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Guest Post: The Real Testosterone Junkies
Submitted by John Aziz of Azizonomics,
I especially enjoy reading things that I disagree with, and that challenge my own beliefs. Strong ideas are made stronger, and weak ideas dissolve in the spotlight of scrutiny. People who are unhappy to read criticisms of their own ideas are opening the floodgates to ignorance and dogmatism. Yet sometimes my own open-minded contrarianism leads me to something unbelievably shitty.
Zero Hedge is a financial news website. The writers all write under the pseudonym of “Tyler Durden”, Brad Pitt’s character from Fight Club. Each post comes with a little black and white icon of Brad Pitt’s head. On Zero Hedge you can read news, rumors, facts, figures, off-the-cuff analysis, and political screeds (usually anti-Obama, anti-government, and pro-hard money). On the sidebars, you can click on ads for online brokerages, gold collectibles, and The Economist.
The site is a big fat hoax. And if you read it for anything other than amusement, you’re almost certainly a big fat sucker.
That’s a bold claim! Why do I make this claim? Well, in one sense, all financial news is a hoax. Financial news, by definition, is public information — if you’ve read it, you can bet that thousands of other people have too. That means that if the market is anywhere close to being efficient, any information in any article you read will already have been incorporated into the price of financial assets. Reading or watching public information should not, in theory, give you any “alpha”.
If the writers of Zero Hedge really knew some information that could allow them to beat the market,why in God’s name would they tell it to you? If they had half a brain, they’d just keep the info to themselves, trade on it, and make a profit! Maybe then, after they had made their profit, they’d release the news to the public (and collect ad revenue), but by then the news would be worthless. Financial news sites, you should realize, are not in the business of giving you insider tips out of the goodness of their hearts.
As you might expect, it’s not hard to look back at Zero Hedge’s predictions and see that a large number of them are junk. For example, here’s a bunch of posts from 2009 predicting imminent hyperinflation. Hope you didn’t make any trades based on that bit of wisdom!
So how does Zero Hedge get away with this hoax? Barber & Odean (2001) give a big hint. Tyler Durden, whose name and image grace every Zero Hedge Post, is a symbol of masculinity. More specifically, he is a nerd’s imagined vision of what a really masculine nerd would be like. In Fight Club, Durden says: “All the ways you wish you could be, that’s me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.”
In other words, you are a young smart (i.e. nerdy) guy sitting at your computer with rivers of testosterone coursing through your veins. And now here comes Tyler Durden, your generation’s Platonic ideal of pure masculinity, telling you that Real Men Take Risks. At the top of the site, there is a Tyler Durden quote: “On a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” In other words, gamble. Bet that you’re the smart guy and not the sucker. Because hey, you’re going to die anyway, so there’s no use hedging your bets. Zero hedge, right?
I wouldn’t be surprised if “Tyler Durden” were actually a bunch of behavioral finance grad students, snickering behind their hands at everyone who takes their site seriously.
This is what passes for financial analysis today? Let’s ignore the obvious fact that Zero Hedge has never pretended to offer investment advice. We should take all financial news with a large grain of salt (anyone who has read the latest uber-bailout rumours out of Europe should know that). Anyone who bases their trading activity on blindly following the pronouncements of one site, or one trader deserves to lose their coat. Blindly following a messiah-figure or (even worse) the herd is a surefire recipe for disaster.
But Smith has got his facts wrong. While there has been no hyperinflation, those who traded their hunch and bought gold — pretty much the archetypal Zero Hedge trade — have not done badly. Here’s the price of gold — contrasted against the S&P500 — since Zero Hedge was born in January 2009:
Drawing a meaty profit and significantly outperforming the S&P500 is hardly what you’d expect from a “big fat hoax”. Certainly, you’d have made a loss, not a meaty profit, from betting with Bernanke’s pronouncement that subprime was “contained”.
Smith is spinning loose psychoanalysis spiced with conspiracy theories and schoolboy misunderstandings in order to generate pageviews. He obviously hasn’t read Zero Hedge enough to realise that ”on a long enough timeline the survival rate for everyone drops to zero” reflects the reality that calamities and resets happen, and that — given the level of mess, corruption and perversity in finance today — a systemic reset could be just around the corner. And the last thing i would want to do in the face of a systemic reset — or any kind of large-scale financial calamity (a la 2008) — is gamble. The smart thing is to hunker down and robustify, by minimising exposures to all forms of connective risk and financial fragility . Zero Hedge is not about having no hedges and gambling as recklessly as possible; it is about having hedges against the system going to zero.
Ironically, Smith is accusing entirely the wrong segment of the financial world of wild recklessness. While there are surely many day traders who lose their coats on the pronouncements of analysts (especially the Crameresque stock-picker — something which Zero Hedge has never done), the real danger is surely the testosterone-Red Bull-and-cocaine-fuelled TBTF trader or 21-year old PhD-wielding quant working for a bailed-out bank with an implicit taxpayer backstop on zero-interest government money. The level of moral and financial hazard is simply staggering, and of course this has bred much reckless behaviour; from the evident criminality of manipulating LIBOR, to Corzine’s destruction of MF Global (and theft of customer funds), to the absurd market-cornering London Whale’s speculation using customer deposits, to the off-balance-sheet activities of Kweku Adoboli, to Goldman’s quote stuffing. And — I am sure, much much more — these are just some of the scams and scandals that are known; there is much more darkness beneath. Zero Hedge has been a powerful journalistic force and clearinghouse in bringing the light-of-day onto these corruptions and criminalities, something that Smith seems entirely ignorant of.
No day trader or goldbug stacking gold eagles has ever blown up the nation’s pension fund, but the protected TBTF banks funded by earth-shattering leverage and taxpayer guarantees have again and again endangered retirement funds, and lost their clients’ fortunes.
It is not unusual on Wall Street to see massively leveraged double or nothing Martingale trading strategies where traders take a position and push leverage and counter-leverage to create a favourable outcome. In theory — with unlimited funds — such an approach always wins, but in reality this approach usually ends in traders running out of counter-parties or running out of leverage, and ending up with a massive loss. It’s picking up nickels in front of a steamroller, and is of course made much easier thanks to the new and manipulable world of high-frequency trading.
It’s ironic (and jaw-dropping) that Smith castigates Zero Hedge as the home of testosterone junkie traders when in fact the vast majority of Zero Hedge writers and readers are angling for better regulation of high-frequency trading to prevent market manipulation, an end to nickels-in-front-of-steamrollers strategies (the best way is to end the taxpayer guarantees so that traders who blow up the system will reap the consequences), and the return of Glass Steagall (or similar) to keep depositors’ funds out of hyper-fragile shadow intermediation chains and the derivative casino.
The financial system is being regulated by clueless schmucks — many of whom would also castigate Zero Hedge as a “big fat hoax”, while ignoring grift and degeneracy within the financial establishment and the TBTF banks. In the face of such grotesque incompetence who can blame market participants for wanting a hedge against zero?
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Thanks to Zero Hedge, the U.S. now has a balanced bullshit. We'll find our way out of this ignorant wilderness yet.
I pretty much figured it out before dropping in here (over 2 1/2 years ago- sheet!, how time flies!).
ZH is my entertainment (well, when I'm not doing stuff on the farm). It has given credence to the positions that I've taken. I like picking news items that bring up stuff I'd been talking about for years and shoving them in the faces of those who have poo-poo'd me for many years (more entertainment value!).
In case "Noah" is reading, I've NEVER traded on any advice given here on ZH. I haven't traded anything for MANY years (in ANY capacity). Not that it matters, but I'm pretty sure that my dick is bigger than yours! (no, no penis envy [note that I've got a beautiful wife and I'm NOT wealthy...])
Really, ZH is best viewed as a crime blog, a place that exposes the economic crimes against humanity. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and roaches like this guy scurry like mad when it's shining. Shine on ZH!
the things that i wish I could get a better understanding about with this site:
1) the bank i work for is routinely bashed for its behaviour, but when there is a research report or a version of analysis that comes from my bank it is indeed posted and the opinions that the people are making in these research reports are supported.
2) most posters think automatically that everyone who works for the banks is a sociopath with 0 boundaries, whereas i'd say i'm more like a libertarian who has taken my own version of the hippocratic oath. for example I campaign for clients to get access to buying gold instead of buying shitty proxies like gold mining stocks
3) the comments on here, well some of them, seem to be purely vitriolic and without any real substance - just unmitigated anger. especially to one another. Obviously any free market place requires more than one opinion to function but the lack of civility of debate makes me really wonder whether people just like being heard or being read
4) as a somewhat younger chap, i hate that people call on the collapse of the system ASAP. I know that it is not fair, it is corrupt, it is not 'a free market' but more a reflection of a military political complex... but how am I supposed to work to insulate my family if i am given only a few small years.
The answer:
1. One bank's virtue may be another person's new homelessness.
2. If you work as a pimp, even if you're a nice pimp, you're still a pimp.
3. We're all assholes here in the clown car. When you jam 137,512 people into a Honda Civic, they get testy.
4. It's nobody else's fault that you chose to be born when and where you did. Deal with it.
Thanks for all the down arrows on my post.
Far be it to raise a question - but can't you see the hypocrisy with TBTF being blasted for being 'banksters' and sociopaths and so on, and then using the reports, insight and analysis to support your hypothesis.
Come up with your own research or your own view. Reggie Middleton is just one guy that is contributing more than you guys screaming HURR DURR TBTF HURR DURR BANKSTERS.
I can see it coming too. There's one other guy at the office that sees it the same way.
I can see it on the horizon, and it is going to be like a wave.
But screw you guys who want to set the world on fire.
The kinda people who want the world to burn, should burn with it, because they aren't the kinda people i'd want to rebuild with.
Not everyone who works in these institutions are white teeth silver spoon kinda creeps, yeah there are shit-tonne of them. But the reality is that there are people out there like you, in these banks, in these institutions that see it from the inside.
And if you think you know what goes on outside, wait until you look at the insides of this beast.
And then have the balls to give me a down arrow or call me an inexperienced kid.
I'm in my 30s. I've pulled beers, driven trucks and worked in a factory. I've cleaned toilets, washed cars...
Sure I may work for a Bank now but i was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth or my hand....
I don't really disagree with you. But you're taking this shit way too much to heart.
The macro reality is way too large for any of us to have an effect on it. You can fix your dog, but forget trying to fix the bank you work for. Dogs, we can have some say in. Banks, not so much.
Work for a bank if that's what's out there. But don't defend it. It's just a friggin' job that keeps you and the family fed until something better, or possibly worse, comes along.
I salute you for keeping things going. Cleaning toilets is less fun than pulling beers. It got you through, and that's a good thing. Now pulling trucks, there's a job that separates the men from the boys.
But the sad truth is that we are ALL truly, seriously, chronically FUCKED. Knowing this, as you apparently do, all you or any of us can do is gather up our own resources the best we can and try to be ready for the really nasty part of the coming shitstorm.
I am personally wasting most of my precious life right now, refusing to take part in administering my own beating. But I keep informed on the macro stuff as well as possible. It has allowed my gang to put away a lot of useful stuff that will probably come in handy if the bastards don't come and kill us all first.
Hopefully, you're doing the same for your team. This isn't a picnic we're headed for, it's a hangin'.
You seem to know that intellectually, but you've got to get your gut onboard too. It's real and it's coming our way. The the cops have just turned their flashers on; is it for me or the guy one car ahead? You never know, so you just have to be mentally prepared to be stopped and strip searched by life, no matter how much the idea stinks.
It's all a Ponzi scheme! How else are things going to turn out other than collapse?
You work at a bank, in which case you should understand simple math. UNDERSTAND the exponential function. Look around and you'll see that EVERYTHING (esp banking) is predicated on the exponential function - PERPETUAL GROWTH.
Now add in some very simple physics... we're on a HUGE BALL that has a finite area, and in that finite area is a finite amount of resources.
While most here figure the collapse is about a failing economic scheme, one that's "corrupt," I understand the collapse to occur as a result of a failure to extract ever-increasing amounts (exponential function) of PHYSICAL resources. ALL wars are about resources. Nations/States collapse because of a lack of resources.
Given the facts (math and physics) there's NO uncertainty that a collapse WILL occur. When it happens you can be sure that it will be blamed on anything/everything EXCEPT our Ponzi growth fixation.
"but how am I supposed to work to insulate my family if i am given only a few small years."
FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELF! (I did) Otherwise you won't be behind yourself 100% (you'll need 110%!) and will likely scapegoat any failings. Here, here's the MOST important starting point: Food, Shelter, and Water. Base your decisions on these and you'll always be grounded in reality (and therefore more likely to succeed).
Dude, you're completely in rationalization mode.
Nobody says YOU can fight or change everything yourself, but you should at least become aware how much is going wrong not just in exceptional cases but as the norm nowadays.
And to do so you need to develop a clear opinion, which by definition doesn't allow to hold every other opinion to be valid as well (a/k/a Political Correctness).
He is entitled to his own stupid opinion. But for a guy with zero real world experience, I mean absolutely zero, he sure is wasting lots of bandwidth.
And that is the problem with these PhD numbskulls. They have no fucking clue how the real world works.
"And that is the problem with these PhD numbskulls. They have no fucking clue how the real world works."
Perhaps they DO? Economists are nothing but highly paid liars for TPTB. Don't confuse lying with stupidity: most people believe utter bullshit because they don't want to hear otherwise; these people deliver, but when something comes along that starts exposing their stench they attack.
OK, well these stupid Ph.D nobel laureate economists aren't lying - they're saying "I don't know" and I honestly believe they DO NOT KNOW.
OK, let's split the difference... They're IGNORANT, willfully so. They're joined at the hip with a System that cannot deal with what's happening. They are programmed to do no different. We're neck deep in water and all they know is hammering.
BUT... they have everything at their disposal to know OTHERWISE! Hence my qualifier on "ignorant":"willfully." I'm NOBODY, yet because I wanted to KNOW why things are like they are (well, before it was so much less obvious) I bothered to self-educate: and, no, my background isn't in economics (though, liking to be somewhat rounded, I can say that I have a minimum amount of "education" on economics, physics, math etc., in which case stuff sank in fairly readily).
I can't stress it enough: ALWAYS QUESTION THE UNDERLYING PREMISE, ALWAYS! And, be sure you're understanding what the real premise is (not passing it over and starting with something that you "think" is the premise, or something that is more convenient [cognitive dissonance driven]).
When Nobel Laureates sit in front of the Press and the public with their thumbs in their asses saying "I dunno" to every question, what's the premise?
Seer has a good point.
Just because some miserable bastard wants to kill you for no discernable reason, it doesn't mean that he's not really good at killing.
And his undiscernable reason may make a lot of sense to him, such as underwear that's riding up, a crappy breakfast or his ex-wife has just moved back in with his kids, her kids and their kids.
It was a nice hatchet job, though.
If he really got serious, he would develop this strand, imo:
[continue] . . . yet have barely concealed contempt for the labor class who've also been machined out of most ways to make a living in the name of "free capital" submerged in an ongoing philosophical rapture claimed as "Liberty." Why can't robots trade?
Don't squeal like bitchez when it's your turn to take that big dick . . . after enjoying being on the "giving" end for so long.
Congrats on being such great producers! Now bend over like other people should.
/close
I hate him! Sounds like a commie to me.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Gandhi
I disagree with Noah. It is my job to invest and chose securities. What makes ZH invaluable to me is not trade ideas, but the news and macro stuff which is posted and/or predicted on these pages long before mainstream financial news picks it up. Coverage of Fukushima or the JPM trade was surpassed by none and it's fun to get an alternative spin on economic stats.
ZH is part of my must read investment list, ranking ahead of much for what passes as analysis these days. It is clear that VERY BRIGHT people write for the site, this is not Mötley Fool or message board crap.
Keep up the good work gents.
And how many of the Tylers here are woman?
Hard to say. There WAS a Marla account / name but I've never seen a post from "her"
Just the occasional posts from Hillary Clinton using the Tyler account. If that counts.
Yup. We can't all be right but if one of us is profitably right and you saw that information in time ... what's the harm
2012 06 18 277week roc 01 goldpricemodel 2011 May to 2012 Dec 28
2012 07 08 scatterplot gold sp500 oil - goldpricemodel
@Aziz - we don't need to legitimize posers like this guy by linking frontpage their crap on ZH. He doesn't deserve traffic, nor me wasting my time to answer his drivel. Let him remain a wanabee PHD , gobbling all the rubbish FED to him.
