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You Can Call Me Old Glory - Weekly Reading Links - July 7th, 2017

Hope you had a happy 4th of July - grilled out, saw some fireworks. Here's a video of Robin Williams reminding us that it's never a bad time to feel patriotism.

Here is a peek at what I've been reading lately. These are the links I saved this week. Hope you find some interesting and enjoyable tidbits. Let me know if you read something I'd like ... Or if there are other sources I should add to my weekly reading. Thanks.

Lighter Links:

Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Human Intelligence, Not Just Our Processes? (Burrus) 6 Findings after Researching 1,000 Self-Help Articles.(IntelligentChange) Clean Meat: a Bold Prediction May Finally Come True. (Forbes) Language Alters Our Experience of Time. (The Conversation) Pump Action: the Heart-stopping History of Cardiac Surgery.(NewStatesman) This Emotional Intelligence Test Was So Accurate It Was Creepy.(FastCompany) Neuroscientists Figure out How to Wipe Individual Memories from the Brain of a Snail. (DT) The ABCs and Ds of Whether to Get Prostate Cancer Screening. (NYT) The Top 21 Natural Testosterone Booster Ingredients. (Visual) What Duck Sex Reveals about Human Nature. (Spiegel) The Impossible Mathematics of the Real World. (Nautilus) What is Space? (Nautilus) The Shah of Iran: An Interview with Mohammad Reza Pahlevi.(NewRepublic) From Russia with Blood. (BuzzFeed) Here's the Easiest Way to Eat More Vegetables. (Time) Crash Override: Malware that Took Down a Power Grid May Have Been a Test Run. (Networkworld) Hume's Theory of Ideas. (AutodidactPhilosophy) A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf is 8 Miles from Creating an Iceberg the Size of Delaware. (NYTimes) Athens, Sparta and Rome: The Ancient Election. (TLS) Why are Artists Now Able to Create "Photo Realistic" Paintings and Pencil Drawing that Totally Blow Classic Painters, like Rembrandt and Da Vinci, out of the Water in Terms of Detail and Realism? (Quora)

Market-Related Links

Hedge Fund Launches Back on the Rise. (Institutional Investor) The Median Price of New Homes Hits a Record High. (WSJ) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos May Be Single-handedly Killing Inflation.(CNBC) Technological Change and the Future of Financial Intermediation.(JohnKay) China to Promote Wealth Management Investment in Commodities - Regulator. (Reuters) Debunking the Fintech is Failing' Nonsense. (TheFinancialBrand) Should Your Company Be Profitable? (AVC) On Currency. (JPKoning) This is How Big Oil Will Die. (Shift) How Vertical Farming Reinvents Agriculture. (BBC) Quantopian's Army of Analysts is Defining the Future of Investment.(Inc) The Stars are Starting to Align for Gold Bulls. (BusinessInsider) Is a $2.7 Million Lunch with Warren Buffett a Bargain? (Bloomberg) 4 Indications that Make It Painfully Obvious Trumpcare is in Deep Trouble. (Fool) North Korea behind WannaCry Ransomware Attack, British Intelligence Claims. (BGR) Mobile Data Consumption Will Soon Surpass Fixed Broadband.(Axios) How Behavioral Finance Can Help Investors in Today's Market.(ValueWalk) JPMorgan's Massive Guide to Machine Learning Jobs in Finance.(EFinancialCareers) Amazon, Whole Foods, and the Future of the (Old) New Economy.(HBR) IBM's Watson Supercomputer is Getting into Wall Street Stock-picking. (CNBC)

Let me know what you think. Thanks. Click Here To Join My Mailing List

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - June 17th, 2017

The new normal.

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Putin Implies the U.S. is ‘Stupid’, Talks about NATO ‘Falling Apart’. (ValueWalk)
• Anti-Semitic Incidents Rose a Whopping 86% in the First 3 Months of 2017. (Apple)
• Beyond Alt: Understanding the New Far Right. (NYMag)
• Malcolm Gladwell on Why We Shouldn’t Value Speed Over Power. (Heleo)
• Learning to Distinguish “Fear” from “Fear of Fear” is Key to Leading a Happy Life. (Quartz)

Trading Links:

• Puerto Rico Votes in Favor of Statehood. (TheHill)
• Trump Tweets and the Efficient Market Hypothesis. (SSRN)
• Tony Robbins: What I Learned from the World's Greatest Investors. (Time)
• The World's Highest-Paid Musicians of 2016 - Pg.1. (Forbes)
• For Aramco Insiders, Prince’s $2 Trillion IPO Valuation Doesn’t Add Up. (WSJ)

JIM ROGERS: "The Worst Crash In Our Lifetime Is Coming"

Jim Rogers knows a thing or two about markets.  He is a successful investor and businessman (and was a co-founder of the Quantum Funds).

He recently talked about his expectations for the next couple of years.  It's worth watching.

 

Jim predicts a crash within the next year (due to the bubble on many stocks popping). 

