Jan

8

Colt McCoyIs the current situation in Bama / Texas useful for analysis of markets?

What happens when a critical leader gets taken out of the game? What's the correct analogy? Perhaps Apple's being found guilty of accounting fraud, or Goldman Sachs's having a rogue trader with a multibillion loss?

If there is a negative effect, does this occur more often to leaders who have proven extremely resillient in the past (just like McCoy going into today's game)?

What about the relative strength of the opposition against the lost leader's strengths? (McCoy leads a brilliant offense that was otherwise weak; whereas Bama's defense is strong and aggressive, exacerbating the subsequent mismatch). Certainly, if GS went down, one might not be foolish for thinking, given current market sentiment, that it would have more of a negative impact than, say, Johnson and Johnson's going down ?

Lots of good material there…

Also interesting to see Texas's intial disposition coming out of the gate, vs the sight on the field now.

Many Olympic level coaches are able to pick who will win a sporting event — any sport, not just their own — by reading the expressions of the competitors on the starting blocks. I am sure there are useful parallels. I'm reminded of the Chair's exhortation to know the basic effects from the game face of the market each day: Up Yesterday / Up Open, Down Yesterday / Up Open, Up Yesterday, Down Open, Down Yesterday, Down Open.


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  1. Ezra on January 11, 2010 10:20 am

    "Many Olympic level coaches are able to pick who will win a sporting event — any sport, not just their own — by reading the expressions of the competitors on the starting blocks."

    Leaving aside the fact that many sports do not involve starting blocks, haven't we all heard this or similar "facts" offered up many times, allegedly describing some such ability, with precious little proof? No proof, that is, beyond anecdotes about someone who "swore" that So-and-so could pick winners? I recall a Malcolm Gladwell article in the New Yorker a few years back, about some police officer who could "infallibly" detect lies. His "teachable moment" was when he faced a potentially dangerous subject who seemed about the draw a gun, but "something" inside the officer told him the suspect wasn't actually about to do so, and it turned out he was right. Meanwhile, on the other side of town (hypothetically), another officer also hears "something" telling him a suspect isn't about to draw a gun, and he was wrong, but unfortunately didn't survive to tell us about it. My point is these things usually stem from visibility bias, selective memory bias, etc.

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