This week in (financial) history:
For much of the abbreviated three-hour trading day on 11 November, 1929, investors breathed a sigh of relief, as the market’s recent panic seemed to lift. Until the last hour, volume
was light and stocks held steady. Then a tidal wave of selling crashed onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. General Electric and New York Central Railroad hit new lows for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished with one of its worst
days ever, losing 6.8% and bringing losses from the year’s high to over 40%.
It was to get worse. A lot worse. Despite a strong recovery into early 1930, the index lost over 80% from the 1929 peak, to the trough in 1932. Ouch!
Source: https://jasonzweig.com/
Brain teaser
A girl meets a bull and a bear in the forest. The bull lies every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the other days he speaks the truth. The bear lies on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays,
and the other days of the week she speaks the truth.
“Yesterday I was lying,” the bull told the girl. “So was I,” said the bear. What day is it?
See below for the answer.
Quote of the month:
“Investors, faced with having to do due diligence remotely, have been sending the lion’s share of any new money to the large diversified asset managers
that they already know. But it’s the smaller hedge fund managers that are providing the best returns, according to new research. Hedge fund managers with less assets on average generated returns of 10.6 percent year to date through August. Managers on the
opposite side of the spectrum, those with the largest amount of assets, returned 1.3 percent year to date.”
From an Institutional Investor article, quoting recent research by hedge fund allocator PivotalPath. It turns out when it comes to investment management,
that smaller is better.
Video of the month:
Baby Shark, the insanely repetitive kids song, has now notched up over 7 billion views on YouTube and recently became the most-viewed video on the site, marginally ahead of the music
video for another classic (not!), Despacito.
This time lapse shows how the 15 most viewed videos on YouTube have changed between 2011 and now. It appears to confirm that YouTube is mostly frequented by a younger audience.