Just bc you are a contributor doesnt mean you should post everything on the front page that crosses your mind. You should link such articles in the comment section.
Also @yourfather . I guess pay is good huh but dont you see the supreme irony that this job would not exist if the banks were not bailed out ? Dont you see that this cash you are getting is illegitimate ?
That was actually my first thought as well.
All this time I thought ZH was a PG rated beginers porn site.
SEC-favored tranny porn site
Fixed it.
600,000 - 800,000 Unique visitors a month. This moron only can dream about numbers like that.
Do you think he's one of the Smith Bros. from cough drop fame? Ridiculous!
I wonder if he has a beard.
Probably.
If he has a beard I bet his brother does too.
")> <(" = "Angry Bird Bros. Cough Drops Logo"
Probably.
I wonder what ID he uses to post on ZH? There are hundreds nay thousands of fuckwits here, myself included of course.
And his boyfriend too.
"The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."— John Maynard Keynes
Mr Smith could catch hell from his conventional friends for mocking a quote so close to Keynes'.
After some years and reflecting on that quote a few times, I came to the conclusion that this Keynes' quote is one of the most disingenuous and mendacious I've ever heard.
It's just an euphemistic way for saying "Après moi le déluge."
Do you know what has made me lose money, a serious, hefty amount of cash? Not listening to ZH advice.
Well, take comfort in knowing that you made the FIRST step in admitting that you have a "problem" :-) We're here to help you :-)
The fact that there is no hyperinflation doesn't mean that there is no hyperinflation. What has actually happened is that we have hyperbiflation - both deflation and inflation occurring simultaneously as the Fed debases the dollar and destroys its information carrying capacity. Fed money pumping has replaced some of the money drained from the system by the implosion of credit and real estate, which were brought about in the first place by money pumping. But other commodities have skyrocketed. Certainly Zero Hedge has called the general direction right - we are fucked. The only thing saving us now is the Eurosocialists are even more fucked sooner.
And as Tyler Durden wrote earlier, those who bought gold as a hedge did fine. Others, like myself, have taken the opportunity to diversify holdings worldwide and hedge both against the dollar and the euro, also very Zero Hedgian, and we are not sorry either.
Here's some on why we have a Biflationary Depression. www.fuurnamics.com/biflation.php
"The fact that there is no hyperinflation doesn't mean that there is no hyperinflation"
You totally had me with that opening sentence. Shit like that is what keeps me coming back here. Thanks.
question: if there's 1 quadrillion in derivatives out there and the Fed buys up a bunch of them at a loss not yet realized, then there's hyperinflation, and one quadrillion is more than the known money supply at all (a leverage effect for how the derivatives were written & sold) and the fed REALIZES THE LOSS on the MARKET VALUE of those derivatives ... can this nullify some or all of the hyperinflation or at least "high inflation" that is not a "currency collapse" ?
Jump, Fucker, Jump!!!!!!
"..The site is a big fat hoax. And if you read it for anything other than amusement, you’re almost certainly a big fat sucker..."
the real problem is that there may be a bit too much truthyness floating around here for some people's comforts...
say what you like...but how did the focker know I shop at "Mr Fat Bastard's" (the retailer of fashion garments for the larger gentleman)
Where are these fucking stock tips? All I ever got here was Rocky Racoon pointing out a buy at the US Mint on 90% silver.
I thought ziphedge was about buying the fucking dip [BTFD] in Au Ag and gettting plenty of Pb.
Fuck that clown.
Thanks for the site Tylers.
Another Ben Bernanke fucking moron assclown in the making.
http://youtu.be/9H4C152CAeI
I started writing that this guy Noah Smith is clearly from the younger generation - because he is clearly shallow and superficial in all that he does. But, I thought - "hey, I am guilty of the same thing he is...can't have that..." So, I go and look him up - there ya go...still frickin' wet behind the ears hiding in academia and passing opinions as if he knows something.
Here are some tips:
Buy low - sell high.
Do not state something as a fact when it is (your) theory.
and my favorite:
The world got along before you graced us with your observations - and it will get along fine without you too.
