It’s been a couple of weeks since the last installment, and like a lot of people, I made a New Year’s resolution. I decided to read 52 books this year. My first book selected was “A Man for All Markets”, a memoir by Ed Thorp, an American mathematics professor most famous for his counting cards method of Blackjack entitled “Beat the Dealer” (1962). I know, I probably need to get out more.
It also happens that he was one of the first “hedge-fund” managers, and while Myron Scholes and Fischer Black won the Nobel Prize in Economics for their options pricing model, Ed Thorp had come up with the equation on his own several years before and used it to his advantage in his hedge fund, rather than telling anyone.
Let this be a lesson for those of you who want to speculate on the stock market, or any future event. If I knew, I wouldn’t tell…
As for the articles of note, please see below. As always, THANK YOU.
Loose Change
• http://thereformedbroker.com/2018/01/07/the-fatal-mistake-crypto-investors-are-making-now/ – This is exactly how I feel about Cryptocurrencies in general. Love blockchain, but it’s free and there isn’t a way to capitalize (yet…)
• http://awealthofcommonsense.com/2018/01/10-things-investors-can-expect-in-2018/ – this is great because you can just change the year and send it out every Jan 1…history does not repeat, but it rhymes.
• https://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/faj.v70.n1.2 – Clifford Asness is one of my favorite curmudgeons and his list of pet peeves from 2014 is a good reminder at the beginning of the year.
“At one point in the 1989 Japanese real estate bubble, the Imperial Palace in Japan was said to be worth more than the entire state of California. Things that don’t make sense don’t last….be careful out there” – Michael Novogratz
“You get paid for the seven and a half hours a day you put in here, but you get your raises and promotions on what you do in the other sixteen and a half hours.” -Mervin Kelly, director of Bell Labs