May - 2026
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
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 S&P +14.25
 USB +0.08
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 S&P -27.25
 USB -0.30
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 S&P +57.00
 USB +0.18
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 S&P +102.25
 USB +0.29
7
 S&P -26.50
 USB -0.15
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 S&P +56.00
 USB +0.13
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10
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 S&P +17.75
 USB -0.19
12
 S&P -10.25
 USB -0.22
13
 S&P +43.00
 USB -0.07
14
 S&P +56.00
 USB +0.13
15
 S&P -93.25
 USB -1.27
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17
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 S&P -6.50
 USB -0.08
19
 S&P -47.75
 USB -0.18
20
 S&P +73.75
 USB +1.02
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Copyright Dailyspeculations.com

Nov

2

Optimism fulfilled

November 2, 2025 | Leave a Comment

The New York Stock Exchange
Its history, its contribution to national prosperity, and its relation to American finance at the outset of the twentieth century
Edmund Clarence Stedman, Editor
Stock Exchange Historical Company
New York, 1905

From the preface:

The present writer remembers the impression left upon an educated Englishman, a well-known publicist, who made a visit to Wall Street some eighteen years ago. He had been taken through the largest commercial structures in the vicinity, and even to the Stock Exchange itself, without giving expression to unusual interest. But on returning to his friend's offices, upon the upper floor of a building in the rear of the Exchange, he saw a sight that instantly gave him a realization of the extent of our peopled territory, and of the meaning of the Stock Exchange as the focus to which all currents of American purpose and energy converge. It was shortly before the time when the wires of New York's electric system were buried, by enactment, out of sight. Through the air, over New Street, hundreds, seemingly thousands, of these wires stretched toward the Exchange. No bird could fly through their network, a man could almost walk upon them; in fact, they darkened the street and the windows below their level. The visitor's host suggested that those going north, west, south were carrying messages to and from scores of inland cities and towns — financial ganglia of this land of national wealth and effort — names of which were mentioned. Certain wires were transcontinental, communicating with the towns of the Pacific States. Others served the uses of Montreal, Toronto and kindred points in the Great Dominion. Finally, the competing ocean cables were of course laden with incessant "arbitrage" and other messages to and from London, Paris and Berlin. This ocular demonstration of the relations of the New York Exchange to the Republic in its entirety, and even to the world overseas, proved almost startling to the English traveller. He asserted that within this central field of financial energy and intercommunication it was impossible not to have the imagination aroused, and the reason convinced of the enormous interests of which Wall Street, through its representative Exchange, is the ceaseless regulator. With philosophic impartiality, he predicted the time when even the largest money centres of the old world would become more or less subsidiary to this dominant market of the Western hemisphere.

Oct

30

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, five scientists associated with California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory claim that data centers are not a significant cause of retail electricity price increases. Counterintuitively, they suggest that data centers could have a beneficial effect in lowering costs. But more research is needed.

Factors influencing recent trends in retail electricity prices in the United States

Summarizing their "Ten Key Findings":

4.1. National-average retail electricity prices have tracked inflation in recent years.

4.2. State-level retail electricity price trends vary widely.

4.3. Residential customers and investor-owned utilities experienced greater increases.

4.4. Load growth has tended to depress retail electricity prices in recent years.

4.5. Behind-the-meter solar was associated with higher prices.

4.6. Utility-scale wind and solar are not—alone—broadly related to recent price increases.

4.7. State renewables portfolio standards are associated with recent price increases.

4.8. Exposure to natural gas price risk increases electricity prices when gas prices rise.

4.9. Hurricanes, storms, and wildfires have increased retail prices.

4.10. Several other variables appear to have limited statistical explanatory power.

Oct

29

An attempt

October 29, 2025 | Leave a Comment

An attempt by chair to halt margin of victory in 2026 for opposition.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Oct

29

70++ Trades the Miners
Laurel Kenner

When China suggested Oct. 9 it would strangle rare earth metal exports to the U.S., U.S. mining stocks looked like the easiest way to make a killing since the Internet bubble in 1999.

Being arrogant enough to believe myself among the few who saw the opportunity, I bought a mining stock targeted by Goldman Sachs for a 100% gain.

The stock rose. Then swooned. I sold.

It quickly rose past the earlier high. I bought again. It tumbled below where I had sold the first time.

Greed had led me to forget old investment wisdom. Such as a warning against trying to get even, from Max Gunther’s 1985 “The Zurich Axioms.” Entitled “Stubbornness”, the 11th Major Axiom accurately describes my trade.

I also should have remembered advice from Nick Colas, head of DataTrekResearch, who made his bones at Credit Suisse and Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital. It’s my job, he explained years ago, to know things before they land in the media.

Meaning that if someone is giving tips to news outlets, keep in mind that he inevitably will take better care of his interests than yours.

Read the full post:

70++ Trades the Miners

Oct

28

Looking at some of the megacaps and comparing their share price growth and FCF growth between Q2 2015 and Q2 2025. The price/FCF figures are the most recent.

Oct

27

Here’s an interesting breakdown and analysis of the debt of individual states. All the usual subjects are near the top.

Report ranks every state’s debt, from California’s $497 billion to South Dakota’s $2 billion

State governments had $2.7 trillion in debt at the end of 2023, a new Reason Foundation analysis finds. This state debt is equivalent to approximately $8,000 per person nationally.

On a per capita basis, Connecticut had the highest state debt, with $26,187 of debt per state resident at the end of 2023. With $22,968 in debt per resident, New Jersey was the only other state with more than $20,000 in liabilities per capita.

Reason Foundation finds 13 states—Connecticut, New Jersey, Hawaii, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, California, Washington, New York, and Vermont—had more than $10,000 in debt per resident.

Oct

26

AI relevant:

Finding Peter Putnam
The forgotten janitor who discovered the logic of the mind

Every game needs a goal. In a Turing machine, goals are imposed from the outside. For true induction, the process itself should create its own goals. And there was a key constraint: Putnam realized that the dynamics he had in mind would only work mathematically if the system had just one goal governing all its behavior.

That’s when it hit him: The goal is to repeat. Repetition isn’t a goal that has to be programmed in from the outside; it’s baked into the very nature of things—to exist from one moment to the next is to repeat your existence. “This goal function,” Putnam wrote, “appears pre-encoded in the nature of being itself.”

Stefan Jovanovich offers, with a bit of irony:

From Grok:

Peter Putnam (1927–1987) was an American physicist and theoretical neuroscientist whose work anticipated many modern concepts in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind. He studied under prominent figures like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and John Archibald Wheeler, and his ideas influenced early developments in computational theory of mind, though he remained largely unpublished and obscure during his lifetime. Putnam's writings, now digitized and discussed in recent scholarship (particularly following the 2025 rediscovery and publication of his papers), propose a functional model of the nervous system that integrates physics, game theory, and neuropsychology. His theory emphasizes how the brain achieves order and learning through mechanisms like Hebbian plasticity, distributed neural networks, and conflict resolution—ideas that predate similar concepts in predictive processing and reinforcement learning. Putnam's work is not a single, neatly packaged "theory of repetition" but rather a core principle woven throughout his model of cognition and behavior. Repetition serves as a foundational "goal function" for existence, learning, and induction (the process of generalizing from specific experiences).

Oct

25

György Buzsáki is my second favorite Hungarian [after Paul Erdős]. Brain Prize winner, he is from a later cohort. One of the few neuroscientists with a good theory for the Brain, a field that was ~mostly into measuring neural responses in parts of the brain to external stimuli and then telling a story around it. A great talk by him for the interested:

Ways to think about the brain: Emergence of cognition from action | ISTA Lecture with Gyorgy Buzsaki

Oct

24

a new all time high at 6825 but the gentlemen don't believe it as it drops 20 points in the last 30 min.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Oct

24

Grok and I have produced this summary of the growth of the electric utilities industry in the United States from 1910 to 1930. [Click on chart for full view.]

Bud Conrad comments:

Not sure what you take from this data. Electrification was probably more important than AI. Its growth rate was big at first in %, but slowed. Recessions were big downturns. What do you apply to today?

Steve Ellison writes:

My grandmother was a telephone operator in the 1920s. It was a high-tech industry at the time.

Carder Dimitroff clarifies:

The definition of an "electric utility" changed over time.

Big Al suggests:

An excellent series available on Prime:

Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity

Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature's most mysterious force: electricity.

Books I haven't read yet, which get lots of stars:

The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America

The power revolution is not a tale of machines, however, but of men: inventors such as James Watt, Elihu Thomson, and Nikola Tesla; entrepreneurs such as George Westinghouse; savvy businessmen such as J.P. Morgan, Samuel Insull, and Charles Coffin of General Electric. Striding among them like a colossus is the figure of Thomas Edison, who was creative genius and business visionary at once.

Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World

In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America’s Gilded Age—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse—battled bitterly as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires.

Oct

23

As a European, I am asking: Are US regional banks in trouble (maybe even some larger banks - incl Investment banks). Dodgy consumer loans, then those silly "AI-related" loans? Am agnostic here - I suspect the typical analyst from JPM down the road won't enlighten us here.

Paul O'Leary comments:

No. Looks like over-reaction to a couple credit blips. Then algos pile on and observers who don’t follow the sector conjure up doom scenarios. Zion Bancorp - the main sinner, lost $1B in market cap for a $50mm write down.

Nils Poertner responds:

Hear you, Paul. If enough people would start to worry now, I would worry less (let us see).

Cagdas Tuna adds:

We are at a level any reaction will be exaggerated. If market adds $200bln to NVDA market cap with additional $1blnn revenue then $50m loss will have the same effect on a smaller company's share.

Oct

22

Are the furloughed government employees going to be counted as unemployed? I believe they will be which will be considered as a huge green light for 50bps rate cut in the December FOMC. This shutdown is the perfect storm for Trump’s “Fire Powell and get rates to 0%” scenario.

Bill Rafter responds:

The requirements for being “Unemployed” are that (a) the person is not working , and (b) that person is “looking for work”. I believe the latter qualification would disqualify those furloughed from being considered as unemployed. Not only the shutdown [will delay BLS releases], but the recently nominated BLS head, E.J. Antoni has withdrawn his name from nomination. So BLS is headless.

