Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 28th, 2021

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

Lighter Links:

• Why Teaching Robots to Play Hide-and-Seek Could Be the Key to Next-Gen A.I. (DigitalTrends)
• AI Teaches Itself Diplomacy. (Spectrum)
• What is Web 3.0 and How Will It Help You? (MakeUseOf)
• Highest-Resolution Images of DNA Reveal It's Surprisingly Jiggly. (Gizmodo)
• Salesforce Says the 9-To-5 Workday is Dead' and Will Let Employees Go Fully Remote. (TheVerge)

 

Trading Links:

• Here's How Much Wealth You Need to Join the Richest 1% Globally. (Bloomberg)
• Thousands of Bots May Have Played Role In GameStop Hype. (Benzinga)
• Investors are Suddenly Obsessed With 'SuperCycles'. (Fortune)
• Dalio: How To Spot a Bubble. (Ritholtz)
• The Number of Public Listings By Zero-Revenue Companies Valued Above $1 Billion Currently Exceeds the Dot-Com Era. (Markets)

 

Who Can You Trust?

Information is Power.

Consequently, your choice of information source heavily contributes to your perceptions, ideas, and worldview.

Coincidently, news sources are a lightning rod for vitriol and polemic.

I am still a little surprised by the abject hatred I hear expressed towards a particular news source by those who hold an opposing bias.  This often leads to claims of fake news, delusion, and partisan press. Likewise, it is common to hear derision toward anyone who consumes that news source.

Perhaps the reality is that that most sources are flawed – and the goal should simply be to find information that sucks less?

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. News sources aren't just reporting the news, they're creating opinions and arguments that become the news.  And many don't care enough to think for themselves - or to extract the facts from the opinion.

Here's a chart that shows where news sources rank on various scales. You can click the image to go to an interactive version with more details.

 

via Ad Fontes Media

I once spent fifteen minutes in an argument about how you know whether the information in this chart is true.  If you're curious about their methods, click here. 

Distrust toward news agencies, big companies, the government, and basically anyone with a particularly large reach is the "new normal." 

Perhaps even more dangerous is the amount of fake news and haphazard research shared on social media. Willful misrepresentations of complex issues are now a too common communication tactic now on both sides ... and the fair and unbiased consideration of issues suffers.  

Social media spreads like wildfire, and by the time it has been debunked (or proven to be an oversimplification) the damage is done. People are convinced ... and some will never go beyond that. 

The reality isn't as bleak.  People agree on a lot more than they say they do.  It is often easier to focus on "us" versus "them" rather than what we agree upon jointly.  This is true on a global scale.  We agree on a lot.  Most Democrats aren't socialists, and most Republicans aren't fascists ... and the fact that our conversation has drifted there is intellectually lazy.

This idea that either side is trying to destroy the country is clearly untrue (OK, mostly untrue). There are loonies on the fringes of any group, but the average Democrat is not that unlike the average Republican. You don't have to agree with their opinions, but you should be able to trust that they want our country to succeed. 

I don't know that we have a solution. But there is one common "fake news" fallacy I want to explain at least a little. 

It's called the Motte and Bailey fallacy. It's named after a style of medieval castle prioritizing military defense.

Launceston Castle via Chris Shaw, CC BY-SA 2.0

On the left is a Motte, an artificial mound often topped with a stone structure, and on the right is a Bailey, the enclosed courtyard. The Motte serves to protect not only itself but also the Bailey. 

As a form of argument, an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities. One of the positions is easy to defend (the motte) and the other is controversial (the bailey).  The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged insists they're only advancing the moderate position. Upon retreating the arguer can claim that the bailey hasn't been refuted, or that the critic is unreasonable by equating an attack on the bailey with an attack on the motte. 

It's a common method used by newscasters, politicians, and social media posters alike. And it's easy to get caught in it if you don't do your research. 

Conclusion

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. 

But, hopefully, in learning about these fallacies, and being aware, we do better. 

I will caution that blind distrust is dangerous – because it feels like critical thought without forcing you to critically think.

Distrust is good ... but too much of a good thing is a bad thing. 

Not everything is a conspiracy theory or a false flag.

Do research, give more credence to experts in a field - but don't blindly trust them either.  How well do you think you're really thinking for yourself?

It's a complicated world, and it's only getting more complicated.  But, hopefully, it encourages you to get outside your bubble and learn more about those you disagree with. 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 21st, 2021

Click here to see some cool photos and videos from the Perseverance rover. 

