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Today is a very green, or risk-on day in the markets. In fact, the last few weeks have seen an upward trajectory in equity prices, due to the building confidence that inflation is tame, and jobs are getting harder to come by. Housing sales and new home construction is down. Finally, the people I know around me say that business is slowing down. That is good for the US Federal Reserve Bank's dual mandate to promote stable prices (inflation coming down) and maximum employment (we are softening). It meant, well before yesterday's Fed FOMC announcement, that interest rates were coming down. So, what am I doing? I am adjusting our quantum algorithm to analyze less risky stocks using heuristics and anecdotal observations that have held true over the past few years. Instead of 3,300 stocks (common) listed on the US exchanges that traded that day...we are now looking at 1,340 stocks that are better bets for serious investors. These aren't the meme stocks, and they avoid the most risky, and anomalous stocks. These stocks are more solid, tend to pay dividends (not all, but many), and have fewer surprises. they tend to trade normally with respect to kurtosis and skewness, although the third and fourth movements don't really matter to most investors. In short, we down-select to a lower risky set of stocks, then optimize the results. We do maintain that a global set of US-listed stocks, coupled with passive ETFs, can help an investor find the diversification, and optimization of risk-reward that they cannot get by reading the paper, listening to Bloomberg (we like to), or even studying individual stocks. We find the patterns and help make a very complex optimization simple and easy to afford for investors. For those who want adventure, we identify both the best and worst stocks, so intrepid investors can invest both long and short...taking advantage of the difference in performance without bearing all the market direction risk. OK, that wasn't very silly. We like to wear, sell, and give away t-shirts that spread our message. However, our message until now is hard to understand, not interesting to 99% of the human race, and, well, boring. So, we don't sell very many t-shirts. We made a very text-heavy design today, and went to buy the shirts in volumes that match our expected demand, and the cost will be more than we could ever hope to sell them for. In fact, I wouldn't even buy the t-shirt for the price quoted. I looked at what is popular now in shirts, and people like patterns, cartoons, anime, and very short slogans like Just Fo Cat. I have not seen a popular shirt with a bibliography or explanation of terms. Never seen a good one that says 7X4Y.sfn3s is a formula used to make investment strategies. Must have missed the t-shirt pun on Fama French. I am about to change the game. Take a risk. Go crazy. We are thinking of using a photograph by an artist we like where we have permission to use it...and write a pithy one-liner. At the bottom, our website in small letters, in case people are wondering and want to learn more. Could even just do a QR code, forget the URL. So, it would look like this: pithy phrase Picture QR code. No service mark, no URL, unless I can work it into a pithy phrase...We accept the challenge. We also have the challenge of sizes. I think M/L/X/2X/3X at a minimum. How do you predict the size of those buying your T-shirt? Please let us know if you would like a T-Shirt once we design it.
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Here is our tweet on the subject.
It is inevitable that the style of war fighting is changing to leverage new (and old) technologies.
Israel targets pagers used exclusively by Hizballah or Hezbollah, the radical Islamic terrorist organization. Pagers, as in prostitutes and drug dealers in the 1980s, along with pay phones. Pagers, as in 'I don't have the money to buy a flip phone, so I carry a pager,' or pager, as in a worker on the level 3 support desk of an enterprise IT department that needs to be reached 24 x 7 when a problem happens. Now, in the modern day, those pagers could activate a network, that we know includes the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon, to act and react immediately, and in a coordinated and synchronous manner. What happened? A Tom Clancy, super secret spy action by some country (might not be Israel), caused all Hizballah operatives and supporters that are senior or important (e.g., operatives, logistics, coordination, communications, transport) enough to get a pager now bear a mark of shame. They will forever be known as Hizballah. Israel is not allowed to massively attack Lebanon because of civilian impacts to infrastructure, and quality of life (as seen in Gaza protests and Kamala Harris's recent statements), but they can isolate and target a distributed terrorist organization via obsolete technology.
The second event in the last 24 hours is Ukraine blowing up a massive weapons depot using drones. These drones are suspected to have jet engines (so they are a little more expensive), but they still could be the quad-copter types carrying a bomb.
This is a massive military victory for Ukraine. Drone warfare can reach hundreds of miles into an enemy territory and destroy strategic targets. I used to be able to buy a drone at Five Below, for $5.00, and learn how to fly a helicopter. Of course, these cost more than five dollars, but in the grand scheme of things, Ukraine can afford to launch a thousand of them in a night, on an attack deep into Russia, and not think twice about it. Probably the biggest issue is how to reduce, reuse or recycle the cardboard boxes they came in. You know...to fight global warming.