Alex Castaldo comments:

That is good news for all statisticians, I am sure he is a wonderful guy but he had a reputation for mistakes in calculations.

Oct

22

The Tipster

October 22, 2025 | Leave a Comment

The Tipster:

As he walked, a great sense of loneliness came over him.

He was back in Wall Street. At the head of the Street was old Trinity; to the right the subTreasury; to the left the Stock Exchange.

From Maiden Lane to the Lane of the Ticker — such had been his life.

"If I could only buy some Cosmopolitan Traction!" he said. Then he walked forlornly northward, to the great Bridge, on his way to Brooklyn to eat with Griggs, the ruined grocery-man.

from Wall Street Stories by Lefevre circa 1895 and similar to many who i've known and similar to many get-rich ads of today.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Oct

21

Oil and PPI

October 21, 2025 | Leave a Comment

correlation between the price move of oil in the last month and the ppi rep. it's hard to believe that any except chauncey chair would be worrying about inflation with oil at $56 per barrel.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Oct

21

AV1 is a new video compression format that may reduce the size of a video file by up to 50%. The big advantage is that videos will be up to half the size, with the exact same image and audio quality.

Two big consequences may ensue (when AV1 is fully adopted):

- Internet bills for streaming Netflix will reduce.
A 2 GB movie will only cost 1 GB from the perspective of a customer paying their Internet Service Provider. So more frequent subscriptions?

- Netflix will cut its bandwidth costs by 50%. So the profit margin (respective to bandwidth costs) will go up by 50% if users fully adopt AV1?

Currently, AV1 is only available on select hardware chips (listed table on Wikipedia) Maybe as users get new devices, use of AV1 will grow. This will likely happen gradually over several years (maybe half a decade). But an obvious winner would be Netflix & YouTube (Google Stock). Maybe bandwidth is so cheap it won't make a dent in the business revenues? But all major companies seem very enthusiastic about implementing AV1. Maybe bandwidth has it's (less talked about) variant of Moore's law. Where after a few years it gets easier to move stuff around the internet.

Cagdas Tuna wonders:

How many nuclear plants we need to feed that endless “technology”?

Nils Poertner asks:

How would you express this into a trade idea, Asindu? I find it easy to put ideas into a trade - it encourages deeper thinking and gives a feedback when wrong. eg, I was bullish housing London property 2007, but short-term it didn't really work out at all! longerterm yes. it was fuzzy thinking of my behalf.

Asindu Drileba answers:

Going long $NFLX since the business is largely about streaming video. The same pattern occurred in Tesla when the cost of efficient batteries dropped by like 90%. So margins automatically go up. (in theory) Tesla could have still gone under due to debt or something else. So, of course it may may fail (most likely)

Another big draw back is that such "qualitative" insights cannot be tested in the past. Maybe a good analogy would be to go long Starbucks $SBUX if you think the price of coffee wil drop the next 5 years by 50%.

So the ideas may be generalized to:

- Find key Ingredient company X uses in thier products

- Find out if the drop in key ingredient's price over 5 years improves profit margin over X years -> positively impacts stock prices.

This general idea, may then be tested across several industries for example:

- MacDonalds (drop in price of beef)

- TSMC, ASML, INTEL, NVDA (drop price of silver) as silver is very essential in chip manufacturing.

Hopefully testing this across multiple industries on different historical accounts may yield some consistent patterns.

Nils Poertner responds:

Good to write it down in a trading journal and look in a few months what happened. Started writing hand-written letters to friends now. In our digital age, everyone incl me, is going for speed, but deeper thinking - also quality in thinking /research is underrated. Intuitively speaking - we are prob getting some unexpected moves coming, as well.

Oct

20

I first heard this piece as a teenager, sitting in the theater
watching Barry Lyndon, and I was transfixed:

The Messiaen Trio performs Schubert's Trio No. 2 in E-flat Major, D. 929

I did not know this Mendelssohn work until today and I wondered if
somebody said to her, "Oh yeah? Well, try it in heels!"

Yuja Wang Mendelssohn Songs Without Words Op 67 No 2

Peter Ringel writes:

my emergency high vola setup always includes Chopin. everything to stay off tilt.

Big Al responds:

Gotta love Chopin for the workday playlist.

Chopin: 24 Preludes, Op. 28, Vladimir Ashkenazy

Another discovery for me (fades out but still enjoyable):

Interpreti Veneziani, Antonio Vivaldi RV711 Gelido in Ogni Vena, Davide Amadio

Oct

19

In Casino Royal (2006) there is a speculator called Le Chiffre. He would manage money for war lords & other "underground" clients. He would take positions in markets, and then "manipulate them". For example in this clip, he takes a short position in an airlines company, then later bombs a plane belonging to it.

This year, I am starting to think that Le Chiffre is real. Someone opened a crypto account on Hyperliquid (decentralized exchange) and made an $88m profit from short positions that very day.

Cagdas Tuna responds:

Good catch! I have been reading these whales news since March-April 2025 mostly tied to Trump’s policy shifts. It is not difficult to guess who those Le Chiffres might be related to!

Peter Ringel writes:

I wanted to place 1 Nov in my calendar - as a new Mkt Risk date based on Trumps post. Only to realize, I placed this date regarding tariffs before. This makes this old news to some degree. And all of this is potentially an overreaction / a play.

Ed. - lagniappe: Forget Sean Connery, Watch James Bond Make His Real Debut on TV

Before Connery registered his license to kill in the 1962 hit Dr. No, millions of viewers were introduced to Barry Nelson’s “Bond, Jimmy Bond” in a 1954 episode of the CBS anthology series Climax! The show’s producers secured the rights to adapt Ian Fleming’s just-published debut Bond novel, Casino Royale, during their first season.

Since the Climax! version of Casino Royale is only 50 minutes, the plot has obviously been shortened considerably. And yet, if you’ve read the book or, more likely, seen the 2006 movie version that launched Craig’s Bond career, you’ll recognize the basic narrative, even though none of the familiar 007 flourishes are in place. In fact, Nelson doesn’t enjoy “00” status at all — he’s merely identified as a “Combined Intelligence” agent who is tasked with competing head-to-head against the mysterious Le Chiffre (Peter Lorre) in a rousing game of baccarat.

Jeff Watson does some research:

James Bond, the complete list…there are more than you think:

Please list every James Bond on film, TV, and radio. Grok: Alright, here goes-starting with the big-screen Bonds: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig. Then David Niven in the 1967 spoof Casino Royale. On TV, there's Barry Nelson from a 1954 Climax! episode of Casino Royale. Radio Bonds? Bob Holness in a 1956 BBC Casino Royale adaptation, Tom Hiddleston in a 2014 Heart of the Matter series, and Toby Stephens in various BBC radio dramas.

Oct

18

many accomlished and very successful specs and investors have told me that the most helpful book for the young spec to read is The Godfather (and the movies, part 1 and part 2). what advice would you say is the most helpful in these works?

one lesson that is very improtant is never interfere with a relative's marriage and never say anything bad about a relative's spouse.

family and loyalty are keys to success.

never let the others know what you are thinking. and above all never disagree with the boss in front of rivals.

Big Al adds:

The Offer is a really enjoyable derivative work.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Oct

17

You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'
- George Bernard Shaw

English Cyperpunk /hacker I met in 2005 had this quote on his screen - and I recall him talking about some digital ccy back then (little did I know back then, was so busy structuring CDOs and keeping up with the Jones.

If we want to nail mkts in coming years and have some fun, it def pays to surround ourselves with ppl outside trad finance (group think!) - from the art, music, acting world, hacker etc…whatever.

There is a certain type of fatalism in the West as well (David Hand, the British statistician, speaks about it as well in his "miracle" book. It has something to do how we perceive the world.)

Oct

16

Saudi Arabia has announced the Rise Tower that is likely to have a height twice that of Burj Khalifa! 2000 meters up from the ground! It is likely to cost 5 Billion Dollars. One is left wondering in a world where everyone manages to almost manages to get decent enough sleep every night with Trillion Dollar deficits, what is Hubris doing having been left so far behind!

Nils Poertner writes:

Wondering what to make of this though, Sunil. Saudi Arabia's main stock Index (TASII peaked in 2006. and never fully recovered properly. Any idea how to express it into some trading idea so we can test our hypothesis?

William Huggins comments:

The 2006 Saudis run is very similar to the soul al manakh run up 20 years before. In particular for Saudis though, it's a market that forbid ahoet selling so when the bulls got started there was no guardrail until they simply could find no bigger fool.

Nils Poertner responds:

Thanks William. Maybe one needs to look at oil (bearish oil story?) - oil doesn't move forever and then it moves a lot. (not an oil trader though - just something that came to mind)

Alex Castaldo offers:

For those too young to remember the events of 1981:

The Souk al-Manakh Crash

From 1978 to 1981, Kuwait’s two stock markets, one the conservatively regulated “official” market and the other the unregulated Souk al-Manakh, exploded in size, growing to the point where the amount of capital actively traded exceeded that of every other country in the world except the United States and Japan. A year later, the system collapsed in an instant, causing huge real losses to the economy and financial disruption lasting nearly a decade. This Commentary examines the emergence of the Souk, the simple financial innovation that evolved to solve its rapidly increasing need for liquidity and credit, and the herculean efforts to solve the tangled problems resulting from the collapse. Two lessons of Kuwait’s crisis are that it is difficult to separate the banking and unregulated financial sectors and that regulators need detailed data on the transactions being conducted at all financial institutions to give them the understanding of the entire network they must have to maintain financial stability. If Kuwaiti officials had had transaction-by-transaction data on the trades being made in both the regulated and unregulated stock markets, then the Kuwaiti crisis and its aftermath might not have been so severe.

Oct

13

Stock market advice from 1944 - how would one test it?

This Is the Road to Stock Market Success

Page 30:

If one cannot profit by trading in the highest grade issues — one certainly cannot profit by trading in "cats and dogs". If our industrial giants cannot advance — what prospects arc there in the stability of others? Although this sounds logical there are exceptions, and the "time element" has much to do with the selection.