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

Lighter Links:

• The Texas Freeze: Why the Power Grid Failed. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Two Hours that Nearly Destroyed Texas's Electric Grid. (Finance)
• After Days of Mass Outages, Some Texas Residents Now Face Huge Electric Bills. (NPR)
• For Better Health During the Pandemic, is Two Hours Outdoors the New 10,000 Steps? (WSJ)
• Countries By Life Expectancy. (WorldAtlas)

 

Trading Links:

• Here's Why 'Black Swan' Author Nassim Taleb Dumped Bitcoin. (Decrypt)
• Turns Out Meme Stocks Have Basically Been Around Since 600 B.C. (Marker)
• China Blocked Jack Ma's Ant IPO After Investigation Revealed Likely Beneficiaries. (WSJ)
• Top US Lawmakers Want To Make Cannabis Federally Decriminalized: What To Know. (CNet)
• Top Wall Street Analysts Say Buy Stocks Like Denny's and Cloudflare As Economy Reopens. (CNBC)

 

The Return of The SPACs

I've shared several links about SPACs, in the past few months, as they have gotten increasingly popular and relevant.

SPAC stands for Special Purpose Acquisition Company. A SPAC is a company with no commercial operations, formed to raise capital through an IPO to acquire existing companies, technologies.

A typical IPO creates new public shares of a formerly private company while a SPAC merges a private shell company with an already existing public company. 

It's basically a backdoor way to turn a private company public overnight. Click here to see popular SPACs from 2020. 

They've been around for decades – but SPACs have been increasingly popular recently. Making that point, according to Bloomberg, SPAC dollars raised in 2020 beat the total from the previous 10 years combined.

via RSM

SPACs are becoming popular to businesses because they're seen as a safer way to go public in a volatile environment. They're also becoming popular to investors because the stock value often jumps pre-acquisition.  Nevertheless, the reality is that the average SPAC underperforms the S&P 500 on any given timeframe.

via Bloomberg

The reality is that most "buzz" products underperform the S&P – and most things that become too popular ultimately end up losing their edge. 

Barry Ritholtz put it well in his opinion piece:

The successful products we encounter every day are the result of initial failure. While positive outcomes are all around us, hidden from view is the iterative process of repeated failed attempts that lead to improvement. The world is filled with fantastic products from wildly successful companies, making it easy to overlook the many small gains and occasional big breakthroughs that helped them achieve this success.

For businesses looking for access to capital, SPACs are a legitimate option worth considering.  However, for investors looking for the next new alternative asset class to invest in, SPACs may not be what you are looking for in the longer term. 

What do you think?

 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 31st, 2020

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

Lighter Links:

• American is the First US Carrier To Use Digital Health Passport. (Simpleflying)
• Tim Cook On Why It's Time To Fight the "Data-Industrial Complex". (GQ)
• Wikipedia Turns 20. (MorningBrew)
• The 2500-Year-old Technique To Make Ice In the Desert. (Medium)
• The San Francisco School District's Renaming Debacle Has Been a Historic Travesty. (MissionLocal)

 

Trading Links:

• Public Market Verdict: the Unicorn Binge Wasn't Crazy; It Was Really Profitable. (Crunchbase)
• Bitcoin Investors May Lose Everything, Central Banker Warns. (Bloomberg)
• The SPAC Boom Rolls On Into 2021. (MorningBrew)
• FAA Clears Way For Commercial Drone Deliveries With New Rules. (ABCNews)
• Apple Overtakes Amazon To Become World's Most Valuable Brand, While Tesla is the Fastest-growing. (MarketWatch)

Wolves of r/wallstreetbets: What Happened With Gamestop & Robinhood

GameStop has been on a steady decline (both as a stock and a company) for many years. It has been like watching Blockbuster get replaced with Netflix all over again.  Why would people go to a retail store when they can consume a wider range of products from the comfort of their home?  Obviously, the pandemic made things worse for them.  As a result, short sellers lined up to bet on their demise.

So, how can you explain the jump in GameStop's share price from $17.50 at the beginning of 2020, to almost $400 on Thursday?

You could argue it started with new leadership from Ryan Cohen and their surprisingly stable financials despite the turmoil. Nonetheless, it would be hard to justify a sudden $28 Billion dollar valuation based on that alone. 

The real reason for the price jump, and the story everyone is talking about, is the war of the retail investor (fueled primarily by a Reddit forum called r/wallstreetbets) on Wall Street. 

