BC FINANCE
Saved by @tradrdoc

The most memorable interview I did this year was w/ Stanley Druckenmiller, who famously made $1B shorting the British Pound.

The trading legend's track record includes a 30-year stretch returning 30%+ a year (without a single down year).

Here are 8 investing lessons🧵

 1/ Make concentrated bets in high conviction plays
2/ Concentrated bets can sometimes *reduce* risk
3/ Use a multi-disciplinary approach to investing
4/ Know when to sell (he never uses a stop loss)
5/ You will fight emotions your entire career
6/ His biggest investing mistake came in 2000 when he let emotions overpower his discipline
7/ If you don’t *really* love investing, you will get beat by those who do
8/ Find what *actually* makes a stock goes up or down
9/ If you enjoyed that, I write 1-2x interesting threads a week.

Follow @TrungTPhan to catch them in your feed.

Here's one you might like: https://t.co/B3SWUCF2cd
10/ PS. I also write a Saturday newsletter digging up the most interesting (and mostly hilarious) nuggets from around the web.

https://t.co/jGZs8brnVR
11/ Here's the full Q&A (audio, text) with Druckenmiller. It covers his views on the tech stocks, inflation, Wall Street Bets, crypto (BTC, ETH, DOGE), China and more:

https://t.co/N7MqxWj2ks
12/ One more: Be able to change your mind (before losing $3B in 2000, Druckenmiller pulled a stunning 180-degree turn in 1999)

(This story is courtesy of the Financial Times)
13/ Here is Stan’s guess for the first FAAMG company to reach $5T

More from Trung Phan 🇨🇦

\U0001d683\U0001d69b\U0001d69e\U0001d697\U0001d690 \U0001d67f\U0001d691\U0001d68a\U0001d697 \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
𝚃𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝙿𝚑𝚊𝚗 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
1/ Marcus Bullock went to prison in the mid-90s at the age of 15.

Today, he's the CEO of Flikshop -- the "Instagram for the Incarcerated", an alternative to the outrageously expensive phone call system.

This is a truly inspirational founder story 👇👇


2/ In 1996, Bullock was living in Maryland. One night, he and a friend carried out an armed carjacking on a man sitting idle in a shopping mall parking lot.

It was the biggest mistake of this life.

3/ Several years prior to hit actions, there was the famed 1989 Central Park "Jogger Case", in which 5 minority youths were (falsely) accused of raping a jogger.

In the aftermath, nearly every state passed new laws that made it easier for courts to try youth as adults.


4/ For the carjacking, Bullock was charged as an adult and served 8 years in prison.

With onerous prison phone charges ($18 / 15 mins), Bullock's mother kept in touch with him by sending a photo or letter every day.

"She saved me," he says of his mom's efforts.


5/ The $1.2B+ prison phone system is dominated by 2 PE-backed firms (Global Tel Link, Securus Tech).

For the right to operate these phones lines, prisons effectively pay kickbacks to state and local government. The highest kickbacks win bids, which drive up costs.
CULTURE
Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
A Netflix user will browse the app for 90 seconds and leave if they find nothing.

Thumbnail artwork is actually NFLX's most effective lever to influence a viewer's choice. A user will look at one for only 1.8 seconds, so NFLX spends huge to optimize them.

Here's a breakdown🧵


1/ Spoiler alert: humans are visual animals.

Our eyes move 3-4x per second to process information and we can analyze an image in as little as 13 milliseconds.


2/ In 2014, Netflix consumer research showed that thumbnail artwork:

◻️ is "the biggest influencer...to watch content"
◻️ is the focus of 82% of browsing time

A user looks at one for only 1.8 seconds. If they can't find Netflix content in 90 seconds, they'll leave the app.


3/ Consequently, Netflix uses an elaborate thumbnail selection process for each of its 200m+ users.

The process is called aestethic visual analysis (AVA), which starts by pulling all the frames from a video.

For reference: a 1hr episode of "Stranger Things" has 86k frames.


4/ In a process known as "Frame Annotation", each frame is tagged with metadata identifying key variables:

◻️ Saliency
◻️ Frame #
◻️ Brightness / Contrast
◻️ Nudity probability
◻️ Face / skin tone
ALL , MARKETING INSIGHTS
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Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
“I spend too much at Starbucks” is a legendary meme.

