Łukasz Wróbel

Fractal structure of Argentine Peso. Exchange rate of $USDARS

Mon, 27 Jan 2014 14:29:00 +0100

Fractal structure of Argentine Peso. Exchange rate of $USDARS

What really shined in 2013? Dead cat bounce meets QE love.

Thu, 02 Jan 2014 10:29:54 +0100

What really shined in 2013? Dead cat bounce meets QE love.

Wall Street Still Hates Stocks…just not as much | The Reformed Broker

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 22:52:58 +0100

Wall Street Still Hates Stocks…just not as much | The Reformed Broker:

So where are we on the sentiment scale relative to the past? Subramanian notes that, while the Sell Side Sentiment index now sits at a 19-month high (up 12 of the last 15 months), we are still in “Buy” territory with stocks still way too forsaken and close to their 2009 sentiment lows. The strategist says “Historically, when our indicator has been this low or lower, total returns over the subsequent 12 months have been positive more than 95% of the time, with median 12-month returns of +27%.” The indicator’s current level would indicate an expected return for the S&P 500 of 18% in the next 12 months, based on the report.

The curse of productivity - why doing more (work) with less...

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 11:25:12 +0100

The curse of efficiency - why hire new ppl when fewer hands do more than ever before

Corporate profits / GDP. The capital is rewarded ....

... labour not so much.

Companies are doing fine, employment is tanking.

Investments are directed at increasing productivity and reducing labour costs yield. Doing more with less yields cash... which is spent on investments of the same time. See the pattern?

The curse of productivity - why doing more (work) with less (jobs) changed the balance between labour and capital.

"Success is getting what you want and happiness is wanting what...

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 16:01:28 +0200

"Success is getting what you want and happiness is wanting what you get" - Warren Buffett

"I believe that the multiples of technology stocks should be much lower than multiples of stock like Coke because we are subject to a complete change in the rules" - Bill Gates

"I want to retire about five years after I die. Maybe." - Warren Buffett

"The thing that was scary to me wasn’t quitting and starting a company. It was when I started hiring my friends and they expected to be paid." - Bill Gates

"Our business is not the one where money makes that much difference at all. If you would take 30 of our top people and draft them over to the other team, the score would change very very quickly." - Bill Gates

One of the most interesting parts of this Q&A session for me was hearing that the critical business decision for Bill Gates was to surround himself with great people like Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer. Ballmer has just announced that he quits and with Gates’ words about the multiples in mind (quote above) we have two major risks materializing for the Microsoft. But with the PE multiple of 13x, dividend yield twice the average for industry and cash equal to about 1/6 of its market value, Microsoft is still one of the best positioned companies to make waves and benefit from the the cloud computing mobile/ revolution.

Source: Buffett & Gates on Success (by Idiot Television)

Binary vs Vanilla Payoffs and Predictions: An error in the...

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:42:47 +0200

Binary vs Vanilla Payoffs and Predictions: An error in the research/risk literature (by Taleb’s Moocs)

Germany Recognizes BitCoin as Currency (by SourceFed) In other...

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 10:23:00 +0200

Germany Recognizes BitCoin as Currency (by SourceFed)

In other news confirming that this crytpocurreny goes mainstream:

Bitcoin enters the Bloomberg terminal (link)
Every Important Person In Bitcoin Just Got Subpoenaed By New York’s Financial Regulator (link)

The Garland Report, Episode 1: Gregor Macdonald & The Truth...

Mon, 19 Aug 2013 15:42:09 +0200

The Garland Report, Episode 1: Gregor Macdonald & The Truth About Peak Oil (by Eric Garland)

Economic fiction featuring extremely black swan: Currency Wars...

Tue, 06 Aug 2013 17:11:30 +0200

Economic fiction featuring extremely black swan: Currency Wars Simulation (by Eboard25920)

Mohnish Pabrai on Maximizing Returns (by TheMotleyFool)

Tue, 25 Jun 2013 16:02:24 +0200

Mohnish Pabrai on Maximizing Returns (by TheMotleyFool)

FT Alphaville: If it needs to be said...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 13:02:25 +0200

FT Alphaville: If it needs to be said...:

ftalphaville:

From HSBC’s Steven Major:

The six stages of G4 QE: Fed not even at stage 2 yet Tapering, if it were to start, would be stage 2. As stage 1 represents the initial buying of assets by the central bank, the next stage is about adjusting the speed of purchases. If QE is a car, then the…

theatlantic: How We Pay Taxes, in 14 Charts Where do our tax...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:06:49 +0200

theatlantic:

How We Pay Taxes, in 14 Charts

Where do our tax dollars come from? Where do they go? Who pays how much? How has it changed over time?

