CFA Level 1 Results are Released Tomorrow

"Some time after 9:30 AM EST"

Historical pass rates around 40% really don't make me feel confident, but we shall wait and see, wish me luck

EDIT: I Passed, sweet!

Moving...Again

I have been fairly quiet over the past month, and I apologize for my absence.  I have been extremely busy in my private life, and both my eBay business and blogs have suffered.

There are a bunch of reasons.  Most importantly, I moved from Enfield, CT to South Hadley, MA.  We moved because it is closer to my wife's school and it is much cheaper than the location where we were before.  In addition, it is quiet, in a great town, a different apartment.  Hardwood floors, a large living room and kitchen are the benefits, while a small bathroom, smaller kitchen and old neighbors the downside.  Second, I have been studying hard for my CFA exam that will be coming up in December.  It requires a ton of hours on a daily basis, and both my healthy routine and the rest of my life has suffered.  It should pay off in the end.  Finally, work has been busy, so some of my spare time for blogging has dried up. 

Moving was a pretty fun experience.  Two of my good friends came, and although it was a rainy day, we were able to move all of the big furniture.  It's great exercise as you are carrying, coming up and down stairs, and working as a team.  I consider it extremely paleo style excercise, because it is quite primal in nature.  It is remniscient of a barn-raising, as you get a group of people together doing physical activity for the good of one of your community members.  I am definitely indebted to both of my friends!

I have drank a ton of great beers lately, although I have tried to keep that to just the weekend.  My weight loss and body building have been at a moderate standstill, but I don't think I am gaining anything back.  I will continue to try and make progress and meet my goal of 190lbs by the end of the year

5/9/12 Link Dump

I haven't done this segment in awhile, but I have been gathering up a bunch of great links to share.  With the Celtics not able to put away the Hawks last night, bringing the series back to Boston, I am feeling a bit blue to be creative today. 

Ray Allen's Pregame Routine - I am a big fan of Jesus Shuttlesworth.  His timely 3's just make you cheer, and his calm and cool demeanor, as well as sick Jordan shoes are all admirable.  This is a short film of his pre-game workout routine.  He must be doing something right to be the all-time 3 point shot leader in the NBA.

AContinuousLean on Outlier - I have been debating picking up a pair of Outlier trousers.  I think this will be one of my expenses when I get back down to my ideal weight, and waist size!

Sherry - The Trad's "Tin Tin" is one of my favorite bloggers, especially when he discusses booze.  This is a great one, and I think I will pick up a bottle of sherry on my next stop through the New Hampshire liquor outlets.

How to Live Well - Minimalism from Zen Habits

The Gentry Man - Giuseppe reccomends picking up this compendium of Gentry magazine.  Great for those of you who fantisize about "a time when men wore suits during the day."

Occupy Galt's Gulch - I reccomend everyone read this.  Many of the entitled in this society do not neccessarily comprehend or choose to acknowledge that their success is a result of the pain of others, rather than their tremendous skills.  Clearly TED understands, and it is an important reminder, although my station in life is certainly the latter.

Opining on the Written Word

A recent post by TED regarding the Kindle sparked my brain to think about the future of literature  I had also discussed Amazon's forthcoming retail outlet, which had prompted me to also consider this.  I have written about books many times on this site, as they are a personal passion of mine.  I love both the literature as well as the actual experience of reading the book.  I am interested in a iPad or Kindle in the future, but this would only be for mobile reading and the ability to carry multiple books at once.  I have tried e-books in the past and always felt something was missing.

I feel my opinion is important and valuable to this discussion, because of my age.  I am 24 years old, and many of my peers do not read for pleasure at all.  Thanks to the fantastic technology that provides us 24 hour news coverage, a variety of television programming, movies, music and social media, literature lacks the exclusivity to a captive audience that it once had.  Books are a time-consuming process especially compared to other forms of media.  A movie is long if it takes 3 hours to watch, and a television show is crammed into 19 minutes (Yes Entourage, I am looking at you!).  In comparison, a book can easily take a week to digest and oftentimes is full of above average vocabulary and a lack of visuals which makes it more of a mental chore.

