Time to Get Long Almond Futures?

I used to get so infuriated when one of my friends would forward me an email that said something along the lines of, "If you forward this email Microsoft has a beta tracking system that will then send you $250". It would take all my self restraint not to 'reply all' with various insults and misgivings. Usually,...

The Wolf of Wall Street

No wonder people have a dim view of the investment management business. This book is set to be published in a month - "The Wolf of Wall Street". It is written by Jordan Belfort, a broker that sold worthless stocks to thousands of unsuspecting investors at Stratton Oakmont brokerage in the 1990s. Investors lost at least...

Cat Bonds & New Blogs

I had a post awhile back that focused on a new CEF that invests in cat bonds (HNW). On the same topic, Michael Lewis has a good article in The New York Times Magazine titled, "In Nature's Casino". Well worth the read.There is also a new blog that hit my radar screen today, and if the first...

AlphaLetters Paper Reviews – #8 & #9

From AlphaLetters, two more great quant working paper reviews:Article 8.Category: Calendar anomalies, weather anomalies, macro economic news announcementsTitle: The Arrival of Information and Stock Market AnomaliesAuthor: Jeffrey R. GerlachSource: College of William and Mary working paperLink: http://jrgerl.people.wm.edu/calendar%20anomaly.pdf Summary:This paper studies the relationship between macroeconomic news announcements and six stock market calendar/weather anomalies (the turn-of-the-month, monthly, rainfall, temperature, holiday and...

Sound Advice From a Nobel

Here are two behavioral downloads:Applying Behavioral Finance to Value Investing - Whitney TilsonBehavioural Finance - Martin SewellDaniel Kahneman, from an interview with Money Magazine:Q. You once said we'd all be better investors if we just made fewer decisions.A. Two decisions really matter: how much of your wealth you want to put at risk and how much risk you want...

Freak!

So the next time I write an academic paper, it will have a short title, few footnotes or equations, no appendix, and be reeaallly long. (Ok, that applied to law articles and few investment papers could get away with no equations.)Full article from the Freaknomics blog, "Attack of the Supercrunchers".I just ordered this new book on data mining, "Super...

A Long Only Short Seller That Probably Wishes He Was Still Shorting

I love to look through 13F filings of hedge funds that place all of their holdings in a few stocks. That is true belief that the best ideas are in a concentrated portfolio.World Beta has examined other such managers before - Saddle Rock being one of them. Her top holdings currently are American Eagle (AEO), Abercrombie (ANF),...

EndoWOWment

"Knowledge is good" - Emil Faber, founder of Faber CollegeWhile I have no idea how my namesake college endowment is performing these days, Harvard Management Company just released their fiscal year 2007 results, and they are fantastic. From the article:The Harvard endowment grew 23 percent during the fiscal year, which ended June 30, swelling to a new high...

AlphaLetters Paper Reviews – #6 and #7

From AlphaLetters, two reviews of quant working papers:Article 6.Category: Strategy, mutual fund holdingsTitle: The Investment Value of Mutual Fund Portfolio DisclosureAuthor: Russ Wermers, Tong Yao, and Jane ZhaoSource: University of Maryland working paperLink: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/faculty/rwermers/holding_200610.pdfSummary:The strategy:· long stocks that are overweighted (underweighted) by successful (unsuccessful) managers,· short stocks that are underweighted (overweighted) by unsuccessful (successful) managers.The risk adjusted (size, b/p,...

Political Uncertainty Portfolio Follow Up

I was in SF a few years ago when they filmed this video, and it is the first thing I thought about when considering an earlier post on how markets bounce back from down years. (Pretty interesting video of how they filmed it here.) If you're stressing about the markets, this is a nice 5 minute respite....