At the top of a Bull market, when uncertain as to whether the upward movement is exhausting itself or not, it is comparatively safer to have your money in investment, rather than speculative, issues. Of course, it is most advisable to be out of the market entirely at such periods. Investment stocks are not the leader in a Bear movement and, therefore, it is safer to have your money invested in this category — and to watch the market closely. If the speculative and "cheap" stocks begin to decline — you can still dispose of your investment issues without much loss — as they follow rather than lead the Bear movement. Likewise, when you note that investment stocks stand still — and "cats and dogs" or even the better grade issues advance — it should put you on your guard as the market may be "topping" and in line for a good reaction. The 1937 Bear market was foretold by investment stocks in November, 1936. They refused to go higher.

Larry Williams comments:

I learn so much from his writings, such as comparative strength and targets.

[Ed. - Note on the photo:

In 1943, when World War II came, Helen Hanzelin, a Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, & Beane telephone clerk, became the first woman to work on the NYSE Trading Floor.

Another three dozen women answered the country’s call to duty and filled vacant posts vacated by soldiers sent overseas on the trading floor but were booted out when the war ended, and men returned home.

Women of the New York Stock Exchange ]

Oct

12

We use quantitative tools - "counting" - to measure and analyze markets, and I enjoy coming across scientific measurements that are new to me and also amazing in scope, such as the sverdrup. The sverdrup is a unit describing the volume of water transport in ocean currents. One sverdrup is a volume flux of one million cubic meters per second (1 Sv = 10^6 m^3 per second). Named after Harald Sverdrup.

From the web:

The strongest ocean current measured in sverdrups is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the largest and most powerful current system on Earth. The ACC is a wind-driven current that flows clockwise around Antarctica, uninterrupted by landmasses.

Measurements of the ACC's volume transport vary, but all figures show it is in a class of its own:
Estimates of the ACC's mean transport range from 100 to over 170 sverdrups (Sv). One study found an average transport of 173.3 Sv through the Drake Passage, the current's narrowest choke point. To put this in perspective, this is over 100 times the combined flow of all the world's rivers.

The graphic shows how relatively narrow the Drake Passage is.

We certainly measure volume in markets. Are there specific flows and currents? Choke points?

Asindu Drileba writes:

In a book recommended by The Chair, This is the Road to Stock Market Success, the author mentions that (paraphrased), "When the trading volume of a stock changes by a large amount, yet the price doesn't move by much, it is time to get out of the market."

Oct

9

What is it with Hungarian Jewish who came to the US - so many of them achieved great things. My book shelf is full of them, Darvas (Trading), S Meisner (Acting)…..even my trading platform Interactive Brokers was founded by one (Thomas Peterffy).

Maybe a combo of rare language ??/ culture + hardship first + grid + ability to flourish in the US gave them superpower. Soros, I guess was (Jewish) Hungarian as well.

Venkatesh Medabalimi asks:

Where is my no.1 Hungarian? May I remind everyone about Paul Erdős.

Laurel Kenner offers:

An amusing book on the subject: Made in Hungary : Or Made by Hungarians, by György Bolgár.

Nils Poertner responds:

Thanks both. Found this on Erdős:

Paul Erdős: The Oddball’s Oddball

He would appear on the doorstep of fellow mathematicians without warning–a frail, disheveled, elderly man, hopped up on amphetamines and wearing a ratty raincoat–and announce, in a thick Hungarian accent, “My mind is open.” For a day, or a week or a month, the man or woman who answered the knock would have to take nonstop care of this helpless guest who couldn’t figure out how to cut a grapefruit or wash his underwear–and in return would be permitted the exhausting, exhilarating experience of following the thought processes of Paul Erdős, the most prolific and arguably the cleverest mathematician of the century.

Oct

8

a key figure of the 1900s, according to Sobel:

Charles Ranlett Flint

Charles Ranlett Flint (January 24, 1850 – February 26, 1934) was the founder of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company which later became IBM. For his financial dealings, he earned the moniker "Father of Trusts". He was an avid sportsman and member of the syndicate that built the yacht Vigilant, that was the U.S. defender of the eighth America's Cup and was the owner of the yacht Gracie.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Oct

7

Miscellany

October 7, 2025 | Leave a Comment

Asindu Drileba has been watching the Daily Spec calendar:

After being hammered in Aug, Orange did well in Sept. It transitioned to a positive day in the S&P 5/6 times.

Nils Poertner is getting wisdom from the classics:

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
- Michel de Montaigne

some type of cheerfulness def relevant for us in markets /trading - in particular when social moods go south / ppl fall for chatboxes (overuse it !) and confuse with reality etc.

Big Al is going for history:

This is the audio version:

The History of the United States Navy

but I am also watching the video version for free on Amazon Prime. The author:

Craig L. Symonds

Craig Lee Symonds (born 31 December 1946, in Long Beach, California) was the Distinguished Visiting Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History for the academic years 2017–2020 at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He is also Professor Emeritus at the U. S. Naval Academy, where he served as chairman of the history department. He is a distinguished historian of the American Civil War, World War II, and maritime history. His book Lincoln and His Admirals won the Lincoln Prize. His book Neptune: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings was the 2015 recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature, and his book Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay won the Gilder-Lehrman Military History prize.

Oct

5

The Pursuit of Wealth by Robert Sobel is a quirky but informative history of wealth creation, introducing such things as the use of ice, and beer, and cattle as drivers of wealth. there is a very good discussion of the start of Merrill Lynch, also the history of IBM.

An epic saga that recounts the turbulent history of money. The Pursuit of Wealth is a fascinating 5,000 year journey through the evolution of money and investing. From risk versus return in Mesopotamia through today's rough-and-tumble, high-stakes stock markets, this behind-the-scenes tale will intrigue both financial historians and history-minded investors alike.

The Ancient World — The Imperial Age of Alexander and Rome — The European Middle Ages: The Birth of a New Economic Age — The Italian Bankers and their Clients — The Atlantic Age — Europe's American Empires — The English Advantage — The American Paths to Wealth — Industrial Wealth — The Mechanization of Agriculture — Infrastructure and Wealth — Emperor Wheat and King Cotton — Gold, Silver, and the Civil War — The Impact of the Transcontinentals — The Arrival of Big Business — The Government-Industrial Complex, 1914-1929 — The Great Bull Market of the 1920s — The Old and the New in Post-World War II America — The Revival of the Securities Markets — Creating Wealth During the Great Inflation — The Democratization of Wealth.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Oct

3

Zero sum game: for every $ that wins the same amount will be lost. REALLY? you bought at 7 sold to me at 10 I sell at 20 and the contract goes off the board and delivered at 22 who lost? We lost that we could have made more $$ but where is a net loss?

Steve Ellison comments:

Adverse selection can make us all feel like losers. If I sold at 10, I should have held to 22. Or I should have put on more size. If I bought at 7, and it went to 5, that would have been even worse.

Jeff Watson goes literary:

But Yossarian still didn't understand either how Milo could buy eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and sell them at a profit in Pianosa for five cents.

[ … ]

Milo chortled proudly. "I don't buy eggs from Malta," he confessed… "I buy them in Sicily at one cent apiece and transfer them to Malta secretly at four and a half cents apiece in order to get the price of eggs up to seven cents when people come to Malta looking for them."

"Then you do make a profit for yourself," Yossarian declared.

"Of course I do. But it all goes to the syndicate. And everybody has a share. Don't you understand? It's exactly what happens with those plum tomatoes I sell to Colonel Cathcart."

"Buy," Yossarian corrected him. "You don't sell plum tomatoes to Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. You buy plum tomatoes from them."

"No, sell," Milo corrected Yossarian. "I distribute my plum tomatoes in markets all over Pianosa under an assumed name so that Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn can buy them up from me under their assumed names at four cents apiece and sell them back to me the next day at five cents apiece. They make a profit of one cent apiece, I make a profit of three and a half cents apiece, and everybody comes out ahead."

Oct

2

Academic panic

October 2, 2025 | Leave a Comment

a tragedy from not followinig drift

UChicago Lost Money on Crypto, Then Froze Research When Federal Funding Was Cut

While Stanford responded to the federal funding research freeze by halting administrative hiring and protecting research, the University of Chicago panicked.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Oct

1

Lebanese traders from the 1980s tell me how chaotic that decade was - high vol ever day - for yrs. Survival was key! Started reading every bit about it in the last few weeks. (The thing that Stefan is right about is that the self-image we have in West and realtiy - there is a huge gap for sure!! Am not speaking about military though - I meant anything else)

The Lebanese Economic Crisis: How It Happened; the Challenges that Lie Ahead
September 27, 2021

Lebanon is experiencing one of the worst economic collapses in recent history. The currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value; an estimated three in four Lebanese citizens are now below the poverty line, and the country is beset by food, gas, and medical shortages. The power grid can barely maintain electricity for cities, with frequent blackouts occurring. Finally, the country had to default on its debt payment, launching its debt crisis. The debt crisis didn’t come suddenly, but was building up over time due to economic decisions made by previous governments. To understand how this crisis came to be, an examination of Lebanon’s modern history is in order, starting with the civil war in 1975.

Larry Williams writes:

Chaotic? In 1973 Shearson AmEx had me go there to lecture an teach trading - some high flyer commodity mooches had come in and lost lots of $$ for some locals who did not understand margin calls. The high flyers from Chicago were found gutted on a barb wire fence out in the country! The war broke out we could not get out for about a week so hung low then finally bribed our way home.

Nils Poertner responds:

my 2 cents are on Larry and all savvy Lebanese traders going forward. Good idea to live in more rural areas in the US, UK etc to see things unfolding as well. And keeping the internal chatter to a minimum (as always).

Stefan Jovanovich analogizes:

If LW disagrees, he will, I hope, correct this latest folly from the List's history channel wannabe. The reason the Oregon Trail came first was that it was the one safe destination for the missionaries. The Indians of the rain forest coastal Northwest were the tribes with no history of revolt against the Brits, Russians and Americans. The wars on the Plains started when some smart money decided that they could colonize the spaces between Council Bluffs and the Dalles. That analogy comes to mind every time I look at the modern history of the adventures of the Americans in Lebanon.

Larry Williams offers:

My brother on law who is better read than I am an a deeper thinker says this is a good read on the western adventure:

The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West

Sep

29

since 01-01-2001 there have been 6341 days where the sp was open — on 1303 of those days, sp closed at 20-day high.

