Authentic Baseball Stadium Seat Cufflinks

Legend of the Motorcycle: Pebble Beach without Posers

The weather remained cool and blustery, which for a classic British bike fan like myself only added to the atmosphere. Telling myself I was on the Isle of Man, not the Central California cost, was easy on the 40-degree golf course framed in gray-skies and crashing waves. Hearing the various BSAs, Ducatis, MV Agustas, Nortons and Triumphs fire up for the show judges only enhanced the illusion. Seeing Giacomo Agostini and Alan deCadenet among those walking the rows of bikes didn’t hurt, either.

The more George Soros talks, the less people care what he thinks.

The actual study is locked up in the vaults of academia, but here’s a few links.

Testosterone Levels Predict City Traders’ Profitability – Science Daily

Stock Market Winners Get Big Payoff–In Testosterone – Scientific American

Study: Testosterone Fuels Stock-Market Success – Fox News

Since few reporters and bloggers have actually been able to read this study insted relying upon the work of others, it’s not entirely clear what the results of the study are. The publicly published paraphrasing I’ve read only makes it clear that there may be some link between hormones and the decisions of traders. But it appears to be a tail chaser, with increased hormone levels impacting trading tactics and vice versa trading tactics and market conditions impacting hormone levels.



Related articles:

Testosterone May Improve Mental Function – Science Daily

Trader says his boss made him take female hormones – BloggingStocks

VIDEO: Your Brain on Stress – LiveScience

Mere Thought of Money Makes People Selfish – LiveScience

Hormones affect men’s sense of fairplay – NewScientist

Money game reveals our inner Robin Hood – New Scientist

Victory turns mice into men – New Scientist (explains Rockies post-season winning streak)

Arab Singer’s Necklace Fetches $1.3 Million

Christie’s Dubai branch said that an anonymous buyer from the Middle East bought the piece of Umm Kulthoum’s (pictured with the neclace) jewelry for $1.38 million, the AP reports.

The London-based auction house did not want to reveal the identity of the buyer, the AP reports. He bought the nine-strand necklace at a price 10 times its $120,000 estimated value the auction house set, which did not take into an account its immense emotional value.

The Great Depression Debate

Bernanke and many other economists believe the Fed’s failure to bail out stricken banks between 1929 and 1932 was one of the main reasons the Depression lasted so long. In 1932, Herbert Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corp., which lent to banks, railroads, and other troubled businesses but failed to reverse the string of bank failures. By the start of 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered the White House, thousands of banks had gone under and many more were facing potential runs on their deposits. F.D.R. declared a bank holiday. When the banks reopened, the Fed had broader power to bail out those that were struggling.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Jose Canseco lost his home to foreclosure.

In comments to the TV show “Inside Edition,” Canseco says, “It didn’t make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else.”

But hey, there are worse ways to blow your dough: From the WSJ The $300,000 Watch That Doesn’t Tell Time.

He added that anyone can buy a watch that tells time — only a truly discerning customer can buy one that doesn’t.

And here’s the best part: The watch sold out within 48 hours of its launch.

The well-appointed trader knows that one must have the right tools to keep them bears a dancin’.

For the Starbucks in Hong Kong, the new HP Mini-Note:

For the trading room, or the corner of your bedroom, whichever the case may be:

All you gotta do is wear a red shirt!

Using data from the last 55 years, researchers at Plymouth and Durham universities in England found that teams with red kits were significantly more successful. The results are detailed in the Journal of Sports Sciences.

Previous research has shown that red uniforms confer an advantage to Olympic combatants in wresting, taekwondo and boxing, but not for team sports.

The Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science blog talks about great actors and actresses who always seem to play parts beneath their talents. Similarly, one can dredge up a plethora of companies that make great products and offer excellent services whose stocks fair poorly.

Perhaps the answer is simply poor timing. An actor can only take on a finite number of projects in their lives. The quicker they are to take on projects the less available they are when better projects come along. Tom Selleck would have been Indiana Jones, had he not just committed to Magnum P.I. Not a bad gig, of course, but the stories of actors having missed out on great parts goes on and on. When they are too slow to take move on projects they are less visible and perhaps less sought out.

Speculating is similar in that once we have committed capital it is then less readily available when another project comes along. We must find that balance between being allocating all of our assets and keeping assets available for better opportunities, while considering that unallocated capital has an opportunity cost.