Monday, March 27, 2017

China Exports of High Fructose Corn Syrup Taking On Cane Sugar Industry in The Philippines

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This doesn't sound healthy, on a few different levels. From Agrimoney: China's turn to HFCS exports 'could be start of someth...

Natural Gas: EIA Weekly Supply/Demand Report

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$3.1450 down 0.008. Fin viz If  (big if) natty can get through the little gap at $3.20 there's not much technically to stop it up ...

"1 in 4 Believe Robots Would Make Better Politicians"

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In some elections that's almost a plurality. From Computer Business Review: The impending robot revolution has certainly got peop...

"Beware of Cows"

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And we're not just talking futures. From the London Review of Books, March 23: The statistics make grim reading. In a 2013 report, O...

Does Uber Go Bankrupt If Didi Chuxing Decides To Compete In the United States?

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Uber has spent a lot of money to open up local markets, one at a time, to "ridesharing". Opening the door for Didi Chuxing. And...

Currencies: “It is perfectly possible that the week will see yields moderate further and the USD resume its push lower.”

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The dollar index (DXY) is down again and brings to mind the comment of one of the greatest stockpickers I've ever known, "A trend i...

Are Factor Investors Getting Paid to Take on Industry Risk?

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Continuing our look at some of the more interesting aspects of factor investing. From Morningstar: Industry tilts appear to pay off for m...
Sunday, March 26, 2017

HBR: "Why Innovators Should Study the Rise and Fall of the Venetian Empire"

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Huh. So there I was thinking about Venice because KayYen had really nailed it with this photograph of the Grand Canal: Merchants of ...

"Who Owns Your Face?"

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From The Atlantic: Advertising companies, tech giants, data collectors, and the federal government, it turns out. Updated on March 26 a...

Publishing Platform Medium Would Like You To Become A Member; There's Just One Catch

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From The Register: Pure Silicon Valley: Medium asks $5 a month for absolutely nothing Think of it as being your own mini-VC without share...

"U.S. charges Lithuanian man with $100 million email fraud"

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Please wire $100 Million Thank you. From Reuters, March 21: U.S. prosecutors have charged a Lithuanian man with engaging in an email f...

"Q&A With Bloomberg View's Matt Levine"

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From Legal Nomads, March 17: Thrillable Hours: Matt Levine, Financial Journalist Welcome back to  Thrillable Hours,  my interview seri...

"Customer Service Chatbots Are About to Become Frighteningly Realistic"

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From MIT's Technology Review: A startup gives chatbots and virtual assistants realistic facial expressions and the ability to read you...
Saturday, March 25, 2017

"It’s very likely we don’t understand probabilities"

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From the WaPo's Joel Achenbach: Pit Manager Nicole Mavromatis uses a level to check the balance of a roulette wheel at Maryland L...

Deloitte Canada Turning Into Chuck E. Cheese

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A more accurate, but still wildly figurative headline would be "Chuck E. Cheese passes the token torch to Deloitte." Or somethin...

"Google’s Plan to Engineer the Next Silicon Valleys" (GOOG)

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From Backchannel: The tech giant is quietly grooming companies overseas in a strategic move to bring the next billion online. Vu Van i...

Asness et al: "Contrarian Factor Timing is Deceptively Difficult"

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You don't say. Following up on Thursday's " Investing: Cliff Asness Blasts Rob Arnott ". From the Social Science Resear...
Friday, March 24, 2017

"Uber’s largest Southeast Asian rival looks to raise another US$1.5 billion"

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I still can't get the picture of Didi Chuxing's President, Liu Qing (anglicized to Jean Liu), commenting on Travis Kalanick and Uber...

"Steve Cohen Is Trying to Teach Computers to Think Like Top Traders"

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Great. Substance abusing, egomaniac computers. From Bloomberg, March 15: Steven A. Cohen got rich by going with his gut on big trades. ...

Nvidia's Stock Is Not Yet Out Of The Woods (NVDA)

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Readers who have been with us for a while may have noticed we haven't had much to say about NVIDIA in 2017. Harking back to a December 2...