The price of oil has been rising lately. This is at least partly due to the prospect of Israel attacking Iran (something I’ve written about separately). Here is a simple low risk trade that could pay off if Israel attacks … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Iran, Israel and Your Portfolio
How to invest if Israel or the US strikes Iran In my last article I wrote about the possibility of Israel or the US striking Iran. In this article I will discuss the implications for your portfolio. The initial market effects of … Continue reading
Technical Analysis: Building Blocks for a Successful Portfolio
Investing beginners and veterans alike are constantly looking for the best tool to give them that ever-elusive investment edge. Technical Analysis is the practice of using statistical analysis of historical price and volume data to forecast future movements of a … Continue reading
The High Frequency Trading Arms Race is a Problem But Taxing isn’t the Solution
About High Frequency Trading (HFT) HFT accounts for as much as 40% of the volume on the major exchanges, and it sometimes drives prices in unexplainable directions. You’re probably aware of some of the ways High Frequency Trading (HFT) … Continue reading
The Mysterious Power of Portfolio Rebalancing
Rebalancing lets you scrape wealth from randomness. A boring portfolio? Consider this chart of four fictitious stocks. (I created them in Excel using a random number generator.) Each stock meanders randomly about a fixed price, plus or minus 10%. In … Continue reading
Information Theory, Sport, Betting and the Stock Market
It’s interesting how Information Theory, Las Vegas and Wall Street have been intertwined over the years. Claude Shannon, the father of Information Theory You may not have heard of Claude Shannon, but his ideas made the modern information age possible. He created … Continue reading
Software Bugs: What Wall Street can Learn from Mars
In the last few months we’ve seen two spectacular software failures on Wall Street. Most recently, on Weds August 1, Knight Capital’s trading software fired off trades in one hour that should have taken place over days. The flurry of … Continue reading