I hope you enjoyed this post. We are thinking about Russia's term, Hybrid War, and think that as the world pushes conflicts to last for years (think WW2 only lasted six years, but Ukraine has been fighting, actively for three years), innovations occur.
Those innovations will be harmful for NATO defenses, in our opinion, and require a rethink of military strategy and defensive posture in the twenty-first century. We found an anomaly in $AMED Amedisys Inc.Something is going on with $AMED Amedisys Inc. It does not have a normal stock price distribution with respect to the third movement of stock prices, the kurtosis. Some people have 'junk in the trunk' and this stock has fat tails, both up and down.
This is a NASDAQ listed stock that trades between $90 and $99. It typically trades 400k shares per day. It has a small beta of 0.10785 against the S&P 500, down from a 5-year BETA of 0.78 (according to Yahoo Finance). It has a market capitalization of $3.2B, a PE ratio of 35, EPS of $2.81 (thank you Yahoo Finance). This stock has a very low variance of 0.0000074 or 7.4 x 10-6, or about 20% of the variance of the S&P 500 Equity Index ETF. This stock is very leptokurtic. It's standardized kurtosis measure is 36.451. It is highly leptokurtic (normal distribution for kurtosis is a 3.0, and the next highest kurtosis stock has a score of 6.83. This stock is the 184th stock in our long Chicago Quantum Net Score CQNS market analysis, out of 1,338 stocks and ETFs. It scores well because the variance is lower than would be predicted by the BETA score, and that is better than 85% of all stocks analyzed on September 16, 2024. It has a relatively good match of low BETA and even lower variance. No dividend paid in the past year. Leptokurtic means there have been surprises, or high-standard deviation moves in the stock. In late October of 2023, we saw a "V" shaped move, up and down, that eventually led to a rally up. Rally is a funny term, as it was up maybe 4%, but for this stock that is a very large move. In middle to late April, 2024, the stock fell sharply for a few days, then recovered (again, another 3% move in total up and down), then crashed 4% at the end of May, then soared higher by 5% at the end of June. There were analyst ratings events close to a few of the events, and earnings for one. I wonder if these short, explosive moves are related to options? If so, why end of month moves? So, this is a leptokurtic stock. It typically moves gradually with very small moves and a very small BETA and stock price variance. However, we see , we see a few dramatic moves. There is a pending acquisition of Amedisys by United Healthcare Group (UHG) Optum unit for $101 / share, but like all mergers these deals are not 'sure things' and this one is undergoing anti-competition review by at least the Department of Justice, Oregon regulators (OHA). Source Our next step is to see how we can profit from this anomaly. Maybe you can too. Thank you for reading our BLOG. Think about buying a stock market analysis off our website to gain dozens of insights and stock anomalies each day. For more formal clients, we can set up an invoice and payment by check, typically monthly or quarterly. Thank you, Chicago Quantum US Advanced Computing Infrastructure, Inc. Jeffrey Cohen, President and Investment Advisor Principal  This blogpost will analyze Former President Donald Trump's debate transcript from the ABC News debate on September 10, 2024 with Vice President Kamala Harris. This blogpost focuses on the words he used in the debate, used without editing or 'cleaning up duplicates', based on the ABC News (partial) transcript released on September 11, 2024 here. In 90 minutes he spoke exactly 1,033 words, about 8% fewer than VP Harris.. Twenty most frequently used words:
These are conversational words, easily spoken words, fairly balanced between positive and negative. His topics were generally active, about the world, people, and convey a sense of urgency. It was very conversational, fully of storytelling. He did say Biden 13 times. He said Great 11 times. There are different styles present (going - rebel, know - opinions, look - sensing, like - feeling). The top three words cover the gist of it: People, Country, Going. If I gave you a sentence to finish that said American People and our Country are going __________, I think you could fill in those blanks.However, with the exception of Never (27 times), he was pretty positive or at least neutral, with a focus on time. Maybe we are running out of time. There was a large discussion of foreign policy and national security that was covered in another blog-post, so we will leave it there.
President Trump discussed the economy quite a bit.
