Capitalogix

Clown Hysteria: 2016 in a Nutshell

This summer, South Carolinians started seeing menacing clowns in the woods.

As a response to clown hysteria,Target pulled clown masks from shelves , McDonalds scaled down use of Ronald McDonald, and people everywhere have been in a fervor.

Not everyone has been affected negatively though ... Surprisingly (to me), Pornhub has seen a massive increase in clown related searches. 

 

via TNW

There you have it ... hard data.

2016 continues to surprise ... Celebrities dying, phones exploding, the election, and this.

It will be interesting to see how 2016 ends, and what the future brings.

The world changes, but human nature remains relatively constant.

 

 

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

While conspiracy theorists argue whether the NBA rigged the finals to get to get to game 7, I find this more disturbing ... it's a photo combining Hillary and Trump into a Clump.

 

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• 12 Neglected Questions Successful Leaders Keep Asking. (LeadershipFreak)
• The 5 Books Bill Gates Wants You to Read this Summer. (Inc)
• Netflix Launches Fast.com, a Dead Simple Way to Test Your Internet Speed. (Mashable)
• Your Life in Weeks. (WaitButWhy)
• The 8 Most Elite Special Forces in the World. (BusinessInsider)

 

Trading Links:

• Buffett Becomes Apple’s 56th Largest Shareholder with $1 Billion Investment. (BuzzFeed)
• Apple's Latest Billion-dollar Business: Venture Capital? (Mashable)
• 22 U.S. Companies that Just Keep Getting More Profitable. (MarketWatch)
• What Current Trends Tell Us about the Future of the Hedge Fund Industry. (QuantNews)
• JPMorgan Has New Theory about What Really Caused the Flash Rally. (Bloomberg)

Time-Lapse Maps That Show How Fast and Much the World Has Changed

Human have a huge impact on the landscape. 

For example, take a look at Dubai in Google's Earth Engine.  It is easy to see the incredible coastal expansion.

 

 

 

We are literally terra-forming the planet.

The Earth Engine brings together trillions of scientific measurements dating back over 40 years (based on Landsat satellite imagery).

You can explore some of these time-lapse maps here.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Sometimes the News cycle is worse than the news itself.

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Google's 'Perfect Human' Project Isn't Evil, It's Business. (TheVerge)
• Human Workers Report Feeling Most Productive When Led By Artificial Intelligence. (PBS)
• How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google. (First Look)
• Welcome to the New U.S. Digital Service: Geeks wanted, no stodgy suits required. (GeekWire)
• Software Shows What Children Will Look Like In 70 Years, With Unprecedented Accuracy. (Popular Science)

 

Trading Links:

• Wall Street's Revenge of the Nerds Means Fooling All The People All the Time. (Guardian)
• Crazy Prediction. Why You Should Expect More Quantitative Easing. (Joe Fahmy)
• Whopping 35% Have Debt in Collection in America: Where Is It? (GlobalEcon)
• Microsoft Has Lost About $1.7 Billion On Surface - So Far ... (CiteWorld)
• Goldman Sachs - On Crash Risk: The Simple Reason We're Probably Not About to Have Another Huge Crash. (Business Insider)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Who put Washington in charge of the ball drop this New Year?

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• The Year in Photos. Photos of the Year 2012. (WSJ Graphics)
• The Best Books of 2012. Interesting list with some unusual choices. (BrainPickings)
• The Best City Time-Lapse Videos of 2012. (TheAtlantic)
• Life's Work 2012. Highlights from Interviews of 10 Intriguing People. (HarvardBizReview)
• How to Keep Your Resolutions. 25 apps for a happier, healthier, better 2013. (VentureBeat)

 

Trading Links:

• Why 2013 Will See Faster, Stronger Global Growth. (CNBC)
• How to Play the 4 Likely Potential Economic Scenarios Over the Next 3 Years. (Forbes)
• The Fiscal-Cliff Fix: Winners and losers. (The Week)
• Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party. (Wall Street Journal)
• Amateur Investors Are 3.2 Percent Worse Than Chimpanzees at Picking Stocks. Fear, greed, and mistakes are a bitch to deal with (BusinessInsider)

JibJab Lets You Star In Your Own Gangnam Style Video

Gangnam Style has about a billion views, recently surpassing Justin Bieber to become the number one most-viewed YouTube video of all time. 

So, of course, JibJab got in the game. They’ve launched a Gangnam Style video that you can personalize with your face (or a friend’s face). Here's what it looks like.

 

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

 

Hope you are having a happy and fun holiday season.

People Are Awesome [Video]

Start the New Year with a Wow! This will give you a different perspective on what's possible.

 

Worthy of full-screen mode viewing.

How committed do you believe these people were to to pursue and master such amazing ventures?

What could you do if you were willing to commit that fully?

