A Modest Proposal (in More Than 140 Characters)
> My Sunday Washington Post Business Section column is out. This morning, we look at a pretty rad option for Apple and its cash hoard: Buying Twitter. The print version had the full headline A modest proposal (in more than 140 characters) of what Apple should do with its cash hoard. (The online version is...
Credit default swaps are insurance products. It’s time we regulated them as such.
Barry Ritholtz Washington Post March 10 2012 ~~~ Last week, Greece officially defaulted on its debt. (Unofficially, it defaulted long ago.) This formal default on about $100 billion triggered payment of $3 billion in credit-default swaps. These are the non-insurance insurance products that pay off in the event of a default.Let’s take a closer look...
Credit-default swaps are masquerading as financial products
> My Sunday Washington Post Business Section column is out. This morning, we look at CDS — how they became such a dangerous aspect of the financial firmament. The print version had the full headline Credit-default swaps are masquerading as financial products. They should be regulated as insurance products. (The online version is merely Credit...
The Impact of Bias: Investors, Economists & Analysts
One of the more difficult things you human investors have to deal with is how your own heuristics, biases and cognitive deficits impact your views. It is how you are wired, a flaw in your wetware, and it consistently trips up your results. I am not referring to the obvious sentiment extremes — greedily buying...
5 Signs You’ve Matured as a Trader
Joe Fahmy has guided his hedge fund to outperformance over the past 13 quarters. He has been sharing his trading skills to a novice to intermediate traders based on his 16 years of trading. This is our their attempt at creating bite size, easy to understand, bullet points for traders. The prior posts are here...
Jeremy Grantham: 10 Lessons
Nice list from Jeremy Grantham, via Marketwatch: 1. Believe in history “All bubbles break; all investment frenzies pass. The market is gloriously inefficient and wanders far from fair price, but eventually, after breaking your heart and your patience … it will go back to fair value. Your task is to survive until that happens.” 2....
The Robosigning Deal is a Useless Embarrassment
> My Sunday Washington Post Business Section column is out. This morning, we look at the yet another bank giveaway, the awful robosigning foreclosure settlement. The print version had the headline The robosigning deal is a useless embarrassment, while the online version is titled Foreclosure settlement a failure of law, a triumph for bank attorneys....
Abnormal Returns: There has never been a better time to be an individual investor
Tadas Viskanta is the founder and editor of the finance blog Abnormal Returns. Tadas has over twenty years of professional experience in the financial markets. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, Abnormal Returns: Winning Strategies from the Frontlines of the Investment Blogosphere. ~~~ There has never been a better time to be...
5 Qualities of All Great Traders
I met Joe Fahmy a few years ago at Lindzenpalooza. He has a great way of communicating his trading skills to a novice to intermediate traders based on his 16 years of trading. Fahmy has guided his hedge fund to outperformance over the past 13 quarters. As previously mentioned, I wanted to present something less...
David Merkel: The Eight Rules of My Investing
David J. Merkel is a CFA, FSA. His forthcoming equity asset management shop is tentatively called Aleph Investments. From 2008-2010, he was the Chief Economist and Director of Research of Finacorp Securities.where he researched a wide variety of fixed income and equity securities, and trading strategies. Until 2007, he was a senior investment analyst at...
Less than meets the eye at Facebook
Less than meets the eye at Facebook Barry Ritholtz, Washington Post February 11, 2012 > Facebook is valued at “plenty” By Wall Street’s tech cognoscenti, Take 1 billion friends Times 5 dollars, then Times IPO multiple: 20! — Limericks Économiques > Last week, I made a surprising discovery about Facebook: It has far fewer “active”...
When Should Traders Be In or Out of Markets?
I met Joe Fahmy a few years ago (at a StockTwits event) and I have been impressed with his trading skills and diligence in refining his craft. He has been trading for 16 years, and has developed a rigorous investment strategy. As a hedge fund manager, he has successfully outperformed the markets for the past...