It's also not an accident: the coffee retailer -- worth $120B -- uses many psychological hacks in its store and menu designs to get you to drop more cash.

Here are 11 of them 🧵


1/ Starbucks is all about positioning

The chain has higher prices vs competitors. But that's the point.

People typically assign higher value/quality to higher prices. Known as "irrational value assessment", this makes Starbucks an everyday luxury that people will pay for.


2/ Premium brand = premium customer base

By setting its prices higher, Starbucks attracts clientele that are relatively price insensitive.

Starbucks frequently raises its prices with little negative effect to its bottom line.


3/ "More than coffee"

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz created the premium feel by emphasizing experience:

◻️Positioned SBUX as a "third place" (b/t home, work)
◻️Brought bean grinding in-store (for aroma)
◻️Banned auto espresso machines (it took away from the barista craft)


4/ Lighting and visual cues

The Starbucks operations is about "flow", efficiently moving people around the store+ getting them to spend.

To form lines, it directs people to well-lit areas (usually the merchandise, which provides the added benefit of nudging products for sale).
BUSINESS MENTAL MODELS
Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
For decades, Jeff Bezos shunned ads.

But now, Amazon’s ad business is huge: it’s on a $30B+ annual run rate (more than 2x the combined sales of Twitter, Snap and Pinterest).

Here’s how it happened 🧵


1/ Amazon doesn’t break out its ad business separately in financial filings. However, most analyst believe ads make up the majority of its “Other” revenue segment.

This figure has exploded from $1B in 2015 to a current annual run rate of ~$32B.


2/ In 2009, Bezos said “ads are the price you pay for a crappy product”.

But the business is so lucrative that Amazon’s interface has been swamped with ads:

◻️ First 3-7 search results (left in red)
◻️ Most of the product page (right in blue)


3/ Prior to the rise of ads, Amazon set out to build the ultimate organic customer recommendations engine.

The approach was codified in a famed 2003 research paper: “Amazon Recommendations: Item-to-Item Collaborative Filtering.”


4/ In recent years, Amazon organic recommendations:

◻️"Customers who bought this also bought this"
◻️"Customers who viewed also viewed"

Have been replaced w/ ads:

◻️ "Sponsored products related to"
◻️ "Brands related to this category"
TECH
Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
Our intuitions often leads us astray. A good reminder: study counterintuitive math and economic results.

Here are 9 of them 🧵

The Birthday Paradox

In a room of 23 people, there's a >50% chance that 2 people share the same birthday.

This type of probabilistic thinking does *not* come naturally to many people.


The Coastline Paradox

Fractal geometry is also confounding:

The coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined measurement. As the unit of measurement gets smaller (eg. from KMs to cm), the length increases without limit.


Winner's Curse

In an auction, the winning bid will usually exceed the intrinsic worth of an item leading to a significant overpay (and negative net profit for the winner).


Braess's Paradox

Removing an extra road can make everyone's commute time faster.

Why? The existence of a "fast" road leads to congestion because everyone uses it. If you remove the shortcut, traffic flows better.
FINANCE , COUNTERINTUITIVE

More from Finance

Chamath Palihapitiya
Chamath Palihapitiya
@chamath
A children's book explanation of what's happening:

1. If you are "smart money" you are allowed to take your $1 and leverage it up to $15+

2. You can now buy $15 of stock AND if you promise to short companies, you can short $15 of stock as well

3. In finance language, this means that you are $30 "gross" ($15 of longs + $15 of shorts) but $0 net (+$15 of longs -$15 of shorts). This makes everyone feel good because it feels like you are taking zero risk...but in reality, your $1 is exposed to $30 of risk.

4. Now you go around and tell your friends about both your longs and your shorts and when you do it at a restaurant vs on Reddit, its called an "ideas dinner".

5. You also publish your longs on a quarterly lag via an SEC rule. You don't have to tell anyone about your shorts.

6. Now the less cool people who weren't invited to the ideas dinners, start copying your longs based on your report.

7. You realize that publicizing your shorts is also a good idea so instead of only selling stocks, you also BUY options (puts) which has to be reported.

8. Now everyone can see both your longs and your shorts and if you have a hot hand, you can likely predict that the cool people from the dinner as well as the less cool people monitoring your filings will copy you.

