This is a fantastic book. Written for quant wannabes but really good for everyone. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0071468293?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_...
Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
191–200 of 211 posts
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#192Besides books, read what Patio11 has written in the past. [0] [1] etc.
[0]: https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/investing...
[1]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/6/26/how-brokerages-make-mone...
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#193Why there's no suggestions for Karl Marx? He predicted these crises and that they're unavoidable in capitalism and all only get worse with the time.
because we live in the real world and deal with real humans. Karl Marx never worked a single day in his life and created an ideology for people who believe in unicorns. His work is a criticism of Adam Smith's theories, not a self-sustainable solution.
He was the first person to prove that capitalism is not a self-sustainable solution either. Everything he said about capitalism was true and remains true. E.g. the current crisis could be predicted and it will be a super-crisis, because there're no new markets in the world. No more countries left to plunder. There's no way of solving the current crisis without starting a 3rd world war.
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
> interest rates are a function of expected growth Again, you're saying that as if it's a matter of fact. When I looked into the relationship between growth and interest rates, I found baffling discussions of demand for money as it relates to a financial system completely unlike the one we use today. I just find it impossible to separate the nonsense from the useful insight. At some point I just gave up.
It is a matter of fact because interest rates are determined by the Fed...who say: we look at expected growth. Don't make things more difficult than they need to be (you can also see this quantitatively).
Short rates are determined by the Fed. And they target inflation, not growth. The Fed has relatively little control of the yield curve at long maturities.
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll wait for next week to see if that's true before adding it to my list.
Forecast is actually for a 3rd of 3rd wave down which is likely to be larger than anything seen so far maybe 15% + over one or two days, and then the midpoint of that should be the halfway point from the Feb 19th top to the eventual first big low point.
Sunday evening and stock market futures are limit down 5%
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
because we live in the real world and deal with real humans. Karl Marx never worked a single day in his life and created an ideology for people who believe in unicorns. His work is a criticism of Adam Smith's theories, not a self-sustainable solution.
He was the first person to prove that capitalism is not a self-sustainable solution either. Everything he said about capitalism was true and remains true. E.g. the current crisis could be predicted and it will be a super-crisis, because there're no new markets in the world. No more countries left to plunder. There's no way of solving the current crisis without starting a 3rd world war.
The capitalism that we have rn is actually a form of socialism :)
I don't want to be that pessimistic about 3rd world war, a horrible solution to a big problem.
I think humanity has a chance to have abundance, we need to be united and don't trust governments and banks and medical institutions, I can see that a lot of people are going through a healing phase of their mental state, they giving up all of the brainwashings and taking a red pill.
Question is - will everybody use his chance on time? We will see.
Peace.
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you ever read a book on aeronautical engineering from someone who isn’t a million miler?
Inappropriate metaphor
I know one of the people who literally wrote a chunk of the matching engine on one of the larger exchanges. He’s not absurdly rich but a book from him on high performance order book management at scale would absolutely worth a read.
The metaphor is appropriate because quite frequently people who use things to the greatest effect know very little about the implementation or how it actually works.
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of the books being mentioned here are by people who got absurdly rich.
Which ones?
Just on a quick scan we've got Graham, Buffett, Soros, Taleb... those are before I need to go and look up personal net worth for some of the other names. I'd bet on Burton Malkiel having done alright for himself, too.
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which ones?
Just on a quick scan we've got Graham, Buffett, Soros, Taleb... those are before I need to go and look up personal net worth for some of the other names. I'd bet on Burton Malkiel having done alright for himself, too.
Graham, Buffett, Soros – sure, ok, although I doubt they're giving away the keys to the kingdom in their books. Buffet himself is notorious for saying that great ideas are proprietary and not to be shared. In the investment world, in stark contrast to the tech community, ideas are as valuable as execution. Even in VC proprietary dealflow is considered to be valuable.
There is actually some controversy as to how much money Taleb made from trading and portfolio management as opposed to writing.
Re: Ask HN: Book recommendations for understanding financial systems?
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Inappropriate metaphor
I know one of the people who literally wrote a chunk of the matching engine on one of the larger exchanges. He’s not absurdly rich but a book from him on high performance order book management at scale would absolutely worth a read. The metaphor is appropriate because quite frequently people who use things to the greatest effect know very little about the implementation or how it actually works .
That's a reasonable argument then, and now I appreciate the metaphor.
If one is interested in the technical details of implementation for technical reasons, I would agree that a brilliant and interesting engineer wouldn't necessarily be in line to profit from their value creation although would be available to discuss mechanics of implementation.