion devices in 2006 to a projected 200 billion by 2020 you can expect to see that growth continue to explode.

Data is today’s “wild west” and the battlefield of today’s tech titans. 

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft all have an unprecedented amount of data (and power).

Rapid growth means little time to create adequate rules. Everyone’s jumping to own more data than the next and to protect their own data from prying eyes.

I see it in trading, but it’s pervasive in every industry and in our personal lives. 

Having basic data and basic analytics used to be enough, but the game is changing. Traders used to focus on price data, but now you’re seeing an influx of firms using alternative data sets to find an edge. If you’re using the same data sources as your competitors and competing on the same set of beliefs, it’s hard to find a sustainable edge. Understanding the game they’re playing, and their rules are important, but that’s table stakes.

Figuring out where you can find extra insight, or where you can make the invisible visible, creates a moat between you and your competition, and it lets you play your own game.

I shot a video where I talk high-level about Data as fuel for your business. Check it out.

 

It is interesting to think about what’s driving the new world (of trading, of technology, of AI, etc.) and that often involves identifying what drove the old world. History has a way of repeating itself.

Before e-mails, fax machines were amazing. Before cars, you were really happy with a horse and buggy.

It’s in these comparisons that I think we can help explain the importance of data in today’s new world economics.

via gapingvoid

Data as the New Oil

Petroleum has played a pivotal role in human advancement since the industrial revolution; it fueled (and still fuels) our creativity, technology advancements, and a variety of derivative products. There are direct competitors to fossil fuels that are gaining steam, but I think it’s more interesting to compare petroleum to data due to their parallels in effect on innovation.

The process of pumping crude oil out of the ground and transforming it into a finished product is far from simple, but anyone can understand the process at a high-level. You have to locate a reservoir, drill, capture the resource, and then refine it to the desired product – heating oil, gasoline, asphalt, plastics, etc. 

The same is true for data.

You've got to figure out what data you might have, how it might be useful, you have to figure out how to refine it, clean it, fix it, curate it, transform it into something useful, and then how to deliver it to the people that need it in their business. And even if you've done this, you then have to make people aware that it's there, that it's changing, or how they might use it. For people who do it well, it's an incredible edge. – Howard Getson

Data can be seen as the fuel to the information economy and oil to the industrial economy. The amount of power someone has can be correlated to their control of and access to these resources ... and, leaking of these resources can lead to extreme consequences.

Why Data Is Better Than Oil

The analogy works, but it’s just that, an analogy, and the more you analyze it, the more it falls apart. Unlike the finite resource that is oil, data is all around us and increasing at an exponential rate, so the game is a little different:

• Data is a renewable resource. It’s durable, it’s reusable, and it’s being produced faster than we can process it.
• Because it’s not a scarce resource, there’s no urge to hoard it – you can use it, transform it, and share it knowing that it won’t diminish.
• Data is more useful the more you use it.
• As the world’s oil reserves dwindle, and renewable resources grow in popularity and effectiveness, the relative value of oil drops. It’s unlikely that will happen to data.
• Also, while data transport is important, it’s not expensive the way oil is. It can be transported and replicated at light speed.

Using alternative data gives traders an advantage, but it doesn’t always have to be confidential or hard to find information. Traders now have access to vast amounts of structured and unstructured data. An important source that many overlook is the data produced through their own process or the metadata from their own trades or transactions.

In the very near future, I expect these systems to be able to go out and search for different sources of information. It's almost like the algorithm becomes an omnivore. Instead of simply looking at market data or transactional data, or even metadata, it starts to look for connections or feedback loops that are profitable in sources of data that the human would never have thought of. – Howard Getson

In a word of caution, there are two common mistakes people make when making data-driven decisions. First, people often end up slaves to the data, losing focus on the bigger picture. Second, even the most insightful data can’t predict black swans. It’s important to exercise caution.

The future of data is bright, but it’s also littered with potential challenges. Privacy concerns and misuse of data have been hot button topics, as have fake news and the ability of systems to generate misleading data. In addition, as we gain access to more data, our ability to separate signal from noise becomes more important.

The question becomes, how do you capitalize on data, without becoming a victim to it? 

Food for thought!