There are many things that could be the catalyst for the fall, but he predicts it will be not only the worst in your lifetime, but also in his lifetime (and he's pretty old!).

 

Blodget: Can anybody rescue us?

Rogers: They will try. What’s going to happen is they’re going to raise interest rates some more. Then when things start going really bad, people are going to call and say, "You must save me. It’s Western civilization. It’s going to collapse." And the Fed, who is made up of bureaucrats and politicians, will say, "Well, we better do something." And they’ll try, but it won’t work. It’ll cause some rallies, but it won’t work this time.

Blodget: And we are in a situation where Western civilization already seems to be possibly collapsing, even with the market going up all the time. Often when you do have a financial calamity, you get huge turmoil in the political system. What happens politically if that happens?

Rogers: Well, that’s why I moved to Asia. My children speak Mandarin because of what’s coming.

You’re going to see governments fail. You’re going to see countries fail, this time around. Iceland failed last time. Other countries fail. You’re going to see more of that.

You’re going to see parties disappear. You’re going to see institutions that have been around for a long time -- Lehman Brothers had been around over 150 years. Gone. Not even a memory for most people. You’re going to see a lot more of that next around, whether it’s museums or hospitals or universities or financial firms.

 

Scary stuff.

What do you think is going to happen?

If our current actions are leading us towards a crash, what will stop it?

How will Algo trading help or hurt the outcome for the masses (and the few)?

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - June 9th, 2017

The Comey situation is nuanced ... No, confusing.

It doesn't matter which side you're on, there's stuff to support and stuff to oppose.

Nonetheless, the result is no longer in contention.  Trump won the first battle. Comey isn't the Director of the FBI. 

Comey may still be trying to win the war.  Last week, he testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

My favorite quote of the night was: ""The statue of justice has a blindfold on because you're not supposed to be peeking out to see if your patron is pleased with what you're doing."

Watching the selective belief in Comey's statements is interesting. Sometimes it seems that Liberals only hear how Trump mishandled Flynn ... while Conservatives only hear the lack of investigation into Trump's Russia ties. 

At the end of the day, Trump felt finally vindicated from the left's accusations.

So, is the situation nuanced ... or just plain confusing?

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

Lighter Links:

• Cavaliers Still Send Paychecks to Warriors Coach Mike Brown. (ESPN)
• Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded. (New York Times)
• Bill Gates Has Seven Predictions for the Future. (Futurism)
• SNL Just Came up with a Hilarious Version of Alexa Designed for Senior Citizens. (TechCrunch)
• TCU’s First Little Genius Graduates with Physics Degree at 14 Years Old. (DallasNews)

Trading Links:

• Former Mozilla CEO Raises $35M in under 30 Seconds for His Browser Startup Brave. (TechCrunch)
• The Hunger Bonds – A Modern Dilemma (Project-Syndicate)
• Meet the 9 Hedge Fund Managers Who Made the Most Money in 2016. (BusinessInsider)
• Dying Malls in the US Should Take Note of How China is Approaching Retail. (BI)
• Why Amazon is Eating the World. (TechCrunch)

The World's Stock Exchanges

There are 60 major stock exchanges throughout the world, and their range of sizes is quite surprising.

Click the image to see the whole infographic.

via VisualCapitalist

 

As Visual Capitalist notes, at the high end of the spectrum is the mighty NYSE, representing $18.5 trillion in market capitalization, or about 27% of the total market for global equities.

At the lower end? Stock exchanges on the tiny islands of Malta, Cyprus, and Bermuda all range from just $1 billion to $4 billion in value. Even added together, these three exchanges make up just 0.01% of total market capitalization.

Back at the upper end, the top 16 exchanges each have a market capitalization above $1 trillion.  Together, those top-16 exchanges account for 87% of the world's total value of equities.

That is a lot of money and information ... I'd expect big changes, here, as the FinTech arms race escalates.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - May 27th, 2017

There is a place to go with deep wishes  ...

 

 

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

Lighter Links:

• What the Dying Teach the Living. (LongNow)
• Why Close Encounters with Animals Soothe Us. (New York Times)
• Will We Ever Elect an AI as President? (Wired)
• 'SNL' Releases McCarthy's 'Spicey' Outtakes. (CNN)
• The Dark Art of How (And When) to Buy an Airline Ticket. (NYMag)

Trading Links:

• The Quants Run Wall Street Now. (Wall Street Journal)
• The MMC Ventures AI Investment Framework: 17 Success Factors For The Age Of AI. (Medium)
• The Real Reason Saudis Rolled out the Reddest of Red Carpets. (Bergen)
• SoftBank and Saudis Launch Largest Tech Investment Fund Ever, $93 Billion in Committed Capital. (CNBC)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading - May 21, 2017

The "He Said – She Said" loop is funny ... But it is still giving me a headache.

