Dlaczego nikogo nie oskarżono o wywołanie kryzysu finansowego?

"W niezliczonych tekstach publicystycznych, raportach i analizach zrzucono odpowiedzialność za wywołanie kryzysu finansowego na wszelkie możliwe instytucje, osoby, mechanizmy i idee. Nie jest mi jednak znany przypadek pociągnięcia do odpowiedzialności karnej żadnej osoby lub instytucji w związku z kryzysem finansowym."


Does past performance matter? The persistence scorecard

Ciekawe zestawienie o zdolności zachowania ponadprzeciętnych wyników przez fundusze na amerykańskim rynku w latach 2009-2013.

"The phrase “past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes” (or some variation thereof) can be found in the fine print of most mutual fund literature. Yet due to either force of habit or conviction, investors and advisors consider past performance and related metrics to be important factors in fund selection. So does past performance really matter?"
"Very few funds can consistently stay at the top. Our studies show that as time horizons widen, the performance persistence of top quartile managers declines. Of the 692 funds that were in the top quartile as of September 2011, only 7.23% managed to stay in the top quartile at the end of September 2013. Similarly, 5.28% of the large-cap funds, 10.31% of the mid-cap funds and 8.15% of the small-cap funds remain in the top quartile. (...)
Looking at longer-term performance, only 7.71% of large-cap funds, 0.88% of mid-cap funds and 9.9% of small-cap funds maintained a top-half performance over five consecutive 12-month periods. Random expectations would suggest a repeat rate of 6.25%."


Wall Street's Brightest Minds Reveal the most important charts of the year

Zestawienie 126 wykresów od Business Insider, czyli na co patrzy rynek na koniec 2013 roku.

"Here they are: the most important charts of the year. 
We asked our favourite portfolio managers, strategists, analysts, and economists across the Street for the charts that they deem the most important right now, and this is what they sent us.
Much of the focus is on the 10-year Treasury yield — where does it go, and what is the read-across for other financial markets around the globe? Many are focused on the stock market as well, the consensus being that indices will rise to new highs again in 2014.
But there are a lot of other things going on as well."


Why the US is not at risk of a Japan-style deflation

"Concerns about the risk of a "Japan-style deflation" in the U.S. are once again heating up, as the Fed prepares to taper its bond purchases, something that's very likely to happen either this month or next. The worry—echoed in a front-page article in today's WSJ—is that tapering and eventually ending QE at a time when inflation is unusually low runs the risk of producing even lower or negative inflation (i.e., deflation), which in turn could doom the U.S. economy to very weak or even negative growth for the foreseeable future, much like the problems that have plagued the Japanese economy for many years. Without ongoing QE support, the thinking goes, the U.S. economy could fall into a sort of deflationary quicksand and/or lose all forward momentum. But is deflation really so dangerous, and has growth really been so dependent on QE?"


Bernanke – lepszy Friedman

"Ben Bernanke to chyba jedyny ekonomista, który swoją wypracowaną teorię i badania empiryczne miał okazję sam sprawdzić w praktyce na tak wielką skalę. Dlaczego nazwałem go lepszym Miltonem Friedmanem? Bo był w pewnym sensie jest uczniem Friedmana – propagował jego koncepcję przyczyn Wielkiej Depresji, przyznawał polityce pieniężnej stabilizacyjną rolę itd. Ale jednocześnie brak mu ideologicznego ferworu, nie jest rycerzem walki z państwem wszędzie i za każdą cenę, co pozwoliło mu posunąć myślenie dotyczące polityki pieniężnej znacznie na przód. (...)"


Germany's investment problem

"We all know that Euro membership has been of doubtful benefit to periphery countries such as Greece and Portugal. But Germany has been a net beneficiary of the Euro, hasn't it?"

"And it is also a story of too-tight fiscal policy. Instead of increasing its own borrowing to compensate for the fall in NFC borrowing, the German government gradually reduced its fiscal deficit - indeed in 2007 and 2008, it was net saving (running a surplus). On the face of it, this looks sensible: after all, we are led to believe that governments should net save during booms. But not, emphatically not, when there is a growing current account surplus. A persistent current account surplus is contractionary over the medium-term, because it by definition means that productive investment is leaving the country."

[Podcast SII] Kontrakty na WIG20 - zmieniamy mnożnik

138 odcinek podcastu Echa Rynku Stowarzyszenia Inwestorów Indywidualnych o kontraktach terminowych na WIG20, w którym gościem jest Paweł Szczepanik.

-  00:00 Kontrakty terminowe zmieniają się
-  02:20 Czy należy bać się dźwigni
-  05:13 Przegrywasz z rynkiem? Kup sobie indeks
-  08:51 Ile to kosztuje
-  11:47 Zmieniamy mnożnik z 10 na 20 zł
-  17:23 Daytraderzy w akcji. Co z nimi?
-  23:11 A może mnożnik x100 zł?


Green Giants (infografika)

"Wasn’t the economy supposed to be struggling? Then why are companies in the U.S. and all around the world raking in cash? Let’s look at which companies are most profitable — and how some of them stay that way."
"Of the 25 companies with the largest corporate profits in the world, banking, energy and technology firms are absolutely ranking it in.
Collectively, they made $567,856,000,000 in 2012 alone. And that’s only 25 of the most profitable companies in the world."


Ciemna strona Bitcoin'u - "The Libertarian Bitcoin dream is an interesting idea, but you wouldn't want to live there."

"So the Bitcoin experience gives us a glimpse of Libertarian paradise: What life would be like with as little government interference as possible, in a market free of burdensome laws and taxes.

Unfortunately, that experience looks like a total nightmare. It's characterized by radical instability, chaos, the rise of a boss-class of criminals who assassinate people they don't like, and a mass handover of wealth to a minority even smaller than the 1% that currently lauds it in the United States.

If Bitcoin was a country — Bitcoinistan? — it would be like Somalia."


Everything You Wanted To Know About Equity Market Valuations (And Didn't Know To Ask)

Bardzo polecam zapoznanie się z raportem opisanym w linku, ponieważ w przyjazny sposób zwraca uwagę na parę kwestii związanych z horyzontem inwestycji oraz czynnikami wyceny rynkowej jako całości. Dodatkowo można tam znaleźć ciekawe wartości dla dzisiejszych poziomów amerykańskiego rynku i gospodarki. Link do pełnego tekstu raportu jest na dole tekstu (tylko fragment na Zerohedge).

"This publication tries to assess the following questions:
1. What kind of return can be reasonably expected from stock market investments? Is that rate sustainable?
2. What kind of simple tools exist to tell if the stock market is cheap or expensive?
3. Are stock market returns mean-reverting?
4. Are we going to continue to see similar cyclical fluctuations in the future, or are we in the midst of a structural break?
I will try to keep things as simple as possible. Finance doesn't have to be complex (people make it complex)."