Have a nice day young'en.
Hi my name is Noah Smith but you can call me Asshole like most people do. My eyes are already beginning to cross and my nose too. I just got my PhD. My website sucks and I lost a bunch of my parent's money. I bet against ZeroHedge articles and in line with GS recommendations. Financial markets don't seem to work the way they taught us in college.
ZH you are worthy of letters of denounciation from far better than this. Keep up the great work.
Wah, wah, ZH also told me I was gonna get a QE pony, if I asked the Fed nicely.
"The site is a big fat hoax. And if you read it for anything other than amusement, you're almost certainly a big fat sucker.
That's a bold claim! Why do I make this claim? Well, in one sense, all financial news is a hoax. Financial news, by definition, is public information - if you've read it, you can bet that thousands of other people have too. That means that if the market is anywhere close to being efficient, any information in any article you read will already have been incorporated into the price of financial assets. Reading or watching public information should not, in theory, give you any "alpha".
This is where this guy shows off his student credentials. The most important information IS in the public domain. The problem is believing said information and sticking with it when the market is going the other way.
For example, my second biggest position is EUO, a double short of the Euro. I saw ZH posting articles on how bad Europe was finanically every day and how it was doomed. Unlike a bunch of journalists who just quote bureaucrats, ZH dug into the numbers and said Europe was doomed, so I looked into and confirmed said numbers. I bought EUO at 15, and it is trading at 22, a helluva investment in this market, but I am holding EUO until it hits at least 40.
How does ZH differ from the MSM? The MSM builds up LTRO, ESM ETC as 'solving the problem" while the ZH message is the same, The Euro is doomed, and all this European QE bullshit is making an already bad situation even worse. Every time the European situation is "solved", EUO takes a hit and recovers. Reading ZH lessens that little voice in my head that says "sell" when EUO is plummeting.
Traders could make 50+% a year trading EUO just buying it every time Europe announces a new plan or summit and then selling once the market gets how this "new plan" solves nothing.
Somebody give that kid an M4 and a rucksack and drop him off in the Tribal Areas of "PockiStan", see if he can find his way back. Maybe that will dry behind his ears.
Debunking is not a high art form.
Wikipedia does a great job defining logical fallacies.
Stay in school, Noah. You aren't done yet.
Each and every ZH reader needs to watch the 1999 movie "Fight Club" several times to fully understand the ZH website origins, motivations, goals, and Tyler Durdan himself... especially the ending.
Never heard of Noah Smith! I'll keep readaing ZH! It's the best finance website on the internet. Noah Smith? He's a NOBODY!
No wonder they are taking me to the reeducation camp. I thought this stuff was real.
I must say, I'm honored: Noah Smith writes this in the full post on his blog:
"Because hey, you're going to die anyway, so there's no use hedging your bets. Zero hedge, right? (Or you can read a sister site called "Testosterone Pit". Not kidding!)"
So my modest humble blog www.testosteronepit.com has now become a "sister site" to awesome ZH!!!!! Just priceless. I love it.
Noah was thinking of testosteronespit.com, (or was that testosteroneswallow.com) in anticipation of his upcoming Goldman interview... he even bought a new blue dress, er, suit, in anticipation.
I wonder how many here are like me, and do not invest, or participate in the markets at all? I am here strictly for gaining insight and information as to what is happening out there in the world, both in the US and abroad.
It's interesting, informative and mind stimulating reading I am after here, nothing more. Not many other places to go and get all three at once.
In four weeks I'll have been here three years. So almost since the beginning. And I have been here since the start because I did not immediately join after coming upon the sight.
Five stars to the poster, and a big thumbs up to ZERO HEDGE.
I'm with ya, bro.
I got here from www.survivalblog.com and lurked for a year before I joined. Most of the financial stuff is frankly beyond me, but I've learned so much on so many topics from not only the articles, but especially the comments. I'm probably the dimmest bulb on this Christmas tree, but it's like when I played bass - I always tried to jam with players better than myself (which weren't hard to find) because I always learned something.
I can't thank the Tylers and you fine folks enough for the mental exercise I get here several times a day. God bless you all.
What would "Noah" have us read or watch? CNBC? That's just the Obamanomics Channel! I turned that off permanently when I discovered ZH. Glad I did!
