It contains a tip that a certain stock will soon rise sharply.
A week passes, and as he predicted, the stock goes up.
The Baltimore Stockbroker Parable
How one stockbroker managed to achieve a 100% success rate in predicting stock movements
/THREAD/
It contains a tip that a certain stock will soon rise sharply.
A week passes, and as he predicted, the stock goes up.
And next week, the stock craters.
Every time the prediction comes true.
That sounds like a great deal, right?
It is incredibly unlikely that a complete buffoon with no special knowledge would have gotten 10 correct stock predictions in a row.
For a 50-50 chance of being right or wrong, and 10 picks, the calculation is (1/2) in the power of 10.
This comes down to 1/1024, less than 0.1%.
But things look different from the stockbroker's side.
He sent out 10,240, half with the prediction the stock will rise and half with the opposite prediction.
The 5,120 who received the incorrect prediction never heard from him again.
The recipients that got the correct prediction, receive another newsletter.
Half the recipients get the "correct" prediction and half of them the "incorrect".
Ten people who think the stockbroker from Baltimore is an investing genius.
Ten people from whom he expects to collect hefty fees.
A British magician, Derren Brown, pulled off a similar stunt, mailing various horse-racing picks to thousands of people, eventually convincing one that he had created a foolproof prediction system.
When an investment firm launches a mutual fund, they often maintain it in-house before they open it to the public.
Typically, these firms incubate dozens of funds at the same time, experimenting with different strategies and allocations.
The ones that fail, are thrown into the trash can, and the public never notices they even existed.
Instead, they offer the same mediocre returns as all the other mutual funds in the market.
It means you would be better off resisting the temptation of the hot new funds with the excellent track record and incredible returns over the past couple of years.
Stop looking for the stock magician with the golden touch and put your money in a low-cost index fund and forget about it.
https://t.co/l9sb5X2z2F
Jack Bogle, the Father of Indexing
— Kostas \U0001f468\u200d\U0001f4bc \U0001f4c8 \U0001f4b8 (@itsKostasWithK) January 8, 2021
How John "Jack" Bogle's creation impacted investors more than Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Warren Buffett combined
/THREAD/ pic.twitter.com/4wPi8x3cXn
You have been lured by the impressive results, but you don't know how many chances they had to get them.
But they never tell you how many predictions they have made.
/END/
https://t.co/a0k6jzZ6wg
The Baltimore Stockbroker Parable
— Kostas \U0001f468\u200d\U0001f4bc \U0001f4c8 \U0001f4b8 (@itsKostasWithK) January 23, 2021
How one stockbroker managed to achieve a 100% success rate in predicting stock movements
/THREAD/ pic.twitter.com/xCRL6CfxBu
https://t.co/6o3A2IQCMs
List of Educational Threads on Financial Independence and Investing for Beginners#FinancialIndependence #financialeducation #financialfreedom #investing
— Kostas \U0001f468\u200d\U0001f4bc \U0001f4c8 \U0001f4b8 (@itsKostasWithK) January 3, 2021
1/ Financial Freedomhttps://t.co/8j5KG5ioFK
More from Kostas 👨💼 📈 💸
The Mother of All Squeezes
How Volkswagen went from being on the brink of bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world in two days
/THREAD/
1/ At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, Volkswagen was considered a very likely candidate for bankruptcy.
Heavily indebted and already financially struggling before 2008, with car sales expected to plummet due to the ongoing global crisis.
2/ With GM and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy in 2009, shorting the VW stock would seem a safe bet.
If you are not familiar with stock shorts and short squeezes check my thread
3/ On October 26, 2008, Porsche announced it had increased its stake at VW from 30% to 74%.
This was a surprise to many who were led to believe that Porsche wasn't planning a takeover of VW, based on the company's announcements.
4/ Before the announcement, the short interest was approximately 13% of the outstanding shares, a number considered relatively low.
Porsche had a 30% stake, the Lower Saxony government fund held 20% of the shares, and another 5% was held by index funds.
How Volkswagen went from being on the brink of bankruptcy to the most valuable company in the world in two days
/THREAD/
1/ At the peak of the 2008 financial crisis, Volkswagen was considered a very likely candidate for bankruptcy.
Heavily indebted and already financially struggling before 2008, with car sales expected to plummet due to the ongoing global crisis.
2/ With GM and Chrysler filing for bankruptcy in 2009, shorting the VW stock would seem a safe bet.
If you are not familiar with stock shorts and short squeezes check my thread
Shorts, Squeezes, and Betting Against Stocks
— Kostas on FIRE \U0001f525 (@itsKostasOnFIRE) January 27, 2021
What is short selling, how is it used and why is it risky?
/THREAD/ pic.twitter.com/PyDd208hFe
3/ On October 26, 2008, Porsche announced it had increased its stake at VW from 30% to 74%.
This was a surprise to many who were led to believe that Porsche wasn't planning a takeover of VW, based on the company's announcements.
4/ Before the announcement, the short interest was approximately 13% of the outstanding shares, a number considered relatively low.
Porsche had a 30% stake, the Lower Saxony government fund held 20% of the shares, and another 5% was held by index funds.
More from Trading
Many of you have seen the famous Westrum Organizational Typology model, so prominently featured in State of DevOps Research, Accelerate, DevOps Handbook, etc.
This model was created Dr. Ron Westrum, a widely-cited sociologist who studied the impact of culture on safety
Thanks to Dr. @nicolefv, I was able to interview him for an upcoming episode of the Idealcast! 🤯
It was a very heady experience, and while preparing to interview him, I was startled to discover how much work he's done in healthcare, aviation, spaceflight, but also innovation.
I've read 4+ of his papers, so I thought I was familiar with his work. (Here's one paper: https://t.co/7X00O67VgS)
I was startled to learn he has also studied in depth what enables innovation. He wrote a wonderful book "Sidewinder: Creative Missile Development at China Lake"
Dr. Westrum writes about China Lake Research Labs: "its design and structure had one purpose: to foster technical creativity. It did; China Lake operated far outside the normal envelope... Sidewinder & others were "impossible" accomplishments,
I love this book because it describes traits of organizations that routinely create and maintain greatness: US space program (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo), US Naval Reactors, Toyota, Team of Teams, Tesla, the tech giants (Amazon, Google, Netflix, Google)
This model was created Dr. Ron Westrum, a widely-cited sociologist who studied the impact of culture on safety
Thanks to Dr. @nicolefv, I was able to interview him for an upcoming episode of the Idealcast! 🤯
It was a very heady experience, and while preparing to interview him, I was startled to discover how much work he's done in healthcare, aviation, spaceflight, but also innovation.
I've read 4+ of his papers, so I thought I was familiar with his work. (Here's one paper: https://t.co/7X00O67VgS)
I was startled to learn he has also studied in depth what enables innovation. He wrote a wonderful book "Sidewinder: Creative Missile Development at China Lake"
Dr. Westrum writes about China Lake Research Labs: "its design and structure had one purpose: to foster technical creativity. It did; China Lake operated far outside the normal envelope... Sidewinder & others were "impossible" accomplishments,
I love this book because it describes traits of organizations that routinely create and maintain greatness: US space program (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo), US Naval Reactors, Toyota, Team of Teams, Tesla, the tech giants (Amazon, Google, Netflix, Google)
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1/OK, data mystery time.
This New York Times feature shows China with a Gini Index of less than 30, which would make it more equal than Canada, France, or the Netherlands. https://t.co/g3Sv6DZTDE
That's weird. Income inequality in China is legendary.
Let's check this number.
2/The New York Times cites the World Bank's recent report, "Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World".
The report is available here:
3/The World Bank report has a graph in which it appears to show the same value for China's Gini - under 0.3.
The graph cites the World Development Indicators as its source for the income inequality data.
4/The World Development Indicators are available at the World Bank's website.
Here's the Gini index: https://t.co/MvylQzpX6A
It looks as if the latest estimate for China's Gini is 42.2.
That estimate is from 2012.
5/A Gini of 42.2 would put China in the same neighborhood as the U.S., whose Gini was estimated at 41 in 2013.
I can't find the <30 number anywhere. The only other estimate in the tables for China is from 2008, when it was estimated at 42.8.
This New York Times feature shows China with a Gini Index of less than 30, which would make it more equal than Canada, France, or the Netherlands. https://t.co/g3Sv6DZTDE
That's weird. Income inequality in China is legendary.
Let's check this number.
2/The New York Times cites the World Bank's recent report, "Fair Progress? Economic Mobility across Generations Around the World".
The report is available here:
3/The World Bank report has a graph in which it appears to show the same value for China's Gini - under 0.3.
The graph cites the World Development Indicators as its source for the income inequality data.
4/The World Development Indicators are available at the World Bank's website.
Here's the Gini index: https://t.co/MvylQzpX6A
It looks as if the latest estimate for China's Gini is 42.2.
That estimate is from 2012.
5/A Gini of 42.2 would put China in the same neighborhood as the U.S., whose Gini was estimated at 41 in 2013.
I can't find the <30 number anywhere. The only other estimate in the tables for China is from 2008, when it was estimated at 42.8.