This one is pretty straight forward. I’m taking a profound queue from Michael Jordan, something he realized and adopted early in his stellar career, and applying it to day trading. And anything else you’re into. People don’t reach and stay at the top of their game by accident, without falling down, or undefeated.
Whether it is sports, music, science, software, business, trading, I think a major component of success is learning to fail … successfully.
A timely book here just ahead of opening day, http://tradingbases.squarespace.com/. Peta relates a lifelong love of baseball and statistics, his experiences as an equity desk trader for Lehman Bros. (15 years) and his subsequent battle back from a horrifying injury sustained by being run over in the streets of NY by an ambulance –as if his Lehman experience wasn’t enough to endure. He suffered a “Theisman grotesque” leg break that left him depressed and basically rehabbing alone in his NY apartment with wife and family living on the west coast.
His passion for trading snuffed by not being able to work, hopped up on pain meds, and trapped in the apartment leads to him to watching more sports than ever before. A baseball lover at heart and a statistical junkie, Peta finds a reason to wake up in the mornings. He decides to try his hand at making a statistical model that would identify edges for baseball team wins and losses that would provide him with a betting edge over the Vegas Line.
Peta eventually creates a hedge fund that bets baseball games that returns 41% in 2011 with similar daily volatility as the S&P 500. The book outlines Joe’s views on gambling. Baseball is his preferred niche since the juice/spread is the smallest in comparison to other sports, the ability to use statistics to get an edge is available, and the natural alignment between the better and the team– rooting for your team to win versus the convolution of winning and beating a point spread. (more…)
China Total holding of US Treasuries: $755.4B v $789.6B prior
Japan Total Holdings of US Treasuries: $768.8B v $757.3B prior
Oil Exporters total Holdings of US Treasuries: $186.8B v $187.7B prior
Brazil holdings of US Treasuries $160.6B v $157.1B prior
Russia holdings of US Treasuries $118.5B v $128.1B prior
Hong Kong holdings of US Treasuries $152.9B v $146.2B prior
India holdings of US Treasuries: $29.6B v $31.6B prior
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government said Tuesday that foreign demand for U.S. Treasury securities fell by the largest amount on record in December with China reducing its holdings by $34.2 billion.
The reductions in holdings, if they continue, could force the government to make higher interest payments at a time that it is running record federal deficits.
The Treasury Department reported that foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities fell by $53 billion in December, surpassing the previous record of a $44.5 billion drop in April 2009.[…] (more…)
WARREN BUFFETT Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway
I have no idea what the stock market’s going to do tomorrow, or next week, or next month or next year. But over a ten-year period you will do considerably better owning a group of equities than you will owning Treasuries. In fighting the economic war, we’ve taken action that sows the seeds of substantial inflation down the road. Not in the next six months or year, but ten years from now the dollar will buy a lot less than it buys today.
BOB RODRIGUEZ Chief executive officer, First Pacific Advisors
Don’t run with the herd. Being surrounded by people who are doing the same thing as you offers a false sense of protection. Being a loner is extremely uncomfortable, but it’s far better. Today, being a loner means owning short-maturity, high-quality debt on the bond side. And if the U.S. government continues to blow up the nation’s balance sheet through massive deficits, you should probably move at least 20% to 40% of your assets out of the U.S. (more…)
How did one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the last 50 years think? How did he create one of the most successful companies of all time? Here are ten of the best things that he ever said . I believe they give us clues at identifying the next company that could have their stock become the monster stock of this decade. As you read through these quotes does it make any other company come to mind besides Apple?
Steve Jobs Quotes:
“We’re gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make “me too” products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it’s always the next dream.” Interview about the release of the Macintosh (24 January 1984)
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world? ” A comment he made in persuading John Sculley to become Apple’s CEO.
“You‘ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology – not the other way around.” May 1997, World Wide Developers Conference
“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
“That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” –BusinessWeek Interview May 1998
“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” –BusinessWeek Interview May 1998
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
“Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.”
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” Inc Magazine
“Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”
