Thinking About Moby Dick
This quote sprung up as being particularly apt about trading – “There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.”
The Happiness Ruse
In 1920, the American psychologist John B Watson published the results of one of the more ethically dubious scholarly articles of the past century. Along with Rosalie Rayner, a 21-year-old graduate student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he taught, Watson aimed to instil a specific fear in an otherwise normal baby. Until then,…
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I Remember Another One
I am back on the theme of idiots in this business. At a conference overseas many years ago LB was talking to a group of female traders who mentioned that they were always losing money trading options. So she enquired a bit deeper. It turns out that the strategy they had been told to use…
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Inside the mind of the bullshitter: Science Weekly podcast
This is somewhat appropriate given my ranting and raving this morning…. In 1986, philosopher Harry G Frankfurt wrote: “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.” This was the opening line of his seminal essay (later a book), On Bullshit, in which Frankfurt put forward his theory on the subject.…
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FFS Can Someone Tell Them How Stupid That Sounds
On a bit of a tear this morning with stupid things I have heard and been sent recently. I had heard someone say that 50%pa is a solid achievable return…..in what f^$ken universe is that realistic. Consider that table below in which I have taken a starting capital of $1,000,000 and compounded it at 50%…
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Do You DRP?
I am prone to saying that markets are very generous if you allow them to be – the unfortunate thing is that most traders/investors regard the markets as hostile. This perception of hostility generates a raft of negative emotional responses to every slight perturbation the market might make. This in turn hampers their capacity to…
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All That Is Wrong With This Industry
A few days ago I had someone reach out to me via LinkedIn wanting to make contact – the mere fact that someone wants to talk to you via LinkedIn should have actually given it away. Anyway a day later I get the email below which I offer with only one comment. This person is…
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The Talk Market: How Stories and Psychology Shape Our Economic Lives
Many people think of the economy as following a set of fairly scientific principles. We buy more if things are cheap. We buy less if they’re expensive. Companies hire more people if it looks like the economy is growing. They cut back if it looks like things are going to tank. Or say you’re in…
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Superannuation Again……
Whilst I was away travelling I checked into my LinkedIn account and was greeted with the usual amount of spam and rubbish job offerings but in typical LinkedIn fashion, I was bombarded by ads extolling the virtues of Australian Super. You can imagine my delight when they dropped in an ad with the tagline Proven…
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