July 16, 2008
From another one of Paul's guest bloggers for the next two weeks...There was a fair amount of of blog-borne back-and forth today over Adam Lashinksy's piece in Fortune on Kleiner Perkins, and its pursuit of clean tech and other energy...
Quantifiable Edges has an interesting little statistic on 52 week lows.
Basically, 1/3 of all the stocks on the NYSE hit a 52 week low yesterday. The last time this has happened was in 1990.
This has only happened a few times since 1971 (5) and in all 5 instances the market was higher 4 days later and 20 days later. Not enough data to make any reasonable conclusion. Whats interesting is that if you go one further year back, 1970, there's three more occurrences and they were all negative 4 days later. Again, not interesting (too few examples) but its
A) another example of the extreme level this market has taken a beating, even when compared with 2000-2002 (which is somewhat striking if you think about what was going on then: Internet bust, enron/wcom, 911, recession, etc).
B) another example where people are comparing this year to the 70s. I disagree with this. I don't think we are in stagflation. I'm more worried about eventual serious deflation a la what "Helicopter Ben" was worried about in 2002. But I'm hoping at least over the next 4 days (and over the next decade), that 2008 isn't the new 1970 but the new 1990.
-James Altucher
Okay, that's really it. To paraphrase Keyser Söze, pfff .... I'm gone (on holidays). There'll be some other folks around here over the next two weeks. An eclectic and interesting group of people will be coming by, so stick around...
I must be tired. Just finished packing for holidays, and I spotted this new paper: How Many Alternatives Should You Put in Your Investment Basket? Andrew Clare and Nick Motson City University London - Sir John Cass Business School and...
If you haven't read it, you really should wade into Frank Partnoy's (and co-author David Skeel's) recent paper on credit derivatives. It's long and detailed, but Partnoy is a felicitous and smart writer, and so it's worth it. ... we...
After my post mentioning Dr. Strangelove earlier today, late tonight I got to re-reading actor Sterling Hayden's classic (and controversial) seafaring book Wanderer. Hayden, who was a top Hollywood star at the time, suddenly up and quit, abandoning a career,...