For all of these reasons, I believe that literature will have to adapt, and may in the short term struggle.  It is going to become a specialized market, not dissimilar to theatre, which was a major draw back in the day, opera, and a number of other leisure activities that have fallen behind the times.   The TV networks have supplanted our need for a book series with well made shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Luck.  All of these shows are intricate and sometimes command multiple viewings.  The episodes are long enough that they can be digested for a period of time and discussed on the internet and at the office.  Everything about books takes too long.  It takes too long to read the book, you can watch an episode of Breaking Bad in an hour, and a season within a month, if you are trying.  Thanks to streaming video this is possible anywhere on the globe!  It takes too long for the next book in a series to get to market and requires a lot more physical production in the printing of the book, while an episode could essentially be released to the web and available instantaneously.

My generation simply does not like to read in the universal sense that our forefathers did.  We are a now nation, with 140 character limits on Twitter, and status updates on Facebook.  Epic books can be well over 500 pages in length!  This is not to say a phenomenon like Hunger Games, Harry Potter or The Da Vinci Code can't become mainstream, but how many of your friends and family will never read the book and "just watch the movies"?

Book Review: The Quants

As an employee in a moderate sized financial services firm whose pruimary clients are hedge funds, Scott Paterson's "The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It" is an extremely entertaining read on the topic.  The industry has gotten progessively more complicated as brilliant math students graduated from top-class colleges and began gathering capital for their strategies.  The book vaguely discusses the different quantitative investment funds including AQR, Rennaissance Technologies, Citadel Group, Deutsche Banks' SABA and Morgan Stanley's PDT fund, and all of its key personel. 

It opens with a discussion of Ed Thorp, whose interest in investment was sparked by his passion for arbitrage opportunities in gambling, but went on to create the first convertible bond arbitrage fund.  This strategy focuses on pricing inefficiencies between common stock and derivatives, warrants in Thorp's case.  The strategy encourages shorting the overvalued of the pair, while simultaneously going long on the undervalued of the pair.  As the inefficiency is detected by other market participants it will converge and Thorp would make money as equilibrium returned.  Losses would be hedged because both securities would likely move in tandem.

The most important thing for Thorp's strategy was risk management.  He understood that many of his wagers had only a 55% chance of success, which seems small, but over the long term can be infinitely profitable.  However, the % of capital invested in each position has a direct impact on the risk of ruin due to short term bad luck.  He discovered the Kelly criterion, which he used in his blackjack strategy was an appropriate tool for determining "bet sizes."  Many believe the crash was a result of firm making wagers of a size far higher than Kelly would suggest, by used leverage.  The profitability of these strategies has fallen as more particpants understand and enter the market, but even if all positions had a 60% chance of success, a short term down swing from equilibrium can easily cause a devastating loss if the bet size is too large.

My only critiques of the book were that it was not techincal enough for my tastes as an insider, but I believe the level of sophistication and detail was appropriate for an outsider.  Also many of the story lines felt a little overly fantastic, although not neccessarily exagerated by the author.  I felt a lot of the parallel story lines were recycled and I believe the layout of content had room for improvement.



I really enjoyed mention of the poker influence on the industry including mention of famed degenerate TJ Cloutier and Jen Harmon.  Tales of high living such as "models and bottles" are always nice as well!

Link Dump #4

Another week, another link dump.  Please feel free to check them out if they interest you, they represent my varied interests!

SartoriallyInclined's L.A.S. gives us the skinny on all things in the fashion world, and is more tuned in than I ever will be.  However, we are both fans of UNIS, especially their Gio chinos.  Based on his post, it looks like there will now be a "slim" version of the Gio this season.  Pretty appetizing for the skinny set, but I am not quite lean enough for that yet.
 

 
Mark at MDA is one of my daily reads as he is the master of the primal/paleo movement in my humble opinion.  The recipe is a little more in-depth than I typically like to go for cooking, but the seasonal ingredients and great photography really make me want to cook this up.
 

 
Food Renegade comments on Fried Chicken Skins as well as a recipe.  Sounds like a tasty snack, but not an everyday thing.
 
 
I work in finance, for my day job, and I really forsee Europe being the cause of the next economic downturn, which will be within 18 months.  Via Zero Hedge.
 
 

 
DrinkCraftBeer is a Boston based blogger, who celebrated Octoberfest on Saturday with 1 liter steins of American craft beer, right on.  He also posted a review of Backlash Brewing's Convergence Saison.  I touched on these guys in my New Boston Microbreweries post.
 

