Published in InsiderFinance Wire·Jan 11Markets and the year(s) ahead: The Investment ThesisIn times of turbulence, as in the first weeks of this year and possibly for a while to come, it may be a constructive and calming exercise for some to step back and reflect on the longer-term investment outlook. As markets rise and fall, sometimes violently, stock markets at least…Financial Markets5 min read
Published in InsiderFinance Wire·Dec 30, 2021Fractals and the market voiceMandelbrot’s network Rereading The (Mis)behavior of Markets after more than a decade had passed since the previous read — a decade in which one noted misbehavior was the firm establishment of five network upstarts to market value dominance — I was this time struck by the prevalence of network terminology I had…Financial Markets6 min read
Published in InsiderFinance Wire·Sep 17, 2021The tipping point and fundamentalsWhat follows is an investment thesis, not advice. As before, the thesis is predicated on network value and its drivers. The current installment is built on the assumption that a new tipping point has been reached in blockchain and cryptocurrency applications, marked by the mainstream adoption of practical use cases…Cryptocurrency7 min read
Aug 6, 2021Ten network value lessons from the digitized economyNetworks are having a moment, or rather, they’ve been having it for quite some time, long before the big contagion and the flattening of curves, but the moment is expanding. Stephen Wolfram is working on a new physics model that would explain the universe in terms of network evolution and…Economics7 min read
May 25, 2021Clusters of decentralized influenceTwo characteristics of the Bitcoin trade are generally overlooked in the discussion: (1) Distributed networks tend to concentration over time, and (2) the price of Bitcoin can’t, by definition, be a bubble. If a value bubble is definable as a wide and growing gap between the technicals of a traded…Bitcoin5 min read
May 18, 2021Linear perception, exponential change, and the new valueFrom a recent interview around the release of his new book, the following remark by Daniel Kahneman stands out: “The technology is developing very rapidly, possibly exponentially. But people are linear. When linear people are faced with exponential change, they’re not going to be able to adapt to that very…Financial Markets7 min read
Jan 30, 2021Extremes of sentiment in marketsTowards the end of last year, I published a series of short posts on what I saw as a newly emergent but potentially powerful trend in financial markets, in which sentiment seemed to overshadow analysis and fundamentals as a driving force. In light of recent events — that is, the…Investment16 min read
Dec 29, 2020In an economy that can’t be trustedWhen an economy is understood, up or down, it’s possible to plan, to concentrate resources, and to invest with reasonable confidence, even if results don’t follow as expected. Below is a market thesis for the year ahead, which may be different from those behind, in an economy that isn’t understood…Investing3 min read
Dec 23, 2020The sentimental vistaThere are any number of ways to define, or interpret, sentiment. As with many definitions and interpretations, this can depend on context. For financial markets, which are multivariate and deep, the context and its drivers, the resulting definitions and interpretations, are like a mosaic — personal, social, geographical, political, historical…Financial Markets4 min read
Dec 16, 2020The third bodyThe last two posts in what is turning out to be a sort of mini-series have been about the emergence of sentiment as a principal driving force in 2020 financial markets. The first, The most basic fundamental, lays out the initial argument and identifies some key resulting market aspects in…IPO5 min read