535 of those days witnessed a decline in sp from a 20-day high 5 days ago, a highly bullish event.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Sep

28

Scale effects and full-scale ship hydrodynamics: A review

Scaling problems in ship design refer to the difficulties of translating performance data from a small-scale model to a full-scale ship, as physical forces like viscosity and wave drag do not scale proportionally with size.

Crypto space here? Trading strategies that work in niche mkts or early on, may not work when they are larger /more mature etc.

Henry Gifford writes:

The problems with water include the size of water droplets – they won’t form larger than a certain size – and Reynolds Number, which has to do with viscosity (mentioned below), and how to calculate it. Basically, a certain flow velocity in a small pipe (or river) will be turbulent, while in a larger pipe it might not.

Movies that use models of ships to show dramatic events with ships always show water droplets that are way, way too large, making it obvious to those who notice that they are looking at a model.

Nils Poertner responds:

Makes a lot of sense, Henry, thanks! (Equity sell-side analysts love to scale things (to the point it makes no sense anymore). Wile E. Coyote moment for NVDA et al coming soon perhaps.

Stefan Jovanovich predicts:

Grok - our FO's new member (he/she/it works for free like Harry Potter's Dobby) - thinks the moment will be 2031-32. [Click on chart at right.] We take the current AI events as a direct comparison to the creation of U.S. Steel.

Sep

27

what is the evidence that an increase in output, e.g., gdp, is bear for sp? (aside from ignoramos at fed)

[as of Friday, 26 Sept] it's been 5 days since last all-time high on sep 21 at 2712.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Sep

26

The Curta is a very clever counting device as demonstrated in this video.

It was invented by Curt Herzstark.

In 1943, perhaps influenced by the fact that his father was a liberal Jew, the Nazis arrested him for "helping Jews and subversive elements" and "indecent contacts with Aryan women" and sent him to the Buchenwald concentration camp. However, the reports of the army about the precision-production of the firm and especially about the technical expertise of Herzstark led the Nazis to treat him as an "intelligence-slave".

Inevitably, one comes back around to the abacus:

Learning how to calculate with the abacus may improve capacity for mental calculation. Abacus-based mental calculation (AMC), which was derived from the abacus, is the act of performing calculations, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, in the mind by manipulating an imagined abacus. It is a high-level cognitive skill that runs calculations with an effective algorithm. People doing long-term AMC training show higher numerical memory capacity and experience more effectively connected neural pathways. They are able to retrieve memory to deal with complex processes. AMC involves both visuospatial and visuomotor processing that generate the visual abacus and move the imaginary beads. Since it only requires that the final position of beads be remembered, it takes less memory and less computation time.

Sep

25

A Year in the Maine Woods insights: "whenever i have an idea, i must act on it as soon as possible. conditions are never ideal, and if one waits long enough for ideal conditions, then the hypothesis slips away."

"Of all the animals that migrate, we are surely among the most restless. But humans retain the influence of the geophysical habitat in which they pass their formative years. And often, it seems we are drawn back to our childhood homes, if not physically then mentally; it not out of love, then out of curiosity; if not by necessity, then by desire."

you often get more insights from nature about markets than from markets themselves.

[Below from the Author's Note - Ed.]

By the time I was ten years old, I had lived for six years as a refugee in a northern German forest. My family survived on very little. But I had a lot — I had a pet crow, and I could collect beetles. Sometimes lately I have begun to wonder if it is still possible to taste the world up close as I did as a child. I long to see nature again as I did then — fresh, clear, timeless, and shrouded in magic. Would it be possible to rediscover the vividness that I now experience only as brief, tantalizing flashbacks?

Vic's X/twitter feed

Sep

23

health care costs, our Achilles heel.

Health Insurance Costs for Businesses to Rise by Most in 15 Years
Insurers say that the rising premiums are driven by growing healthcare costs

(on a personal note: no-one is really fully healthy, not even kids normally! science uses a lot of Aristotelian logic (which is an either/or logic) but there are limits to it - and we take it way beyond its usefulness. Nature does not have those clear mental compartments - it is way more fluid /dynamic).

Steve Ellison writes:

Until the public announcement that Warren Buffett had bought shares in UnitedHealth, health care was by far the worst performing of the 11 S&P 500 sectors in 2025.

Nils Poertner responds:

Yes, the whole sector / subindex looks bullish (XLV). (the type of logic in the West (logic from Aristoteles) that dominates MODERN SCIENCE cripples our society. Why? Because in many cases, whatever the doctor says, "it is not" - it is only an image of something abstract (like the apple painting by Rene Magritte).

Pamela Van Giessen comments:

We overconsume healthcare because we pay so much for insurance and/or our employers give it to us in lieu of salary so we want to get all we can for “free.” We’ve been conditioned to believe that if we visit doctors (though now we see PAs) and get “check ups” and “tests” regularly and take pills to manage our bodies and minds in perpetuity that we won’t get seriously ill. Has got to be the biggest subscription scam ever perpetuated on a society.

Perhaps some spec would like to pull out the data and do some forensic financial analysis of all those hospital system balance sheets. I think that fully 1/3rd or more of hospital systems are owned by private equity firms and the bulk of non-profit hospital systems are extracting meaningful sums from the business regardless of how “healthy” their margins look on their financial statements. From an equity perspective the biz may have looked lousy but I can promise that it is extraordinarily profitable for the inside players.

Jeffrey Hirsch adds:

Not only is it a total scam, but it gets in the way of real needed pharmaceutical/medical care and completely ignores metabolic healthcare via lifestyle and diet changes.

Too bad RFK is all wrapped up in his vaccine crusade to focus on the real USA health crisis with obesity and metabolic health, which causes diabetes, heart disease, cancer and cognitive decline. I think the covid vax is total BS as are others. But MMR and most childhood vaccines save lives. We had a measles outbreak in Rockland County a few years back because some communities did not vaccinate.

We should also flip the old USDA Food upside down. The chart is from my Doc’s paper. And my doc's site is Dr. Tro Kalayjian).

Sep

22

Holtec is thinking about restarting the Indian Point Nuclear Power Station. It is located on the Hudson River, about 30 miles north of Manhattan.

Holtec eyes restarting another nuclear plant – this time in New York

Although the company has not made any major moves yet, Holtec International is eyeing the restart of the Indian Point Energy Center in New Jersey, a 2,000 MW nuclear plant that ceased operations in 2021 and is currently being decommissioned.

Several groups will likely oppose Indian Point. Several others will be in favor.

Sep

19

This is a bit disturbing: According to classic Dow Theory, the Transports have not confirmed any new highs in the Industrials since November 25, 2024. If fewer goods are moving, is the economy really growing?

Sep

17

Questions on FOMC day

September 17, 2025 | Leave a Comment

what can chair Powell do today that will help his job prospects and also aid the long term interests of the agrarian reformers?

what are price ranges that are bulish and bearish for individual companies?

"if you keep me or stop the relentless pressure on me to be fired, i have two more reductions in my term for you."

JT responds:

Sounds similar to a Wimpy negotiation: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

Vic's X/twitter feed

Sep

17

Equilibrium

September 17, 2025 | Leave a Comment

the antelope and its predators after an arms race lasting thousands of years reach an equilibrium with antelope going about 60 miles an hour. how is this related to the sp versus the bonds or the top performing stocks in a year versus the average?

Vic's X/twitter feed

Sep

16

Happy Yeltsin Supermarket Day

Thirty-five years ago today, Boris Yeltsin, then a newly elected member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, visited NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where he toured the US government facility and the various technologies therein. But it was a brief, impromptu visit to a nearby grocery store that may well have changed world history.

Yeltsin, who’d two years later become the first freely elected leader of Russia, roamed the aisles of the relatively small Randall’s market that day and was astonished at the variety and affordability of the products on display. According to various reports, this visit — not the one to NASA — catalyzed Yeltsin’s exit from the Communist Party and his abandonment of the Soviet economic model.

Stefan Jovanovich comments:

The supermarket is innocent.

When Yeltsin visited the Johnson Space Center in September, it was two months after he had announced Soviet withdrawals of its Red Army garrisons from East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Boris Yeltsin was first elected to office in the Soviet Union on March 26, 1989, as a deputy to the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union, representing Moscow’s 1st District. He won 89.6% of the vote (5,118,745 votes) in a multi-candidate election, defeating Yevgeny Brakov, a pro-CPSU candidate. The CPD was the equivalent of what the members of the more numerous branches of the State legislatures were in the 19th century; they elected members of the Supreme Soviet just as American State legislatures elected members of the U.S. Senate. He became the first President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) on May 29, 1990. The CPSU’s assets were seized, and its activities were suspended. A successor party, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), was formed on February 14, 1993, led by Gennady Zyuganov. The CPRF is an active political party in Russia, participating in elections and holding seats in the State Duma. As of the September 8, 2024, regional elections, the CPRF holds 57 seats in the State Duma (out of 450).

Sep

15

An interesting quick video about our number sense, and I can't help but wonder how it affects markets and trading.

And here is more on where number words and numerals come from.

Sep

13

yet another all-time hi in s&p. since 2011 there have been 857 20-day highs and 2925 not highs. this one preceded as is typical by a big move up in fixed income prices — Dimson and Lorie remain supreme.

advice to a young son from an 80+ old father who have been thru Heaven and Hades.

1. be humble.
2. follow drift upward in stocks.
3. learn and practice 5 martial arts.
4. Keep moving, e.g., running.
5. Marry a girl who you are harmonious with.
6. don't get in over your head.
7. your family is your major and perhaps only loyal support you can count on.
8. wear a hat.
9. always be learning. listen and learn.
10. stay away from hoodoos.
11. eat fish in high proportion to meat.
12. get a CEA test before colonoscopy.
13. read good books often. my faves are: Don Quixote, The Time It Never Rained, nature books from Bernd Heinrich, like Why We Run.
14. count whenever you can. read the autobio of Francis Galton or Pearson's bio of him.
15. Be courageous.
16. Find a good mentor. Ming is a good one.

9a: follow the head in your brain not the one in your balls.
9b: always learn.
9b: stay away from hoodoos: try to inculcate friends and mentors who are productive and positive.
9c: eat a higher proportion of fish to meat: Ming and your mothers are good mentors.

17. Try not to initiate or be sued. Lawyers the most untrustworthy professional. accountants are most trustworthy. Thus one of your mentors should be an accountant.
18. Spend as much time loving and building a young one up (say under 6).
19. Be receptive to and build life-time relations with an Asian Girl.