 
Giuseppe hosted his 4th semi-annual Affordable Flea at Somerville's Davis Square VFW.  Looks like it was a successful event, but man do I miss Boston.  Also check out his new Volvo! (I do not support leaving the Brown sticker on FYI)

Link Dump

It's not Tuesday, but hey, its my blog and I can do what I want! 

I don't think that I will be watching the WNBA with my favorite league missing at least the first two weeks of the regular season, but this article presents the argument at least.  In all seriousness, I will probably be watching a lot more college basketball and maybe some NHL hockey as well. I might need to pick up NBA 2k12 for the Xbox 360 as well!

Huffington Post put up an article on Craft Beer that is a great primer.  Although it is a little basic for me, I think its definitely a great resource for those people who want to know a little more about their beer than the lowest common denominator (Budweiser/Coors/Miller)

I have been watching the Meltdown series on the financial crisis of 2008.  This is especially relevant these days with the #OccupyWallStreet movement and the pending European sovereign default. Part 1, 2, 3, & 4.

This is not my style, but Giuseppe at AnAffordableWardrobe, got a classic piece of headgear repaired at shop in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, which I have a personal affinity for.  Enjoy.

Last, but certainly not least, is a guide to eating healthy on the cheap from NerdFitness.  You have all scene some of my recent paleo meals and recipes, and this is a great compendium of tips.

Hedging: Monday Night Football

Hedging is a concept that is often used in finance, but applies to sports betting or "sports investing" as well, and presents a profitable strategy to decrease risk or create arbitrage opportunities.

Example #1:

The most basic hedge assumes lines have not chagned and you decide you do not like your position, so you simply bet the other side.  You will pay the juice, but there is no longer any risk/reward.





Example #2:

This hedge assumes that lines have not changed and you still did not like your position.  However you did not completely hate the side, and wanted to keep some exposure.  By betting half (or any other percentage) of the other side hedges you against part of the potential win/loss but still leaves some room for profits.



Example #3:

The real hedging opportunities come become available when lines change.  For example you get the Packers on one side of a key number, then the line moves to the other side.  You can hedge by betting the other side, which means if the final score ends on the key number the line moved over (which many times it will, since this is how the game was handicapped and it is a key number) you can win both sides of your bet and have a maximum of just the juice to pay.









You could also decide to hedge only half of your bet and still have a profitable middle opportunity.





Example #4:

Sometimes through other books or a change in factors you can get both sides of a bet at either no or positive juice, which is a situation known as arbitrage.  If you can get these types of situations, you have to take them, because you are making risk free money. 

I was able to create a profitable strategy for myself for Monday Night's Detroit/Chicago game, where I previously went long the Detroit Lions at -5.5.  You can see the spreadsheet here or a wrap-up based on results tomorrow.

Tuesday Link Dump

I think I am going to start posting interesting links from the previous weeks on Tuesdays.  These are some of the articles that I come across in my daily internet surfing (its not all blogging on ATerrificLife and ThinkActProsper) and I would like you to check out too!

Giuseppe is hosting his 4th bi-annual Top Shelf Flea Market at Somerville's Davis Square VFW.  There are a number of small vendors all specializing in those of us who like to dress well, but affordably.  I am a huge fan of this blog, please check it out.

For those of us who are feeling overworked and/or underpaid, do not lose faith.  Here are some tips on how to ask for a raise. I believe its important to make yourself indispensable, so specialize in something you are good at, and learn it better than anyone else.  This will add value to your team.

Zero Hedge is one of my favorite blogs, talking all things financial, as this is my industry, it is quite relevant.  They are obviously a little harsh and overly pessimistic, but they dig up tons of good tidbits. This clip from a European trader on BBC claims "Goldman owns us all".

Bill Simmon's Grantland has been pretty solid so far, tons of good writing and media.  With the NBA lockout looming, which incidentally might not be so bad to my Celtics, here is an article related to the business of basketball owners.  Commissioner Stern claims that Ratner lost several hundred million on his sale of the New Jersey Nets to Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, but fails to mention the potential $1,000,000,000 in profits for his company on sales of apartments as well as the new Brooklyn stadium. The moral of the story is that no one should feel bad for the owners.

JD Drew is one of my favorite personal finance writers.  He writes on either saving money or making more of it to increase your wealth.  His writing on personal debts and banking is some of my favorites.  Not to mention his garden project.  Here he comments on a familiar problem, grocery shopping when you are hungry.

