Amaranth once sent chess sets as year-end gifts, inscribed with a quotation from the late grandmaster Alexander Kotov: “It often happens that a player carries out a deep and complicated calculation, but fails to spot something elementary right at the first move.”
-From an WSJ article
Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing
Seriously it’s getting ridiculous. Valentine’s Day is less than two weeks away. Do you want to die alone? No? Then hedge your flower exposure immediately.
If you fail to get these flowers, and your gf breaks up with you, you can no longer cheat on her with your mistress. And if your girlfriend AND your mistress dump you, you won’t be able to cheat on them with the eastern european escorts your firm supplies you with. Think about that. Get it done.
Long or Short Capital’s second quarter of fiscal year 2007 closed on January 31st, 2007. After reviewing our financials, we have determined that the quarterly dividend will be the ceiling level of $1.50 per a subscriberholder as of 1/31/2007. To qualify, all you need to be is a subscriber, either by XML or E-mail, as of 1/31/2007. If you were not, you will not be eligible.
For more information on how to collect your cash or cash equivalent dividend for Q2, please refer to our Dividend Policy. Given our float of 508 subscriberstakes (as of 1/31/2007), a 5% growth assumption and our trailing twelve months total of dividends of $3.17 per subscriber, our current capitalization is $56,362 using a dividend discount model. Our market cap has grown 28.3% sequentially.
Situation: The City of New York wants to upgrade its police radio system so that officers can maintain radio contact in New York’s extensive subway system.
Homework: Calculate the City of New York’s ROI subway infrastructure investment based on the following facts.
Enjoy your tax dollars at work.
Recommendation: Long or Short Capital recommends a simple, strict rule of investing in governments. Only go long a government (or government-related entity) if clear catalysts are in sight; at all other times, short governments…in size. For example, if you happen to know that Hugo Chavez is about to nationalize all the productive private assets in Venezuela, you may take a very short-term long position as long as you remember to realize your gains immediately. However, in general and at all other times, you should be actively shorting all governments.
Our Four Simple Steps to Becoming a Billionaire guide was met with great enthusiasm. For those who wish to start with smaller goals and then build from there, we now offer our Four Simple Steps to Becoming a Thousandaire.
The great mass of people form their political beliefs with little regard for facts or logic. However, the elites also have a strategy for avoiding truth. Elites form their political beliefs dogmatically, using their cleverness to organize facts to fit preconceived prejudices. The masses’ strategy for avoiding truth is to make a low investment in understanding; the elites’ strategy is to make a large investment in selectively choosing which facts and arguments to emphasize or ignore.
-Arnold Kling, Two Strategies for Avoiding Truth
Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing
With the NFL postseason in full-swing, we invited Monday Night Football announcer Joe Theismann to come by and share investing color commentary.
Joe Theismann:
“I’m gonna tell you something. Warren Buffett knows that value investing wins championships; no team can succeed in post-season investing without having a strong ‘going long’ strategy. We had the opportunity to talk to Buffett yesterday before the market opened, and he told us how important he thinks the long game is to investing and he told us how he built his entire empire on it. Establishing the long keeps the market guessing, and allows investors to win big returns. Once an investor has established the long game against the market, the experienced investor can call for play-action shorts leaving the market expecting the long up until the transaction is complete, then running a short trade. So the key to Buffett investing is always going long except when you’re going short.
We also had the chance to catch up with Bill Miller last week during training camp. He told us that he has always focused on investing in stocks that go up and avoiding stocks that go down. Whenever he looks at a company, he tries to figure out whether that company is going to make money, even before he makes an investment. That type of hard work, strategy, and dedication explains why he’s a star. But the thing about Bill Miller that really seperates him apart is that he is also a tremendous person.”
Theismann referred us to his former Sunday Night Football boothmate, Paul Maguire, for technical commentary.
Paul Maguire: [Ed: Maguire used a Bloomberg machine to perform his trademark telestrator analysis.]
“Now I’m gonna show you something, LOOK AT THIS CHART RIGHT HERE, see that line, watch that line, see how it traces up, now look at this, the shape it’s forming, look at that line, here, and there, look at it…BAAMMM! That’s a nice formation. Now I’m gonna show you how that line connects at this point HERE, look at that and forms with those lines over there, watch this, look at this, watch this, LOOK, now what that means is that you watch this, right here is where you are going to want to short. And that’s how investing is played.”
If you have not already read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, you must do it now. Order a copy from Amazon or get it for free online since it has recently passed into the public domain.
Jesse had flair and a dedication to his craft. This quote sums him up. [our emphasis added]
The moment I got to Palm Beach and saw what the misguided insiders were still trying to do, I let them have a second lot of TT. Back came the report and I sold another 2,000 shares. The market behaved excellently. That is, it declined on my selling. Everything being satisfactory I went out and had a chair ride. But I wasn’t happy. The more I thought the unhappier it made me to think that I hadn’t sold more. So back I went to the broker’s office and sold another 2,000 shares.
I was happy only when I was selling that stock. Presently I was short 10,000 shares. Then I decided to return to New York. I had business to do now. My fishing I would do some other time.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
-Einstein
Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing
It is not history, facts, or intelligence that guide most investors through the final phases of a bull market; it is hopes and wishes.