Fintech, AI & Analytics - My Webinar with IBM

Back in June, I participated in a series of webinars for IBM. The focus was on building smart and secure financial services. My talk, specifically, was on advanced computing and the new world of trading. Challenging times drive advancement - and what better time to talk about advancements in technology (and their applications) than in the midst of a global pandemic. 

You can watch a replay of the Fintech webinar here. There are several interesting presentations.  If you just want to watch my presentation, it starts at the 5:16 mark.

In addition, I've uploaded a different version of just my talk that you can watch directly here.

 

 

In the past. trading used to be about people trading with people. Markets represented the collective fear and greed of populations. So price patterns and other technical analysis measures really represented the collective fear and greed of a population. If you could capture that data and figure out certain statistical probabilities, you might have had an edge. The keywords is "might have". 

If you had more information than your competitors - an information asymmetry - you had an amazing edge. At one time that was being able to print out reports on stocks from that new-fangled technology called the internet. As time passed, it became harder and harder to gain an asymmetric information advantage. 

The rules, the players, and the game have all changed. Today, technological asymmetry is a major factor, and your edges come from things like bigger and faster servers and low latency connections to markets.

In the future, I see those edges combining as artificial intelligence starts to leverage exponential technologies and new data sources (like alternative data and metadata feedback loops). It is easy to imagine a time when information is the fuel, but your ability to digest and parse that information is the engine. 

I talk about much more in the video but boiling down the main points,  ask yourself (in business, in trading, in life) are you separating the signal from the noise?

A technological advantage doesn't mean anything if you're plugging in inaccurate or biased data into it. 

We've talked about it over the past few weeks with the never-ending news cycle - but it's a lesson that's infinitely applicable. 

Onwards! 

Taking Stock Of Where We Are

Do you want the bad news first, or the good news?

Let's start with the bad. 

We're now two days into August. U.S. GDP is down 33% on an annualized basis, the largest quarterly decline since the series began in 1947. For context, 1% is a recession,  "The Great Recession" peaked with 8.4% in December 2008, and 15% was The Great Depression.

Adding insult to injury, approximately 40% of renter households are at risk of eviction. On Friday, the federal moratorium on evictions expired. Consequently, 25 million Americans have stopped receiving their $600 weekly unemployment checks. Many states have stopped or are rolling back their reopening plans. 

Jobless rates, which have been trending downward since March, and credit card spending, which had been trending upward, have both reversed. The corrections weren't nearly as pronounced as the initial shocks. 

 

via CNBC

So there's the bad news, but let's try and find some silver linings:

• First, the prediction for the contraction was 35%, so we're below that number, and job creation in May and June surpassed expectations by almost 12 million.
• Compared to previous contractions, we entered it on a much stronger footing as a result of the long-term expansion. 
• As well, remember that 33% number is based on an annualized rate (which assumes the trend will continue, meaning the economy is really only about 10% smaller than in the first quarter).
• Many states are still reopening, and the rest have various recovery efforts underway.
• Big-ticket spending (homes and other long-lasting purchases) has continued to rise. So has daily shipping volume. 

The economic consequences of the public health crisis and the measures taken in response will continue to affect the course of the economy for a long time. The recovery will be protracted. But, we're resilient, and we know how to dig ourselves out of this hole. In addition, the whole world is going through a similar crisis. For the most part, I'd rather be here than almost anywhere else. My sense is that people with capital feel the same way, and that is a very positive indicator of why our economy will suffer less and recover faster than other economies.

As I've mentioned before, fear plays as much a role in the recovery as other factors. If people believe in the future, their habits affect the economy differently than if they're at home, hoarding what they have left. 

Personally, I believe we're about to see a tough time, with increased volatility and a lot of noise. It is increasingly likely that we will see another push downwards in the markets. I believe that America is well-positioned to adapt and recover. As a company, my sense is the strongest are not the most likely to survive and thrive in times like these. This is a time where adapting and responding to new opportunities and threats will separate the winners from the losers. 

Have faith and carry on! Onwards!

Putting Bezos's Wealth Into Perspective

Jeff Bezos is officially worth ~$172 Billion dollars; more than he was worth before his divorce. 

Everyone on earth is closer to being a millionaire than he is. Think about that.  He has so much more than $1 million dollars that the homeless person willing to work for food is closer to being merely a millionaire than Bezos. The med school graduate with $100K+ in debt? Closer to being a millionaire than Bezos.  Obvious at one level ... but crazy to think about on another level, right?