CT Flow

In honor of the George Costanza post on Nerd Fitness (a fine blog, that I totally recommend). Instead of putting it off, I am going to update the blog today. I have a lot of new things going on in my life, a new job, a new apartment, and new food plan/philosophy. The new job is going extremely well. All though, working in finance, there is a lot of technology and complex procedures to follow. It is only my second week, but I think that I am making progress and beginning to understand the method to the work that we do. People at the new job seem very friendly and outgoing, although it is that corporate, sterile friendliness, for the most part. The benefits/salary of the job are better than what I was receiving at the last company, but the company is many times smaller, although that does not affect me much on a day to day basis.

I also moved to a new apartment in Enfield, CT. Enfield is a large suburban town on the northern edge of Connecticut, abutting Longmeadow, MA. It is on the east bank of the majestic Connecticut River, and is considered more of a suburb of Springfield, MA than of Hartford, CT. Growing up in Massachusetts, its comfortable to know that I am only 7 miles from the largest city in Western Mass. The town used to be a carpet producing area, but due to globalization, most of these businesses are long defunct. Several of the buildings have been repurposed into apartment buildings, which is where I am living now. Although it has much more of a standard or even hotel feel than my last place (a 4 family in Quincy, MA) not to mention $100 more per month in rent. I am really enjoying it. The space is open and feels much larger, the appliances are modern, bathroom is massive, walk-in closet is superb, and the details (exposed brick, 12 ft ceilings) are great touches that are only possible based on the buildings heritage. Some cons are that it is carpet throughout the living room and bedroom, and the cabinets are a bit awkward in the kitchen.

My primal eating plan (links) is going very well. I have been at it almost a month, and am definitely noticing some results. I have been sticking to the no carb, low sugar, high fat, high protein principles as well as I can, with several cheat meals and more beer than I care to admit. To that end, I have decided to make the month of September beer-free. I still have a bunch of great beer courtesy of my generous uncle, who brought some local favorites out from Michigan. Including Bell's Two Hearted, which I would buy by the case if it were available locally and Founder's Reds Rye PA, which is extremely tasty as well. However, for the month of September, my only alcohol will be several bottles of wine. Hopefully, I can buzz down to New England Brewing in New Haven before the end of the month to grab a growler of their beer, Ghandi Bot if available. For this weeks meals, I made a quiche to eat for breakfast with mushrooms, peppers, onions, broccoli and bacon. 3 pieces of sirloin and 10 sausages accompanied by copious amounts of frozen spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrot topped with olive oil. Some nuts and peanut butter for snacks and coffee and seltzer to drink along with plenty of h2o.

Link Roundup - October 28

I consider myself pretty entrepreneurial, and I have always wanted to run my own business. This article is an exploration of that subject, extolling the benefits and drawbacks of being your own boss. The pros are the freedom to do what interests you, passion for your business, and the pride for being responsible for a hopefully successful business while the cons are that it is actually a lot of work that can be lonely, and being solely responsible for the dull details. (mailing textbooks in this case) At least consider the idea, you may just find yourself with the best job ever! (manvsdebt)

Alden, one of the last few American shoemakers. The region south of Boston in Massachusetts used to be one of the most heavily concentrated with clothing and shoe manufacturers a century ago. Alden is located in Middleborough, MA, 30 minutes south of my parents home, in a very similar town. Epaulet of Brooklyn has a forthcoming collaboration with Alden on a Brixton boot and was able to make a very professional video and photo gallery of their visit to the factory. (epauletshop)

A favorite blogger of mine, Foster, who interned at Rogue's Gallery helped create a mural for Alex Carleton, also originally of Rogue's Gallery. The "inspiration wall" was for the LL Bean Signature, which has already had and will continue to have play here, event that happened a few weeks ago in NYC. Foster gathered a number of images relating to LL Bean and he posted some to his blog for those of us who couldn't make it (weren't invited) to enjoy. (a restless transplant)

The financial crisis of the past 18 months is no secret, and as a close follower of the finance world, this article hit home for me. Although it comes from a fairly technical site, maybe my favorite on the web, anyone who is interested in the fate of America should read it. Comparing the classic "bust out" scene of the local restaurant in Scorsese's Godfellas to the swindle that AIG and the Private Equity firms have given the taxpayer is pretty much on point. (zero hedge)

Great set of fall images. I have a deep respect for James' eye for quality and details. I admit that I have a bit of a thing for image posts and blogs, but this one is seriously top notch. (secret forts)