-Richard Russell
To know values is to understand the meaning of movements in the market.
-Charles Dow
Hattip to Hussman.
Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing
Economists can go on at length about how inefficient Christmas gift giving is and how much deadweight loss is born from the rituals of Saint Nick. The solution is simple and two fold.
We have provided to you, our reader, a sampling of things which our sophisticated proprietary algorithm indicate that you may like. We recommend you buy them all to improve global Christmas efficiency and buy this stuff for yourself to have right after Christmas.
It’s pop art created by a Anthony White, who is both a former Australian stock broker (for real, an actual stock broker) and a genius. The pieces are affordable as far as art goes, and they will only get more expensive on a nominal basis due to the structure of the product, and paintings on the secondary market have been selling for mulitple hundreds at a minimum. It comes in four flavors: USS, Sterling, Euros and AUD’s. It makes a great gift for oneselves and it looks great on the walls of your office. “What is up with that painting?” “It’s money.” You’re damn right it is.
The majority of the LoS staff own multiple paintings and we are satisfied investors (see our earlier report on Anthony White’s Money Art).
Things and Gaming
If you can get a Nintendo Wii, get it. Now. There is no reason anyone who travels and enjoys video games should not have a DS Lite — you can play Mario Kart on it, you can rock a new version of 2D Super Mario Brothers on and it lends itself to picking up/putting down playing. Playing a DS up in first class says: “I’m am so good at my job that I can play video games while you slave away on Powerpoint.”
Meanwhile, the Bunn MyCafe creates delicious caffeinated morning fuel that obviates a Starbucks detour. And the Sonicare will change your life, even if it is only a toothbrush.
Movies
The list below consist of awesome movies that you may have missed. We figure that is more value add than just purely the best movies. Grizzly Man is a must watch, and Murderball teaches you not to feel bad for guys in wheelchair because they probably pull more tail than you do.
Music
These are the prettiest album covers. That is how we pick our music. You will like all this music, that is what our gut tells us from looking at the album covers.
Books
“You Can be a Stock Market Genius” is the best investment book we have read, period. “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” is just that, and is by the man behind LoS fav McSweeney’s. “Fooled by Randomness” addresses how most people are stupid about probabilities. “Peace Like a River” is awesome fiction.
Amazon’s Proprietary Stuff You Should Buy Algorithm
Below is what Amazon says you will like based on the content of our site. Which one is better? We will leave that one to your discretion.
LoS’ Amazon Prime Search Engine Partnership
Lastly, LoS is partners with ShipHopShop which provides a site which searches Amazon.com but only returns items which meet the search criteria AND are elibible for Amazon Prime. This saves you the hassle of searching Amazon only to find that your stuff doesn’t qualify for Prime.
Rocky is going to win his fight against Mason Dixon. Do not bet against him. I made this mistake when he fought Clubber Lang; I thought wow Clubber looks much tougher and bigger and meaner and faster than Rocky, there is no way that Rocky can win. Don’t fall for it — this fight is fixed.
Rocky Balboa may be 5’8″, 60 years old, speech impeded and not really a boxer, and his opponent may be Mason “The Line” Dixon, a guy who was recently the light heavyweight champion of the world and who kicked Roy Jones’ ass, but Rocky will win this fight. Or he will at least not die. To be safe, I am rating Rocky a “Do not buy” in this fight.
The ads shown beside my communications in GMail seem wildly off-base far more often than they are relevant. Recently, the ad displayed was a link to MyMonthlyCycles™, offering “free personalized tools to track, monitor, and manage your monthly menstrual cycles!” That’s funny, I thought to myself, I don’t menstruate and — if I were to start — I can’t imagine why I would need to manage my cycles online.
Not two days later, while thumbing through The Atlantic, I saw an interesting short piece describing evidence that menstrual cycles (and the resulting sick days) can explain a portion of the male-female earnings gap.
[Two economists] found that women were more likely than men to miss work in twenty-eight-day cycles. When women turned forty-five, however, the male-female difference vanished…Overall, the study attributes 11.8 percent of the earnings gap between men and women, and 13.5 percent of the promotion gap, to menstruation-related absences.”
-Eve’s Curse, The Atlantic December 2006
Not two days later, I encountered an ad for Seasonique, one of a number of new birth control drugs that prevent women from having their period more than 4 times a year.
Personally, modifying a fundamental body function so drastically seems somewhat dangerous. However, it’s clear that with women managing their menstrual cycles online (always more efficient!) and having less periods (now, with less bleeding!), the gender wage gap will converge by up to 11.8%.
Recommendation: Go Long a basket of females with high PMS spreads (defined as [((PMS Attitude – Base Attitude) divided by Base Attitude) mulitplied by 100]). This will allow the most leverage to the theory of wage gap convergence; if you have concerns about the inherent volatility in any basket of female assets, you can hedge out your female exposure by simultaneously shorting a basket of females with low PMS spreads. This would be a pure bet on convergence without any exposure to the inherent insanity and latent irrationality of the asset class.
There are many ways in which speculation may be unintelligent. Of these the foremost are: (1) speculating when you think you are investing; (2) speculating seriously instead of as a pastime, when you lack proper knowledge and skill for it; and (3) risking more money in speculation than you can afford to lose.
-Benjamin Graham
Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing