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Here are the Ridiculous Things Celebrities Demand Backstage. (BusinessInsider)
• Garry Kasparov on AI, Chess, and the Future of Creativity. (Medium)
• The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity Methods. (Todoist)
• Hundreds of Privacy-invading Apps are Using Ultrasonic Sounds to Track You. (ZDNet)
• Why Would Aliens Even Bother with Earth? (LitHub)

  

Trading Links:

• Elon Musk Says Robots Will Help Tesla Catch up to Apple in Value. (Fortune)
• Retailers Look past Apps to the next Frontier of Digital Shopping: Chatbots. (WashPost)
• Vending Machine-like Skyscraper Concept Plans to 3D Print Custom Homes. (Mashable)
• Indonesian Islamist Leader Says Ethnic Chinese Wealth is next Target. (Reuters)
• Financial Technology is Proving Less of a Battleground Than Feared. (Economist)

 

Bitcoin Is At New Highs – But, Is It A Strong Investment?

If you had invested $10,000 in gold in July of 2010 your investment would be worth ~$9981 ... In contrast, if you had invested $10,000 in Bitcoin, at the same time, your investment would have grown to over $200,000.

Bitcoin hit all-time highs this week.  I saw a chart that caught my interest.  Bitcoin's value seems closely correlated with the number of searches for it on Google.

DataIsBeautiful via Reddit

From a behavioral economics perspective, this makes sense.  Google searches can be a good indicator of public sentiment, interest, demand, or public sentiment. 

Bitcoin is a digital currency decentralized over a peer-to-peer network. The more people are willing to accept it as a medium of exchange, the more valuable it becomes.

It's decentralization provides it safety from censorship and government interference - meaning it has value as an international currency, and as a currency for black-market transactions.

However, the worth of a bitcoin clearly isn't just based on sentiment (on one hand, there are desires to avoid fiat currency vagaries, government interventions and scrutiny, while having a fair price discovery method, etc.  ... on the other hand, there are also the costs to mine a bitcoin, transaction fees, etc.).

Compared to a reserve currency – whose worth is primarily influenced by trade value and other macroeconomic factors - watching Bitcoin's volatility can be scary. 

That being said, Bitcoin is in a relatively unique position, and as the internet grows and our world becomes more interconnected, it's entirely possible that Bitcoin will continue to legitimize. 

It's a brave new world.  For what it's worth, I remain a skeptic of the currency.  Yet, I am bullish on the underlying Blockchain crypto-currency technology. 

 

Related articles

Taking Bitcoin to the stock market won't do much for its risky image

Why de-centralised digital currencies are finding a permanent place in societies, as government actions jeapordise livelihoods

What's the Deal With Cryptocurrency Market Caps? | Lets Talk Payments

Bitcoin isn't 100 percent secure - here's how to further hide your purchases

Bitcoin price surges to all-time high of $1,400

3 charts show the crazy gains of crypto-currencies

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading - May 14th, 2017

Happy Mother's Day!

 

 

Here's to simpler times. 

 

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

 

• Now We Know - Bill Clinton Cost His Wife the Presidency. (Washington Post)
• Creating Simple Rules for Complex Decisions. (HBR)
• Quantum Computing Demands a Whole New Kind of Programmer. (SingularityHub)
• Christian Governor in Indonesia Found Guilty of Blasphemy against Islam. (New York Times)
• Just How Crazy is the Trump Presidency? (FastCoD)

 

Trading Links:

• Forbes Small Giants 2017: America's Best Small Companies. (Forbes)
• Apple Becomes First US Firm to Cross $800B Market Cap Threshold. (AppleInsider)
• IBM Faces Credit Rating Cut from S&P. (FT)
• Businessmen Start to Replace Soldiers as Israel’s Political Heroes. (Economist)
• It's Happening Again - And the Last 2 Times this Happened, The S&P 500 Fell by 57% and 19%. (Fool)

 

The World's New Most Valuable Resource ... Data!

What is the #1 world commodity?  

Is it Oil?  Try to name a country that hasn't been reliant on it to survive.

OK, then what about water?

Nonetheless, arguably, a new commodity has taken over.  In our new digital era, the #1 commodity is data.  And countries (and businesses and people) are becoming even more reliant on it. 

Consequently, some of the new tech titans - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft - have an unprecedented amount of data (and power). 

 

via Statista

The new tech titans also make a massive amount of money.  According to the Economist, they collectively made over $25 billion in net profit in Q1 2017.

With those titans controlling so much of the industry, they're facing calls for them to be broken up, as Standard Oil or AT&T was. 

There are questions, though.  Is size, alone, an issue? Are these titans abusing their power?  Do we need new forms of antitrust laws (or consumer protection laws) to handle them?

At this point, most of these titans' sites are monetarily free to use for consumers ... But, does that mean that they don't require regulation?  Realize, the free sites are a way to attract users, and then to sell data and ads to companies marketing to them.

One thing is for sure ... Privacy is a rare commodity in a time of digital omniscience.