He spoke about Crime (10 times), and discussed Abortion (8), Criminals (8), and Destroying (8), Destroyed (5) America. He discussed Killed (8) and Afraid (7). I remember his discussion of firing government employees that do a poor job Fired (5), and Fire (4). He did lightly support the Police, with four mentions. Finally, the key topics of the day in politics were mostly all covered a few times in Trump's debate answers. He covered a very broad range of topics. Here are some general observations after watching the debate live two days ago. 1. President Trump was passionate, or at least had a high emotional content, by the end of the debate. I think he cares deeply about what he was saying, and what he is seeing and doing. I detected a little fear of World War 3, of America losing her way, and her power, through the introduction of 21 million illegal immigrants from 168 countries and through a world without a SuperPower, or Super Hero? 2. President Trump reminds me of when I sit with certain older men, like I used to with my father before he passed away, and hear them tell stories of their past. Bruce Springsteen's song "Glory Days" always comes to mind (and is worth a listen if you don't know it). President Trump tells stories. He is a "Rebel" in the nomenclature of Dr. Taibi Kahler (Mastery of Management) who wants you to react to, and learn from, his stories. However, this debate told the same stories he has told on the campaign trail. I had a sense of hearing the same things, just in a different format. President of Hungary says he is a good guy, the Taliban leader stops sniping US soldiers, how the wars would never have started, and how we will close them out quickly through diplomacy (he never suggests killing, only talking). 3. President Trump did not answer any question directly. This did not sit well with me. 4. There were two significant new points from President Trump, and that was National Security. I recall the early comment about World War 3 and how we are heading straight towards it with the Biden/Harris administration. He mentioned negotiations from a position of strength preventing war, and how things said early in the Administration, the lack of negotiations by the current administration contributed to war breaking out, along with the visible sign of 'weakness' or 'negligence' in the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I still remember people falling off US military aircraft as they clung to tails or landing gear for dear life to exit the country. I think on those we left behind, and the weapons, and military bases, and materials, and friends / collaborators who were left to face the new Afghan government. This is a place where I agree with President Trump and I fear for my children. The second point was the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. He suggested we keep it, improve it, and only replace it if we have something better and cheaper for American insureds. We agree, our health care costs have skyrocketed higher (private insurance) since Obamacare. We are not sure why that is...but somehow the higher costs of guaranteed coverage, kids eat free until 26 years old, new healthcare providers (e.g., CVS and Walgreens and Immediate Care), and other added benefits are spread to us too. Our 'best' healthcare option has a $13,000 maximum out of pocket, per year, and this year we paid thousands in costs before the deductible kicked in. That is on top of already higher premiums (maybe $2,000+ per month for a small family). 5. The immigration point was lost on most listeners, but I think I understand what he is saying (my second largest driver is Rebel, so I have a good ear for it). In a nation of strong norms and cultures (we have many cultures, but there are shared values and ideas), the influx of a large number of immigrants can change America, especially in pockets. He never explicitly said "Little Italy" in New York City or "Little Havana" in Tampa, Florida, or the fact that there are more Poles in Chicago than Warsaw (at least there were when I last looked). However, his anecdote that Haitians eat outdoor dogs and cats (lots of cultures eat small animals), was not about those poor cats stuffed in a bag, but about a challenge to our norms and values when 20,000 immigrants from a strong, foreign culture migrate into a town like Springfield, Ohio (58,000 people in 2022). If we can control our border, and our immigration, then we can ensure that the country can handle the influx, distribute it, and ensure we have social services, schools, police presence, jobs, and protect the current groups in the same socio-economic class (remember Black Jobs.) However, this point gets lost in polite company, when the focus is on political correctness, and the message is list. President Trump is an old man who grew up in a different era, and tells it straight. When 20,000 immigrants enter a small city, they want to work, and will take any job, for any legal pay, that will have them. They may not have language skills, or transferrable educational credentials, but they will work hard. Those jobs likely were held by someone, who now has to find a new job (hopefully a better one), but could end up unemployed and forced out of their neighborhood as it changes to the influx culture. President Trump made his argument in his closing remarks. 1. Why hasn't VP Harris done the things she speaks about? Because these are fringe ideas that America does not believe in, like giving up fossil fuels. 2. America is weaker now, being laughed at. America is no longer a leader (SuperPower), and are not central to events. We are heading into WW3. "We're going to end up in a third World War. And it will be a war like no other because of nuclear weapons, the power of weaponry. " 3. Illegal immigration is destroying our country. Here is the Word Cloud (thank you to wordclouds.com). https://imgdlvr.com/pic/wordclouds.com/20240912-8614/public If you would like to collaborate on activities like this, or receive a deeper briefing, please contact us here.