See more. [Image: Heritage]

"The loan-to-deposit ratio of US banks was 1.3 before the crisis, now it is down to 0.7. European..."

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:18:08 +0100

“The loan-to-deposit ratio of US banks was 1.3 before the crisis, now it is down to 0.7. European banks still have a ratio of 1.2. They want to delever but the ECB with its lending programme, has halted this deleveraging programme. But in the long run, tighter bank credit will squeeze European growth.”

- Currencies: Chasing scraps | The Economist

"This paper employs a natural experiment from financial history to study the process by which private..."

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:59:28 +0100

“This paper employs a natural experiment from financial history to study the process by which private information is incorporated into prices. I look at the market for English securities in the Netherlands during the 1770s and 1780s. Anecdotal evidence suggests that English insiders traded actively on their private signals, both in London and in Amsterdam. I reconstruct the arrival dates of sailing boats that transmitted information from London to Amsterdam and I look at the movement of English security prices between the arrivals of boats. The evidence is consistent with a Kyle (1985) model in which insiders trade on their private signals in a strategic way and private information is only slowly revealed to the market as a whole. The speed of information revelation in Amsterdam crucially depended on how long insiders expected it would take for the private signal to be publicly revealed. The importance of private information is underlined by the response of London prices to price discovery in Amsterdam.”

- 'Those Who Know Most': Insider Trading in 18th c. Amsterdam

ftalphaville: Amazing shift in US fuel consumption trajectory...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:22:46 +0100

ftalphaville:

Amazing shift in US fuel consumption trajectory since 2004 - illustrated. From John Kemp of Reuters.

/Kate

Percent Of Stocks Above Their 10-Day Moving Average (various indexes)

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 17:35:14 +0200

kas:

Blue arrow points to the current value.

Dow (46.67%)

Nasdaq-100 (24%)

NYSE Comp (44.20%)

S&P-600 (25.47%)

S&P 500 (47.60)

Gold prices will climb this week on the back of another round of...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 14:38:33 +0200

Gold prices will climb this week on the back of another round of quantitative easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve and expectations of additional easing measures by global central banks, according to 63 percent of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Bullion will increase to $1,900 an ounce by the end of 2013, according to the median of the 10 most recent forecasts, compared with an overall consensus of $1,813 an ounce, highlighting rising bullish sentiment in the precious metal.

(via The Average Forecast for Gold: $1,900 by Q4 2013)

Quick, let’s someone issue options on this baby. Way back...

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:28:37 +0200

Quick, let’s someone issue options on this baby.

Way back when, before the CBOE Market Volatility Index (VIX) was trade-able — before anyone even paid much attention to VIX — options were kind of easy. Your basic position gave you exposure to volatility — whether it was a complex one derived from specializing or making markets (or taking the other side of your customers upstairs), or a simple one like a call long or a covered write.

Quite simply, you made a wise decision net owning options if the realized volatility of the underlying instrument going forward exceeded the implied volatility you paid for a position when you opened it.

(via A Little ‘Variance’ In Your Diet… | Outside The Box Blog | Schaeffer’s Investment Research)

France is becoming periphery country

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:15:58 +0200

According to Roubini, “many problems are brewing in France” at the moment, and there are a few reasons for serious concern if you’re holding French bonds. Roubini gives four, which we summarize here:

Growth is stalling and could go negative next year if austerity is enacted. Unemployment is already rising.
“Hollande was not elected by his base to pursue austerity and reforms, but rather to boost growth and hiring in the public sector,” writes Roubini. Talks of austerity is causing unions to become restless and riots could begin among the poor and affected minorities.
Government revenues are around 50% of GDP and economic contraction will increasingly put pressure on the deficit. This will make achieving a balance budget through spending cuts extremely difficult.
Some policy decisions are upsetting the business and financial community. Bernard Arnault left France over talks of a 75% marginal tax rate on the wealthy.

"People will believe statistics, but they won’t care unless you can connect it to a specific story so..."

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:01:41 +0200

“People will believe statistics, but they won’t care unless you can connect it to a specific story so that they can get over their fear of not understanding the why”

- People Will Believe Statistics, But Won’t Truly Accept Them Leigh Drogen