Cartoons

These blog entries include custom cartoons related to investing in financial markets.

Three Questions on Naked Short Selling December 1, 2006

Is naked short selling a problem? The incentives for it seem direct and strong, while both regulation and enforcement against it seem weak. Just getting the facts about its extent is problematic. Here are three relevant questions: More…

If You Are in the Market for an Investment Advisor… November 20, 2006

…you may be seeing something like this: More…

Training for the Investor/Trader Hurdles June 14, 2006

Investors and traders face three hurdles on the track to success: (1) developing a workable strategy/methodology as a foundation for decision-making; (2) persistently performing the research needed to reconfirm/improve/adapt the strategy; and, (3) overcoming emotional temptations to ditch strategy and research by succumbing to fear or greed. More…

The After-January Effect? December 12, 2005

In case you are sick of hearing about the January effect… More…

Stock Market Forecasting April 24, 2005

If your crystal ball has not been working so well… More…

What It Takes to Drive the Big (Hedge Fund) Rigs April 12, 2005

Hedge funds now haul about $1 trillion in capital from opportunity to opportunity around world markets. Hedge fund managers have latitude to operate in ways that mutual fund managers do not in terms of leverage, shorting and types of assets traded (such as derivatives). What makes the best hedge fund managers successful? In their March 2005 paper entitled “Hedge Fund Performance and Manager Characteristics Education and Age Matter…”, Haitao Li, Rui Zhao and Xiaoyan Zhang correlate the background characteristics of hedge fund managers with the performances of their funds. Using a dataset encompassing 1,000+ hedge funds over the period 1994 to 2003, they conclude that: More…

Easy Trader April 4, 2005

It is very easy to: (1) set up an account with an online, discount broker; (2) get margin and option-trading privileges; (3) read about hot stocks and funds on the web; and, (4) start trading. Is this process too easy for the average investor? More…