May

1

You never hear much about the real facts when people are trying to waft a detrimental meme past you. Now that inflation is all the rage again and people are fearful that there is going to be a terrible thing happening — not sub-prime, not China, not earnings slowdown, but inflation — don't expect anyone to point out that bonds closed the month at 111.24, a 35 calendar high, and up a bit on the year.

Perhaps the adjusted deflator index for March or April of this or that seasonally adjusted economic series would be more meaningful, as well as a parsing of the forces that will beset Bernanke. It is such a pleasure to have at the Fed a real economic man, who seems truly interested in providing the backdrop for a proper growth and inflation, rather than his predecessor who was always posing and always had a hidden agenda. The fake doctor reminded me of one of the old men who sat at the club windows on fifth avenue and commented on the mini skirts and diversity walking by these days.

Note the freqeunt high fives the fed boys gave each other under Dr. Greenspan when he used to tell them that by fooling the market one way or another he was able to avert upward movement.

There are many circuits in electricity and biology where the energy and health of a system is not complete until a clearing event has occurred, (I would very much like some good examples from the specs). It is interesting to speculate if such a clearing event can be described and used predictively for market movements. I would think it worth much study.

Hint … One such clearing event occured today.

Jim Sogi writes:

On the inflation meme, I was astounded at how cheap a car went for. It seems less than they cost years ago. Cars now are bigger, better, more engine, last longer for less money. Go figure.

On clearing, forest fires are a great example. There has been a debate for years in the US Forest Service on fighting fires. The policy before was to fight all the fires. The policy cost lives and in fact made the fires later worse because the underbrush grew creating tinder. The natural fires clear out the underbrush and give way to new growth and healthier forests. The policy now is to allow more natural fires to run their course to have a healthier forest. This is true with markets. A few little fires here and there help to clear out the dead wood, leaving the healthier more vibrant life. Some forests need fires to regenerate.

On that subject of running their courses, these long bars are always of interest. My favorite biochemist studies how to attach new molecules to the molecules that they want to track and follow in the body. The ones they want to track try to hide and avoid detection. The only was to find them is to cut and that is no good. The scientists attach a "handle" or a long bar molecule sticking out of the diseased molecule. To that handle they attach something like a glowing chemical or tracking device so they can see the disease in the body without cutting. This is my layperson's simplification of a complex process, but in my mind at least describes the process. Molecules operate on a very physical level, like a key in a lock. The long bars are a kind of handles that help track the market and are good handles to tag to follow the market.

David Lamb adds: 

To add to (and hope not diminish from) Mr. Sogi's comments, I quote from a Botany textbook I received from Arizona State University.

Many viable seeds do not germinate right after they are shed from the parent plant, nor do they germinate during the following growing season. Seeds can lie dormant for many years before conditions are suitable for their germination. Everywhere that seed plants grow, the soil contains viable, ungerminated seeds in natural storage-that is, a seed bank.

Seeds in a seed bank may be dormant because of their own inhibitors, as in many desert plants. Ecologists can sometimes determine what kinds of seeds are in the seed bank of a particular habitat by removing the shrubs from a small area. When a new growing season begins, the seeds of many annual plants germinate. Such experiments simulate what happens, in part, when fire sweeps through an area. In addition to eliminating the source of potential germination inhibitors, fire also releases the nutrients contained in plants. Thus, annual plants grow abundantly in burned areas during the first growing season after a fire. As perennial plants become reestablished, the newly replenished seed bank of annual plants once again goes into natural storage until the next fire."

Seed banks that require favorable environmental conditions to germinate can be compared to the famous caneology. Some of the lesser plants that do not have strong enough roots to withstand the "heat" can be cleared out in order for those other plants, the plants that have been leaning on their canes for quite some time, to show up on the stage.

Vincent Andres writes: 

There are many circuits in electricity and biology where the energy and health of the system is not complete until a clearing event has occurred.

Some rough thoughts. I would distinguish at least 2 kinds of clearing events, based on the event's duration.

1. Long clearing events:

Biology: at the end of the day we sometimes get tired, e.g., quite unable to solve a problem. A good night sleep and the problem gets solved. I think most of the night "clearing" we use our energy for our brain/body reparation/maintenance/etc.

Mechanics: I ask a bit too much to my motorized cultivator or my chain saw. So it becomes dangerously hot and I have to give it "clearing" time in order to cool a bit.

In both above cases, the clearing event is quite long. At least it has some proportionality with the working time.

Maybe markets also need to rest or to cool.

2. Short/instantaneous clearing events:

Electrical: e.g., the soft reset or hard reset on some computers. Necessary to bring a computer out of a endless loop etc. The clearing event is very short, but this effect may be very beneficial. The computer system is rebooted to an initial state.

Biology: Sometimes our mind gets confused. A problem seems very difficult. We try many issues and none work. And suddenly in the middle of the confusion a little detail, a little connection occurs, and we understand. I believe that in fact, the understanding was already here, already present, but hidden in the confusion/drafts of the work. The clearing event is maybe the moment where we decide to wipe out the useless stuff. A clearing event may also be the recognition/awareness, of denial. It's a short instant, but it may have great consequences. But, I think it would be erroneous to believe that all occurs just during the short instant. All is already prepared. The question is "when will we look at it?"

The straw that breaks the camel's back catches our attention, but the responsibility is not the straw's. And detecting the straw is probably much more difficult than noticing that the camel is overloaded.

Maybe markets have also some trigger or revelation.

I think markets are concerned by both kind of clearing events but I'm respectfully curious about precisely which kind of clearing event you were thinking of?

"For fifteen days I struggled to prove that no functions analogous to those I have since called Fuchsian functions could exist; I was then very ignorant. Every day I sat down at my work table where I spent an hour or two; I tried a great number of combinations and arrived at no result. One evening, contrary to my custom, I took black coffee; I could not go to sleep; ideas swarmed up in clouds; I sensed them clashing until, to put it so, a pair would hook together to form a stable combination. By morning I had established the existence of a class of Fuchsian functions, those derived from the hypergeometric series. I had only to write up the results which took me a few hours."

Henri Poincare

Victor Niederhoffer adds: 

It is interesting to speculate if such a clearing event can be described and used predictively for market movements. I would think it worth much study. Hint: One such clearing event occurred today. 

David Wren-Hardin writes: 

There are many circuits in electricity and biology where the energy and health of the system is not complete until a clearing event has occurred.

The first that comes to my mind is both electrical and biological. When our nerves send a signal, it's sent by an action potential. A neuron maintains a potential difference across its membrane through the use of a Na/K pump; it pumps Na out of the cell, and K into the cell. The action potential is kicked off by a signaling event, and the gates in the cell membrane open, and Na floods into the neuron, causing a rise in voltage. The Na gates are sensitive to depolarizing events, and a positive feedback circuit ensues, where more and more Na channels open, causing a spike in voltage — the action potential.

The Na channels don't just stay open, however. After depolarization and opening, they are inactivated in a voltage-dependent manner; the very process of opening and depolarizing the cell leads to their own inactivation. Another action-potential is only possible after the Na/K gradient is re-established, and the refractory period ends. In other words, more activity is only possible after a clearing out of the activity of the previous event.

One could also see the action-potential itself as the clearing event. A large potential is built up over time, and with a seemingly small synaptic event, a cascade begins that triggers a large event.


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