9. But then an outsider notices that the math is way off!
CULTURE , ALL , FINANCE
Indian Quant \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
Indian Quant 🇮🇳...
@indian_quant
Nano Course On Python For Trading
==========================
Module 3

In this post, I will attempt to teach you how to write an algorithm in python to automatically find support and resistance. We shall use the data we downloaded in module 2.

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To visualize price action, I have used the daily candlestick chart. To quantify the meaning of support and resistance, I have taken below definitions:
In a series of 5 continuous candles, if the first three candles make increasing high and then 2 decreasing highs, then the

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high of the third candle is considered resistance. Similarly, if the first 3 candles make lower lows and the next 2 make high lows then the low of the third candle is support.

+


The above explanation is for the sake of quantifying support and resistance at a very basic level. These are called fractals. Now let's get started with the code.

mpl_finance is the new module here. We will use its candlestick_ohlc function.

+


Now, if you remember, you downloaded data for nifty 50 stocks in module 2. We shall use that data. Let's work on ITC data this time.
We will use data from 1 Jan 2021 to 30 June 2021.

+
FINANCE , PYTHON , ALL
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Niranjan Avasthi
Niranjan Avasthi
@avasthiniranjan
A simple thread to understand relationship between US Dollar and Emerging Markets.

The relationship between the performance of Emerging Market stocks and the US Dollar is one of the tightest macro relationships that exists in investing.

1/15

The weekly return correlation between US Dollar and MSCI Emerging Market Index is -0.70 over last 10 years. Which means when US Dollar weakens, Emerging Market stocks rally and vice versa.

2/15

As seen in this chart, the MSCI EM Index and the MSCI World Index ratio and the US Dollar Index are negatively-correlated.

When US Dollar weakens, EM index outperform World Index and when US Dollar strengthens EM index underperform World index.

3/15


From 1995 to 2000, the USD appreciated over 30%, while the MSCI EM Index underperformed the MSCI World Index by over 15% annualised.

Then from 2001 to 2010, the U.S. dollar depreciated over 18% while the MSCI EM Index outperformed the MSCI World Index by 14% annualised.

4/15

Then from 2011 to 2020, the U.S. dollar appreciated over 30%, while the MSCI EM Index underperformed the MSCI World Index by 7% annualized.

Overall, from 1995 to 2020, this relationship has a correlation of -0.35.

5/15
FINANCE , STOCKLEARNINGS , MARKET LEARNINGS
Barsee
Barsee
@heyBarsee
This took me 6 years to learn, I'll teach you in 2 minutes.

23 sentences that'll make you more money than a $40,997 business degree:

1. Irresistible offer - Desirable outcome + proof + scarcity + urgency + guarantee + bonuses

2. Join the most expensive gym in your city. one connection will pay for it many times over - jk

3. If you keep waiting for the “right time” you will keep wasting all of your time.

4. Don't be cheap with: doctors, lawyers and tax advisors

5. Give yourself 3 days to do it and it'll take 3 days.

Give yourself 3 hours to do it and it'll take 3 hours.

6. Send a physical gift to customers and everyone who's worked with you for more than 3 months

7. Your customer's fear of loss is more powerful than their desire for gain.
ALL , FINANCE
The Better India
The Better India
@thebetterindia
(1/14) The World Bank’s 2017 report titled ‘Precarious Drop’ pointed out how nearly 20 million Indian women were ‘missing’ from the workforce during 2004-2012.


(2/14) While media reports and headlines might have put the onus on women themselves, it is hard to ignore that there are many challenges that hinder women from rejoining the workforce post a career-break taken for several reasons, including childbirth.

(3/14) Out of those who manage to rejoin the workforce, many women eventually drop out in less than 6 months. This was due to “lack of awareness about inclusivity” in corporate offices in the ’90s, points out Dr Saundarya, someone who chose to be the solution to this problem.

(4/14) Having experienced all the challenges of a returning female professional, she founded Avtar in 2000, as a diversity and inclusion platform that helps women get a second shot at building their careers.

(5/14) And, recently, in November 2020, she expanded her focus through MyAvtar — a job portal for people from marginalised backgrounds, to include the LGBTQ+ community as well.
FINANCE

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George Mack
George Mack
@george__mack
THREAD: 15 of the most useful razors and rules I've found.

Rules of thumb that simplify decisions.

Bezos' Razors:

• If unsure what action to take, let your 80-year-old self make it.

• If unsure who to work with, pick the person that has the best chances of breaking you out of a 3rd world prison.

