Huff

This could be one of the most important indices right now.

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:39:21 -0600

This could be one of the most important indices right now.

FT.com - Super-rich buy gold and sell hedge funds

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:35:13 -0600

FT.com - Super-rich buy gold and sell hedge funds:

Pure sentiment analysis

ND-UCONN

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 18:24:44 -0600

ND-UCONN

Curbed NY: The Best New Buildings of the Decade!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:49:31 -0600

Curbed NY: The Best New Buildings of the Decade!

Fun via fred-wilson: Kids Don’t Stand A Chance - Miike Snow...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:27:00 -0600

Fun

via fred-wilson:

Kids Don’t Stand A Chance - Miike Snow remix

YTD sector performance via Finviz

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:43:32 -0600

YTD sector performance

via Finviz

How to Be Risk-Averse | Condor Options

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:06:00 -0600

How to Be Risk-Averse | Condor Options :

Or, hedging with options for dummies.

Good material as usual from Condor Options.

Certo got me hooked on the KEXP Seattle stream during the trip...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:24:00 -0600

Certo got me hooked on the KEXP Seattle stream during the trip last weekend. I just heard this song from Yeasayer and a few minutes later, I found it on Tumblr Dashboard. The web is blooming with new services for music exploration. They’ve basically taken the place of all the great (former) radio stations. But it’s great to have found a station that still does things right.

mokoyfman:

Yeasayer, Ambling Alp

Many of the bears have wheeled out this chart in the past few...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:35:13 -0600

Many of the bears have wheeled out this chart in the past few weeks, including John Hussman. It’s easy to see why this might be a problem, so I’d really like to hear the counter argument. Where are the bulls on this one? Is everyone really that gloomy?

If this really turns into as big of a problem as some are predicting, I’m sure we’ll see more government props in the residential housing market. With the Fed ending MBS purchases this spring and the potential for Treasury funding issues, you also have to wonder where mortgage rates will go from here.

Perhaps it is time to buy.

Achieving Excess Returns

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:58:00 -0600

I love Albert Wenger’s no BS blurbs on investing themes, both from a venture capital and traditional asset management perspective. Even cooler, with one click, I can share his thoughts here. I agree with him.

continuations:

One of the persistent questions for anyone investing money (whether in the public or private markets) is how to achieve excess returns. I have been thinking about this quite a bit over the last weeks as we have prepared for our annual meeting with the Limited Partners in Union Square Ventures and as I have talked to a close friend who is managing a large trust. I believe that out-performance comes down to two key factors: perception and concentration. By perception I mean the ability to make sense of the heaps of available data. The foundation of perception is a deep understanding of what is going on in one’s target market. Without understanding, there is no way to extract a signal from the data Without a signal, investors are reduced to guessing, which generally results in becoming followers rather than leaders. Only leaders can deliver excess returns. Concentration is the willingness to remain focused and make sufficiently few investments to avoid regression to the mean. A large portfolio is much more likely to perform like the overall market than a small one. Now some might argue that you are just taking more risk. While that is correct, I believe that concentration risk is not efficiently priced so that even on a risk adjusted basis it allows for delivering excess returns. The reason is that mis-aligned incentives push the bulk of investors towards large diversified portfolios (e.g. growing the asset base to collect more management fees). Achieving perception and maintaining concentration are really hard, which explains why sustained excess returns are so rare. I certainly find myself struggling with both!

Spending the past weekend in Seattle made me appreciate live...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:37:41 -0600

Spending the past weekend in Seattle made me appreciate live music again.

It also made me appreciate bars that play great albums straight through. Kid A was one of them.

mokoyfman:

Radiohead, I Might Be Wrong (Live)

via Calafia Beach Pundit

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:24:11 -0600

via Calafia Beach Pundit

Sunset over Puget Sound

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:54:39 -0600

Sunset over Puget Sound

Matisyahu - One Day Ok, his older stuff is not as poppy, but I...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:07:41 -0600

Matisyahu - One Day

Ok, his older stuff is not as poppy, but I like this one.

I always tune in for Hussman’s weekly commentary. From...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:03:00 -0600

I always tune in for Hussman’s weekly commentary. From “Risk Management and Convex Return Profiles.”

More (Too Much?) Free from Google: Turn-By-Turn

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:23:27 -0500

continuations:

Yesterday, Google announced something stunning: free turn-by-turn directions for Android 2.0 to be first available shortly on the Droid phones. It is stunning because the previously cheapest software only alternatives were apps such as Navigon ($89.99) and TomTom ($99.99) for the iPhone (as an aside, stand alone GPS devices with turn-by-turn directions can now be found on Amazon for as little as $139 for a Garmin nuvi 260 and that’s after 2 seconds of looking). So here we have a case of Google taking something that previously cost nearly $100 per instance and making it free. Obviously, this is awesome news for the Android platform.

…

This brings up the basic issue: should it be legal for Google to give away a product below cost as part of a strategy of attracting users (and developers) to other services on which it does make money?

Tudor Investment Third-Quarter Letter

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:03:47 -0500

Tudor Investment Third-Quarter Letter

via fred-wilson: Let Me Ride - Dr Dre - The Chronic

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:17:50 -0500

via fred-wilson:

Let Me Ride - Dr Dre - The Chronic

via Altos Research

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:34:57 -0500

via Altos Research

I love tracking my performance via this chart. The last 12...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:37:29 -0500

I love tracking my performance via this chart. The last 12 months are especially telling of my style and perspective. Keeping a margin of safety is absolutely key. Having the lead is a great feeling, but keeping it is another story.