A Canadian on Wall Street

I’m reading The Predictors, after wolfing down The Eudaemonic Pie, Thomas Bass’s earlier work on Doyne Farmer and Norman Packard’s excursions into money-making schemes. The latter is his earlier book about the pair’s scheme at winning roulette, which entailed using physical models and shoe computers to improve the odds of winning, while the former is about the apparently successful use of their chaos theory work to make money in the financial markets. Both books are pretty breezy reading, although if you know a little about either field Bass does a pretty good layman’s job of touching all the bases. He even makes mention of the Mandelbrotian usage of fractals and the fat tail stuff that folks like NN Taleb love, which I wasn’t expecting. There are some choice disses of technical analysis, likening chartists to astrologists and entrail-readers, and a quote from Farmer referring to that time as like the Middle Ages, with said “astrologists” co-existing with the patrician, institutionalized view, akin to the old establishment viewing the world as flat, who hold strong to efficient market theory. I’ll have to quote some of it when I get the time.

David Olive on Abitibi and his belief that they’re on a delusional road. And yes, I realize I’m posting articles from elsewhere and not so much my own original commentary, but frankly I’ve had little on my radar lately.