Humans are notoriously bad at large numbers, so it's hard to wrap our minds around something of that scale. 

I've recently seen a couple of good visualizations of the difference between a million and a billion dollars. 

If you have an hour to "waste," this comprehensive video by Tom Scott shares a couple of different ways to look at it, and he literally goes on a road trip to show the difference. 

 

via Tom Scott

One good example from the video is "It would take almost 12 days for a million seconds to elapse and 31.7 years for a billion seconds." A billion seconds from today would be 1988. 

Another:

1 dollar

• 0.0043 inches or 0.00010922 meters (thickness)

1B dollars

• 1B x 0.0043 inches → 4.3M inches → 68 miles
• 1B x 0.00010922 meters → 109K meters → 109 kilometers

Now multiply that by 172.

In distance, Bezos's net worth is a hair under half the equatorial circumference of the Earth.

Here's a link to specifically understanding Bezos's net worth - https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth. If you were to spend a dollar every second for an entire day, you would spend $86,400 per day. If you have a million dollars, you can do that for approximately twelve days. With a billion dollars, you can do that for over 31 years. Ignoring the difference between net worth and cash, Jeff Bezos could spend over $9M per day for over 31 years.

Lastly, here's a shorter video visualizing the $10 Trillion in economic stimulus the U.S. government has been undertaking. 

 

via Demonocracy

Even with these depictions, it's hard to understand. We're wired to think locally and linearly, not exponentially (it's one of the reasons I love AI so much). 

Hope this was helpful!

Let's Play: News Segment or Propaganda Piece?

There is nothing wrong with your television.  We will control all that you see and hear. We can deluge you with a thousand channels or expand one single image to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive.  Enjoy ....

 

The original,, from The Outer Limits TV show was: 

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits.

As a society, we're fairly vulnerable to groupthink, advertisements, and confirmation bias. 

We believe what we want to believe, so it can be very hard to change a belief, even in the face of contrary evidence. 

Recently, we've seen a massive uptick in distrust toward news agencies, big companies, the government, and basically anyone with a particularly large reach. 

To a certain degree, this is understandable and justified. Here is an example of the power of the media focused on a message.  Click to watch.

 

via Courier News

Propaganda has always been an issue, and almost everyone does it; governments, companies, etc. Luckily, it's easier to see today than in the past, but unluckily it's also more pervasive and insidious than before. 

It's to the point where if you watch the news you're misinformed, and if you don't watch the news you're uninformed. 

The above segment portrays a rosy picture of Amazon's efforts to protect its workers while delivering essentials to the struggling homebound masses. This comes while Amazon has come under massive fire for removing some of its protections. 

Honestly, I use Amazon and, in my opinion, this isn't a massive breach of trust. News stations have a lot of time to fill, they often have sponsored content.

That being said, it's something to be cognizant of - not necessarily offended by.

Personally, I believe I am reasonably aware and somewhat immune from propaganda. That probably isn't as true as I'd like to believe.

It used to be true that winners wrote history (think empires, wars, etc.). Now, the one that delivers the most broadcast narratives shapes the emotional and seemingly logical responses to what we perceive to be happening around us.

The result impacts elections, financial markets, buying choices, and countless other areas of our life. 

As A.I., Bots, and social media grow, our ability to discern truth from 'truthiness' weakens.

It's a great reminder that what you're seeing and hearing is carefully manufactured, and hopefully, it encourages you to get outside your bubble. 

Coronavirus Relief: US Foreign Debt Holders

In response to COVID-19, the U.S. Government has tried numerous things to bolster the economy. 

In Q2 alone, the U.S. Treasury borrowed a record $3 trillion dollars for coronavirus relief. It's already the largest-ever borrowing for any fiscal year, and it brings our total above $26 Trillion (over $80,000 per citizen).

The concept of "Debt" can be confusing to a layman. Most people understand what it means to take on debt with a local bank, but it can be harder to understand the role debt plays in global economics. Debt often enables governments to run smoothly. But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

Many worry that our "excessive" government debt levels impact economic stability, the strength of our currency, and unemployment. For all the potential, it's certain that our debt with a country affects the relationship. So who "owns" most of our debt?

via HowMuch

Japan holds more U.S. debt than any other country but is followed closely by China. Both countries hold more than 6% of total foreign-held debt. 