 

It's a complicated situation, and news stories tend to have their own biases and agendas, so I thought I would bring you up to speed on what happened, the legality, and the potential ramifications.

What Happened?

Earlier this month, Redditors realized that GameStop's stock ($GME) was shorted to 140% of tradable shares due to positions by several funds including Melvin Capital. Most of those positions are passively held, so the short-interest accounted for 300-500% of the float (actively traded shares).  Theoretically, this shouldn't be possible - but it was allowed by the brokerages and market makers. 

This allowed the Redditors, and other retail investors, to buy the stock aggressively, raising the stock price, and forcing the shorts to cover. This is called a short squeeze. 

By Wednesday, retail investors' actions raised the price 700% to over $300. Melvin Capital was out ~3 Billion dollars and ultimately got bailed out by Citadel and Point 72. 

On Thursday, after calls for help from Wall Street grew louder, several online brokers blocked the buying of GameStop and other stocks that were trending on Reddit (like $AMC, $NOK, and $NAKD) and canceled some trades. Those brokers still allowed users to sell their shares.

 

via Statista

The stock price of GameStop and AMC tumbled as a result and the media went into an uproar.

Questions of legality were raised toward the potential market manipulation of Robinhood, but also r/wallstreetbets. 

Were Robinhood's Actions legal?

Separate from legality, the optics of the situation are very bad for Robinhood. First, Citadel, who bailed out Melvin Capital, is one of Robinhood's vendors. Second, Robinhood's motto is about access to all, and it heavily markets brand beliefs consistent with the ideals of the fictional heroic outlaw, Robin Hood (who took from the rich to give to the poor).

Voices like Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, AOC, and Ben Shapiro all came out against Robinhood for limiting retail's ability to trade. An odd show of unity in these divisive times. There are also several class-action lawsuits and the SEC is reviewing the situation.

Robinhood justified its actions by claiming they were forced due to increased volatility, and risk management with their brokers. Both Robinhood and Citadel strongly denied any market manipulation claims.

Legally, these brokers state in their contracts that they are allowed to restrict trades for almost any reason. As well, they have liability and protection obligations to their consumers, market makers, and clearinghouses.  

The situation with $GME is undeniably risky. Trading is a zero-sum game, and for every crazy win story you see of someone paying their mortgage, someone is losing their house. As $GME gains popularity, or r/wallstreetbets tries to replicate this success with other securities, the late majority are (almost by definition) going to be the least qualified and the most at risk of losing money they probably can't afford to invest. 

This episode shined a light on clear issues with the Stock Market. 

However: 

• Robinhood only limited the ability to buy these stocks, which by design lowers stock prices.
• Before retail investors capitalized on the situation, these same brokerages let institutions short 140% which would have been a death sentence for GameStop. 
• It's on the NYSE (in this case) to shut down the trading of a security, and they only do it for fraud or if there is material information a company hasn't disclosed yet.
• The timing and relationships bring good reason to question the validity of Robinhood's statements.

While the theoretical action of limiting trading is legal for Robinhood - this specific case is questionable at best. 

Were r/wallstreetbets actions legal?

Many big-time bankers have been arrested for market manipulation in the past. It's a point of many of the regulations in Wall Street today. 

This specific example is very complicated. On Reddit, a public forum, many users urged each other to buy stock and to hold in the face of adversity. The initial logic behind buying $GME was based on solid fundamentals, and the observation about Melvin Capital's position - but quickly became a momentum play capitalizing on the mania. You could argue it was collusion, which is bolstered by the disparity between the future value of GameStop as a business and its current stock price.

It's hard to prove that there was a coordinated effort to manipulate stock prices here. To me, it looks like a mob of uninformed investors following the advice of an educated investor and creating a trend. A common theme. Some claim it resembles a classic "pump-and-dump" scheme that you would find by the likes of Jordan Belfort and the penny stock market.

I think it's very unlikely you see anyone charged here - but I do think it's likely you see new regulations as a result of this. 

While the industry is already heavily regulated, the world is changing, and we have to keep up or deal with the consequences. 

New strategies or capabilities push boundaries and test limits in new ways.  In the short term, someone has a new advantage, but in the long term, the system evolves and gets stronger.

The Bigger Picture

I've seen many people concerned with the decision-making behind retail's investment in $GME.  As a practical matter, it doesn't really matter. 

The initial posts on Reddit showed a good understanding of fundamental trading, but most traders who followed that advice wouldn't know the difference. 

