If you’re like me, you’ve been put off from digging deeper into DeFi by the terrible signal-to-noise ratio of anything crypto-related on the interwebs. That’s why I found this DeFi primer (using Maker DAO as a specific example) by ET contributor and banking analyst Marc Rubinstein to be so fantastic.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Modeling Common Knowledge by analyzing Missionary statements and their reverberations works. Except when it doesn’t.
What do you get when you give a Raccoon billions of dollars AND invisibility from regulators? Collusion and insider trading.
Most of us are under the impression that a protracted conflict within China will increase national unity. Not this time.
Recent Notes
The Arborist
In Part 4 of the Notes from the Field Series, Ben identifies how the natural lines of a tree and shaping the tree to follow those lines over time is a lot like shaping a portfolio.
You Still Have Made a Choice: Things that Matter #2
Diversification is clearly one of the things that matter. Unfortunately, most investors pursue the Meme of diversification! instead of the real thing, and end up with a false sense of security and inefficiency.
AI BS Detectors & the Origins of Life (by Silly Rabbit)
Confidence levels for the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Claude Berrou on turbo codes and informational neuroscience, and thermodynamics in far-from-equilibrium systems.
Horsepower
There is no animal more important to the ascendancy of Western Civilization than the horse, and no invention more important than the horse collar. After all nothing shapes history like advances in productivity. Part 3 of Ben’s Notes from the Field series here.
Programmable Money & Auto Public Offerings (by Silly Rabbit)
Programmable money, ImageNet: the data that changed AI research, Auto Public Offerings and the paradox of historical knowledge.
Mailbag! Midsummer 2017 Edition
Back by popular demand, it’s the Epsilon Theory Mailbag! Today’s edition covers notes from the past two months including “Tell My Horse”, “Post-Fed Follow-Up”, “Notes…
Whom Fortune Favors: Things that Matter #1, Pt. 2
Part 1 of this note highlighted the supremacy of the risk decision in portfolio construction. In this follow-up, Rusty observes that many investors may be assuming that the natural risk of asset classes is “right” for them.
Algorithmic Complexes, Alpha Male Brains, and Winnie the Pooh (by Silly Rabbit)
Massively complex complexes of algorithms, AI vs. human performance, the Alpha male brain switch and explaining vs. understanding.
Where’s the Punch Bowl?
On episode 23 of the Epsilon Theory podcast, we’ve assembled the all-star team — Jeremy Radcliffe (Salient’s President), Rusty Guinn (Salient’s EVP of Asset Management), Neville Crawley (Founder & CEO of Engram Labs) and of course, Dr. Ben Hunt — to discuss whether we are at the inflection point when the proverbial punch bowl is taken away, and, as investors, what we do now.
Gradually and Then Suddenly
The question isn’t whether the barge of monetary policy has turned around and embarked on a tightening course — it has — the question is how fast that barge is going to move AND whether or not the market pays more attention to the actual barge movements than what the barge captain says.
One Model to Learn Them All and AI Is/Isn’t Taking Over the World (by Silly Rabbit)
One model to learn them all, semantic scholars, AI is/isn’t taking over the world, and autonomous learning investment strategies.
The Goldfinch in Winter
Part 2 of Ben’s Notes from the Field series, in which he considers the question: what can a bird teach us about value investing? To everything there is a season.
Notes From the Field
What does farming have to do with investing? Quite a lot, actually. In this first of a series that takes on a life of its own, Ben discusses bees and bonds, eggs and ETFs, and more.
Whom Fortune Favors: Things that Matter #1, Pt. 1
Of all the decisions you make as an investor, how much risk you take outweighs all of them. It is more important than costs, more important than diversification, more important than picking the right stock / fund / investment.
Post-Fed Follow-Up
A quick post-Fed follow-up to “Tell My Horse”, the best-received Epsilon Theory note to date (thank you!). I’ll jump right into what I’ve got to say, without the usual 20 pages of movie quotes and the like. Well, I’ve got one quote above, because I can’t help myself. They’re the lyrics to the best break-up song ever, and they’re what Janet Yellen was singing to the market on Wednesday.
AI & Video Games, Tricky Chatbots and More… (by Silly Rabbit)
AI and video games, tricky chatbots, the quantum age has officially arrived, and your high dimensional brain.
Does It Fly, Really?
On episode 22 of the Epsilon Theory podcast, we’re in Las Vegas at the 2017 EQDerivatives conference. Both Dr. Ben Hunt and our guest, Devin Anderson, managing director in equity derivative sales at Deutsche Bank, were speakers at the event this year. In a nod to David McCullough’s 2015 book, The Wright Brothers, this episode explores whether the ubiquitous ideas floating around finance today actually have wings and can fly.
Long Short-Term Memory, Algorithms for Social Justice, and External Cognition (by Silly Rabbit)
DARPA funds a graph analytics processor, exploring long short-term memory networks, auditing black box predictive models, fast iteration and language from police body cameras.
The Summer Reading List (by Jeremy Radcliffe)
In which Jeremy Radcliffe recommends Bob Lefsetz, Scott Galloway, Scott Belsky,Tim Urban and the gang at Hoisington.
Tell My Horse
So yeah, I’m overweight and I need to get more sleep. I’m not happy about the market, and I’m anxious about living up to my obligations to my partners and clients. But I wake up every morning thinking independent thoughts about idiosyncratic risks. I’ve got a Tribe. I’m nobody’s horse. And that’s about as good as it gets here in the Hollow Market.