Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - March 10th, 2019

I was in Toronto this week – and it was COLD!

Daylight Savings Time just springed forward ... and here in Texas, it is getting warmer.  Perhaps winter is over?

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

 

Lighter Links

• The World's Fastest Supercomputer Breaks an AI Record. (Wired)
• Study Shows Parrots Can Pass Classic Test of Intelligence. (Phys)
• Huge Spider Drags Opossum across Amazon Rainforest Floor in Horrifying Footage. (Video)
• H.I.V. is Reported Cured in a Second Patient, a Milestone in the Global AIDS Epidemic. (New York Times)

 

Trading Links

• Bill Gates Reveals the 10 Breakthrough Technologies that Will Change the World in 2019. (Forbes)
• Artificial Intelligence Regulation Will Be Impossible. (Forbes)
• Scientists Just Pulled CO2 from Air and Turned It into Coal. (Forbes)
• Map: The Most Valuable Brand in Each Country in 2018. (VisualCapitalist)
• Who's the Richest Owner in the NFL? Cowboys' Jerry Jones Doesn't Even Crack the Top Three. (CBS Sports)

 

The Relationship Between Stock Exchanges and Indices

Last year, I wrote about how the top 16 exchanges each have a market capitalization above $1 trillion.

That's a staggering amount of money being traded; but, how much of is it traded well?

82% of funds trailed their respective benchmarks over 15 years, and Indexes consistently beat stock pickers. 

With the NYSE and NASDAQ being the two biggest stock exchanges, looking at them can provide a lot of insight. The NYSE has 2058 companies, and the NASDAQ has 2588. 

 

via VisualCapitalist

 

With active managers' struggle to beat the market, many investors have moved to index-tracking funds (as of last year, investors withdrew $1.2 trillion from actively managed U.S. funds since 2007, according to Morningstar). 

My prediction, active management becomes a lot easier with AI and machine learning. You'll be hearing more about that from us soon. 

Funding Fintech's Future

I think it’s clear that Fintech is getting a lot of attention from the press, investors, and talent.  It is a hot space!

Here is a chart showing the Fintech companies that got the most funding recently.

 

via howmuch

Rapidly maturing sectors are payment processing, personal finance, and blockchain/crypto.

• Payment Processing - Stripe received $685 million in funding last year and is valued at over $20B
• Personal Finance - This is a broad market, but we're seeing the "average joe" empowered to make smarter personal finance decisions with companies like Robinhood, Acorns, and Credit Karma. Credit Karma raised $869M and is valued at approximately $4B
• Blockchain - While crypto is currently out of favor for many, blockchain is still an exciting prospect. Opendoor is bypassing real estate agents and brokers to disrupt the housing market. Receiving over $1B in funding last year, it is currently valued at $3.7B.

These are the sectors getting the most Fintech funding now (with payment processing the clear leader).

In my opinion, real disruption is brewing in the personal finance & Wall Street sectors ... and funding is ramping up there as we speak.

This Fintech sector reminds me of biotech.   Solutions have to be more mature and fully-tested before unleashing them on the public.  But winners will Win!

Wall Street is one of the smaller sections in this infographic.  Nonetheless, I think you'll be reading a lot more about this space soon.  Here are some of the companies worth noting.

• Symphony  does secure communications for companies like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. It helps with internal communication, and client-centric communication, and has various bots and apps to decrease decision time. 
• Addepar claims to "power the global financial system".  It's a performance reporting platform meant to provide better insights, and connect assets to goals. 
• Carta does equity management; helping private & public companies manage their cap tables, investments, and equity plans. 

Not seen on these lists are all the smaller companies at the beginning of their innovation cycle, and the companies doing their best to stay under the radar. More competitors and more opportunities mean more reason to keep your cards close to your chest. 

The funding cycle is always two steps behind the innovation cycle, which means ideas we've been hearing about from the likes of Gartner will be seeing increased publicity soon. 

I think 2019  will be a great year for innovation. What about you?

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - February 17th, 2019

NASA's Mars Opportunity Rover has officially lost contact with earth after a fierce dust storm. Its last message was "My battery is getting low and it's getting dark." The rover's original mission was scheduled for 90 days ... it lasted 14 years. 