I'd argue it's not that different from most of Wall Street. Many don't have an edge, they simply piggyback off of the success of the ones that do, whether by following their trades or starting a new firm with the lessons they learned at a bigger firm. 

The market is not the economy, and while GameStop is a great case study to prove that, at its core, it's not really a unique or new phenomenon. 

Value is an important part of a stock price.  But for many speculators, it is only part of the calculation. And beyond speculators, there are many types of market participants (e.g., governments, institutions, hedgers, etc.) and reasons to buy or sell things (including fun, excitement, a social belief, etc.), and rationales for their decisions (including systematic approaches, momentum, reversion to the mean, etc.) that combine to form the free market. 

A free market isn't necessarily a smart market ... and it doesn't need to be. But, part of what creates a growing and thriving market is the belief that it is safe, reasonably transparent, and reasonably regulated. Consequently, I would expect regulators to re-visit this and for them to re-look at the regulation of margin and other things. 

Expect increased volatility and noise. Expect more runs like this. Plan accordingly. 

Conclusion

Helping the average person take advantage of the Stock Market is a good thing. With that said, the "democratization of access" comes at a time when tech asymmetry is growing. The advantages to Hedge Funds and Institutional Investors are growing - regardless of regulation - due to better tech stacks, smarter algorithms, and teams of PhDs. Information asymmetry is decreasing, but data is only valuable if you can digest it.

The Stock Market is not just a game, and some believe it's worrisome that some retail investors feel like it is. 

In trading, there is a rule of thumb that says a trend continues until it stops.  Well, expect the bubble to pop for $GME (and the other stocks that may follow this pattern).  Why, because trends do stop ... and to quote Stein's Law - if something can't continue it won't.

Actions have consequences.  Many intelligent investors will be fine, but many other investors will be hurt.  To some extent, that is the consequence of a zero-sum market.  But with Democrats in power, I expect to hear more about this.

Perhaps it shouldn't have taken Wall Street getting hurt to start this discussion. Now the discussion has started.  At some level, it's not about what happened ... it is about what you do. 

It's unclear whether r/wallstreetbets will have the win they're looking for or whether Robinhood will get penalized. 

What do you expect to happen?

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 24th, 2021

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

Lighter Links:

• Meet the Man On a Controversial Mission To Preserve and Digitize Your Brain. (DigitalTrends)
• What is Consciousness? Scientists Compete To Find Out. (Bloomberg)
• Balinese Temple Monkeys are Sophisticated Thieves and Negotiators. (Economist)
• How Predictive Algorithms are Transforming Data Into Decisions. (JeffBullas)
• What is AI? The Human's Handbook to Computers that Think. (MorningBrew)

 

Trading Links:

• The Stock Market is At or Near the Most-expensive Levels Ever By Most Measures. When Will It Matter? (CNBC)
• Stock-Market Bulls Brace for Major Gut Check as Earnings, Fed and GDP Loom. (MarketWatch)
• David Einhorn Warns of Danger From Valuation-Indifferent Investors. (Forbes)
• How VCs and Founders See 2021 Differently. (TechCrunch)
• Virtual Reality Will Be a Trillion-Dollar Marketplace Within Five Years – Here's a Good Example Why. (MW)

 

Jim Simons and Renaissance Technologies

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 with those ideas in his notoriously secretive hedge fund firm called Renaissance Technologies. 

As of January 2021, He has stepped down as chairman. Now, Peter Brown, the former CEO of the fund, has stepped up as chairman.

With Jim stepping down, I thought it was worth looking at the legacy he has left on not just the Hedge Fund industry - but on trading as a whole. 

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 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. 

TED via Youtube

Despite advanced math still being a mystery to many,  we rely on it more than ever as the foundation of many exponential technologies.

The Heart of AI is Still in Humans

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 or pure trading quants, biased by the industry).

This hits on something important. 

Humans are still important ... and companies that pursue exponential thinking and exponential technologies still have to champion integrity, culture, and purpose.

 

Better Math is a Competitive Advantage - So is More and Better Data

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

On top of his intelligent hiring and novel approach to trading, Jim Simons recognized that an impressive data pipeline - and the technological infrastructure to digest and analyze that data was a moat to competitors. 

It is hard to have an edge if you use the same process and the same data as your competitors.

As the flywheels of commerce spin faster, edges will emerge and decay faster.  Finding a solution is only a step in an ongoing process.  

