Groupon…..What a Bust

Groupon the darling of the social media buyer groups listed this month and it has been a bust. The stock is now trading at a substantial discount to the IPO. Granted the market has been crap but Groupon has been crappier   I have written about this phenomena before and the questionable strategy of Groupon…

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Activity

Traditionally westerners equate activity with productive effort, as such the more noise and the more fuss you make the more productive you are. The same philosophy drifts into trading, as such trading becomes an activity-based endevour, which then migrates into entertainment. Research by W.B. Canoles, S.R. Thompson, S.H. Irwin, and V.G. France in their paper…

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Conspiracy Theories

Unfortunately the default human behaviour of being consumed with irrationality is common. In markets this leads to a range of inane behaviours but one which seems to be running rampant at present is the various conspiracy theories running around the market. Everything from the new Prime Minister of Italy being a Goldman Sachs plant to…

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Sector Destruction

I have to confess that I like everyone on the planet it seems is a customer of an online book retailer. After being gouged for decades by local bookstores who thought that stealing off people was a good business model it is somewhat of a relief to deal with the Amazon/Book Depository/Fishponds of the world.…

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