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EdWatchesBoxing

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Posts posted by EdWatchesBoxing

  1. The cloud over Clover Health is enough for me to question anything he markets.

     

    This thread is amusing:

    I love Assness. Whatever that guy talks about... investing, politics, business. He'll give you an honest, straight up, no bullshit answer. You've got to respect that in a man.

     

    Yes, and I am enjoying his tweets/discussion on the value factor :)

     

    On Cathie Wood, she gets bashed on FinTwit, but I don’t think it is fair. She had a 10+ year career at AllianceBernstein in thematic investing, which was probably the springboard to ARK. Any ARK etf is speculation, IMO, but I think she has worked very hard. However, I think she’s spent too much time marketing and not enough time on risk management, maybe it’s all by design. I don’t really care because I didn’t put any $ to work there.

     

    Chamath on the other hand seems to manipulate too much. I really dislike his tweets about buying up the Hamptons, or whatever it is. It’s all BS.

  2. I agree with Sanjeev here. I caught a youtube video a while back where he was saying that shorting banks was a good idea since we have ZIRP in effect. Then I hear SoFi is one of his SPAC's... lol

     

    Interesting side note. I found out that he was a cross-currency swap trader @ BMO. I think it was his first job out of school.

  3. Having spent a lot of time in casinos and doing some card counting, The gaming industry depends on people executing these "strategies" for profit. Eventually, I think people will figure out (with their own losses) who has the real edge. The casino will eventually cut off any real edge someone's discovered. I think poker is probably the one exception. Another one might be if you get enough comps.

     

    I still play poker for token amounts, as mental exercise and discipline practice. However, sometimes I wished I'd never come across casino gaming.

  4. CNBC had an 8 minute interview with Nancy Davis of Quadratic.

     

    At about the 4:30 minute mark she discussed how QE and rising bond yields are disrupting the volatility trade.

     

    My key takeaway is the impacts are not over and they are going to be significant and nobody understands how it will play out. Very interesting discussion (most of the other panelists simply said nothing as it was clear the discussion was over their head).

     

    https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/02/13/chief-investment-officer-breaks-down-how-to-trade-volatility.html

     

    I missed this when it was first posted. Nancy Davis seems to really know her stuff. Interesting to hear that she only uses options to implement her ideas. She mentioned that she is long gamma in the short end. I think this makes a lot of sense. She also mentioned market makers and delta hedging.

     

    Is anyone familiar with option market makers? Focusing on SPX, I am guessing that institutions typically write puts and covered calls, making them short vol and short gamma. Are market makers generally long the straddle then (and use futures to delta hedge)? Is this the correct thinking? And if the market maker is short gamma, I am guessing they would want to bring it down to zero ASAP.

  5. http://www.cftc.gov/dea/futures/financial_lf.htm

     

    Just focusing on VIX futures, I see from report above that buy side (asset mgrs and leveraged funds) are net sellers of vix futures. This lines up with the WSJ article above. Firms that used to buy insurance are now selling. Sounds a bit like reaching for yield in the bond market.

     

    Buying OTM index puts would be one bet to take advantage of low implied vol, in the hopes that vol increases. I've been researching this stuff over the last few weeks. My thinking is to either sit on the side lines and wait for vol to increase to go short vol, or place small bets to be long vol.

  6. The chaos monkeys author was a physics major. I would think he would be in touch with the geeky part of tech. Maybe physics guys are still outsiders when it comes to programming/software engineering, but I'm guessing all have been exposed to code. He did f#&* up in his decision making though. Should have learned how to bite his tongue.

     

    Started to read this on the flight.

     

    It's not bad, but couple observations:

    - Part of the saltiness is that the authors of these books (I've also just skimmed through "How I lost 170 million dollars" - crappy book, don't bother; and read the article based on the upcoming/released book by the guy who did Silly Valley TV series) is that the authors are losers. ;) OK, maybe this is harsh, but the critique of SV from a position of "I'm an English/Business major who got into startup, had no clue, thrashed a while, got fired later" sounds a bit like sour grapes. "Chaos Monkeys" author is way more professional than the "How I lost 170 million dollars" though.

    - Most of these pretend to be geeks writing about geeks. But they aren't. They are English/Business majors and their observation about programmer culture is still an outsider perspective even if they have worked in tech companies for a while. They may have a good business observations and they may have a good writing style, but they don't necessarily have a great understanding of what the programmer side of SV is like. Yeah, they have some very astute observations... and some of their observations are still not understanding the geek side.

  7. Just to counter to the SuperSize Me results. There was an Iowa Teacher who conducted his own experiment with McDonald's. He had different rules, since he limited his daily caloric intake and started exercising, but the results are very interesting.

     

    http://youtu.be/wST4NxoiDcc

     

    Keeping it simple may be the best approach at first: calories in/calories out. You burn more than you take in, you're definitely going to lose weight. Of course, exercising will also help with the weight loss, but there are many other benefits to exercise as well. I also believe that the emphasis on low carb, high fat or protein isn't necessary, but does help people limit their caloric intake. I've heard people around me swear off sugar because the paleo diet worked so well for them. I think that's good for them, but you do not have to follow that type of diet to succeed in losing weight and maintaining your health.

     

    I think that the different opinions in this thread can all be correct, because there are many successful ways to tackle this challenge.

     

    I exercise a lot. I've been doing bodyweight exercise, running, heavy bag work, and swimming. Currently training for a half-marathon and I also cross-train. So I'm exercising 6 days a week. I try to eat good natural food, lots of veggies and fruit. However, I also throw in some sweets, a lot of carbs (love rice and bread) for an energy boost the night before a run. On my rest day I am mindful of not overeating because I don't want my next workout to be very difficult. My thoughts: screw motivation, routine creates habit and this all requires discipline. So, I think discipline is the most important thing. I feel much stronger now, nearing 40, than I did when I was 20. My main concern now is to avoid injury by not overdoing my training!

     

    I rarely post here because I've been spending a lot of time lurking reddit fitness, running, and swimming. Check it out if you're interested. Lot's of interesting stuff to read.

  8. Brazil vs Chile was fun to watch. Chile almost pulled off the win before the penalty kicks. Would be nice to see one of the lower payroll teams like Costa Rica or the US do well. I don't think the US will beat Belgium though.

     

  9. Even if the emphasis was placed on academics over sports, there can still be a strong sense of competition. I remember first year engineering school, right after a test, there was this one guy who would always ask everyone else "what did you get?" LOL

     

    I think learning to cope with losing/failure is an important life lesson. You learn how to push forward with things that matter. I know I can be an extremely competitive person. When I really care about something, I won't quit, even if I end up really pissed off as I reach my goal. As I get older though, individual challenges push me forward. I care less about my relative performance (except with investing) and I care more about meeting my own personal goals.

     

    Getting rid of scoring is stupid. The earlier you filter out the kids that aren't having fun, the better it will be for everyone involved.  This makes me think of the apparent grade inflation happening in schools these days.

     

  10. I didn't watch the whole Easter Island presentation, but I did see the "walking" statues part. This part makes no sense to me. I would think they would have rolled it. It would have taken them friggin forever to "walk" those damn things.

     

    I've read Collapse, so I recall some of Diamond's Easter Island story. Some of the Hunt/Lipo points are interesting, it is possible that Europeans killed them off with disease.

     

  11. I agree. This board is proof good guys can win big. However, I think I may be a bit of a dick from working on Bay Street for too long :P

     

    I haven't provided much to this board, but I've learned a lot just lurking.

     

    I've actually learned a lot watching Ackman's CP Rail interviews, so it's interesting to see another POV.

     

     

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