20. listen to and try to play great music.
21. enjoy and seek out great art. my favs and Hudson River art and N.C Wyeth.

17c: find a good doctor and accountant.
17d: try to settle all your disputes: lawyers and courts are too expansive and uncertain.
17e: keep moving especially running.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Sep

11

Gappy (Giuseppe Paleologo) posted this on X, and it prompted me to wonder if a power law would apply to the skill differences and win rates of tennis players viz their rankings. Need to find some easily accessible data for that. And of course, how PLs apply to the distribution of returns with the S&P 500 in a given time period. But could it be predictive?

Power Laws in Economics and Finance
Xavier Gabaix, Stern School, NYU

A power law (PL) is the form taken by a large number of surprising empirical regularities in economics and finance. This review surveys well-documented empirical PLs regarding income and wealth, the size of cities and firms, stock market returns, trading volume, international trade, and executive pay. It reviews detail-independent theoretical motivations that make sharp predictions concerning the existence and coefficients of PLs, without requiring delicate tuning of model parameters. These theoretical mechanisms include random growth, optimization, and the economics of superstars, coupled with extreme value theory. Some empirical regularities currently lack an appropriate explanation. This article highlights these open areas for future research.

Asindu Drileba writes:

One of the funniest commodities traded in Uganda (my country) is Vanilla. The price fell from, $156 per kilo, to $1.14 per kilo. A -99% drop during the 2020 covid lock down.

Vanilla cultivation is special in that it can't be farmed mechanically.

- It only flowers once a year
- The flower is only open for 24 hours in one year
- It can only be hand pollinated
- If you miss those 24 hours in one year, your done, wait for the next season.

So a lot of the cultivation is by small "artisanal" farmers.

Madagascar produces close to 80% of the world's vanilla. All other countries produce the rest. So its a power law distribution. The smallest hiccup in Madagascar can cause the vanilla price to skyrocket or drop.

I think power laws outside prices (like supply chains of vanilla) can be used to predict what asset, commodity or instrument will be volatile (large moves both up & down). I think these underlying setups in assets are what echo as power law distributions into prices.

Sep

10

Finally another ATH

September 10, 2025 | Leave a Comment

finally another all time high at 6530. this one grew lateral branches in the 6400 handle.

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

9

Advice

September 9, 2025 | Leave a Comment

Advice of Polonious to Laertes:

And, as well as that, remember these few principles – take note. Don’t let your thoughts be known, or any inappropriate act be done. Be friendly with people but respectable, not common and vulgar. Tie your closest and truest friends to your soul with steel chains, but don’t just let any stranger be one of your close friends. Be wary about entering into a fight, but if you do end up in one, "bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee".

Compared to Don Quixote's advice to Sancho Panza:

Advice focusing on both character and behavior, urging him to take pride in his humble lineage, pursue virtue, and show compassion as a ruler. He also provides practical, albeit peculiar, etiquette tips, like walking slowly, eating moderately, speaking deliberately, and refraining from eating garlic or onions and excessive drinking or belching. The goal is for Sancho to act as a wise and virtuous governor, not ashamed of his origins, but instead using his intelligence and mercy to rule his island justly.

Advice on Character and Rule

Embrace your Humble Origins: Do not be ashamed of your peasant lineage; instead, take pride in your humility and the virtue you acquire.

Cultivate Virtue: Strive for virtuous actions, as they are more valuable than inherited bloodlines or material wealth.

Show Compassion and Leniency: Treat criminals with mercy and compassion, remembering that God values mercy.

Be Wise and Grateful: Fear God, for wisdom comes from Him, and be grateful for the good fortune of your governorship.

Be a Good Family Man: Welcome and honor any relatives who visit your island.

Advice on Conduct and Etiquette

Walk and Speak Deliberately: Stroll at a measured pace and speak thoughtfully, avoiding all affectation.

Eat and Drink Sparingly: Consume small amounts for lunch and even less for supper, and drink temperately, as too much wine can betray secrets and promises.

Practice Good Manners: Refrain from eating with food in both cheeks and from belching in company.

Be Clean: Ensure you are clean and have your fingernails clipped.

Avoid Garlic and Onions: Do not eat garlic or onions so that your low birth cannot be detected by your smell.

Don't Over-Proverbialize: Do not use too many proverbs, as they can be tiresome to others.

In essence, Don Quixote wants Sancho to use these teachings to become a just, humble, and virtuous leader who is grounded in his origins but elevated by his character and good conduct.

Vic's twitter feed

Sep

8

Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens found in the 17th century that larger pendulum clocks will sync smaller ones.

Video by Veritasium: The Surprising Secret of Synchronization

Pendulums in the human world = our various belief systems (which are sometimes in competition to each other and go deep). Two examples perhaps: in finance: a trader has religious reasons why he /she does not think he deserves the STELLAR gains. Ways are found to turn accumulated gains into a loss! in health: why do some ppl stay sick and others recover miraculously against all odds?

Zubin Al Genubi writes:

The Kuramoto mathematical model describes synchrony in networks. The line between order and randomness occurs at the phase transition when the network nodes synchronize.

Building on Kuramoto's model, the Watts and Strogatz model makes testable predictions about interventions most likely to trigger cascades.

In small world network terms there are "vulnerable clusters" in the market. In market terms the vulnerable clusters are weak hands, funds faced with margin calls, or fund hitting a stop losses. Obvious 2d points or tipping points are stop points at prior lows. If a vulnerable cluster is close to the second tipping point, it can ignite a cascade.

Nils Poertner responds:

Mathematicians often find something which ordinary people know intuitively. 2 more examples:

1. Five teenagers bully a victim. Knock-out the strongest in the group and the rest will fall too (big bully was the dominant pendulum, trumping the small ones).

2. When the most valuable firm(s) in an index suddenly struggle (NVDA?), it often means bad things for wider index.

Asindu Drileba adds:

I found the same pattern in the "Complex Systems" community. An example in Secrets of Professional Turf Betting: The idea of "copper the public opinion" & "principle of ever changing cycles" are an intuitive description of the minority game & El farol Bar problem in complex systems. Statistical arbitrage is almost exactly what Robert Bacon describes as a "dutch book."

In Neil Johnson's Simply Complexity, he derives an insight that currency traders have (knowing what currency is "in play") using graph theory.

I think Simply Complexity is a very good book for speculators, since it uses accessible analogies and no complicated math. The book has a lot of analogies regarding the market. The most relevant section for Specs would be, Chapter 4: Mob Mentality (I however enjoyed the entire book).

A Few excerpts:

The bar-goers who tend to shift opinions about whether to go with history or against it, tend to lose more and hence eventually change their p value.

This reminded me of people that both go short & long in the market (I am long only). P is the probability of an event happening.

Figure 4.3 from the book and its caption:

We are naturally divided. The final arrangement of a collection of people, in the case of a bar where the comfort limit is around half the number of potential attendees. This shows the emergent phenomenon of a crowd who think that history repeats itself, and an anticrowd who think that the opposite will happen. Hence the population polarizes itself into two opposing groups. This polarization of the population represents a universal emergent phenomenon. It will arise to a greater or lesser extent in any Complex System involving collections of decision-making objects such as people, which are competing for some form of limited resource.

The figure is similar to the Arc Sin law of PnL. Something that appears in Ralph Vince's book The Mathematics of Money Management and Nassim Taleb's Dynamic Hedging. Unfortunately, I don't have a good intuition on the Arc Sin law of PnL.

Sep

7

Menahem Pressler played this concert in his 95th year:

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 | Menahem Pressler, Gulbenkian Orchestra & Leo Hussain

Adam Grimes responds:

Thank you. That's lovely. Mozart always requires such precision. That was the second concerto I learned! Near and dear to my heart.

Laurel Kenner writes:

A very great concerto, a very great pianist.

Even monsters have been touched by this haunting music. A vignette re Mozart’s K488 and Stalin, from LA Phil program notes:

In his final years Stalin became addicted to listening to music on the radio, on one occasion a performance of Mozart’s K. 488, played by Maria Yudina, a particular favorite of his – surprisingly, since she was as celebrated for her non-conforming political views as for her interpretations of Shostakovich (of whom she was a close friend), Bach, and Mozart. Instead of playing encores at her recitals, she would read poems by banned Russian writers and recite the sayings of Russian Orthodox clerics: rather than hiding her beliefs, she trumpeted them, so to speak.

Stalin asked Moscow Radio for a copy of Yudina’s K. 488 and they agreed to send it immediately. The problem was that this was a live performance and it had not been recorded. The radio people called Yudina and hastily assembled an orchestra late that night, delivering the recording to Stalin the following day. Volkov relates Shostakovich’s words: “Soon after [Stalin heard the recording] Yudina received an envelope with 20,000 rubles… To which she responded: ‘I thank you, Joseph Vissarionovich… I will pray for you day and night and that the Lord forgive you your great sins…’” The pianist is said to have donated the 20,000 rubles to her church.

Oddly, Yudina was never censured nor imprisoned for any of her renegade acts and her career continued until shortly before her death in 1970. “They [who?] say [according to Shostakovich/Volkov] that her recording of the Mozart concerto was on the record player when the leader was found dead in his dacha [in 1953]. It was the last thing he had listened to.”

Whether one believes all, parts, or none of the story, Yudina did make the recording.

Like Adam, I also played this concerto, written by Mozart at 30. Perhaps you need to be 95 to do it justice. Bravo, Menahem Pressler.

[ One from a list of her performances: Maria Yudina plays Bach Toccata in C minor, BWV 911 - live 1950 -Ed. ]

Laurel Kenner adds:

Yudina's Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue is killer.

Sep

6

The greatest single success of the Japanese Army in WW 2 - the capture of Singapore - came directly from the use of bicycles as the primary means of troop transport.

From the Army and Navy Journal of 1896
BICYCLE “CORPS,” 25TH Inf
2d Lieut. James A. Moss, U.S.A., Commanding

The Bicycle Corps of the 25th. U.S. Inf., under the command of 2d Lieut. James. A. Moss, appears to have had a very successful, but very fatiguing, trial in their recent expedition from Fort Missoula, Mont., to test the bicycle for military purposes.

