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 🇨🇦

Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
The Wall Street Bets due diligence on Wendy’s is gold.

The catalysts are:
◻️ The release of a new summer salad
◻️ The @Wendys Twitter account, which has mastered “meta pragmatic roasting” (which is effective with younger people)
◻️ The fact it literally sells chicken tendies


OP:

Here’s a more fundamentals-driven analysis of Wendy’s

https://t.co/A2k19S9M7J


😂😂😂


Further Wendy’s analysis from @CliffordAsness !!
PUMP DUMP
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
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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
\U0001d683\U0001d69b\U0001d69e\U0001d697\U0001d690 \U0001d67f\U0001d691\U0001d68a\U0001d697 \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
𝚃𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚐 𝙿𝚑𝚊𝚗 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
1/ Amazon is famous for its writing culture:

• "Mock press releases / FAQs" for new product pitches
• "6-page memos" instead of Powerpoint

Two former Amazon execs wrote a book called "Working Backwards" detailing the philosophy.

Here are some insights 🧵


2/ The "Working Backwards" playbook

Instead of creating a product then finding customers, Amazon asks "What does the customer need?" and works toward the product.

✅Customer need --> Create product
❌Create product --> Find customer

3/ Write a mock press release

To determine if the customer need makes biz sense, employees write a press release:

• What problem is the new product solving
• Why it's better than existing options

To persuade a customer, the document has to be jargon-free and tell a story.


4/ Press release forces big thinking

You don't write a press release for an incremental improvements.

Creating a product worthy of a press release means really solving a customer problem and going after markets with large TAMs.

5/ Include an FAQ in press release

Addressing every potential customer question can help identify hurdles to getting something to market...and also uncover opportunities.
CULTURE
Trung Phan \U0001f1e8\U0001f1e6
Trung Phan 🇨🇦...
@TrungTPhan
At 40, Jim Simons left a famed math career to launch the most successful hedge fund ever: Renaissance Tech.

Even though it only won 51% of trades, the fund made 66%/yr for 30yrs (Simons worth = $25B). It's a story of genius, but also of how hard it is to beat markets.

THREAD🧵


1/ The crown jewel of RenTech is The Medallion Fund (launched in 1988).

◻️ From 1988-2018, it posted a return of 66%/yr (39% after fees)
◻️$1 invested in 1988 is now worth $14m+
◻️ Cumulative profit = $100B+ even with an avg. fund size of only $4.5B


2/ Before creating what Bloomberg calls the “greatest money-making machine ever”, Simons was a legendary mathematician.


3/ While at Stony Brook, Simons started trading commodities (with money staked by former MIT classmates).

The side investing was good enough that Simons -- also going through a divorce -- decided to leave academia and launch his own money management firm in 1978: Monemetrics.

4/ At the time, there were 2 main investment approaches:

◻️ Fundamental (understanding and forecasting an asset based on key drivers)
◻️ Technical analysis (studying price charts)

Simons’ strategy was to place a “fundamental lens” on currencies (eg. supply and demand).
ALL

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Goldstein
Goldstein
@MrGoldstein7
The old conservative versus liberal thing, or the left/right division has been completely obliterated, and sometimes directly reversed. Originally, those on the right were defenders of the status quo, which meant they were fine with the world being run by bankers and aristocrats.
FINANCE
Neil Thomas \u725b\u7287
Neil Thomas 牛犇...
@neilthomas123
THREAD: Who are the rising stars of Chinese elite politics in the central Party-State bureaucracy?

For @MacroPoloChina I analyzed last year's ministerial-level promotions to posts in Beijing

TLDR: Ties to Xi Jinping—or a Xi ally—are very helpful! (1/14)

https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2


Seven politicians were promoted to ministerial-level positions in central Party agencies last year

All are likely to feature on the next Central Committee selected at the 2022 Party Congress

Some could make the CCP's elite 25-person Politburo (2/14)

https://t.co/kO2A0Efyq2


Likeliest for the Politburo is Meng Xiangfeng, new Executive Deputy Director of the CCP General Office

He would replace Xi ally Ding Xuexiang as CCP chief-of-staff if Ding is promoted further in 2022

Meng worked under Xi allies Cai Qi in Hangzhou and Chen Xi in Liaoning (3/14)


Less likely for the Politburo but still important is Jiang Jinquan, new Director of the CCP Policy Research Office

He replaces 5th-ranked leader Wang Huning who led the Party's brains trust for 18 years

Wang remains prominent and will be <68 in 2022, so he'll stay around (4/14)


Other notable central Party promotions include Li Shulei and Liang Yanshun, who both assisted Xi when he led the Central Party School from 2007-2012

Li is a political conservative who is said to be quite close with Xi, even drafting his 2014 speech on culture and art (5/14)
FINANCE
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Neil Bananas Bharadwa \U0001f44a\U0001f3fd
Neil Bananas Bharadwa ...
@MrNeilB
Having made over 1000 boxes for vulnerable families in Cambridge via @RedHenCambridge (thanks to our customers 🙏🏽) My thoughts on the £30 box thing. Lots of factors at play here. 1/

If the pics in this @BootstrapCook thread are true and correct then the Govt/taxpayers & families in need are getting absolutely SHAFTED 👇🏽 2/


