Dev's Digressions

 If a coin landed on heads 60% of the time and you are offered 1:1 odds would you play?  Short answer, yes obviously we should play. The expected value is 20% per flip.  EV = 0.6*x - 0.4*x = 0.2 But how much should you bet? This depends on your individual risk appetite. There is a whole area of economics dedicated to studying this known as utility theory . Economists use utility functions to quantify human preferences of different choices. Each individual aims to maximize their utility function. This can be applied to investment decisions with respect to the risk reward trade-off. For a given level of utility there is an indifference curve that represents the tradeoff between additional risk and additional expected return. An investor can be expected to get the same satisfaction from each point on this curve.  This is all a fancy way of saying that traditional risk measurements do not account for the subjective aspect of risk. Everyone has a different attitude toward...

Visually appealing. Clever message. Lacking fan-service. Minimal plot. Joker: A Folie Deux is a bit of a paradox in that its overwhelmingly negative reviews are understandable and mostly accurate, yet at the same time miss what makes the film good. The negative criticism simply proves the point that Todd Phillips is making about fanaticism. The strength of the film lies in its analogy and metaphor, while its lack of plot and overuse of music is the weakest. The central premise of the movie is a criticism of society's relentless ability to turn tragedy into entertainment. This is highlighted by Arthur's trial being televised, drawing comparisons to the OJ Simpson murder case. Perhaps the most powerful image is when we finally see Joker in full regalia in the courtroom after Arthur opts to fire his lawyer and defend himself, a decision that draws huge applause from his "fans" despite being an objectively awful decision for his future. Joker's antics in the courtroom...

The benefit of social media is that it gives everyone a voice. The downside of social media is that it gives everyone a voice. An example of the latter are pseudo finance "influencers" on LinkedIn. You know, those Entrepreneurs|Founders|Futurists|Evangelists that will post an arbitrary graph along with a GPT scripted paragraph of "investment advice" in an attempt to harvest the content machine for engagement. A staple of these trending travesties is a thing called the Benner Cycle .  The Benner Cycle is a chart of predicted market cycles that was published by an Ohioan farmer Samuel Benner in his book "Benner's Prophecies of Ups and Downs in Prices", which was published in 1884. This chart is intended to predict market movements from 1924 through to 2059 and is described in the book by Benner as a "sure thing". As you can see in the chart there are two overlapping cycles, a major and a minor cycle. The peaks and troughs are assigned as points...