Category: Alternative Investment Strategy

Futures traders often do their best in discrete periods of significant market movements. So-called “Fat Tail Events” in a normal distribution happen more than statistics suggest. This observance documented in the Nassim Taleb bestseller “The Black Swan” posits that people underestimate the likelihood of crisis conditions. While nobody predicts these events well, we can identify […]

Black box trading sounds mysterious and scary for many. Tall tales of machines running amok or making mistakes that wipe out accounts make for good movies, but the reality is often much simpler. All good traders use rules to provide structure to their trading. This helps regulate emotions so they can make decisions quickly under […]

An esoteric trade caused dramatic sell-offs in the equity markets this month. A surprise rate increase by the Central Bank of Japan (BOJ) tipped over a complex set of dominoes, resulting in a 165% daily spike in the VIX contract in the United States and a 10% drop in the S&P over just a few […]

Much like my children would love to eat nothing but desserts, consumers prefer spending power with few limits that come with low interest rates. Thus, we see the shock from the talking heads on CNBC and other investment channels when central banks tighten. Sugar and cheap borrowing both create addiction, and both can also lead […]

Alternative investments changed more since I started in the industry in 2008 than I ever thought possible. One might think that the “AI Revolution” or more sophisticated computer power created a vast array of totally different return profiles, but instead, the big surprise is the ability for everyday investors to access non-traditional products. While regulators […]

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” This famous quote from Mark Twain seems like it would be old news over 100 years later but in a world with more data at our fingertips than ever before, it is hard to know if we see the truth or more damned lies. […]

One way to make sure you hit your targets is to simply adjust them lower. It looks like central banks worldwide will do just that in their fight against inflation. Despite a long-term target of a 2% annual rate, political pressure to sacrifice purchasing power in exchange for growth appears to be gaining steam. Given […]

The US Presidential election will generate endless talk about who is or is not “paying their fair share” and what tax policy should look like at the national level. Less discussed is the continuation of “tax cut fever” at the state level. Flush with cash from pandemic payouts from the government, many states decided to […]

If you spoke to a 25-year-old versus a 65-year-old, you might be shocked at the difference of opinion on where our country’s economic future is headed. While this disparity is common, the degree to which government policy is affecting each may be at its highest point ever. This is sending shockwaves through political circles, as […]

Making financial choices is a daunting task as the result yields an objective number on your selection. Nobody likes to see that they exited a stock just before it took off or entered a new investment into a fresh drawdown. Sadly, this human characteristic often pushes us to ask the wrong questions. The Power of […]

In a scene reminiscent of the French Revolution, angry mobs descended upon the capital in tractors. Wait, tractors?! Farmers across the European Union (EU), upset by new environmental regulations, flexed their political muscles by demonstrating that limits exist to the “green” mandates passed by government bureaucrats in Brussels. Taking a page from climate protestors, farmers […]

Headlines trumpet the stock market gains driven by the “AI Revolution,” but there is company at the top as gold, Bitcoin, and cocoa also hit their peaks. Many would say this is a validation of a buy-and-hold strategy. Typically associated with equity markets and not commodities, bitcoin holders and gold bugs might argue that it […]

“A portfolio where everything goes up together is a bad portfolio,” a wise man once told me. Increasingly, this point seems lost on investors who seem to buy every stock market dip with positive results. Much like the Thanksgiving turkey that feels more comfortable with each passing day, the chance of severe loss might get […]