Capitalogix

What Does A Hurricane and Market Crash Have in Common?

Hurricane Matthew hit the east coast this week.  It was the strongest storm we've weathered in 12 years (with 125 mph winds).

As a trader, I've often thought that weather and market conditions share similarities. As a result, the techniques used to understand and predict them are similar.

Have you heard the term "Eye of the Storm"?  Well, in the context of Hurricane Matthew, it went directly over a weather buoy (Station #42058).

The chart is interesting.  Imagine being a person observing the storm.  It builds, and builds until you don't think it can get much worse.  Then, it appears to stop.  You can breathe.  You can see.  You relax ... Then it comes back faster than before.  Your nerves and reserves were already diminished.  So, it is worse.

 

 via NDBC.

Similarly, it's easy to mistake the eye of the storm (in a major market move) for a sign of safety and opportunity.

I remember 2008.  Storms like that caused many to buy wrong and sell wrong.

Humans see clear skies and walk outside.  Perhaps we can teach the computer to know better (or at least to measure and recognize what is happening better).

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading - September 25, 2016

At least in Pro Wrestling, there is usually a 'Hero' and 'Villain'

 

via Cagle

 Are you going to watch the Debate?  

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Wells Fargo Just Became the Poster Child for When External and Internal Values Don’t Match. (QZ)
• The Value Driven Product Roadmap – a New Approach. (OmriZiv)
• Mossberg: Apple, the King of Tech Taste and Daring, Takes a Breather. (TheVerge)
• The (Not So) New Data Scientist Venn Diagram. (KDNuggets)
• CIA Using Pokemon Go for Mass Surveillance. (USAPoliticsNow) 

 

Trading Links:

• Traders Watching for More Volatility. (CNBC)
• New Kind of Correlation Spotted in Factors Obsessing Wall Street. (Bloomberg)
• Wave of IPOs Could Hit Global Markets within the next 12 Months. (ValueWalk)
• AOL Co-Founder Steve Case: Third Wave of Tech M&A Coming…. (FoxBusiness)
• Apple’s Tax Avoidance Illustrates Gap between Law and Economics. (WSJ)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

At some point, it becomes more important to focus on what you want ... rather than what you don't want.

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• AI Comes to Work: How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Business. (BND)
• Princeton Tops List of 2017 U.S. News Best Colleges Rankings. (USAToday)
• iPhone 7 Plus Vs IPhone 6S Plus: What's the Difference? (Forbes)
• Scientists Followed 5,000 Genius Kids for 45 Years — Here's What They Learned about Success. (Insider)
• It’s Now Possible, in Theory, to Predict Life Success from a Genetic Test at Birth. (ResearchDigest)

 

Trading Links:

• One Year Later, This is What Would Prompt Another "Risk-Parity" Blow Up. (ZeroHedge)
• Competition to Reinvent the Car is Getting Fiercer. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Fed's Next Move Will Impact Oil Markets. (OPEC)
• America Has Leverage over China Because It Owns So Much US Debt. (Trump)
• “Complacency” Indicator Implies Market Top.  (SocGen)

iRobot: Artificial Intelligence ... or Artificial Stupidity?

We often think of Artificial Intelligence as a relatively recent creation – but that's not necessarily true. 

Of course, to compare A.I. of the past with what create now would be unfair.  Nonetheless, A.I. has affected thought since Greek mythology. 

Stories of golden robots, homunculi and Golems have fascinated for generations.

More recently, a 240-year-old doll was found that can write any custom text up to 40 letters long using a goose feather and has eyes that follow what it writes. Imagine what the creator of that gadget could do with the tools we have today.

 

 

 

Seems pretty simple in comparison to all the different applications of A.I. we have today.

But as smart as Artificial Intelligence has become, it doesn't take much to thwart its purpose.

For example, iRobot's Roomba seems like a pretty cool piece of technology, right?  It'll vacuum for you, learn where your furniture is, etc.

Unfortunately, it's not smart enough to tell when your pet has left a "present" on the floor for you ... in which case, it just might spread poop over your whole house.

Yup, that's a real Roomba story, worth a chuckle while you read it here.  

This image shows A.I. isn't always a substitute for lack of the real thing.

 

via Facebook

People claim that they fear Artificial Intelligence ... I think artificial stupidity is pretty scary too  - even when it doesn't result in smearing poop across your carpet.

One of the biggest challenges in automated trading is how quickly we can recognize when things aren't going right, and get back to doing the right thing again.  It isn't just about making money, it's about making and keeping money, consistently.

As for the iRobot,  they are aware of the automated poop-spreading issue and are working on a fix. 

Onwards.

Size Matters: Comparing the U.S. to the Rest of the World

This week, I saw a chart that ranks countries by the number of Olympic medals won in relation to their GDP and population.

Sometimes it helps to employ unconventional perspectives when thinking about the size of things.

So here's an interesting map from the American Enterprise Institute that shows how massive and productive America's $18 trillion economy is on a global scale.

The map compares the gross domestic product of U.S. states with the national GDPs of other nations.

America's largest state economy is California. In 2015, the Golden State's GDP was about $2.46 trillion.  As a separate country, California would have been the 6th largest economy in the world last year (just behind the U.K. and slightly above France's GDP of $2.42 trillion). But France's population is about 66.48 million, while California's is only about 39.14 million — meaning California produces about the same as France – with about 40% fewer people.

