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Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

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Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#91

Post by overrun11 »

nerdawson wrote: post #57
peyton wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an asset you buy with 20x leverage with up-only price action supported by government intervention. That’s huge upside.

> That’s huge upside. That’s a big gamble. I thought this was about asymmetric upsides but here there’s a pretty huge downside. Firstly, how do you realise the gain when you need somewhere to live? Primary residence != investment. Secondly, 20x leverage shouldn’t be a selling point. A tiny dip in prices leaves you in negative equity and unable to move home. Less of an investment and more of a prison. 95% LTV mortgage…

Short sales, in the United States at least, limit downside. You can generally sell a house underwater and not owe anything, so the risk to you is only whatever you put in plus some harm to your credit worthiness over the next 5-7 years.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#92

Post by scrivna »

freemint wrote: post #89

I wish there was a financial instrumented which is regulated and allows to bet on a stock decreasing while the potential loss is limited. Binary options providers are often scams.

Buy/Sell an options spread? Risk is capped at the size of the spread x your stake. Theta decay is offset somewhat.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#93

Post by no_time »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #6

capture a regulator and have them put your competitors out of business bribe politicians to use your countries armed forces in your companies interests get the government to cover any downsides of your product be the child of a politician and offer consulting services found a central bank there are lots more

>found a central bank

Any udemy courses for this one?

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#94

Post by thunky »

redox99 wrote: post #72
thunky wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really that easy? Care to share another stock pick today with asymmetric upside?

Not financial advise It's not really that easy because 1) There aren't at least to my eyes that many opportunities, maybe people with domain specific knowledge in other domains, will find their own opportunities. I've only made in the last 10 years maybe 3 or 4 investments in which I was extremely confident that they would succeed. 2) These investments are medium-long term, at least 2 or 3 years. > Care to share anot…

It's not obvious to me how to estimate how much ETH should actually cost. A merge or triple halvening may move the price, but how do we know the current price of $1900 is even remotely reasonable? Is it even possible to measure without comparing it to itself or to other crypto coins?

It seems like the absolute price doesn't actually matter. Everyone is only paying attention to relative price changes. But if you look at the absolute price, why does a single BTC cost the same as a 2022 Toyota Prius?

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#95

Post by tpoacher »

insightcheck wrote: post #13

This might be simplistic, but the concept of "asymmetric upside" might be captured in any situation where "the worst thing can happen is that the person says no." This includes: applying to competitive positions when you don't seem completely qualified, cold calls in sales (sales seems to be heavily based on asymmetric upside, where sales people call many different people until they get a few Yes-s), and asking peopl…

Of course, this is only trivially true when "the worst thing that can happen is they'll say no" is true.

Typically it's not.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#97

Post by egghead500 »

tpoacher wrote: post #95
insightcheck wrote: post #13

This might be simplistic, but the concept of "asymmetric upside" might be captured in any situation where "the worst thing can happen is that the person says no." This includes: applying to competitive positions when you don't seem completely qualified, cold calls in sales (sales seems to be heavily based on asymmetric upside, where sales people call many different people until they get a few Yes-s), and asking peopl…

Of course, this is only trivially true when "the worst thing that can happen is they'll say no" is true. Typically it's not.

I've asked a friendly girl who I've known for a while out on a date.

She politely declined.

After that our friendship was never really the same; there was always something awkward.

I regretted asking her out because that ruined an otherwise good friendship.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#98

Post by evilbob93 »

nerdawson wrote: post #49
dionidium wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need a roof over your head so if your property goes up 10%, so has every property you’re likely to want to move to when it comes time to sell. I think this common argument massively overstates the case. I have friends whose parents left them their primary residence. Mine did not. "Where’s the huge upside though?" sounds to me like sort of an insane question, when viewed through that lens. But just to lay out th…

> I have friends whose parents left them their primary residence. Mine did not. I fail to see how that factors in to buying a property. You have friends who benefited from an inheritance. > Owning a house in San Francisco is like having a standing offer of a million dollars to move to the Midwest. Owning a house in the Midwest is like having an $xyz offer to move to . The offer exists whether you take it or not. You…

> I don’t believe most people are willing to uproot their lives simply because they can get cheaper housing elsewhere. I’m sure it factors in but it’s rarely the driving motivator.

Retirees and other fixed income people may have a different opinion. Where I am in Colorado, a bunch of boomer-aged people seem to be disappearing to places that have a lower cost of living, with or without bubble payouts.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#99

Post by hakfoo »

SR2Z wrote: post #85
thunky wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really that easy? Care to share another stock pick today with asymmetric upside?

I highly supect that GM is undervalued. They were one of only two companies to sell enough EVs to disqualify themselves for the old tax credit, they're heavily invested in mass production of more, you don't need to worry about Elon Musk tweeting something dumb and tanking the stock, and they majority-own Cruise who are way closer to self driving than Tesla probably ever will be. Despite all that their market cap is l…

I think GM has two weak spots:

First, they have poor to negative brand equity for some customers.

My family always had Japanese and Korean cars, so when I think of GM, I think of the ugly Cavaliers that so many of my classmates got as first cars in high school, and their long string of equally mediocre descendants. How do you beak that impression? Hyundai did it by giving out enough warranty that people didn't need to trust that the cars were built to last.

For EVs, I could almost see a case for a new psuedo-independent brand like Saturn. You don't need to remind people of those rusting old Chevys, but maybe there's a vague reminder that the endeavour is backed by Daddy GM's finances and infrastructure, so it's a less risky choice than buying a Lucid or Rivian and hoping the firm's still there in five years. Reinventing Hummer is an interesting take on it, but it's hardly selling to the people thinking "I can get the Prius, the Niro, or spend a little more and go full-electric and get even BETTER TCO on my grocery-getter." It's a shame they spun off Electro-Motive-- the branding would have been perfect.

Second, being a large player limits their ability to milk the growth narrative. Tesla can be overpriced (and as someone with WAY too much tied up in $TSLA, it freaks me out), but people can keep treating it like they're buying into the "future #1 brand" rather than the "already #1 brand with only downwards to possibly go"

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of activities/bets with asymmetric upside?

#100

Post by recursivedoubts »

no_time wrote: post #93
recursivedoubts wrote: post #6

capture a regulator and have them put your competitors out of business bribe politicians to use your countries armed forces in your companies interests get the government to cover any downsides of your product be the child of a politician and offer consulting services found a central bank there are lots more

>found a central bank Any udemy courses for this one?

https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserv...
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