Category Archives: the Money Game + AltMacro

intellectual speculation + my home Phd

The future of asset management industry

Read an article on the future of asset managment industry, and some thoughts below: The inevitable decline, but never demise, of stock-picking. With the prevalence of passive investment (indexing), the importance of stock-picking will definitely fades. Nevertheless, it’s a game … Continue reading

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AltMacro – My Macro Framework

Core: Employment + GDP + Inflation Key Factors: Interest Rates + Credit + Balance of Payments + Gov’t Policies

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US Jobs Report – Feb 2012

Some observations: – improved labor participation rate – improved employment/population ratio                                                           … Continue reading

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First US Jobs Reports for 2012 – Summarized View

US Jobs Jan’12 Release (for Dec’11 Employment Status) – Reality not as rosy as the headline figure. Headline  unemployment rate improved from 8.7% to 8.5%. However, note that employment-population ratio remained at 58.5%. – Note that while population increased, civilian … Continue reading

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Why those research reports suck…

Am pretty frustrated sometimes by research reports (including some from large, envied, government-bailed-out brokerages…) that are made up of very superficial “analysis”… offer no insights, no originality…nothing to really make you think and show you something new… So why? Why … Continue reading

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Come on, it’s the basics (balance of payments)!

Yes it is true. Many investment gurus are not able to make money through investing so they turned to writing newsletters and doing seminars. Many analysts are paid to bullshit their clients under deal considerations and tight deadline constraints. Many … Continue reading

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“中国救欧元区”?

1. 想要写这篇blog应该有4个星期了吧。拖延往往比我们想象的还要容易… 2. 相较新闻,比较喜欢读Blog。为什么?因为主流新闻里常常有误导大众的内容。不一定都是媒体的错,因为它们的工作是报导,不是解读。Garbage in, garbage out. 3. 前阵子(也许现在仍然)流行的话题:中国搭救欧元区(Eurozone)。为什么这种说法是rubbish? Michael Pettis写了两篇值得一读的blog posts,部分推论: a. Eurozone整体处于顺差状态,是资本的净输出国(举例:它欠其他所有国家100元,其他所有国家欠它150元,所以资本净输出),跟负债累累的美国相反,根本不需要外来资金。 b. 现在希腊意大利等国面临的是投资者信心短缺(贷款给这些国家,若它们破产了,可能就一分钱都收不回来了),不是资金短缺(Eurozone里的德国要搭救它们绰绰有余)。现在,连德国都不愿面对贷款给它们风险,为什么中国会愿意?所以若中国要贷款给Eurozone,不会是直接给意大利等国,而应该会要求德国担保(或其他类似安排)。可是,若德国仍需要被牵扯进来,那中国的“搭救”对Eurozone就没有什么实质意义。德国可以直接贷款给Eurozone边缘国家。 c. 另一方面,中国的“搭救”对中国本身却十分有意义。若中国巨额贷款给Eurozone,大量的人民币需要被换成欧元,于是欧元升值,于是欧洲的出口(和就业率)减少,而中国对欧洲的出口增加。经济维持快速成长对中国的政治稳定十分重要。美国现在处于Balance Sheet Recession后的低迷时期,对中国的产品需求减少。中国的内需仍未成长到足以推动8%年GDP增长率的规模…所以若可以增加对欧洲的出口,对中国的当权者而言肯定是好事。 不过,欧洲经济不也处于很糟糕的状况吗?但相对美国,Eurozone还有德国。而且,人民币要对美圆贬值刺激中国出口的话,政治上的压力和阻力会更大。“搭救欧洲”,听起来会比较合理吧? 另外,过去几个月来,希腊会脱离Eurozone的几率似乎一直在上升。我的猜测:若这真的发生,欧元的升值也会为中国的投资增值。 从这个角度来看,真的是中国要来“搭救欧元区”吗? 5. 用中文写经济的东西真累(气喘吁吁中)…

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The Globalization Trilemma

Exactly 4 years and 4 months ago, Dani Rodrik shared this theorem on his blog. Anybody who’s interested in political economy should go read that in full and digest the reasoning behind… The essence of the idea was well summarized … Continue reading

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First take on US Job Report – June 3rd

Last Fri, the markets welcomed the long-awaited US job report with some real action… Now let’s take a look at what it told us… The overall unemployment figure seemed to be better than that of May’10, showing that the economy … Continue reading

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The Quants

Finally got to read the book… still in process… Just a practically useless but interesting fact to know: the 1987 crash was a “27 standard deviation event” … And what does it imply? Even if you are 1000% confident, never … Continue reading

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How the banks make money?

The mainstream textbook argument goes like this: taking deposits and giving loans to individuals/enterprises of good credit standing, earning interest spread plus fees charged for various services provided. After the financial crisis, one may highlight the importance of staying sober … Continue reading

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profit target & stop

Tighten It When the Market Moves in Your Favour. A very important idea. The temptation to loosen your stops, as highlighted in behavioral finance, is simply deadly. +++ Yet, what’s more dangerous? Believing what i’m saying here without knowing who … Continue reading

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