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2012

During this holiday season, I hope you are grateful for the things that are great in your life,
that you choose what you can use from the things weren't great …
and that you invest those lessons in your future.

The hardest part of finding a better way is often just remembering that there might be one.

___________________

 

Best wishes to you for a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year.

 - Howard

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Things Aren't Always What They Appear To Be

This series of photographs is interesting to me because it so clearly gives us the wrong impression. Deep down you know that your mind created a story about what it means; and, yet, you know it didn't happen.

Obviously I picked this series of photos to illustrate a point. Just because we perceive something, doesn't mean it's true.

That point is even more true during emotionally trying times, when we're looking for confirmation of our worst fears. In this market environment, it's not hard to find data to scare you.

We don't just make things up, though, we also notice things and infer meaning from them. I suppose there was an evolutionary benefit to our ancestors who were able to infer danger before it ate them. Nowadays, it's probably better if we temper those instincts a little.

Why Do We See Patterns In Random Data?

The human mind is especially good at finding patterns in data. 

Often, I believe that I see a pattern in random data.  OK, I understand that I don't really see patterns in random data; but to me it seems to me like there are patterns in the random data. 

This happens because we don't look at data neutrally.  That means when the human eye scans a chart, not all data points get equal weight.  Instead we tend to focus on outstanding cases, and we tend to form our opinions on the basis of these special cases. 

In other words, it is human nature to pick up the stunning successes (or failures) of the method and to overlook the more common performances.

So, for example, when I am investigating a new pattern, I see many instances where that pattern works.  And that is precisely the reason that we use a computer; because it will find every instance of the pattern and confirm how often it truly works, and whether it provides a reliable edge.

I suspect that the desire to find patterns is the same element of human nature that leads people to become superstitious, read their horoscope, or go to a fortuneteller.  It is also the reason so many authors and speakers sell access to their chart patterns that supposedly work. The successes are much more startling than the failures.  So the successes stand out.

The Last Time I Felt This Bearish:

Here is a picture of my S&P chart analysis from August 2003.

I was painfully bearish, and wrong. Yes there was a giant downtrend, and many of the technical trading chart patterns that I knew indicated that the market was likely to plunge yet again.  But it didn't.

That points out a very interesting aspect of trading; every trade happens because of a disagreement. The buyer thinks prices likely to go up. The seller thinks it's likely go down. If that wasn't true, neither one would take their side of the trade.

The point is that it's important to see each trade from both sides of the fence. In order to remove some bias, learn to visualize the trade from the other perspective. Then you can re-evaluate and decide if you still want to take that trade.

The OOPs Trade:  When a well-known pattern fails, the response is often dynamic. In fact there's a name for this, it's called an "OOPs Trade". This often happens with obvious, high profile, situations like a "Head-and-Shoulders" pattern, the break of long-standing Trend-Line, violation of a clear Price Channel, crossing the 200-Day Moving Average, at big Round Numbers (like Dow 10,000), or even at key Support and Resistance Levels (like these recent lows). The violent reversal happens when the crowd realizes that it was wrong and has to get out of the trade. This is very similar to a short squeeze; and the move is often violent and prolonged.

The markets are oversold here, lots of people know that we just made new lows, and we have been bombarded with bad news recently.  So, I'm not predicting that the market will reverse here. I am just suggesting that it is possible.  OOPs.

The Year in Pictures

Browse through some of the best pictures from 2008.  A picture is worth a thousand words; some that come to mind are beautiful, shocking, and surprising ...

It took me way too long to put this list together.  Why?  Because I started browsing and enjoying myself.  Hope you do too.

Here are some Best Photos-of-the-Year sites worth looking at as we close out 2008.

• Boston Globe's Big Picture Series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
• Stunning Pictures and Photos (Smashing Magazine)
• LATimes Best of Photo 2008 Series.
• A Year in Pictures (MSNBC, Agency France, and DocStoc)
• Pixeteria (Best of 2008 Galleries, People's Choice, Editor's Choice, Weather)
• Reuters has lots of great graphic content (100 Best of 2008 & Different Best of Slideshow)
• National Geographic (Editor's Choice, Best Animal Pics, DCP)

Here are some that are just for fun.

• A collection of "weird" people (Chive)
• A collection of "funny kid" pics (Chive)
• A collection of "perfectly timed" photos (Chive)

Here are some others that are from "artier" sources.

• Flickr's Hivemind
• Some Flickr High Dynamic Range Photos (Set 1 and Set 2)
• Photo.net Picture Finder Filter (Photo.net)
• 10 Picture worth a look. (XciteFun.net)
• Interesting photo hosting site (Pixdaus)

In 2008, many traders felt "over their heads" ...

It was scary for much of the year ...

Still, here is what I'll leave you with ... Winter always comes before Spring.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year.