Another Investment Fallacy

There's an oft repeated saw about 80% of any stocks movement is the market and sector.
Think about that for a moment. Then remember that the 'market' and 'sector' are simply aggregates of these individual stocks. Yes, the economy and the industry are reflected in those.....

It's like saying that 80% of a stocks price is the 50 day moving average. It's much easier to see why that's not quite true even if the correlations would suggest that.
The average is derived from price, not the other way around, and the same applies to the market and sector.

Noodle that one over for a bit and see if it resonates.

funny stuff

http://www.boredstop.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=32

And if you value your time at all, DO NOT HIT 'NEXT'

Innovation in Quant Strategies

In case you don't get Alpha Magazine, here's a good article about quant strategies.

http://www.alphamagazine.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1897101


It has been a rough time to start a Quant portfolio, and I certainly wish I'd have had a year or two before the 'perfect storm' hit, but it is what it is.  In lieu of tremendous profits, I take solace in the remarkable similarities of my home-grown approach and innovations to those of the best teams of PhD's out there.  I'm looking forward to seeing what can be done once I've had some time in the alpha sun and built a team to work with.

One Way Trades

I was having lunch with a good friend of mine, a quant employed as the Risk Mgr of a large Fund of Funds, and we spoke about some investment themes.  I mentioned that the concept that has really grabbed a hold of me recently is to look for crowding.  A lack of diversity in investment opinion for an asset class, country or specific investment.  Something that everyone agrees is going only one way.

Now, I'm not interested in being a contrarian in the traditional sense.  Those guys get carried out on stretchers all the time, since we all know that markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent!  (BSC, Amaranth, LTCM, etc)  I'm interested in looking for a lack of diversity, then watch for a huge run and then the first major crack.  The recovery from that first crack, the one that fails to make a new high and then breaks lower, that's when I want to go the other way.  For a trade - not for a long term hold, since many of these one way trades have long term supply demand imbalances to fuel them for a long long time.

What are the current one way trades I'm watching?  Oil, gold, agriculture and Asia come to mind on the long side.  Housing, financials and internet/tech come to mind on the short side.  Some, like China and India, have already cracked and I'm waiting for a rally that fails to hit new highs.  Oil and agriculture are eminent.   Housing and financials,  GOOG and AAPL seem to be on the crack to the upside right now. 

One of my current models looks for this type of thing to occur, on an individual investment basis, and on a micro scale - ie intermediate, almost one way trades.  I have hopes that this is a theme that hasn't been fully circulated yet, at least by quants.