Category: Research – Alex

It goes to show that when you are confused it is best to do nothing. You are just going for a random walk and that is when you are liable to get mugged because you don’t have staying power. You are likely to be faked out by some stray fluctuation because you lack the courage…

I used to think it was all stock picking. Truth is, risk management is half the battle. Portfolio management is like poker, you don’t always get perfect cards and you need to manage your stack. My risk management is broken down between rules I never break and principles that reinforce good habits… Imagination is the…

The essence of risk management lies in maximizing the areas where we have some control over the outcome while minimizing the areas where we have absolutely no control over the outcome and the linkage between effect and cause is hidden from us. ~ Petere L. Bernstein, “Against The Gods” Good morning!  In this week’s Dirty Dozen…

Being so critical, I am often considered a contrarian. But I am very cautious about going against the herd; I am liable to be trampled on… Most of the time I am a trend follower, but all the time I am aware that I am a member of the herd and I am on the…

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. ~ Napoleon Good morning!  In this week’s Dirty Dozen [CHART PACK] we walk through competing arguments behind what’s driving inflation. We then look at rates and financial conditions, go through some Ag charts, talk US dollar positioning, and finish by pitching an…

There are very few people who can develop the skills to get the edge, and far fewer still who can withstand the losses emotionally and still stick with the system. Probably only one in five hundred people have the necessary discipline to be successful. ~ Blair HullGood morning!  In this week’s return of the Dirty Dozen…

The self is the friend of a man who masters himself through the self, but for a man without self-mastery, the self is like an enemy at war. ~ The Bhagavad Gita  In this week’s return of the Dirty Dozen [CHART PACK] we look at the SPX in breakout mode, discuss the positive attributes of…

There was a long period during which nearly every thinking man was in some sense a rebel. Literature was largely the literature of revolt or of disintegration. Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Dickens, Stendhal, Samuel Butler, Ibsen, Zola, Flaubert, Shaw, Joyce – in one way or another they are all of them destroyers, wreckers, saboteurs.…

In this world, where the game is played with loaded dice, a man must have a temper of iron, with armor proof to the blows of fate, and weapons to make his way against men. Life is one long battle; we have to fight at every step; and Voltaire very rightly says that if we…

According to this theory, population growth in excess of the productivity gains of the land has several effects on social institutions. First, it leads to persistent price inflation, falling real wages, rural misery, urban migration, and increased frequency of food riots and wage protests. Second, rapid expansion of population results in elite overproduction—an increased number…