 

via XKCD

 

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

 

Lighter Links

• A Quantum Future Awaits. (Science)
• Can We Make Artificial Intelligence Ethical? (Washington Post)
• Life's Secret Ingredient: A Radical Theory of What Makes Things Alive. (NewScientist)
• What Does "Dead" Mean? the Debate Continues Some 50 Years after Harvard Defined Death. (Forbes)
• Scientists Have Built a Real Star Trek 'Replicator' that Builds Objects with Light. (ScienceAlert)

 

Trading Links

• Warning: Stocks Have Only Been Stretched this Thin Once in the past 150 Years. (MarketWatch)
• From the Year When Nothing Worked in the Financial Markets to the Month When Everything Did. (CNBC)
• Mark Zuckerberg Adds $6.2 Billion in a Day, Vaulting to No. 5 Richest in World. (OCRegister)
• American Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager Has Spent $700M on Personal Real Estate in Five Years. (CNW)
• There's a New Movie Coming out about High-speed Trading on Wall Street, and It Looks Bonkers. (BizInsider)

 

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 27th, 2019

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

 

Lighter Links

• Giving Algorithms a Sense of Uncertainty Could Make Them More Ethical.(TechReview)
• How Musicians Communicate Non-Verbally While Performing.(PsychCentral)
• Welcome to the World's Largest Gathering of Humans. (NPR)
• The Evolutionary Advantages of an Addictive Personality. (Scientific American)
• George Orwell Predicted Cameras Would Watch Us in Our Homes; He Never Imagined We'd Gladly Buy and Install Them Ourselves.(OpenCulture)

 

 

Trading Links

• The Weaponization of Artificial Intelligence. (Forbes)
• Apple Named 'World's Most Admired Company' for 12Th Year in a Row.(MacRumors)
• The Government Shutdown May Ripple through the IPO Market for Months. (Quartz)
• Billionaire Ray Dalio Shares a 3-Step Formula for Anyone to Start Investing.(CNBC)
• Ex-Goldman Banker Describes Finance as "Dark Art," Advocates Running McDonalds Franchise Instead. (News)

 

A Look Back at "The Crazy Ones"

I remember being mesmerized the first time I saw Apple Computers iconic "Crazy Ones" video as part of their Think Different campaign.

Steve Jobs originally recorded a version of "The Crazy Ones" himself, but chose to release the Richard Dreyfuss narrated version. 

 

via YouTube

Here is the text version of the script.

 

Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them,
glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They push the human race forward.

While some may see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

    –     © 1997 Apple Computer, Inc.

Click here for extra material about the video and campaign. 

I think it has held up pretty well, and I had this piece of art commissioned for my office. 

There's a lot to be said for carving your own path, for pushing past perceived limits and accomplishing something hard to ignore.  

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - January 20th, 2019

Most citizens don't have big savings account to buffer them against an unexpected expense or loss of income.

The Government Shutdown is one of the curveballs most workers haven't planned for adequately.

 

Actions have consequences.

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

 

Lighter Links

• Full Translation: China's 'New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan' (2017). (Newamerica)
• Apple Buys 50 Business Class Seats from San Francisco to Shanghai Every Day. (MacRumors)
• Ford Built a Sweaty Robot Butt to Simulate Your Sweaty Human Butt. (BGR)
• Intimate Portraits of People over 100 Years Old Reveal the Beauty of Aging Bodies. (MyModernMet)
• Costco is Selling a 27-Pound Tub of Mac and Cheese that Lasts 20 Years. (BusinessInsider)

 

Trading Links

• Fear of Algorithm Trading is Really Just the Fear of the Unknown. (Quartz)
• Hedge Funds Suffer Worst Year since 2011. (FT)
• Nearly Half of Workers Earn Less Than $30,000. (Ritholtz)
• Michael Dell Gets $12 Billion Richer with Break from Public Eye. (Fortune)
• The New Impossible Burger 2.0 Won Everyone's Mouth at CES 2019, but That's Just the Beginning. (Forbes)

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - December 30th, 2018

Christmas Eve saw Dow's historic low ... but it was immediately followed with a 1086 point rally (its largest single-day gain). The S&P and Dow both rallied approximately 5%.