America’s second largest state economy is Texas.  In 2015, the Lone Star state's GDP was about $1.59 trillion.  This would have ranked Texas as the world’s 10th largest economy last year.  To compare, Canada’s GDP last year was $1.55 trillion. However, to produce about the same amount of economic output as Texas required a workforce in Canada (18 million) that was 50% larger than employment in the state of Texas (12 million). That is, it required 6 million more workers in Canada to produce the same output as Texas last year.

Check out the rest of the states in the map below:

  

 via AEI.

Based on population, the US is the third-largest country in the world.

To put that in perspective, below is a a map that renames each state with the country that has the closest population to it.

 

via Business Insider.

The map, below, is interesting in a different way.  I'm sure you've heard that "a picture is worth a thousand words."  Here, a couple dozen words capture the world.

 

by Michael Tompsett via Fine Art America.

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading - August 13, 2016

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Three Ways the Tech Industry (Still) Misuses Metrics. (FastCompany)
• Machine Learning Key Terms, Explained. (KDNuggets)
• We Have Become an Idiocracy. (Time)
• Combat Juggling. (Neatorama)
• How to Use Distraction to Your Advantage. (99u)

 

Trading Links:

• Beaten-Up Hedge Fund Billionaires Reminisce About the 'Golden Age'. (QuantNews)
• A Booming Wall Street Business is Based on Guesstimates, and That Could Be A Problem. (BI)
• Authorities Want to Know If Electronic Trading Giants are Cheating Small Customers. (Fortune)
• Who Owns America's Debt? (Money)
• Megacities, Not Nations, are the World’s Dominant, Enduring Social Structures. (Quartz)

Is Clinton Pulling Too Far Ahead For Trump to Catch Her?

It has been a rough week for the Presidential prospects of Donald Trump.

According to Betfair, the odds for Clinton to win in November have rallied in the last several days and are back near their highs of the year at slightly more than 75%.

The chart, below, overlays the odds for a Democratic win and the performance of the S&P 500 Index.

  

via Bespoke. 

That being said, in politics, three months is a lifetime;  and Trump has made some miraculous recoveries before in his career.  

In each of the prior times where Clinton’s odds (late April and late June) have approached current levels, they have quickly pulled back.  

Conventional wisdom says that a strong stock market and a good economy are good for the incumbent party.  Consequently, the Dems are feeling confident with the S&P 500 at new highs and jobs data coming in strong for the second straight month.  Will this be where Clinton finally breaks out (or are her odds due for another pullback)?  

We’ll soon find out!

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Lots of crazy stories from the Olympics.  For example, an Olympic Kayaker capsized after hitting a submerged sofa.  At least they figured out how to deal with the mosquitos.

 

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• There Are More White Voters Than People Think. That’s Good News for Trump. (NYT)
• Inside the Bitter Last Days of Bernie's Revolution. (Politico)
• The Pittsburgh Steelers are Practicing with Football Robots. (PopSci)
• The Craziest Predictions  From Tech BigWigs Recently. (PScience)
• Dos Equis Wants to Rank You on the "Most Interesting Person in the World" Index. (FastCo) 

 

Trading Links:

• The Big Banks are Becoming ‘Dumb Pipes’ as Fintech Takes Over. (CB Insights)
• How the World's Currencies Got Their Names. (World Economic Forum)
• Fund Managers Fear Central Banks Will Create Next ‘Lehman’ Moment. (MarketWatch)
• What Would Happen If 40 Million Americans Defaulted on Their Student Loans? (FastCo)
• Alleged Russian Spies in the U.S. Were Interested in High Frequency Trading. (QuantNews)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Someone sent me a motion-activated toilet bowl night-light for my birthday.  I guess that is an early indicator that Depends won't be far behind.

  

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• Palestinian Activists at the DNC Believe Time is on Their Side. (Huffington Post)
• The Hidden Meanings behind the Set Designs of the RNC and DNC. (Wired)
• Why the Suspected Russian Hack of the DNC is Such a Game Changer. (FastCompany)
• Scientists Use Lasers to Regrow Teeth from Stem Cells. (IFLScience)
• Mark Cuban Says He’d Consider Being Vice President — for Trump or Clinton. (Re/code)

 

 

Trading Links:

• Nasdaq 100 Catching up to All-Time Highs - What Could this Mean for Market? (Stockcharts)
• AI Needs Oversight – Time to Set Standards for Autonomous Tech. (NewScientist)
• 'Pokémon GO' is the Biggest Mobile Game in History & It's about to Top Snapchat. (Forbes)
• Cadillac Bets on Virtual Dealerships. (Wall Street Journal)
• How Will Bots Make Money? Here are 7 Business Models. (VentureBeat)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

I just got back from Asia; seemed like everyone wanted to know what the presidential candidates were saying.

 

 

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

 

Lighter Links:

• 8 Ways to Use the New Kauffman Index of Growth Entrepreneurship. (Kauffman)
• Facebook is Predicting the End of the Written Word. (Quartz)
• How Did Consciousness Evolve? (The Atlantic)
• This is the Only TED Talk You'll Ever Need to Watch. (Inc)
• ‘Hamilton’ Inc.: the Path to a Billion-Dollar Broadway Show. (New York Times)

 

Trading Links:

• Prime Day Shows Amazon is So Powerful It Can Make up Its Own Holiday. (Wired)
• Commodities Having a Strong 2016. (Bespoke)
• Blockchain is to Banks TCP/IP is to Telcos. (Medium)
• How the Wealthiest Americans Got Rich May Surprise You. (MarketWatch)
• Apple is Making So Much Clean Energy, It Formed a New Company to Sell It. (TheVerge)