There are some mitigating circumstances. A £30 box won’t ever contain £30 (retail) worth of food - people aren’t factoring in
-the cost of the box
-paying someone to fill it
-rent & rates
-& most expensive the *transport/distribution*

3/

If you’re doing the above at scale. Delivering *across the UK* it’s not cheap BUT IMHO there should be at LEAST £20 worth of groceries in a £30 box. To get more value they need more fresh produce. Just carrots & apples is terrible. 4/

I’m gonna put my rep on the line here & say something about these big national catering companies whose names I’ve seen mentioned. They are an ASSHOLE to deal with & completely shaft small businesses like mine with their terms which is why I won’t deal with them. 5/
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
Chuck Marr
Chuck Marr
@ChuckCBPP
I sense a few double standards present in the debate over Bidens’ historic Child Tax Credit proposal that would cut the child poverty rate by more than 40%.

My focus here is on a perhaps less obvious one but I think relevant: trust fund kids & the tax treatment of inheritances

Since the mid-1990s, as I’ll walk through, reducing the taxation of large inheritances has been a top, if not the top, tax policy priority of conservatives and Republicans.

In parallel, as I’ll also walk through, there has been a steady stream of research concluding that large inheritances reduce the work effort of wealthy heirs

Unless I’ve missed it, I’ve not sensed the type of concern about the work effects on wealthy heirs among conservative proponents of large tax-free inheritances, which we now see among some conservatives and Republican lawmakers around poor people and a larger Child Tax Credit

In 1997, as part of an agreement with Clinton, who secured wins to make health care more affordable for poor children and college tax credits, Gingrich won “reductions in capital gains and estate taxes that had been principal goals for the GOP.”
FINANCE

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Robin Berjon
Robin Berjon
@robinberjon
Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details): https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.
TECH
ArmaniTalks \U0001f399\U0001f525
ArmaniTalks 🎙🔥...
@ArmaniTalks
Shy people are either overthinking or highly observant of the social setting.

And in many cases it can be both.

'So what do I do?'

You learn the 75/25 law.

'What is that?'

The law of charisma...👇

Let's address the over thinkers first.

Do you have any idea why you overthink?

'Yea. Because others are judging how shy I am.'

Incorrect.

Others are thinking about themselves, not you.

But the fact that you think they are thinking about you, you fuck up the interaction.

Now you stay in your head too much & avoid the present moment.

A major no no in the social world.

Your tendency to think that others are judging you for being shy, coincidentally makes you more shy.

And that's when you start giving off a strange vibration to the social setting.

This is when you begin attracting comments like 'why are you so quiet?'
LIFE
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Brian Cates
Brian Cates
@drawandstrike
A lot of people don't understand that Trump & his incoming team didn't face a normal transition period, like it was over a in a matter of a few weeks or months.

The DOJ transition period JUST ENDED when Sessions left. Almost 2 exact years to get it there.

Pompeo at the CIA took over a year before he was done and ready to shift over to the State Department.

All kinds of stuff has been going on behind the scenes nobody leaks or talks about.

We only had the barest mention of the fact the Clinton Email investigation restarted

Nobody leaked in a year that Huber was deep diving into the Clinton Foundation.
Keep that in mind as all the usual suspects continue to INSIST nothing is happening/going to happen.
POLITICS
Pran Katariya
Pran Katariya
@KatariyaPran
The Straddle is my favorite trade these days. But more often than not, one needs to adjust to make a good return from it. There are many ways to do this depending on your view, psychology and imagination. Will discuss a few that I use

The Straddle is a delta neutral strategy and it is important to keep deltas in check during the course of the Trade and not let them run away from you. Of course Volatility is the elephant in the room- but not going there as that will require a separate discussion

The first and most common method is to go 'inverted.' That is to say to shift the untested side to generate additional Premium and increase the runway to Breakeven. So if you start with a Straddle at 700 and price goes to 740, you can move the PE up to say 720.

How much should you move the untested side? While again this is a matter of skill, experience and artistry, the rule of thumb is to cut deltas by half. Remember, prices will move and you have to allow sufficient room for them to fluctuate

The second method is to shift the entire Straddle in the direction of the move. So if you have a 700 Straddle and Price goes to 740, you can shift the Straddle to 720. If you time this right, it can generally be done at virtually no cost or minimal cost.
ALL , OPTION SELLING , STRADDLE OPTION SELLING
raina douris
raina douris
@RahRahRaina
fascinated by this man, mario cortellucci, and his outsized influence on ontario and GTA politics. cortellucci, who lives in vaughan and ran as a far-right candidate for the italian senate back in 2018 - is a major ford donor...


his name might sound familiar because the new cortellucci vaughan hospital at mackenzie health, the one doug ford has been touting lately as a covid-centric facility, is named after him and his family

but his name also pops up in a LOT of other ford projects. for instance - he controls the long term lease on big parts of toronto's portlands... where doug ford once proposed building an nfl stadium and monorail... https://t.co/weOMJ51bVF


cortellucci, who is a developer, also owns a large chunk of the greenbelt. doug ford's desire to develop the greenbelt has been

and late last year he rolled back the mandate of conservation authorities there, prompting the resignations of several members of the greenbelt advisory
WORLD