What is the job title for this function?

kmiklas · Aug 30, 2016

phattails said:
Here's some unsolicited advice that applies to any question you might have: Get rid of that God awful picture.

Heh.. I must be blind as a bat, eh? Those are Google Glasses. Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Vuzix, and Intel all have some version of "smartglasses" in development. Any Technical Equity Research Analyst worth their salt could tell you that.

Anyway, the consensus answer seems to be that that Benjamin's job title is an Analyst, possibly a Broker--and both are bullshitters. Thank you for your responses.

Forthwith, where are the non-bullshitter people in this field, whose opinion is truly respected? The peeps who feed Soros, Buffet, et al., their information? The quants?

JackRab · Aug 30, 2016

Sig said:
I think you have an idealized picture of a broker that, like Norman Rockwell paintings (or in this case a reverse Norman Rockwell), may never have existed and certainly doesn't exist now.

No, I most definitely not have an idealized picture. I think you're talking about a retail broker...

My experience with brokers is on a professional level. They speak with banks, hedge funds, large clients, market makers.... they do some analysis, and if they're not too drunk from lunches and previous late night binges those analysis can actually be decent.... but usually their clients have their own ideas and knowledge anyway, which significantly outperform their brokers... they generally know quite a bit about large flow, which is helpful...
They mainly facilitate large trades, if with direct clients who trade through their house they might give them ideas. If with banks and hedgefunds they find counterparties.

That's what a broker is to me, not someone who pushes a button when a plumber by day, punter by night wants to buy 5 call options on Google. That broker doesn't really exist anymore since where all on the internet and do our own trades.

Sig · Aug 30, 2016

JackRab said:
No, I most definitely not have an idealized picture. I think you're talking about a retail broker...

My experience with brokers is on a professional level. They speak with banks, hedge funds, large clients, market makers.... they do some analysis, and if they're not too drunk from lunches and previous late night binges those analysis can actually be decent.... but usually their clients have their own ideas and knowledge anyway, which significantly outperform their brokers... they generally know quite a bit about large flow, which is helpfull...
They mainly facilitate large trades, if with direct clients who trade through their house they might give them ideas. If with banks and hedgefunds they find counterparties.

That's what a broker is to me, not someone who pushes a button when a plumber by day, punter by night wants to buy 5 call options on Google. That broker doesn't really exist anymore since where all on the internet and do our own trades.

Not sure what hedge funds you've worked with that take analysis on a company from their "broker"! As I said, brokers really only add value in large illiquid orders or illiquid commodities and they bring value from their contacts and ability to shop orders. None of which has anything to do with the OP, btw.

JackRab · Aug 30, 2016

kmiklas said:
Forthwith, where are the non-bullshitter people in this field, whose opinion is truly respected? The peeps who feed Soros, Buffet, et al., their information? The quants?

The people that put their own money on the table... so team Soros/Buffet etc. But also hedgefunds and for technical matters market makers. The traders themselves are more knowledgeable about what is going on in the markets and their analysis might be short, but effective.

I also don't put traders in banks very high... they trade with the bank's money and are somehow very risk-ignorant and not very knowledgeable, probably because they can offset their losses onto clients or within the larger books in stead of their personal ones.

JackRab · Aug 30, 2016

Sig said:
Not sure what hedge funds you've worked with that take analysis on a company from their "broker"! As I said, brokers really only add value in large illiquid orders or illiquid commodities and they bring value from their contacts and ability to shop orders. None of which has anything to do with the OP, btw.

Hey you started saying I didn't understand brokers...

Why don't you try to buy 10 or 25.000 options in any stock or index, no matter how liquid... see how you go without a broker to facilitate that... ain't going to happen. And as I said, usually clients have better opinions/ideas anyway. But don't say brokers don't do any analysis.

What's your experience in the field? If traded as a market maker for nearly 10 years, dealing with banks, hedgefunds, brokers etc on a daily basis... including the occasional nightly outings...

kmiklas · Aug 30, 2016

Sig said:
None of which has anything to do with the OP, btw.

That's OK, I'm learning a ton from this discussion. I have answers to questions that I didn't even know I had to ask.

vanzandt · Aug 31, 2016

kmiklas said:
Forthwith, where are the non-bullshitter people in this field, whose opinion is truly respected? The peeps who feed Soros, Buffet, et al., their information?

Zandyland.

PS... good call on VUZI. Glad I closed those puts after some DD.

kmiklas · Aug 31, 2016

vanzandt said:
Zandyland.

PS... good call on VUZI. Glad I closed those puts after some DD.

Thanks. Following the PC, Internet, iPhone/tablet, I've been wearing out my keyboard for months trying to identify the next big tech gadget. In consumer, my best answer is these smartglasses; or, more broadly, smart visual devices. Google actually has a smart contact lens.

vanzandt · Aug 31, 2016

kmiklas said:
Thanks. Following the PC, Internet, iPhone/tablet, I've been wearing out my keyboard for months trying to identify the next big tech gadget. In consumer, my best answer is these smartglasses; or, more broadly, smart visual devices. Google actually has a smart contact lens.

Thing I'd watch on VUZI, is that they seem to get a lot of money from DOD.... I'd rather see consumer bucks and not depend on the Govt contracts.

kmiklas · Aug 31, 2016

vanzandt said:
Thing I'd watch on VUZI, is that they seem to get a lot of money from DOD.... I'd rather see consumer bucks and not depend on the Govt contracts.

It's really about the underlying conditions with this technology. It's been 10 years since the iPhone was released; it's time for something new. My office is cluttered with devices of every kind--I'm even giving them away now--but I'm not really buying anything, because there's nothing super-interesting out there. I had an Apple Watch, but found it to be annoying, and so I sold it. Maybe a GoPro camera, but lo and behold, they have partnered with Vuzix
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...iver-hq-video-content-creation-300251933.html

Smartglasses have a massive breadth of application. Applications can be found in every other sector. In health care: Imagine a surgeon using them to guide their incisions. In utilities, imagine a lineworker seeing hot and dangerous wires red. In consumer, imagine the ability to see a virtual price tag on everything, and the ability to buy. A woman can "shop" from a cozy outdoor cafe' as she people-watches. Someone walks past her with a cute blouse: she focuses on it, winks, and it's in her Amazon shopping cart.

Vuzix has a product in the market TODAY. You can buy it now. It's not perfect, but they are still light-years ahead of most.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=vuzix

Notwithstanding previous comments about technical analysts being bullshitters, at around $9/share and market cap of 736M, I'd rate it a "buy."

But hey, I'm not an analyst, I'm a computer programmer.