The chart focuses on foreign debt - but only about 30% of the national debt is held by foreign countries. The rest is held by investors, the Federal Reserve, and the government. 

Taking a step back, how does our debt compare on the world stage? An important metric of debt is the debt-to-GDP ratio. It is a key indicator of the sustainability of government finance.

via OECD 

Ultimately, we're in the highest bracket, but also have a historically strong GDP to back it. It's also worth noting that lower debt levels don't necessarily translate to safety on a global scale. Yugoslavia had very low government debt until its breakup. 

In some ways, it seems like paying-off our debts seems insurmountable. Yet, our economy is reliable so we're allowed to continue borrowing. Debt is also an important part of the economic machine - it can be argued that we wouldn't have money without debt. 

While this doesn't mean we can go on borrowing forever, it does mean we have options. 

If you want to see an updated, interactive version of the U.S. Debt Clock, just click here.  It is worth spending a little time watching the pace the numbers turn.

Actions have consequences.

Something to think about. 

The Intelligent Investor

There are many different methods of investing - and I've experimented with quite a few of them (fundamental, technical, statistical, quantitative, machine learning, etc.).

Ultimately, I believe most trading techniques work until they don't. 

I don't believe that any technique always works ... but I do believe that there is always something that works. 

Likewise, I believe that there is always a best next step.

Evolutionarily, the strongest or smartest doesn't necessarily survive ... The quickest to adapt and adjust to its changing environment is the one that gains advantage.

Consequently, it makes sense to be on the lookout for sources of new learning (even if they are old).

In the same way that reading news from an opposing slant can inform your decision - studying other beliefs may help you find the underlying truths (or spark the insight you needed).

Warren Buffet is a famous value investor. He does immense research on companies, attempts to buy them at a discount and then hold on to them for long periods of time.  On some levels, our approach to the markets is radically different.  On the other hand, it would be crazy to ignore the brilliance of what he "knows" and what he does.

One of his favorite books on investing is titled The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. It's a great introduction to the basics of value investing (versus speculating) and the role of inflation, margin of safety, etc. 

It's worth a read ... but if you want to watch a good summary, here's a six-minute video. 

 

via Financial Freedom

If you aren't learning, you're dying.

What's In The Box?

“Words can be twisted into any shape. Promises can be made to lull the heart and seduce the soul. In the final analysis, words mean nothing.
They are labels we give things in an effort to wrap our puny little brains around their underlying natures,
when ninety-nine percent of the time the totality of the reality is an entirely different beast.
The wisest man is the silent one. Examine his actions. Judge him by them.”
― Karen Marie Moning

The current sociopolitical climate has me thinking about the consequences of labeling things, creating boxes, and simplifying ideas into news-ready headlines.

 

via Se7en

With more news sources than ever and less attention span than ever, you see ideas packaged into the attention-grabbing parts. The focus isn’t on education on issues anymore, but getting the click, making you stay on their page longer, sending you to a new article completely unrelated to the reason you clicked to the page.

Complex issues are simplified not even into their most basic forms – but instead into their most divisive forms because there's no money in the middle.

 

via Quote Investigator.

The amplified voices are those on the fringe of the average constituents' beliefs because those are the ones who are often the most outspoken.

Issues that should be bipartisan have been made "us" versus "them," or "liberal" versus "conservative," or "right" versus "wrong."

  

via BrainyQuotes.

In psychology, heuristics are mental models whose purpose is to help you make decisions easier. They’re a starting point to save mental bandwidth, allowing you to spend more brain cycles on the important stuff.

That’s a great use of "boxes" and "simplification" … but shouldn't preclude deeper thought on important issues.

In an ideal world, we would all have the bandwidth to view each individual case of an issue as a whole issue within itself. Most things in this world are various shades of grey, and when you change your vantage point, you can change your answer.

I recognize that’s not realistic.

Instead, I encourage you to remember to continue to think and learn ... even about things you already know.  Confirmation Bias is one of the more common forms of cognitive biases.  Here is an infographic that lists 50 common cognitive biases.  Click to explore further.

 

via VisualCapitalist.

Important issues deserve extra research. New insights happen in between the boundaries of what we know and what we don't.  Knowledge comes from truly understanding the border between what you are certain and uncertain about. 