Thank you for reading. If you like the blogpost (and appreciate the effort), please drop a comment below and share the blogpost with your friends and social media circles.  Good morning. Kamala Harris debated Donald Trump on ABC News on September 10, 2024. She communicated ideas about ways to stimulate demand and give tax credits to people to pay for two important life events, buying a first home and having a child. She spoke about putting abortion back into Federal Government jurisdiction (which just means a different set of legislators make those decisions), and she defined our enemies clearly as Russia, Iran, North Korea and less clearly China, saying she does not speak with, nor curry favor with dictators. This blogpost focuses on the words she used in the debate, used without editing or 'cleaning up duplicates', based on the ABC News (partial) transcript released on September 11, 2024 here. In 90 minutes she spoke exactly 1,103 words. Twenty most frequently used words:
Now, let's highlight a few things. The Former, President of the United States, Donald Trump, was in her words 31 or 32 times in 90 minutes. When we watched the debate live, my wife walked away saying "stop doing that" because instead of speaking about her own candidacy, she quickly started talking about her opponent. If we add the word "Trump's", it takes this count up by 7 to 38 or 39 times. She also speaks about people, or 'the People.' This makes sense because when she was in law enforcement, she represented "the People" as in "the People vs. John Doe." The other thing we see is that she is is opinions-based, very direct and believe-driven. Those words are:
Dr. Taibi Kahler does a good job explaining this, and you can also see this 'type' in other personality profile tests. She also used words that were technical or proper:
We are struck by how frequently these words were used. She believes in taxes and in our opinion, a military-driven security posture and war. She also highlighted abortion. She also mentioned Ukraine and Israel relatively frequently when compared to America (10 vs. 50). We added up all the derivatives of America she used. She also mentioned Ukrainian President Zelenskyy four times. You can see the topics that she was asked to debate on, including energy, the economy, the military, foreign policy, and taxes in the words she spoke. Our summary of Harris's debate performance is that she spoke very, very often about Former President Donald Trump and his policies, his actions and his beliefs and character. She has a military-focus in foreign policy and national security. Also, there were many filler words used: including, actually, want, well, and important. Here is the Word Cloud (thank you to wordclouds.com). https://imgdlvr.com/pic/wordclouds.com/20240912-8075/public If you would like to collaborate on activities like this, or receive a deeper briefing, please contact us here.
Thank you for reading. If you like the blogpost (and appreciate the effort), please drop a comment below and share the blogpost with your friends and social media circles. National Security Topics An analysis of the national security and foreign policy topic identifies an area of significant white space between the candidates. I will summarize a few points and include verbatim transcript below. I found the World War 3 comment stated by President Trump. It was very early in the debate: "And what, what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War 3, just to go into another subject." President Trump believes President Biden has set the USA onto a path to World War 3. He predicts dire consequences of a VP Harris victory:
Approaches Trump President Trump's plan is to act decisively to secure peace through direct diplomacy, backed by the US military. Other countries find common ground with him, whether receiving money, prisoner release, trade, or other quiet benefits in return for what the USA requires. Harris Kamala Harris prefers peace without direct negotiations through strong, multi-country alliances and indirect warfare (give material to those fighting, but keep our soldiers off the battlefield). Kamala said in the debate that President Trump will negotiate a bad deal, in bad faith, with poor skill, and knowingly negotiate against the interests of the United States. He would put America's interests first and this would hurt America's interests. She would keep Ukraine fighting with US weapons and money, indefinitely, and work to being safety and security to both a new nation of Palestine and the State of Israel. Different Plans Israel Trump had an approach to protect Israel through economic sanctions on Iran, and suggested it was working and the war would not have happened. Iran was broke. Harris will pursue a two-state solution with equal protections for Palestine and Israel. It starts with a cease fire deal and a release of hostages by Hamas. China Trump wants fair trade and an even playing field, with China held to the same rules he will hold the EU and other nations to. He wants a return of tariffs to support domestic manufacturing. Harris suggests a trade "policy about China should be in making sure the United States of America wins the competition for the 21st century." This is done by alliance building, supporting America's workforce (which we agree with), and "investing in American based technology so that we win the race on A.I. and quantum computing." She suggests we shouldn't allow China to buy American semiconductors, or chips, stating: "he ended up selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military." I am pretty sure President Trump wasn't running a value added reseller business, so she means that American vendors were legally allowed to sell US licensed technology (e.g., NVIDIA chips) to China. She would not allow that. Diplomacy vs. Proxy Wars (a new Cold Wavs. Direct War