John Authers
Short View: Credit crisis returns
On Thursday, the market’s worst fears were realised, MBIA and Ambac Financial, the two biggest monoline bond insurers, lost their triple A credit rating from Standard & Poor’s.
Had this happened at any point in the first three months of this year,
[Vancouver Dispatch] Three’s a trend in the investment jungle
Beware when a company has reported positive earnings surprises twice in a row. It is in the opposite of a sweet spot, and primed for a severe fall if it fails to keep up the trend.That finding, presented at the CFA Institute gathering here in Vancouver by financial writer Jason Zweig,
[Vancouver Dispatch] Malkiel makes a Great Leap, continues his Random Walk
Princeton University’s Burton Malkiel is the high prophet of efficient markets theory. His Random Walk Down Wall Street, which has probably been read by virtually all the attendees at the CFA Conference,
[Vancouver Dispatch] The view from Janet Yellen
The bottom line of Janet Yellen’s presentation in Vancouver was clear enough, and has already found its way into the market’s calculations of Fedspeak. She said: “I consider the current level of monetary accommodation to be appropriate.”
[Vancouver Dispatch] Prediction Markets 101
Prediction markets are not perfectly efficient – but just as democracy is the worst way to choose a government apart from all the others, they are a better way to aggregate information than any other.
[Vancouver Dispatch] Opportunities from the Credit Crisis?
A presentation entitled: “The Credit/Liquidity Crisis of 2007: Opportunities for US Bond Investors” sounds as though it would leave you with grounds for optimism. Not quite.
Instead, Michael Lustig,
[Vancouver Dispatch] From Black Swans to White Eagles
The joke going around Vancouver is that this CFA conference in Vancouver should have been held in Perth – a beautiful city set on the estuary of the River Swan. The swans in questions are, of course, black.
[Vancouver Dispatch] We know what the quants did last summer
What will the quants do next? Judging by presentations at the CFA conference in Vancouver, many think they have worked out what happened to them last August, and believe they have learned the lesson.
The main problems – known well enough by now – as presented by various quants here in Vancouver over the last two days seem to be as follows:
[Vancouver Dispatch] Investment Committees Behaving Badly
One insight from the burgeoning field of behavioural finance might surprise you: investment committees should take their decisions by secret ballot.
The reason is that research shows that dissent can be a powerful invigorator for new ideas.
[Vancouver Dispatch] The Travis Bickle Effect
The FT’s “The Short View” columnist John Authers is blogging for FT Alphaville from Vancouver at the annual gathering of the CFA Institute:
What was the greatest wealth-creating film of all time? Titanic might be a popular guess,
[Vancouver Dispatch] So if Taleb is so clever….
The FT’s “The Short View” columnist John Authers is blogging for FT Alphaville from Vancouver at the annual gathering of the CFA Institute:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb ended his speech by predicting that he already knew what the questions would be.
[Vancouver Dispatch] Seeing the Black Swans coming
The FT’s “The Short View” columnist John Authers is blogging for FT Alphaville from Vancouver at the annual gathering of the CFA Institute:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is about to address the massed ranks of the CFA Institute,
[Vancouver Dispatch] The consensus play: hold tight
The FT’s “The Short View” columnist John Authers is blogging for FT Alphaville from Vancouver at the annual gathering of the CFA Institute:
One more finding from the poll of CFAs at this week’s Vancouver gathering suggests that they’re still not ripe to make big contrarian plays.
[Vancouver Dispatch] The smart money has spoken
The FT’s “The Short View” columnist John Authers is blogging for FT Alphaville from Vancouver at the annual gathering of the CFA Institute:
The smart money has spoken, and it believes that the UK and the US economies will be negatively affected by the global credit squeeze for more than a year before they can start to recover.