Skinner's Law:

• If procrastinating on an item, you only have 2 options:

1. Make the pain of not doing it greater than the pain of doing it.

2. Make the pleasure of doing it greater than the pleasure of not doing it.

Luck Razor:

• If stuck with 2 equal options, pick the one that feels like it will produce the most luck later down the line.

I used this razor to go for drinks with a stranger rather than watch Netflix.

In hindsight, it was the highest ROI decision I've ever made.

Bragging Razor:

• If someone brags about their success or happiness, assume it’s half what they claim.

• If someone downplays their success or happiness, assume it’s double what they claim.

The map is not the terrain.
ALL , BUSINESS , PRINCIPLES
Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
ARULMIGU SRI PARTHASARATHY SWAMY KSHETRAM, CHENNAI (TN)

Divya Desha where Perumal appears with moustache of a Sarathi (charioteer) to conduct Arjun’s Rath in Kurukshetra war.
Here, Venkatkrishna-Parthasarthy is present with his entire family.


He is flanked by Sri Rukmini, Sri Balarama, Satyaki, son Pradyumn and grandson Anirudha.
It is said that on the request of Raja Sumathirajan, Sri Perumal appeared and stayed here as Arjun’s charioteer (Partha-sarathi).


He is without chakra as he had promised not to wield weapons in Mahabharata war.
The face has scars caused by Bhishma’s arrows on Arjun. Prabhu took the arrows on himself to protect Arjun.


The Naivedyam offered here does not have spices. Ghee is used in it to cure Prabhu’s wounds. Sarkarai Pongal is famous here.

It is said that Rishi Bhrigu found Devi Lakshmi (as Vedvalli) in Alli flower in the mandir pushkarini. Later, Sri Ranganatha came here to marry her.
ALL
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Anu Satheesh
Anu Satheesh
@AnuSatheesh5
Puthucode Annapoorneshwari Temple,
Palakkad, Kerala 🚩
#keralatemples
अन्नपूर्णे सदापूर्णे शङ्करप्राणवल्लभे 
ज्ञानवैराग्यसिद्ध्यर्थं भिक्षां देहि च पार्वति 

Temple is also called Puthukode Bhaghavathy Kshetram
Parasurama did Prathishta of Devi here. Temple is one amoung 👇


108 Durga temples
Navarathri festival is celebrated in a grant manner here. Annadanam is done daily on these days. The Idichu pizhinja payasam/ Chathachatayam is the main nivedyam in Annapoorneswari temple during Navarathri.
In the mornings, Devi Mahatmyam and Sundarakandam are


recited here daily.
Sri Godavarma Raja gifted lots of rice fields for the maintenance of the temple.
Annapoorneshwari holds Shanku and Chakra in her hands. Puthucode Annapoorneswari Temple is managed by the Naduvil Madom Devaswom.
🙏🕉🙏
ALL
Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
Krugman is, of course, right about this. BUT, note that universities can do a lot to revitalize declining and rural regions.


See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:

And see this thing that I wrote:

And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:

And see this other thing that I wrote:
SOCIETY
WORLD OF SANATAN DHARMA
WORLD OF SANATAN DHARM...
@world_sanatan
THE LAST STAND OF PAVAN KHIND - THE 300 BATTLE OF INDIA

A long🧵that u must read

In desperate times, great men come forth. Those men who are ready to sacrifice all of their lives work for a single cause.

Baji Prabhu Deshpande is one such man.

1/25


Battle was between the Maratha Warrior Baji Prabhu Deshpande and Sidi Masoud of Adil Shahi Sultanate.

In 1660, the Maratha King Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji was trapped in the fort of Panhala, under siege and vastly outnumbered by an Adilshahis army led by Sidi Masoud.

2/25

And while everyone is thinking that finally the Maratha king will be subdued, Shivaji planned to escape to the fort of Vishalgadh. It was administered by a Maratha chieftain named Range Narayan Orpe under Shivaji.

3/25

For months the siege warfare continued as Shivaji made sure that the food source of the Besieging army drops down, due to which they will initiate a general assault on the castle.

4/25

Shivaji, Baji Prabhu, and around 600 of their best troops, hardened mountaineers of the Maval region, would dash through the Adilshahis force at night.

A man named Shiva Kashid, who resembled Shivaji in appearance, had volunteered to dress like the king and get captured.

5/25
ALL