Author: Nathan Joel

Google’s New AI Is Better at Creating AI Than the Company’s Engineers – Futurismhttps://apple.news/AZGL3hrwTThuTdhEG_Tm3Jw

https://www.ft.com/content/4b8cd546-3bf1-11e7-821a-6027b8a20f23
The story above points out the difficulty of investing in emerging markets. But portfolio volatility maybe the necessary price we pay for Alpha going forward. A world awash in bank reserves (if not money supply, which is why no inflation and slow growth) has seemingly dampened volatility in developed the markets 

The Stock Picker Behind the S&P 500 https://www.wsj.com/articles/david-m-blitzer-stock-picker-behind-the-s-p-500-1495186202

Story above reiterates an exhausting truth –there is no passive investing. But go ahead keep deceiving  yourself

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/it-s-not-just-chris-cornell-suicide-rates-highest-among-n762221 It’s Not Just Chris Cornell: Suicide Rates Highest Among Middle-Aged Men NBCNews.com – 20m ago The news that 52-year-old Seattle grunge rock icon Chris Cornell had killed himself after a concert in Detroit shocked and saddened fans of the Soundgarden frontman.

The crisis of meaning continues. It is somewhat like a neo nihilism. As if a generation wants to say –nothing matters enough to change anything. Tragic. 

http://assets.realclear.com/files/2017/05/576_debt.pdf
Good research. The next time you hear someone say with breathless tone that household debt  is at an all-time high. Enjoy a moment of snooty insight and say to yourself “yes, but debt to income is shrinking.” Nerds just want to have fun too. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-18/oh-no-not-another-debt-crisis
http://blog.yardeni.com/2017/05/death-by-amazon.html

As if the last ten years of petrochemical extraction technology hasn’t shifted the supply curve enough, now we have this…

https://phys.org/news/2017-05-china-japan-combustible-ice-seafloor.html

I just love it when people claim to know what the market wants. We don’t know what the market is going to do tomorrow. But we know it’s desires hopes and dreams. Silly

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-18/jim-chanos-says-markets-hope-pence-replaces-trump-as-president?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Opinion | China Is the Future of the Sharing Economy – Bloomberg https://apple.news/AANKQ8yagQuSw3HX5EiuKJA
Robots Taking Over U.S. Factories Imperil Emerging-Market Growth – Bloomberg https://apple.news/AQcE3BvynTlii2KQ6pXoEfA
https://www.ft.com/content/44ed7e90-3960-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec
If the above story proves to be true. Utility stocks may lose some of their predictive function in systematic training.

https://www.ft.com/content/1ef8be8e-3bae-11e7-ac89-b01cc67cfeec
Most of us have been riding the trend in the above story. Tim does great job as usual on research. There will be yet another ETF based on this work in three, two, one,…

https://www.ft.com/content/05979e18-2fe4-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a
The above story is good news. China has surplus construction materials and will have more as they continue tightening their credit. Pakistan needs increasing openness to speed up the Idea Cycle which will help them have a religious reformation. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/opinion/trump-white-house-staff.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share
David Brooks is the best columnist in the world. That’s all. 

Elon musk wants you to believe he is gonna 10x tunnel technology. Maybe. But I wonder if this isn’t about having investors pay for the technology he believes he needs when he colonizes Mars. Consider no one would give a dime to allow him to chase that dream. Imagine how he would spin the ROI on Mars tunnels. Which are needed for all sorts of reasons. But traffic. Oohhhh. You’ll invest in that. I mean how does this billionaire not have a helicopter yet ? Whatever. I hope it works. I love long shots. I love big thinkers. Go Elon… spend your groupies money.

http://newatlas.com/elon-musk-boring-company-plan/49572/

Perhaps you were looking for the next big bubble in American financial history. If so I have identified it for you. And you should ride it but never believe the hype. Get some method of momentum following. Use it. (And just in case you were wondering you have probably already missed the first third of the move.) It’s machine learning. Please don’t believe it is general AI. It’s not.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/news/a26551/google-io-2017-machine-learning/

So I’m starting to blog about global markets and anything else I am interested in. Believe me, this isn’t really for you, it’s for me. It’s therapy. But I would love for you to benefit from my bloody years of learning.

Goals:

A widget of some kind that shows my current market position or orientation.

A regular list of things worth reading in the media.

A recommended reading list of books that changed my views.

A commitment to fun and general light-heartedness.