Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Luxury and Emotional Investments: "A Pair Trade In The Style Of Davos: Short Ski Chalets/Long Superyachts"

That was our headline back in 2016 for a story that juxtaposed an uptick in yacht sales against the Knight Frank annual ski property review as relayed by FT Alphaville:
"More concerning, note the analysts, is the declining appeal of ski resorts
'as a place to be seen' thing among the millennial generation as a whole."
It turns out it was a good trade.* Here's the latest on the short leg from FT Alphaville, November 20, 2019:
When coins outperform Verbier
FT Alphaville was perusing Knight Frank’s annual Prime Ski Property report and couldn’t help but look twice at the following infographic:
That’s the Knight Frank Prime Ski Property Index, up 1.4 per cent on the year, in the middle there. But way ahead of it on the left there come “coins” - up 12 per cent on the year....MUCH MORE
*Of course, as pointed out in the original post:
A note on engineering: The 'short chalet' leg acts more as a semivariance dampener than a true anti-correlated dirty hedge and would have to be constructed synthetically, which gives rise to all the collateral issues such trades are prone to, but depending on your correspondent gnome I'm sure you could get some kind of action down.  
And my favorite "In the style of", also from 2016:

Machine Learning: Google and Style Transfer
You knew we didn't post "Auto Mechanics In the Style of  Michelangelo--UPDATED" just because the pictures were pretty didn't you. Even though, as this example in the style of Rembrandt shows, the photographer nails it, from the book, to the lighting to the folds in the coveralls:
A bit of Rembrandt inspired garageiness:
5
 
No, it was so I could refer back to them.
And they were pretty.
In a manly sort of way. Very manly.

Moving right along, that is a type of style transfer, something that takes a very good eye for detail and almost virtuoso skill with the camera.

And it's something that computers are learning how to do, sans camera.

From Google's Research blog, Oct. 26, 2016....