The corps left Fort Missoula Aug. 15 with rations, rifles, cooking utensils, shelter tents, ammunition, extra bicycle parts, repair material, etc., etc. They reached Fort Harrison on the 17th, having covered 132 miles in 22 hours of actual travel. They got new rations at Harrison and left for Yellowstone at noon Aug. 19, reaching Mammoth Springs, Wyo., at 1:30 Aug. 23. The distance of 101 miles was made in 31 hours of actual traveling. So far they had traveled in 53 hours of actual traveling, 323 miles of the hilliest and rockiest roads in the United States, fording streams, going through sand, mud, over road ruts, etc. Every day, except only one, they had wind against them. Aug. 25 the corps left for a days’ trip through the park.

When they left Fort Missoula, their lightest wheel [i.e., bicycle] packed, weighed 64 pounds, the heaviest 84 pounds, an average of 77½ pounds; the lightest wheel with rider, weighed 205 pounds, the heaviest, 272 pounds. The wheel used was the 26-pound Spalding bicycle, geared to 66½. The weights of the members of Bicycle Corps were as follows: Lieut. Moss, 135 pounds; Corp. Williams, 153½; Musician Brown, 145½; Pvt. Proctor, 152; Pvt. Findley, 183½; Pvt. Foreman, 160; Pvt. Haynes, 160; Pvt. Johnson, 151½.

Previous to making this trip, Lieut. Moss made a preliminary excursion to Lake McDonald, leaving Fort Missoula at 6:20 A.M., Aug. 6 and reaching there on return at 1:30 P.M., Aug. 9, having ridden and walked 126 miles in 24 hours of actual traveling under most adverse circumstances. They were delayed quite a number of times in tightening nuts, adjusting handle bars, etc. The wheels were not spared in the least, and did the work extraordinarily well. On their trip the men found the roads muddy from recent rain, and were impeded by the clay-mud sticking to the tires of their bicycles. They had to dismount frequently to scale heights, and over six miles of road they dismounted twenty times on account of mud puddles and fallen trees. While crossing Finley Creek on wheels two men fell in the stream. Part of the journey was made in a driving rain, which covered the wheels with mud and filled the shoes of the riders with water, making it difficult for them to keep their feet. on the muddy pedals. [Another creek] was forded through three feet of swift water, each wheel being carried across on a pole suspended from the shoulders of two soldiers. "Had the devil himself," says Lieut. Moss, “conspired against us, we would have had little more to contend with.”

The party attracted great attention along the way from the inhabitants, and their dogs and cattle. Dogs ran after them, cattle away from. them, and residents stopped work and stood in open-mouthed wonder as they passed. Every once in a while they would strike an Indian cabin and the dogs barking would announce their approach, while the occupants would stand in the door and gaze at them. Every other soldier carried a complete Spalding repair kit. The large tin [water] case (carrying about 11 gallons) was attached to the front of bicycles on a frame and strapped to the handle bars. The men wore the heavy marching uniform, and every other soldier was armed with a rifle and 30 rounds ammunition. The rifles were strapped horizontally on the top side of the side of the bicycles with the bolt on top. Those not so armed carried revolvers on belt with 30 cartridges.

Big Al adds:

More detail:

The Twenty-Fifth Infantry Bicycle Corps

On June 12, 1894, James A. Moss graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Moss was assigned to the all-Black Twenty-Fifth Infantry, headquartered at Fort Missoula, Montana. It was one of four all-Black regiments in the Army at the time, nicknamed the Buffalo Soldiers.

Sep

4

I have always been an anglophile and sometimes think I have a better grasp of British history than American. Lately, I have been approaching US history through biographies, and any such approach must include a biography of Andrew Jackson. I am currently listening to this one:

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

I have also been watching and thoroughly enjoying Ken Burns' bio of Benjamin Franklin.

I missed this when it was broadcast in 2022 and am just now watching it. I thought of Spec List when the documentary got to the point where Franklin and friends founded The Leather Apron Club, also known as the Junto.

Sep

3

last 20 emini prices varying between high 6300 and low 6500 with last 14 of 20 closes in 6400 handle. another 20-day hi due soon.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Sep

3

I post these wondering what Carder D thinks:

Big Tech’s A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone
Electricity rates for individuals and small businesses could rise
sharply as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other technology companies
build data centers and expand into the energy business.
14 August, 2025

AI Boom Reshapes Power Landscape as Data Centers Drive Historic Demand Growth
Monday, March 3, 2025

The power industry was once considered slow-moving and perhaps even boring. That is no longer the case as technology has expanded and power demand projections skyrocket. New reports released by analysts at Enverus and Deloitte are examined to provide insight on what’s likely to evolve in the power industry over the coming year and beyond.

Carder Dimitroff responds:

I believe these articles present several issues that could benefit investors:

1) Transformers (not pole transformers). The queue for new transformers is long, and about half are manufactured offshore. Data centers need transformers as do new power sources.

2) Gas turbines. Same situation as transformers. For efficient turbines, the queue is about 5 years.

3) Solar panels. Those who previously invested in solar will see their ROIs grow faster than they expected.

4) Retail consumers. They will see their gas and electric utility bills grow as they pay for higher costs of energy and subsidize infrastructure costs to support new loads.

5) New manufacturing. Several geographical options will present better opportunities than others, as the cost of power is regional and seasonal.

6) Forget new nuclear as a near-term solution.

Asindu Drileba asks:

What do you think about nuclear fusion? Is it really close? The joke is that nuclear fusion has always been ready in 5 years for many decades. But I recently heard Chris Sacca (one of the best VCs ever, made over 250x for his entire fund), mention it is genuinely close and that his new fund, Lower Carbon existing partly to capture the incoming advancements in nuclear fusion.

Carder Dimitroff replies:

Today, nuclear fusion is a science project. Keep in mind that fusion requires operating temperatures of over 100 million degrees (at this level, the distinction between Fahrenheit and Celsius is irrelevant). Producing bulk power from this technology is more than ten years away. At these temperatures, it's unlikely they will be operating near population centers.

Sep

1

From the Sports Illustrated vault:

The Squabbler of the Squash Courts
Vic Niederhoffer brought a touch of Brooklyn rowdiness to Harvard and a traditionally genteel game

The progress of Victor B. Niederhoffer, Harvard '64, among American squash players has surprised a lot of people, but not Vic Niederhoffer. Beaten only once in the past two years as No. 1 on Harvard's undefeated squash team and the winner of three major squash championships this year, Niederhoffer thinks he is unbeatable and clamors loudly for justice when his shots go awry. Consequently, on those rare occasions when he loses a tournament, squash lovers are delighted. Niederhoffer could not care less. "He's the Ty Cobb of squash," says his coach at Harvard, Jack Barnaby. "He'd chew glass to win. Nothing matters but victory."

Racket guy from Brooklyn
But Vic Niederhoffer doesn't use dem or dose. The five-time U.S. champ has a Ph. D., a million-dollar business and wears a tux—with track shoes

To the victor — Victor Niederhoffer, that is — belongs another silver pitcher. Last week in New York, at 31, he won the U.S. National Singles Squash Racquets championship for the fifth time. His opponents did little but gasp, sweat and run. But Niederhoffer seemed to play effortlessly. His shots were not always brilliant, but he patiently waited out long rallies, and his frustrated opponents consistently found themselves in situations where most of their moves were of high risk. And then they were forced to make mistakes which ruined them.

Aug

31

George Pólya came up with the term Inventor Paradox.

Basically, if one thinks about a problem more deeply, something else may open up. And one can achieve extraordinary results! Plenty of examples in finance, engineering, medicine.

Steve Ellison writes:

From the Wikipedia link about the inventor's paradox:

When solving a problem, the natural inclination typically is to remove as much excessive variability and produce limitations on the subject at hand as possible. Doing this can create unforeseen and intrinsically awkward parameters.

Very interesting idea with applications in many fields. As one example, I recently told my daughter, who is a partner at Boston Consulting, that I was reading a book about strategy by a professor at Harvard Business School. She told me, "Boston Consulting literally wrote the book on strategy": Your Strategy Needs a Strategy.

I ordered that book and so far have read the first chapter. One of the key questions is how predictable the business environment is. Another is, how much can you influence the environment? "Classical strategy" as taught in business schools generally assumes that the environment can be forecast and that the company has very limited influence over it. A case study was the Mars candy bar company.

But if you cannot forecast the environment, a very different approach is called for, with heavy emphasis on learning and iterating. And if you can in fact shape the business environment, you might want to find some partners and create an ecosystem.

As a footnote, the book I was originally reading, which I also found informative, was by Richard Rumelt: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.

Asindu Drileba offers:

Optimize the Overall System Not the Individual Components, interview given by Edwards Deming. Excerpts:

The results of a system must be managed by paying attention to the entire system. When we optimize sub-components of the system we don’t necessarily optimize the overall system.

Optimizing the results for one process is not the same as operating that process in the way that leads to the most benefit for the overall system.

Applied to markets:

- It's easier to do well on the S&P 500 index (the general market), than do well in a single stock (picking).

- Attributed Mark Spitznagel, we should judge the buying of far OTM puts based on how they help the entire portfolio. Not the individual PnLs of buying the far OTM puts.

- Attributed to Roy Niederhoffer, many traders turn off trading strategies once they start loosing money, but different trading strategies make money at different times.

Aug

29

Our FO has been using Grok3 to build tables of the historical declines for financial assets. I have been doing the typing of the queries, Grok has done the thinking and the other members of the FO have set the definition for the market measure they want to use for timing. The measure is what our most smart ass member calls the Louis L'Amour "herd size" - the notional value of the assets wandering around the range.

Here is the data for the 10 worst quarter-to-quarter/year-to-year period slumps in the S&P 500 options herd size for which Grok was able to retrieve reported data.

Aug

28

below from my favorite and most highly recommended Western book, The Time It Never Rained, by Elmer Kelton:

He had often thought that if man were to disappear, the domesticated livestock would not long survive. Fences would sag and rust away. The artificial watering places would go to dust, forcing livestock to the natural creeks and rivers.

There, in time, the sheep and goats would fall to the bobcats and coyotes. Perhaps even the lean gray wolf- so long gone from here- would return to hunt and howl at the moon. The land would go back to those creatures which impartial Nature had found fittest by ruthless selection.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Aug

27

The opportunity lies with the supplier, not the providers of AI.

