Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 141 posts

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

#91

Post by vikingerik »

shiredude95 wrote: post #87
avvt4avaw wrote: post #74

I'm a professional investor (more than a decade of experience at hedge funds, particularly in global macro and quant, managing my own and other people's money). Your central premise is flawed -- in particular > Last 3 years has shown that to be a good investor you need to know macroeconomics This is not true. It is true that 'macro' events (central bank actions, supply/demand shocks, wars, pandemics) affect prices, b…

in other words dca is the most effective strategy for your average investor?

No. Since the stock market goes up on average over time, it's always correct by expected value to invest sooner, rather than holding money back to DCA in installments. Intentionally doing DCA if you have a sum that you could invest sooner is trying to time the market.

DCA is a useful side effect when you're investing regularly, but on average it does not beat investing sooner.

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

#92

Post by Adraghast »

avvt4avaw wrote: post #74

I'm a professional investor (more than a decade of experience at hedge funds, particularly in global macro and quant, managing my own and other people's money). Your central premise is flawed -- in particular > Last 3 years has shown that to be a good investor you need to know macroeconomics This is not true. It is true that 'macro' events (central bank actions, supply/demand shocks, wars, pandemics) affect prices, b…

I'm curious why you became a "professional investor" instead of following your own advice.

> Are you better than them?

Are you?

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

#93

Post by ChrisLomont »

amalcon wrote: post #18

I don't think it's possible to learn macroeconomics "properly", in the sense that one can learn e.g. quantum physics "properly". I pick quantum physics because not every expert agrees on some of the tail end of theoretical things, but there's broad agreement on the main parts of it. Those main parts are more than the average person will ever need to use. This is not remotely true with respect to macroeconomics. It's…

>there's broad agreement on the main parts of it

>This is not remotely true with respect to macroeconomics.

Macroeconomists agree largely on most econ topics. Probably anything you'll find in undergrad (and most grad) macro textbooks the majority will agree on.

As evidence, here's [1] a useful site with polls dating back a decade of ~100 of the world's leading economists. Even on these hard questions you'll find they tend to agree quite well. They agree even more on topics not as near the fringe as these questions.

[1] https://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

#94

Post by coding123 »

Adraghast wrote: post #92
avvt4avaw wrote: post #74

I'm a professional investor (more than a decade of experience at hedge funds, particularly in global macro and quant, managing my own and other people's money). Your central premise is flawed -- in particular > Last 3 years has shown that to be a good investor you need to know macroeconomics This is not true. It is true that 'macro' events (central bank actions, supply/demand shocks, wars, pandemics) affect prices, b…

I'm curious why you became a "professional investor" instead of following your own advice. > Are you better than them? Are you?

> Are you?

I think he's saying that no-one person can be better.

Stock market crashed on 9-11. So what happened the next time the world had such a huge hit (Covid)? the markets rose because everyone was piling to get that same post-911 dip. It didn't exist because everyone that was expecting it caused the same to not happen. So I guess if you think you know what's going to happen next. You're probably 1 of a million others that are guessing the same thing and so what you think will happen doesn't.

It also doesn't help that the government's reaction changes to major crisis events too - and those actions you can't predict- let alone what affect they will have.

It's basically a super large neural net (the largest). I mean can someone put in something crazy into GPT3 and before they enter it (something not entered previously) GUESS what's going to come out?

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

#96

Post by danielmarkbruce »

avvt4avaw wrote: post #74

I'm a professional investor (more than a decade of experience at hedge funds, particularly in global macro and quant, managing my own and other people's money). Your central premise is flawed -- in particular > Last 3 years has shown that to be a good investor you need to know macroeconomics This is not true. It is true that 'macro' events (central bank actions, supply/demand shocks, wars, pandemics) affect prices, b…

+100. I spent some time at a couple hedge funds and couldn't agree more.

Even if OP wants to be an active investor, it's more likely they can do it Buffett style than Soros style. Many great investors have zero macro insight. Buffett, Munger, Lynch, Icahn, Ackman. There is a direct mapping from company level insight to the securities price - it's not easy, but it's at least understandable.

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

#98

Post by danielmarkbruce »

Adraghast wrote: post #92
avvt4avaw wrote: post #74

I'm a professional investor (more than a decade of experience at hedge funds, particularly in global macro and quant, managing my own and other people's money). Your central premise is flawed -- in particular > Last 3 years has shown that to be a good investor you need to know macroeconomics This is not true. It is true that 'macro' events (central bank actions, supply/demand shocks, wars, pandemics) affect prices, b…

I'm curious why you became a "professional investor" instead of following your own advice. > Are you better than them? Are you?

If Tiger Woods says "most people shouldn't try to be a professional golfer", he is giving clearly good advice.

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

#99

Post by scarmig »

vikingerik wrote: post #91
shiredude95 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in other words dca is the most effective strategy for your average investor?

No. Since the stock market goes up on average over time, it's always correct by expected value to invest sooner, rather than holding money back to DCA in installments. Intentionally doing DCA if you have a sum that you could invest sooner is trying to time the market. DCA is a useful side effect when you're investing regularly, but on average it does not beat investing sooner.

DCA should be thought of as a portfolio strategy that is X% in your nominal portfolio and 100-X% in dollars and gradually shifting to 100% your nominal portfolio. It's an attempt to hedge against negative equities early on, but there are better hedges, and if your risk aversion makes you not want 100% equities early on, you probably don't want 100% equities later on either.

Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

#100

Post by balaji1 »

baryphonic wrote: post #26

It sounds to me like you're interested in "financial economics" or "money & banking." Having an interest in these topics myself, I find that they are less about macroeconomics as a whole, which, in the mainstream formulation, is about national income accounting, aggregate demand, general equilibrium, production functions, the business cycle, etc., and are more about the microeconomics of particular markets e.g. the m…

think this is first useful response. Everybody else saying "you don't need to be interested in that" to the OP's question. It may be true that macro is irrelevant to the OP's objective of being a good investor.

I will check out your suggestions. Curious, is it useful at all to understand macroeconomics at a high-level? How does it affect individuals and families in the middle class? Who is in-charge of the macroeconomics of countries and how do we trust them to do the right thing?

Post reply on HN