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In investing, you have “technical chartists.” They watch [stock] prices bouncing up and down, hitting what is called “resistance” at 30 or “support” at 20, for example. Chartists are looking at the data without developing fundamental explanations for why those movements are taking place—about the quality of a company’s management, for example.

Among financial academics, chartists tend to be regarded as quacks. But a lot of the Big Data people are exactly like them. They say, “We are just going to stare at the data and look for patterns, and then act on them when we find them.” In short, there is very little real science in what we call “data science,” and that’s a big problem.

Is There Big Money in Big Data? - Technology Review

3 weeks ago

Twentysomethings are creating a new and potentially powerful housing pattern as they snap up downtown apartments as fast as they become available. … Neighborhood life is blossoming on blocks once dominated by office workers and commuters, and people are clamoring for dog parks.

Cleveland’s Downtown Rebound - Jobs & Economy - The Atlantic Cities

3 weeks ago

Human performance, by this account, does not often fit the bell curve or what scientists call a normal distribution. Rather, it is more likely to fit what scientists call a power distribution.

Put Away The Bell Curve: Most Of Us Aren’t ‘Average’ : NPR

3 weeks ago

Tweet by Morgan Housel

Morgan Housel (@TMFHousel)
5/2/12 4:04 PM
Out of more than 7,000 mutual funds, eight have bested the S&P 500 every year for the past decade. Seriously. Eight.

(Source: twitter.com)

Cities force us to interact with strangers and with the strange. They pry the mind open. And that is why they are the idea that has unleashed so many of our new ideas.

How Creativity Works in Cities - Arts & Lifestyle - The Atlantic Cities

3 weeks ago

But some of his most interesting work has to do with power dynamics. He says that by analyzing language you can easily tell who among two people has power in a relationship, and their relative social status.

“It’s amazingly simple,” Pennebaker says, “Listen to the relative use of the word “I.”

What you find is completely different from what most people would think. The person with the higher status uses the word “I” less.

http://n.pr/JWeBqT

4 weeks ago

themorningnews:

China expected to eat more than twice as much meat as America this year.

themorningnews:

China expected to eat more than twice as much meat as America this year.

Advisors must segment their clients. The percentage of RIAs who segment their clients into distinct groups (based on their specific needs, affinities, behaviors and other characteristics) rose to 39% in 2010, up nearly 10 percentage points from 2009, according to Schwab’s benchmarking survey.

The Changing RIA

1 month ago

an ecosystem of companies has emerged to serve independent advisors in essentially all areas of their practices—from investment products and platforms to services such as technology, compliance, portfolio management and client reporting. Many of these product and service providers focus entirely on the RIA space, devoting themselves to advisors’ unique needs. Advisors today can access a huge number of resources tailored specifically to the way their firms operate.

The Changing RIA

1 month ago

And that’s the other rule of the monte: if you can’t spot the sucker in the room, it’s you.

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway

(Source: kindle.amazon.com)

1 month ago