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Wall Street Economists Have This Recovery All Wrong. My Sunday Washington Post column is out, and its titled “Note to investors: It takes longer to bounce back from a credit crisis” The online version gets a different title, Wall Street analysts and economists have this recession recovery wrong. In it, I discuss how the post WW2 recession recovery cycle is the wrong frame of reference for looking at post credit crisis recoveries. And while most Wall Street economists and analysts have gotten this entire cycle dead wrong, two academic economists standout as being prescient, before, during and after the crisis.

Here is a quick excerpt explaining how post credit cycles differ from ordinary recessions: “Not only are credit crises different from other cycles, they also differ from other bubbles.As Dan Gross explained in “Pop! You can see the rest in either text or if you prefer PDF, click the image below: click for PDF Category: Apprenticed Investor, Cycles, Economy, Employment, Really, really bad calls. How Hard is it to Become the Michael Jordan of Trading? I have been meaning to get to this interesting article Heidi N. Moore wrote over at Marketplace radio. “They Are Day Traders. Hear them Roar.” A terrific looking commercial for OpenTrader accompanies the article (video here). The video is pretty slick. I have always found that for newbie traders, a better analogy than a casino is the possibility becoming a professional athlete.

It is no coincidence that many trading desks are stacked with former college athletes. I believe the odds of going on to be a professional athlete are similar to being a successful trader at the highest levels of the profession. The talent pool gets much more competitive at the college level. If those number look daunting, the cut is far more challenging at the professional level.

Lets crunch the numbers to put this into full context: A mere 0.03% of high school basketball players eventually get drafted by an NBA team. Are the odds identical? Estimated Probability of Competing in Athletics Beyond the H.S. War Criminals Try to Evade Prosecution By Pretending Torture Was Vital to Getting Bin Laden … When It Actually Delayed the Hunt for YEARS.

Visual Guide to Deflation. What I Do For a Living. Following last weeks Wednesday morning and late night discussions about moving to 100% cash, the office phones lit up — long/short accounts, FusionIQ subscribers, people in asset allocation model, even bond holders. We keep getting emails asking about this — and last week was off the charts in terms of inquiries. I might as well explain to blog readers the way we — I have several partners — run our business(es). In hindsight, I probably should have explained this years ago. Everything we do comes from our quantitative research. We believe in a weighted evidence approach that is data driven and reality-based. I do the top down work, looking at Macro Factors ranging from market technicals to economic trends, with history, contrary indicators, valuation and trend key parts of my approach. Research is the key to everything we do.

We run 3 business lines: 1) Asset Management These are separately managed accounts. We also have developed several Asset Allocation models. 3) FusionIQ.