12/07/2013 Weekend Update

[DellGriffith]

Last year Byron Wien, whale guru and Backstone’s Vice Chairman, made 10 macro predictions for 2013.
Here’s how they did:
http://www.businessinsider.com/byron-wi ... 13-12?op=1

whale wien_png.png

To be fair, many of Wien's predictions were in line with many other experts on Wall Street. Unfortunately, that excuse doesn't make money for clients.

Often people try to dismiss being wrong in prognostication by claiming "everyone else made the same mistakes", which really isn't a valid reason.

There's a recent article on human behavior on just that subject here:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... nking.html

People don’t actually like creativity.

Studies confirm what many creative people have suspected all along: People are biased against creative thinking, despite all of their insistence otherwise.

Staw says most people are risk-averse. He refers to them as satisfiers. “As much as we celebrate independence in Western cultures, there is an awful lot of pressure to conform,” he says. Satisfiers avoid stirring things up, even if it means forsaking the truth or rejecting a good idea.

Unfortunately, the primary goal of most analysts is NOT to be correct - its to avoid being wrong all by yourself while most everyone else is correct -- because that can get you fired. That fear leads to groupthink. And that's where you wind up with analysts getting almost everything wrong, and then immediately defending it by claiming their picks were in line with what everyone else said (as if that makes it better).

[tsf]

Open Thread: Make the Bear Case
by Barry Ritholtz - December 8th, 2013
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/12/op ... Picture%29

[daytradingES]

Hello Cobra and all,

I've been working on an automated trading system in the past few weeks using Prodigio, and backtesting over the past 4 years (Swing to Intermediate.) What I've discovered is that my Buy strategy is quite good, but my Sell strategy had been ill-defined and problematic, which is reflected in my actual trading results (I tend to sell too early.) In trying to nail down a profitable automatic sell strategy, and applying it to today's market, if I were long, then I would still be long.

Any thoughts?

http://screencast.com/t/aDsI4cbe2K

[fehro]

Royal Flush "Ghost of 1929 crash reappears". You and other readers should be aware that this story has been debunked as pure bogus several times. For a good review, see Jeff Miller Weighing the Week Ahead, SA, Nov 23.

Possible.. but the pattern does look close? http://blog.stocktradersalmanac.com/pos ... ern-Update

and http://thepatternsite.com/3peaksdome.html