“Crowds display an inferior mentality. Because of their destructive power, they act like a bacteria that attacks a weakened body. They have all kinds of special characteristics. They include: impulsiveness, irritability, and inability to make reasoned judgments or accept criticism, exaggerated feelings and many more.” ~ Gustaf Le bon, author
Research:
What do top Kaggle data mining competitors focus on ~ Quora – data preparation, graphing, outliers, over fitting, and blending models
AAII Sentiment Survey: Bullish sentiment below historical average for 17 weeks – the longest since 4/1993-10/1993 ~ AAII
Changes in bond trading: “Our best traders spend a lot of their time pounding away writing code” ~ NY Times
“Markets correlate to the direction of earnings” ~ Tony Dwyer – worth a test
ISM has led the market since at least 1995, tested out best econ data in one book ~ twitter – although the ISM top in 2004 was way too early
U.S.
Lack of qualified workers – maybe Bernanke can explain how printing money helps this problem, or the government blowing a bubble in college education
- 41% of 154 manufacturing firms can’t find qualified workers ~ WSJ – liberal arts degrees thanks to subsidies not helping evidently
- 30% of 283 services businesses can’t find qualified workers
- 29% of 56 retail businesses can’t find qualified workers
More college subsidies are not the answer, since many of tomorrow’s do not require a degree, according to the BLS ~ historysquared
The gap between state assets and their obligations for public sector retirement benefits is $1.38 trillion ~ Pew research $MUB
Zero coupon bonds vs stocks since 1981 ~ twitter – looking for capitulatory buying to mark a bond market top.
World:
World’s Biggest Pension Fund Sells JGBs to Cover Payouts ~ Bloomberg
The Brazilian banking sector – a view from 30,000 feet ~ Brazillian Bubble
World Gold Holdings $GLD ~ Morgan Stanley ~ twitter
While much of the world struggles with food security, U.S. burns half its crop, with mandates upping that forecast ~ twitter
China:
The Chinese are pulling money from brokerage accounts ~ Epoch Times
’100 million tons of iron ore already piled up in Chinese inventories’ ~ brazilianbubble
China Shipyards Vessel Glut Triggers 49% Order Slump ~ Bloomberg – fails to discourage $VALE’s Supermax plans
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