The purpose of this journal will be to 'scalp' people renowned in the fields of business, finance, economics, banking etc, by highlighting calls that they make, which I believe to be erroneous and based on either ignorance, arrogance, complacency, laziness, or hopefully all four - and then attempting to win profits and honour by placing bets on the opposite outcome to what they predict. Classic examples from the past would be things like Nassim Taleb's 'everyone in the world should be short US Treasuries' call from early 2010, just before they skyrocketed during the Greece/Europe crisis; Nouriel Roubini's "gold won't hit $1500' call; Joseph Stiglitz's "Greece isn't going to default" arm-waving, memorably slapped down on live television by Hugh Hendry, and Buffett's "worst trade ever" shorting lots of S&P puts at the peak of the market in 2007.
My motivation for doing this is the challenge of analysing people who are intelligent, hard-working, renowned, and expert in their fields - and demonstrating superior ability (or luck) by making them look like complete chumps. Transferring portions of their life savings to my champagne, blow, and sluts (hat tip: Rearden Metal) expense account will be a welcome side benefit, if I manage to get this right.
Now this could all go badly wrong and I could look like an arrogant idiotic blowhard. Well, no risk, no reward
To make the 'scalps' realistic, and to avoid typical forecaster bullshit, I will also put a stop-loss and/or time-stop on all my scalping attempts.
To start with, our favourite politically opinionated economist, Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times recently
"And one should never forget the example of Japan, where bets against government bonds â justified by more or less the same arguments currently made to justify claims of a U.S. bond bubble â ended in grief so often that the whole trade came to be known as the âwidow maker.â At this point, Japanâs debt is well over twice its G.D.P., its budget deficit remains large, and the interest rate on 10-year bonds is 0.6 percent. No, thatâs not a misprint."
I'll take the other side of that trade, Mr Krugman. Short JGBs at the current price 142.75. Stop-loss, 143.42. May the best man win.
My motivation for doing this is the challenge of analysing people who are intelligent, hard-working, renowned, and expert in their fields - and demonstrating superior ability (or luck) by making them look like complete chumps. Transferring portions of their life savings to my champagne, blow, and sluts (hat tip: Rearden Metal) expense account will be a welcome side benefit, if I manage to get this right.
Now this could all go badly wrong and I could look like an arrogant idiotic blowhard. Well, no risk, no reward
To make the 'scalps' realistic, and to avoid typical forecaster bullshit, I will also put a stop-loss and/or time-stop on all my scalping attempts.To start with, our favourite politically opinionated economist, Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times recently
"And one should never forget the example of Japan, where bets against government bonds â justified by more or less the same arguments currently made to justify claims of a U.S. bond bubble â ended in grief so often that the whole trade came to be known as the âwidow maker.â At this point, Japanâs debt is well over twice its G.D.P., its budget deficit remains large, and the interest rate on 10-year bonds is 0.6 percent. No, thatâs not a misprint."
I'll take the other side of that trade, Mr Krugman. Short JGBs at the current price 142.75. Stop-loss, 143.42. May the best man win.