 

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

Lighter Links

• A Nobel Prize-winning Psychologist Says Most People Don't Really Want to Be Happy. (Quartz)
• There is No Such Thing as Conscious Thought. (Scientific American)
• Automated Cyber Attacks are the next Big Threat. Ever Hear of 'Review Bombing'? (Entrepreneur)
• NASA's Scientists Formed a Club to Dream up Uses for AI like Self-replicating Robots and Harpooning Comets. (Quartz)
• A Chinese Company Said It Created a Photo with Such a High Resolution that You Can Zoom from Thousands of Meters Away to See People's Facial Expressions. (BusinessInsider)

 

 

Trading Links

• Alan Greenspan: Investors Should Prepare for the Worst. (CNN)
• 5 Charts that Explain the Global Economy in 2018. (WEForum)
• The 7 Most Anticipated IPOs in 2019. (Fool)
• Wall Street Quietly Shelves Its Bitcoin Dreams. (Bloomberg)
• After a $2 Billion Company Bonus, Every Employee at Juul is Now a Millionaire. (RobbReport)

The Psychology Behind Gambling (and Everyday Traders)

Vegas and Wall Street share a lot in common. 

Over Time ... The House Wins

Casinos only offer to play games that they expect to win.  In contrast, gambling customers play even though they know the odds are against them.

Why does this happen?  The rush of a win, the chance of a big win, and random reinforcement are common factors that incent people to play lotto, go to a casino, or try to trade.

Chemicals like adrenaline and dopamine play a part as well.  Even in a sea of losses, your body can't help but crave the chemical reward of even a small win, 

The "House" knows this and engineers an experience that takes advantage of it.  

In the case of casinos, every detail is meticulously crafted to extract you from your money - from carpet patterns to the labyrinthian layouts, the music, the lights and even the games themselves. 

Here is an infographic that lays it out for you. 

Bojoko via DailyInfographic

Most people aren't gamblers ... the fear of losing big inhibits them.  However, when people were instructed to "think like a trader," they showed considerably less risk-aversion when gambling. 

 

The illusion of control convinces us we can overcome the statistics. 

 

When you almost get it right - when you miss the jackpot by one slot on a slot machine, when you just mistime a trade to get a big win - you're more likely to play longer, and place bigger bets ... because you're "so close". 

It's human nature to want to feel in control. 

This is why you find a lot of superstitious traders & gamblers. If you wear this lucky item of clothing ... if you throw the dice in this particular way ... if you check your holdings at this time every day ... you have control. 

There is a big difference between causation and correlation. 

It is not hard to imagine that the majority of a trader's activities do little to create a real and lasting edge.  

 

Skill vs. Luck

There are games of skill, and there are games of chance.

In a casino, poker and blackjack are considered games of skill.  In contrast, slot machines are considered a game of chance.

In trading, predicting markets is much different than using math and statistics to measure the performance of a technique.

Much of what we do is to figure out how to eliminate the fear, greed, and discretionary mistakes humans bring to trading.

In trading, "Alpha" is the measure of excess return attributed to manager skill, rather than luck or taking on more risk.

We believe in Alpha-by-Avoidance ... Meaning much of what we do is figure out what to ignore or avoid so that the majority of the games we play are games of skill rather than games of chance.

Are you playing the right game?

 

A Look Back At The Future, Part 2

As the holiday season begins, I was thinking about my father.

I love him and miss him ... but, truth be told, I teased him mercilessly about being technologically challenged (especially around the holidays, when I'd buy him a new gadget –  only to roll on the floor laughing while watching him try to figure it out).

Karma is a bitch!  My Dad used to say "whatever you make fun of me for ... will happen to you." 

I didn't yet realize how fast the world was changing ... or how quickly I'd find it hard to keep up. 

In 2015 I wrote an article about this titled "A Look Back at The Future". 

It's only four years later ... and somehow my realizations seem out-dated.

It's not just me, it's everyone! 

Realize that human perception is linear, but technological growth isn't.

As technology progression evolves and quickens, it is going to get harder to keep up.

Check out this video from 1974 ... It shows Arthur C. Clarke making some impressive guesses about the future of technology.

 

 

Now that we're here, it may not seem like an impressive prediction ... but how cool was it that Arthur C. Clarke believed a computer would fit on a desk in 1974?   

Do you think that you can predict what a computer will look like in 2034? 

Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, augmented reality, neuro-interfaces, etc. are all going to change the face and nature of computing and perhaps life itself. 

We live in exciting times!

Onwards.