Wildlife Wednesday – The Portu-Goose!
by phil - January 12th, 2011 8:27 am
"Portugal will not request financial aid for the simple reason that it's not necessary" – Socrates
Of course, that was Jose Socrates, Portugal's Prime Minister, not Σωκρτης the great Philospoher, who was more famous for saying "False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil" as well as "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing." More apropos for this morning is the more famous Scocrates' more famous observation that "True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us."
The investors jacking up the markets at 6am this morning understand very little about the relevance of Portugal's sale of $1.62Bn in bonds. While the auction was a "success" with longer bonds going off at 6.7% that's WITH intervention by China and Japan on an auction amount that either one of them could have tipped the cab driver on the ride over from the airport and not missed it. This is like going to your rich uncle for a used car loan because the bank wants 12% and your uncle says "sure I will help you out but you will owe me big time and I will make my brother's life miserable because I have to give his kid money and I'll never let him forget it" and then he hands you a contract to pay him back at 11.5%.
Actually, Portugal didn't even get that much of a "family discount," The last bond auction of 2010 went off at 6.8% and the fear was that the rates would go over 7% but let's not do cartwheels over 6.7%. Oh, sorry, too late, the markets are already doing cartwheels with a 0.5% gain in the futures and just look how excited the Hang Seng was after lunch, gaining 200 points in a virtual straight line and almost doubling the day's optimistic opening. The Shanghai was just as exciting, falling from 2,828 down almost 1.5% to 2,788 but then flying back to 2,821 to book a 0.6% gain on the day and giving Mainland China's Main Market this exciting profile:
So it's no surprise Uncle China doesn't want Portugal falling apart but…
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Investment Forecasts: Known Unknowns
by ilene - December 29th, 2009 4:19 pm
Investment Forecasts: Known Unknowns
Courtesy of Tim at The Psy-Fi Blog
End of Year Epiphanies
At the end of every calendar year we experience a rush of forecasts on the likely direction of various markets and stocks for the next year. You can find thousands of such forecasts on the internet and you can’t pick up a paper without someone or other opining on the subject. In fact, no matter what your preference, you’ll doubtless find someone out there predicting whatever you want.
The uselessness of these predictions was carefully explained by the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, two and half thousand years ago. Not letting death, the lack of Ancient Greek stockmarkets or the fact he lived in an economy based on slavery get in the way of a good analogy, Socrates noted that he, at least, knew what he didn’t know. Which in investment analysis terms is about as close to an epiphany as you’re likely to get.
From Socrates to Rumsfeld
Socrates seems, as far as we can tell, to have spent his life in philosophical musings, preferring to spend his time asking the supposed wise men of Athens for their insights rather than doing anything more economically useful. His conclusion was, largely, that they didn’t know very much – an insight that echoes down the ages. They, on the other hand, decided that they didn’t like a smartass and the result is a lesson to would-be gadflies the world over.
In particular he seems to have annoyed the powerful by informing them that he knew something they didn’t. Having already upset them by showing up exactly how dim they were he then compounded his crimes by revealing his secret: “I know what I do not know”. If this sounds familiar, you’d be right:
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
It’s long way from Socrates to investment analysis via Donald Rumsfeld but I think we’ve just managed it.
The Known Unknowns of the Market
Socrates’ known unknowns are important for markets, because each of us can know – with something approaching certainty – that one of these…
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.