You write: Zero Hedge has been a powerful journalistic force and clearinghouse in bringing the light-of-day onto these corruptions and criminalities, something that Smith seems entirely ignorant of.
This is the reason for the attack. Painful though it may be, it is a sign of success.
2012 07 08 scatterplot gold sp500 oil - goldpricemodel
This is the same time period but as a scatter-plot with gold as the X-Axis and left-Y axis is S&P500 (right Y Axis is WTI oil)
flickr version 2012 07 08 scatterplot gold sp500 oil - goldpricemodel
$GOLD overlay to $spx - a link that keeps updating the overlay
and always worth remembering (been right so far) - dow price prediction ivars zerohedge and tfmetals, adjusted by goldpricemodel
quote: If the writers of Zero Hedge really knew some information that could allow them to beat the market,why in God’s name would they tell it to you?
Because real information that you can really trade on is so profitable there's no money to lose in sharing. There's no way enough people will try to trade with or against this in time to break the prediction and nothing can change the recorded history of the events / prices.
GOLD vs OIL 2012 06 29 goldpricemodel - why did they move together so precisely http://flic.kr/p/cp4QBA
2012 06 24 scatterplot gold vs silver 10yr 03 | goldpricemodel
2012 06 18 277week roc 04 goldpricemodel trend-channel without prices
2012 06 18 277week roc 01 goldpricemodel 2011 May to 2012 Dec 28
2012 apr 17 gold ROC trends | 52week ROC gold to 2400/oz
2012 06 19 dow vs oil 02 market-crash 2009 to 2012 June
2012 03 26 dow vs oil | Flickr - goldpricemodel
When there's a Tsunami coming you don't tell people to go down to the beach to collect shells. You tell them to run like hell.
When the global financial system is headed for a cliff, you tell anyone who will listen to get out before it goes off.
This guy tips his hand when says no one who has any information would ever share it, they would profit from it at the expense of eveyone else. This guy is TELLING YOU not to listen to anything he says, becaseu if it was important he wouldn't be saying it!
This guy is TELLING YOU not to listen to anything he says, becaseu if it was important he wouldn't be saying it! -ddtuttle
Indeed. It also provides an excellent look inside the teaching of the dismal sci .. er .. theology.
So?! Who gives a hoot what some third rate screed has to say? If this is the best the status quo can come up with then that, combined with everything else just gives further illumination to the complete and utter bankruptcy of what passes for ideas in that dim corner of the universe Noah Smith and his fellows occupy.
Besides, those that advocate the notion that prices are perfect before trading begins, or continues, based upon the perfected information flow from the fed, it's member institutions and politicians will continue lose all sorts of capital.
Noah isn't so bad, he gives a marvy blowjob...
"On the sidebars, you can click on ads for online brokerages, gold collectibles, and The Economist."
disagree. i search 'boobs' and "lingerie" just to get bettor ads via googley-goop.
"If they had half a brain..."
hey, i got half a brain. its in the refig. use to belong to....well that's o/t.
"In other words, you are a young smart (i.e. nerdy) guy sitting at your computer with rivers of testosterone coursing through your veins."
goes to show how much u really know there, spartacus.
"The site is a big fat hoax" - The Big Fat Dope.
i wonder how many facebook shares noah's got. probably a lot.
Way off base, way, way off base to write those things. I've not found any of those things to be true, ever really. Its a rare case whenre somebody writes an artcile that specifically outlines trades. Fuck him.
Lab rats
I probably made more money being poor than this pissdrop ever made being rich, brings me back to about a week ago. The cnn writer who said " quit being nosy" now his friends dont return his calls and they only go through email now.
Noah has a self-hating man crush on Brad Pitt.
Hence his research on "Affect and Expectations", "with Knightian Uncertainty".
(this stuff just writes itself)
Well. Smith totally lost me when he wrote the following:
Financial news, by definition, is public information — if you’ve read it, you can bet that thousands of other people have too. That means that if the market is anywhere close to being efficient, any information in any article you read will already have been incorporated into the price of financial assets.
He makes the MSM propaganda stereotypical assumption mistake. The markets are anything BUT efficient. They are manipulated and if one only listens to people like Smith they will not understand to what degree they are manipulated, gamed and fraudulent.