Larry Williams asks:

Who are the suppliers?

Stefan Jovanovich answers:

Nvidia. My 19th century brain thinks of NVDA as a supplier of the stuff the people selling information tickets will use to build their 21st century railroads.

Easan Katir writes:

Agree. Those creating the AI platforms won't generally be good investments, imho. Why? They lack one thing needed: scarcity. Any intelligent person can feed his/her data into an LLM and create their own AI for $20 / month or less. China's DeepSeek is free, I've read. Hard to make a profit when competing with free.

Last month I had lunch with an author cousin who lives in Tehama Carmel Valley. She uploaded all her books into an LLM, cloned her voice with another AI service, connected that to her voicemail. Now her clients can call her number and her cloned voice answers all their questions based on the knowledge in her books. All while she's having lunch.

AI + robotics will be a theme, such as Elon's Optimus and robo-taxis, yes? Investing in the suppliers is mostly done, isn't it? NVDA being the most obvious. Along with LW, other inquiring minds wonder which companies you have in mind.

William Huggins responds:

don't forget the coal and iron mines, those essential input assets that 19th century railroad magnates knew could be pilfered via land "grants". i think the equivalent is looking at the companies involved in the chip etching (who makes the lasers, etc).

Henry Gifford comments:

FRED says that Railroad stock prices weighted by number of shares went up x7 over 70 years [to 1929]. Nice, but not fantastic, but weighing by number of shares could be misleading because of reverse splits, shares of a new company replacing a larger number of shares of the old company in a buyout, survivorship bias when a company goes bankrupt, etc.

% of market cap can I think also be misleading because of people pouring huge amounts of money into companies with no revenue in the hope of future returns, adding to market cap.

Stefan Jovanovich responds:

In the last third of the 19th century, the money made in railroad investing was in the bonds, not the stocks. That was the recital of the FRED data that some found so surprising. For this 19th century mind those results are not surprising because the one President in the century who could do the math killed the speculation in international money.

Aug

26

The abysmal Volatility last Monday, 18 August, and the dead stop last Tuesday, EOD, were attributed by some to 0DTE. A little back on Spec List, papers were posted, showing this Volatility suppression effect by 0DTE options and their market makers.

I know it is just the latest holy grail traders flog to. Quite a few websites are offering subscriptions for the data. So, I was surprised to find it for free on Barcharts – the EOD version:

Steve Ellison adds:

Important information, thanks. Jeff Clark said on a podcast that 68% of all S&P 500 option contracts are 0DTE.

Aug

25

Friend of the Chair, Robert Z Aliber, a professor of International Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago, died in June 2025, I recently found out.

Just before the Financial Crisis (I don't remember the exact date) he sent a prescient Email to the Chair, arguing that problems caused by carelessly underwritten mortgages would soon cause a recession in the US. At the time I was not really aware of what was going in in the field of mortgage securitization, so I found the information surprising and was impressed later when it was confirmed by subsequent events.

Big Al adds:

Robert Z. Aliber on "The Next Financial Crisis?"
The University of Chicago
Apr 24, 2013

In 1982, 1997, 2003, and 2008, Asia and the world were rocked by major financial crises. Robert Z. Aliber discusses past crises and the possible trajectory of the next one. Where is the next major crisis likely to begin? How will its impact compare to previous crises? Aliber, a regular speaker for Chicago Booth, co-authored Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises.

Aug

24

This research implies less-than-ethical behavior by some analysts!

What moves stock prices around credit rating changes?
Omri Even-Tov, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
Naim Bugra Ozel, N. Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (Visiting)
Published: 07 January 2021

Using monthly and multi-day return windows, research shows that credit rating downgrades often reveal new information and lead to significant stock price reactions but that upgrades do not. Using intraday data, we revisit these findings and extend them by examining the possibility of informed trading ahead of the announcement of credit rating changes. Credit rating agencies delay public announcements of rating changes to provide issuers with time to review and respond to rating reports, which opens the door for informed trading in advance of credit rating changes. Using data on rating changes from S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch, we find a more modest price reaction to rating downgrades than documented elsewhere and show that stock prices respond to changes in long-term issuer ratings but not to changes in ratings of a single instrument or a subset of instruments. Most interestingly, we find that prices start moving before a downgrade announcement, controlling for other news and investor anticipation. These pre-announcement movements are concentrated among observations where credit analysts are motivated to disclose private information to advance their careers. The beneficiaries of these disclosures appear to be institutional investors.

Aug

23

In July 1944, McNair was in France to observe troops in action during Operation Cobra, and add to the FUSAG deception by making the Germans believe he was in France to exercise command. He was killed near Saint-Lô on 25 July when errant bombs of the Eighth Air Force fell on the positions of 2nd Battalion, 120th Infantry, where McNair was observing the fighting. In one of the first Allied efforts to use heavy bombers in support of ground combat troops, several planes dropped their bombs short of their targets. Over 100 U.S. soldiers were killed, and nearly 500 wounded.

Stefan Jovanovich recalls:

My favorite Audie Murphy bit of history (which can be verified by recollections but not by any published anecdotes) is that Murphy met Omar Bradley in Hollywood in July 1951 when Bradley was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Red Badge of Courage had been released and Murphy was a "star"; Bradley was on his way to and from Japan and South Korea to talk to Matthew Ridgway (MacArthur's successor) about how the war was going. Someone had the bright idea to bring favorable publicity to the war effort that was so unpopular that it would elect a Republican as President for the first time in a quarter century by having a photo shoot of Bradley, a 5-star general, and Murphy, the most decorated "common" American soldier. The story is that they met with Bradley in his full dress uniform and Murphy in a suit and tie and, with the cameras rolling, everyone got ready for Murphy to come to attention and salute. He just stood there opposite Bradley and his entourage. Finally, with teeth clenched and skin reddening, Bradley raised his right hand and placed it diagonally across his right cheek. The rule was and still is that everyone in uniform regardless of rank salutes the holder of the Medal of Honor first.

I like to think that Murphy enjoyed the moment as a tiny bit of revenge for the stupidities of Bradley, who, along with Carl Spaatz, made Murphy's and his fellow soldiers lives much, much harder with their belief in bombing from 20,000 feet. The carpet bombing tactic was still very much the Air Force catechism when I was in the Navy on the Mekong River in 1967 and 1968. I was told by the writer who put down the words of Schwarzkopf's memoir that Stormin Normin's happiest fit of temper came in the meeting when he asked the senior boy in blue how much longer the Army would have to watch and wait from a safe distance so the Air Force could continue to bounce the rubble.

Aug

22

Boy Rasmussen

August 22, 2025 | Leave a Comment

Top economist says two contenders to replace Fed Chair Powell stand out

Mohamed A. El-Erian says both candidates have strong market experience and would do 'great job' leading central bank

El-Erian appeared on FOX Business Network's "The Claman Countdown" on Wednesday and said that BlackRock CIO of global fixed income Rick Rieder and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh are his preferred picks to replace Powell, whose term as chair expires in May 2026.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Aug

22

How to Be a Good Intelligence Analyst
“The first to get thrown under the bus is the intelligence community”

Which blog recommends this book:

Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study, by Dr. Rob Johnston.

[Dr. Johnston] reaches those conclusions through the careful procedures of an anthropologist — conducting literally hundreds of interviews and observing and participating in dozens of work groups in intelligence analysis — and so they cannot easily be dismissed as mere opinion, still less as the bitter mutterings of those who have lost out in the bureaucratic wars. His findings constitute not just a strong indictment of the way American intelligence performs analysis, but also, and happily, a guide for how to do better. Johnston finds no baseline standard analytic method. Instead, the most common practice is to conduct limited brainstorming on the basis of previous analysis, thus producing a bias toward confirming earlier views. The validating of data is questionable — for instance, the Directorate of Operation’s (DO) “cleaning” of spy reports doesn’t permit testing of their validity — reinforcing the tendency to look for data that confirms, not refutes, prevailing hypotheses. The process is risk averse, with considerable managerial conservatism. There is much more emphasis on avoiding error than on imagining surprises.

Stefan Jovanovich comments:

Actual military intelligence is never even allowed to be on the bus. The CIA's human analysts had an infallible record of guessing wrong about war that was matched only by Congress and the Pentagon. The odds are that Putin and Trump spent the time discussing what the Russian Army's actual capabilities are and what the Russians know about NATO's present inventory. The absence of any U.S. generals and intelligence professionals from "the meeting" is a pure tell.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Aug

20

I was looking at this page of Spec List reader reviews of research literature and thinking that research reviews might add to the List currently. [Here on the DailySpec site, please add your own reviews to the comments. - Ed.]

I also saw this interesting paper:

The Long-Run Stock Returns Following Bond Ratings Changes
Ilia D. Dichev, Emory University - Department of Accounting
Joseph D. Piotroski, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Date Written: October 1998

We use a comprehensive sample that comprises essentially all Moody's bond rating changes between 1970 and 1997 to examine the long-run stock returns following the changes. Our main finding is that stocks with upgrades outperform stocks with downgrades for up to one year following the announcement but we find little or no reliable difference in returns thereafter. The return differential between stocks with upgrades and downgrades is on the magnitude of 10 to 14 percent in the year following the announcement, and is mostly due to the poor performance of stocks with downgrades. Additional tests reveal that the underperformance of downgrades is primarily due to the poor returns of small and low credit quality firms, which are likely the firms with the largest information problems. Probing into the causes for this phenomenon, we find that current ratings changes predict changes in future ratings and future profitability. More importantly, we find some evidence of significant differences in returns at subsequent earnings announcements of stocks with upgrades and downgrades, which suggests that the market does not fully anticipate the predictable future changes in earnings. We also find strong evidence that the magnitude of the post-announcement returns is increasing in the magnitude of the pre-announcement returns, consistent with a delayed and gradual adjustment to the announcement information. Thus, the limited duration of abnormal returns, the pattern of predictable reactions at subsequent earnings announcements, and the strong relation between pre and post-announcement returns suggest that the abnormal post-announcement returns are at least partly due to incomplete adjustment to information.

Aug

19

"My habit of not dating letters, never balancing my checkbook and never putting dates on my paintings is not carelessness: it is a deep personal superstition that ignoring time itself might be a secret technique to delay aging." Eric Sloane, painter, author.