Declaration The text is a little hazy here on Harris's position, but we will try to fill in the blanks. President Trump If President Trump is elected, he will cause both wars to end before inauguration day, via diplomacy. President Trump relies on diplomacy first, whether with the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran (they had tough sanctions), China (tariffs and removal from joint military engagement), Europe and NATO (pay your fair share, engage in your own defense), kept a cold war in Ukraine and Russia, and there was actual peace and economic integration between Israel and the Palestinians, even jobs in Israel with daily crossings. Vice President Harris If Vice President Harris is elected, Israel: 100% diplomacy. Her administration will work 'around the clock' to negotiate a cease-fire deal and cause Hamas to free the hostages (in case it hasn't happened by January, 2025). She would 'chart a course' for a two-state solution. She would provide Israel defensive weaponry, calling out Iran first, and its proxies (e.g., Hezbollah and Hamas). She recognizes Iran as the primary enemy of Israel. Ukraine: War directly or through European allies This progresses towards a moral imperative to defend Ukraine. Harris would not give up Ukraine in its 'righteous defense.' Her role in the defense of Ukraine was "I shared with him American intelligence about how he could defend himself." Not sure if this is an admission of an act of war, or just poor OpSec. This is after "Russia invaded, tried through force to change territorial boundaries to defy one of the most important international rules and norms, which is the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity. " Harris also ties in US alliances with the defense of Ukraine, which is a foreign policy expansion, stating: "understanding that the alliances we have around the world are dependent on our ability to look out for our friends and not favor our enemies." She arranged a 50-nation alliance to help support Ukraine. This is her red line, drawn very clearly, calling out a bifurcation of countries into friends and enemies. She characterizes Russia as an expansionist enemy with eyes on the European Union, stating: "Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe. Starting with Poland. " In conclusion President Trump President Trump would favor pragmatic diplomacy and sanctions, with tough talk, to keep the peace. He protects Israel by throttling the wealth of Iran. He protects Europe by having them defend themselves better, and by respecting Russia and China. Regarding China, Trump ended joint military exercises and meetings, but his main focus was on fair trade (which was likely better for the relationship). Regardless of who sits in the White House, President Trump sees us heading into World War 3. "We're going to end up in a third World War. And it will be a war like no other because of nuclear weapons, the power of weaponry. Vice President Harris VP Harris has a strong, values-based belief system when it comes to foreign policy. VP Harris stated she is not open to negotiating with undemocratic leaders. She draws a distinction by labeling countries as friends or enemies. She thinks of Hamas as a terrorist organization, but charts a course for a two-state solution. She suggests a righteous defense of Ukraine is important not just for Ukraine, but to support our global alliances and stop an expansionist Russia. Harris, in our opinion, is a cold war warrior. For the original transcript, visit ABC News here. Good morning, we watched the debate last night on ABC. We discussed it this morning, but everyone was in a rush so not much was said. Here is an analysis of the debate. We will start with the official ABC transcript (which is stated to be partial) and go from there. Abortion
I just found an interesting exchange on abortion. I will post the text (verbatim), and add some commentary at the end. Trump calls out Harris in a lie. FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Excuse me, I have to respond. Another lie. It's another lie. I have been a leader on IVF which is fertilization. The IVF -- I have been a leader. In fact, when they got a very negative decision on IVF from the Alabama courts, I saw the people of Alabama and the legislature two days later voted it in. I've been a leader on it. They know that and everybody else knows it. I have been a leader on fertilization, IVF. And the other thing, they -- you should ask, will she allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month? FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Would you do that? Why don't you ask her that question -- FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: That's the problem. Because under Roe v. Wade. FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You could do abortions in the seventh month, the eighth month, the ninth month - VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: That's not true. What I notice is that in Colorado, there is one of three functioning abortion clinics in the United States that does abortions at and after the 28th week (the 7th month) of a pregnancy. They have been doing this since the 1970s (Roe v. Wade timing). I read about it in Reuters yesterday, because they sometimes get a protester, and they have bullet proof glass. They will perform abortions in the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy. It isn't like they enjoy it (from the article), but they do it. One example was that the mother had an illness that she just learned about. In conclusion, it is true. Under Roe v. Wade, you can (and do) perform abortions in the seventh and eighth month, and in Colorado (and two other undisclosed locations), they still do. |
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September 2024
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