On the other hand, I will be the first to agree that Zero Hedge serves the powers that be in the same way that Alex Jones does by creating controversy, fomenting anger and conflict. By keeping people divided we are easier to control. And, if the way we get off this rock is to grow up and put aside anger, jealously and greed then Zero Hedge serves the same masters that want to control the planet for their own gains.
That being said, I find it easier to believe the writers of Zero Hedge than MSM shills.
"All of the guys over at SEC Enforcement Division were coming here - so I came looking for the porn..."
But I stayed because of the witty repartee...
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.
We are at the ridicule stage after 10 years of largely being ignored. We will soon be at the fight stage.
Thanks, TD, for pointing out where NOT to go for a degree in Economics. What an idiot!
BOOM!!!!!!!!
Fucking Hilarious! I am an absolute outsider when it comes to Wall St. and all "sophisticated" financial jargon. However, I know for absolute fucking certain that ZH is not in the business of giving investment advice. The only investment advice I have seen in the months I have been reading is: "The market is rigged, stay the fuck out!" and "Stack silver bitchez!" Does that really sound like a site that is trying to frontrun the muppets? Noah Smith you can go suck some TBTF cock and really see what it looks like when someone is "frontrunning" your pretty PhD mouth.
Keep up the good work TD and all us "nerds" will have your back. Gotta run, got to make room in the safe for that wee shipment of silver coming in tomorrow.
NtS
Smith is [...] in order to generate pageviews.
I think that hits it on the head.
I don't know who this bloke is, but I have been following ZeroHedge for around a year and in my opinion it is THE best financial site on the web. Keep up the good work lads and lassies, you've got my vote!!
Murdo
Sod the bastard!
ZH for life
It was funny to be sitting at a surf camp in Panama and have a fellow walk by and say, 'How'd you ever find out about Zero Hedge?"
the fellow who made the statement was an analyst for the Swiss government. He had been reading zero hedge since it's inception, and was amazed at the insight of the posters.
I told him i was as bit of a gold bug, and had been reading it for a few years.
He replied that Zero Hedge was the best, most insightful blog that he had ever read - way ahead of most on upcoming turns in financial markets.
He told me he reads the blog every day, and most often then not, zero hedge was more correct in analyzing financial markets and government manipulation then almost alll the other blogs and newspapers he read.
His job was to project what the local cantons should do to protect themselves during these fdifficult finanial times - without zero hedge, he states he would have misguided his clients many times.
He told me that Zero hedge was a life saver for him - the best site to get a real handle on the things going on in the financail and political scene.
I think I would buy into his analysis over Smith's any day of the week.
In the central america, discussing Zero Hedge - who would have ever thought?
Cheers
For a guy named after someone (Noah) who as the story goes thought ahead, he sure drowns in idiocy today. To keep with that theme I'm sure he would label Moby Dick, probably just book porn from reading the masculine title. A real testament to his name.
It's absolutely amazing someone can even glance at this site, and completely misinterpret just about everything so poorly you'd think paint drying was mistaken for the Superbowl.
I'm sure he'll graduate Summa Cum Latte, and work at his local Starbucks....if he's lucky.
Glass-Steagall (or in Noah Smith's world with Ariel somewhere under the sea.....derivatives to 10 quintillion FTW [FTwheelbarrow])
It’s probably just a case of Stockholm Syndrome. After getting run over by a Goldman trading recommendation for the twelfth time, Noah Smith is now aligning himself with his oppressors hoping they will give him some of his money back (good luck with that pal).
What’s really funny about Noah’s claims and criticisms of ZH is how generic they are. In addition to TBTF banks, they easily apply to eTrade, Jim Cramer’s Mad Money, and CNBC too. It’s as if he’s condemning the entire financial industry. Maybe he’s not such an idiot after all. He has the potential to become an enlightened prophet, except for the fact that he’s such a loser.
re "the obvious fact that Zero Hedge has never pretended to offer investment advice":
EXACTLY.
The need to mischaracterize an opponent's positions betrays weakness in one's own.
Thia economist at Mercatus has been saying the same thing for years.
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/the-molasses-recovery...