After 100 days in a very range between 6400 and 6500 it might be good to follow Eric Sloane's advice.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Aug

17

Concerning the transitions of colour, on the daily spec website. The chair recommended The Punnett square as a research topic. This was the best video I could find. It's amazing how he broke down the essentials in just 6 minutes:

Genotype, Phenotype and Punnet Squares Made EASY!

Big Al offers:

Great vid on Markov, and Markov chains leading to LLMs:

The Strange Math That Predicts (Almost) Anything - Markov Chains

Aug

16

Nine Years Among The Indians, 1870-1879: The Story Of The Captivity And Life Of A Texan Among The Indians, by Herman Lehmann

One day, in the month of May, 1870, I, with my brother, Willie Lehmann, and my two sisters, Caroline and Gusta, were sent out into the wheat field to scare the birds away. Gusta was just a baby at the time, probably two years old, and was being cared for by Caroline. I was about eleven years old, Willie was past eight years old, and Caroline was just a little girl. We sat down in the field to play, and the first thing we knew we were surrounded by Indians. When we saw their hideously painted faces we were terribly frightened, and some of us pulled for the house. Willie was caught right where he was sitting. Caroline ran toward the house, leaving the baby, and the Indians shot at her several times, and she fell, fainted from fright. The Indians had no time to dally with her, so they passed on thinking she was dead, and they often told me she was killed, and I believed it until I came home several years later.

They chased me for a distance and caught me. I yelled and fought manfully, when the chief, Carnoviste, laid hold upon me, and a real scrap was pulled off right there. The Indian slapped me, choked me, beat me, tore my clothes off, threw away my hat—the last one I had for more than eight years—and I thought he was going to kill me. I locked my fingers in his long black hair, and pulled as hard as I could; I kicked him in the stomach; I bit him with my teeth, and I had almost succeeded in besting him and getting loose when another Indian, Chiwat, came up. Then Carnoviste caught me by the head and the other Indian took hold of my feet and they conveyed me to a rock fence nearby, where they gave me a sling and my face and breast plowed up the rocks and sand on the other side. I was so completely stunned by the jolt that I could not scramble to my feet before the two Indians had cleared the fence and were upon me. They soon had me securely bound upon the back of a bucking bronco, stark naked.

Aug

15

Having tortured you all with the statistics for the stock and bond prices for the railroads, it seems only appropriate to add to the data the calculations of the changes in physical freight itself. The average freight car in 1860 could handle 5-10 tons; by 1890 the figure was 20-30 tons thanks to Mr. Carnegie's rails that replaced iron with steel.

This is Grok's and my best estimates of the annual tonnage between New York and Chicago over the decades between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of U.S. participation in the Great War.

For Russia the primary corridor is between Moscow and the Urals. They have finished building the M12 3-lane dual carriageway (the equivalent for motor freight of the double tracking between NY and Chicago). A trip that took 30 hours now takes 16.

Aug

14

The Laws of Trading: A Trader's Guide to Better Decision-Making for Everyone

This is a book about decision-making through the lens of a professional prop trader. For years, behavioral and cognitive scientists have shown us how human decision-making is flawed and biased. But how do you learn to avoid these problems in day-to-day decisions where you have to react in real-time? What are the important things to think about and to act on?

Aug

12

Positive Economic News: Full-Time vs Part-Time Employment Growth
Over the past year the pace of full-time hiring has outstripped that of part-time positions. Both categories are growing, but full-time roles have seen a steeper upward trajectory once we normalize for scale. This signals that employers are increasingly confident in committing to long-term payrolls.

To compare growth on equal footing, we fit simple linear regressions to each series (full-time employment level and part-time employment level) over the same interval. We used monthly seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For each series, we calculated the slope (employees per month) of the best-fit line. Those slopes became our normalized growth measures, avoiding raw-level distortions.

Empirical Results

Full-Time Employees +2150.00
Part-Time Employees +950.44
The full-time slope of +215 K/month means that on average, net full-time headcount has risen by 215,000 each month. Part-time roles have climbed as well, but at roughly 44 percent of the full-time rate.

A faster acceleration in full-time positions suggests businesses are shifting from flexible or contingent staffing toward more stable, long-term commitments. This pattern often accompanies stronger consumer confidence and investment plans.

Hiring more full-time workers typically entails higher benefits, training, and overhead, so firms generally only follow through when they foresee sustained demand. The fact that part-time growth remains positive underscores broad underlying strength in the labor market.

Consumer spending power will likely rise as more workers move into full-time, benefit-eligible roles. Wage growth pressures may pick up if the pool of available long-term hires tightens further.
Capital expenditure plans may accelerate as firms brace for continued demand and aim to boost productivity.

Aug

11

Disappointing AI

August 11, 2025 | Leave a Comment

AI found rules of Wiswell:

1. Patience precedes power.

2. The middle game is where we live.

3. Sometimes the best move is to wait.

4. Mistakes are not shameful - they're illuminating.

5. You play against yourself, not just your opponent.

6. Simplicity is the highest form elegance.

7. You never stop learning.

Everything considered the AI search came up with a disappointing melange of generic rules that do Tom a great injustice.

J.T. adds:

I plugged it in to check and got a couple of Wiswell proverbs as well. Here are three:

• The winner of a match is not always determined by who is right, but in the end, who is left.

• We can play today’s draws and anticipate tomorrow’s wins, but we shouldn’t forget yesterday’s losses.

• The losing player who says: 'I’ll look it up tomorrow,' very seldom does look it up.

Vic continues:

i have the complete set. Tom would create 20 proverbs a week and then give the boys at ncz a lesson in checkers for 12 years from 1988 to 2000. he would say with a whistwell air, "I wish I had married a girl life Susan. but then I wouldn't have written 22 books."

Vic's X/twitter feed

Aug

9

The Speculator's Edge: A Life in Markets, Mistakes, and Mastery
By Bo Keely with ChatGPT

Chapter One: The Hungarian Gambler and the Boy from Brighton Beach

I was born into odds. Not just long shots or probabilities scribbled in a ledger—but the kind of odds that start at birth and ripple outward through ancestry and ambition. My father, Artie Niederhoffer, was the first speculator I knew. Not on Wall Street—but in the back rooms of Brooklyn where chess games turned into hustles and a nickel bet was sacred currency. His friends called him "The General," and while he never served in uniform, he commanded a battalion of books, bets, and bluffs. He was Hungarian, proud, loud, and certain about everything.

We lived in Brighton Beach, downwind of Coney Island's chaotic joy, but miles away from any kind of financial privilege. Yet my childhood was filled with markets of a different sort. Card games in the basement. Side bets at the chess park. My father's upholstery shop doubling as a clubhouse for thinkers, schemers, and strivers.

It was there, sweeping sawdust off the floor or sitting quietly in the corner listening to men argue over Lasker’s endgame or the Yankees’ spread, that I learned my first truth: everyone speculates. Some do it with stocks. Others with reputations. But every soul is placing a wager, every day.

Download the full bio (.docx file).

Aug

8

a new way of looking at markets and real life:

In 1953, a top-secret manual teaching agents sleight-of-hand and other deception techniques was written for the CIA by America’s then most famous magician. All copies were believed destroyed by the CIA’s purge of the infamous MKULTRA documents in 1973, and there was no proof of the manual’s existence . . . until a copy was discovered among the CIA’s recently declassified archives.

Big Al responds:

Speaking of the CIA, one is reminded of this manual:

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, by Richards J. Heuer, Jr.

And something from it (p. 108):

Analysis of competing hypotheses involves seeking evidence to refute hypotheses. The most probable hypothesis is usually the one with the least evidence against it, not the one with the most evidence for it. Conventional analysis generally entails looking for evidence to confirm a favored hypothesis.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Aug

7

The best data science course I have ever watched. In fact, probably the best data science course ever made is Prof. Yaser Abu-Mostafa's "Learning from Data" at Caltech. I am not exaggerating, and if you think I am, just read the comments section from the first video of the course The Learning Problem — its almost exclusively high praise.

This course is really old, as its from 2012. I watched it probably in 2017 or 2018. But its still very relevant today. Why its relevant today? Most courses focused on describing techniques that were popular then, but later became irrelevant. For example, GANs were replaced by Diffusion Models and core ML Architectures have shifted to Transformers.

Prof. Yaser's course is different because he covers Theory, Techniques and Concepts (most books/courses only describe ML algorithms/Techniques or how to use features in python libraries).

- Theory, refers to mathematical descriptions of ideas like "Is learning feasible" for your problem or dataset?, "Training vs Testing", "The theory of generalization" and the "Bias-Variance trade off".

- Techniques, refers to actual ML algorithms like Neural Networks, SVMs.

- Concepts, describes auxiliary things that are not really Machines Learning but useful to understand well. Like how to interpret/deal with Error & Noise, Sampling of data.

The full course is free.

I also recently came across a comment about a book he wrote to accompany the course which made me remember him: Learning From Data.

Aug

6

biological invasions - take the invasion of bitcoin to sp.

Biological Invasions: Theory and Practice, by Nanako Shigesada and Kohkichi Kawasaki.

Using the large amount of data from studies in pest control and epidemiology, it is possible to construct mathematical models that can predict which species will become invaders, which habitats are susceptible to invasion, and the biological impact. This book presents a clear and accessible introduction to the modeling of biological invasions. It demonstrates the latest theories and models, and includes data and examples from various case studies showing how these models can be applied to problems from deadly human diseases to the spread of weeds.

Vic's X/twitter feed

Aug

4

Tech Stress: How Technology is Hijacking Our Lives, Strategies for Coping, and Pragmatic Ergonomics

Valuable book on how to use technology and tech devices in a healthy manner, eg, author talks about the importance of having desk screens high enough, so we don't point our head downward too much (which is unnatural). Most visual "issues" could perhaps be avoided with proper habits. (I suppose in a good high school, pupils ought to be made aware of those things but then the teachers themselves aren't educated here…)

Video: Erik Peper, PhD—TechStress: Reclaim Health and Sanity in a Plugged-In World

Dr. Peper is a professor of Holistic Health Studies at San Francisco State, and is an internationally known expert on biofeedback (applied psychophysiology), holistic health, technostress and stress management.


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