Robust, reliable, and repeatable innovation at scale is a meaningful competitive advantage.  That implies that idea factories will become as important (if not more so) than factories that produce material products.  Likewise, innovation funnels will become more important than sales funnels. 

The world changes at the speed of thought ... and as technology continues to improve ... even faster.

Onwards!

Where Do We Go From Here?

Yogi Berra once said, “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

I don’t normally post articles where I predict things. Nonetheless, I feel the need to comment on what is happening in America and what I suspect happens next.

My political beliefs are not really important here. But for context, I am somewhat fiscally conservative and somewhat socially liberal. It puts me pretty squarely in the middle.

As an entrepreneur and citizen, I feel compelled to find the "signal-in-the-noise" to understand and anticipate the game that’s being played, what the playing field looks like, and the best way forward.

For all the front stage calls for "unity & healing", behind the curtain, the actions of both sides aren't supporting the words they're saying. 

When the Democrats first announced the second impeachment, I assumed it was designed to steal news cycles (a nice trick that Trump taught them) and time cycles to minimize potential damage till the inauguration. Meaning that any time they forced the Trump administration to spend discussing what was happening or defending themselves was time taken away from political gamesmanship and last-minute actions that the new administration would have to deal with later.

Meanwhile, perhaps the reason Mitch McConnell has been sending mixed signals about protecting Trump is to avoid angering a meaningful portion of his base – while preparing to create the space to launch his new post-Trump Republican leadership slate (and a powerful Trump hurts those plans).

Ultimately, however, I do not believe that either party really wants to pursue impeachment fully at this point. Consequently, I suspect that the Biden administration will slow down the impeachment (and morph it into other strategies and tactics). I can’t imagine that the new administration will want to give Donald Trump even more of a public forum to broadcast his messages to the whole world (considering what's happening with Big Tech removing his platform).  It makes more sense to move on and shift focus.

Strategically, it seems more likely that they’ll go for a censure. With that, I suspect that they will attempt to strip post-presidency benefits and courtesies (including financial, access, and information).  Further, it wouldn’t surprise me if they find a way to prohibit him from having any public lands or things (like airports) named after him. This would accomplish three things.  First, Democrats would consider it a win and a signal to the world.  Second, it would hit Trump where it hurts (in his ego and legacy). Third, it would also support the new Republican leadership's goals by minimizing the chance that Trump could limit McConnell's power or fracture the party further.

Consequently, the real attempts to prevent Trump (or his family) from running for president will be accomplished via felony charges out of places like New York, Georgia, or DC.  Even though the motivations may be political, I don’t think it will be a political process.  Kind of like what they did to Al Capone.  That means that I expect both parties to help various prosecutors keep Trump busy, weaken him, and limit his future impact.

As for the markets, to some extent, what goes up must come down. The pendulum swung pretty far and was propped there for longer than most thought possible. Clearly, we are due for a correction.

Global economic weakness (and falling GDPs), along with the pandemic (and challenges with a vaccine rollout), will all contribute to short term volatility.

However, I think the Democrats will be far less committed than Trump was to propping markets up in the short term. They would prefer any reversion to the mean to happen quickly – so they can blame it on the prior administration.

With that said, the midterm elections are coming up quickly (and control of the Senate likely to be an even hotter topic). Consequently, I expect the Democrats to push hard to help the markets recover coming into the end of their first year.

Of course, all of these thoughts are speculation and may not come true. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

We certainly live in interesting times.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 17th, 2020

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

Lighter Links:

• Are Humans Smarter or Stupider Than We Used To Be? (Freakonomics)
• Inside Twitter's Decision To Cut Off Trump. (New York Times)
• Robots Turn 100 and Still Enthrall Us. (Wall Street Journal)
• From Good To Great: How the Flywheel Can Be Your Company's Next Big Thing. (Entrepreneur)
• Clever New A.I. System Promises To Train Your Dog While You're Away From Home. (DigitalTrends)

 

Trading Links:

• An Old Foe of Banks Could Be Wall Street's New Top Cop. (Wall Street Journal)
• The 'Black Swan' Covid Catastrophe Shows Us Just How Fragile Our World Is. (TheGuardian)
• The Five Biggest Issues For Technology Companies In 2021. (WSJ)
• 5 Charts Show What the Global Economy Looks Like Heading Into 2021. (CNBC)
• 'I Don't See Anything On the Horizon that Can Stop the Growth of the ETF Market,' Invesco Official Says. Here are Her 2021 Predictions. (CNBC)