I challenge you to look beyond the headlines, slogans, and talking points you like most. Look for dissenting opinions and understand what’s driving their dissent. Are they really blind or dumb (or are their value-systems just weighted differently)?

Not everything needs to be boxed. Not everything needs to be simple.

 

Applying This Lesson  

“I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

I love learning a lesson in one space and applying it to other spaces. It’s one of the cool things about AI. An algorithm can learn rules in the construction space that may help in the medicine or trading space.  Everything’s a lesson if you let it be.

In that vein, the lesson on labeling also applies to yourself and your business.

Many things are true because we believe them to be, but when we let go of the past beliefs, the impossible becomes possible, and the invisible visible.  

The past doesn’t define the future, and your personality isn’t necessarily permanent.

We are our choices ... and you can make choices today that change who you are (and what you or your business is capable of) tomorrow.

Hope that helps – Onwards!

Learning From the Renaissance (No, Not That One...)

Jim Simons is a mathematician and cryptographer who realized that the complex math he used to break codes could help explain financial patterns – and he made billions because of it in his notoriously secretive hedge fund firm called Renaissance Technologies.

He is famous not only for the duration of his success and the size of his results ... but also for the way he made his money (with much lower volatility and risk than his peers and competitors).

His flagship - the Medallion fund - has averaged a net return of 39.1% and has been closed to new investors since 1993. Even more impressive is that those results are on top of their 5% management fee and a 44% performance fee.

To put that into perspective, if you had invested $1,000 into the Medallion Fund in 1988 when it launched, your money would have grown to in excess of $23MM at the end of 2019.

His background is impressive. Simons taught at Harvard and MIT and worked with the NSA. Here is a video where he shares some thoughts in a 2015 TED talk interview. It's worth a watch.

 

via TED

Interesting stuff ... I hope you got something from it. 

His success exists at the nexus of vast amounts of data, next-level technological infrastructure, and intellectual property built by various flavors of mathematicians. A good place to be in the coming world, and a reminder that if you don't know what your edge is, you don't have one. 

Despite advanced math still being a mystery to many,  most rely on it more than ever ... for example, look at what we're seeing with the growth of machine learning and AI.

The Heartbeat of AI is Still Human

Today, the best algorithms are autonomous. They don't rely on inventors to derive novel insights from the ingested datasets. They take whatever data they can get their hands on, process it, and extract decision signals. Some don't even form hypotheses, they simply look for correlations - the data is an abstraction to be solved in the purest sense. 

You don't have to understand why the models do what they do - simply, what it's doing, and that you trust it's construction. 

Regardless of how autonomous the systems get, humans are still vital. 

Simons built a team of mathematicians whose motivation was doing exciting mathematics and science (rather than hired guns who could be lured away by money).

That doesn't mean money wasn't a motivator, but it hits on something important. 

The heart of good math and good AI will always benefit from the quality of the humans around it. You still have to champion integrity, culture, and purpose.

 

Better Math as a Competitive Advantage

We stayed ahead of the pack by finding other approaches and shorter-term approaches to some extent ... but the real thing was to gather a tremendous amount of data – Jim Simons

If you've been to our office, or heard me speak, you know how important I believe those ideas are to continuing prosperity. 

Constant innovation on a massive scope and scale creates more ways to win.

Onwards!

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - June 28th, 2020

 

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

Lighter Links:

• Air Travel Data Suggests China Had Nearly 40 Times the COVID-19 Cases They Reported. (VFTW)
• Airlines Tried Social Distancing on Board. For Many, that Experiment is Ending. (Chron)
• MLB Targets 60-Game Season Starting around July 24, Assuming Conditions Met. (ESPN)
• Doomscrolling is Slowly Eroding Your Mental Health. (Wired)
• Photos Show Devastation Unleashed on Terror Leaders by Sword-carrying Ninja Bomb'. (MilitaryTimes)

 

Trading Links:

• Delta Could Furlough More Than 2,500 Pilots, Will Close 3 Flight Attendant Bases. (ThePointsGuy)
• You Won't Believe How Many Airlines Haven't Survived Coronavirus. How Does It Affect You? (Forbes)
• These Mall Staples Announced Thousands of Store Closures in June. (CNN)
• Here's Why New Traders are Losing Money. (TheStreet)
• Warren Buffett Has Warned about the Dangers of Speculating for Years. Day Traders Aren't Listening. (BusinessInsider)