The experts at the network

[otterj]

 19 of them. All wrong.

[Alkie]

That's incredible.  Only one of them even nailed ONE of the two WS participants making it out of the DS.

These guys are almost as bad as the TZ office pool.

Only MRaup saved us.

[MRaup]

Quote:
That's incredible.  Only one of them even nailed ONE of the two WS participants making it out of the DS.

These guys are almost as bad as the TZ office pool.

Only MRaup saved us.

I'll be signing autographs with Tim Redding at The Shed next weekend.

[pravata]

Quote:

Quote:
That's incredible.  Only one of them even nailed ONE of the two WS participants making it out of the DS.

These guys are almost as bad as the TZ office pool.

Only MRaup saved us.

I'll be signing autographs with Tim Redding at The Shed next weekend.

I thought Ensberg and Lidge were signing at The Shed?

[Alkie]

This is like the ESPN NCAA Office Pool every year, when a 6 year old girl wins the whole thing because she picked the games based on the team colors or the number of letters in the team's mascot's name.

This would not be the first time you've reminded me of a 6 year old girl.

[Limey]

Quote:
This is like the ESPN NCAA Office Pool every year, when a 6 year old girl wins the whole thing because she picked the games based on the team colors or the number of letters in the team's mascot's name.

This would not be the first time you've reminded me of a 6 year old girl.

I believe the WSJ runs a game every once in a while:  Experts vs. Darts.  Each group picks a number of stocks, and whoever gains the most by the time limit, wins!  The Experts paw over the information and make valued judgements; the darts just get thrown at the stock listing and they take whichever ones get arrowed.

I believe the series is running very close to 50/50 all-time.

[Alkie]

Actually, what you're talking about is a very real study which is the basis of a lot of what I do at work.

The darts win a lot more than 50% of the time.  

People trying to time the market and select securities will under-perform the S&P 500 Index 85-90% of the time.

[Limey]

Quote:
People trying to time the market and select securities will under-perform the S&P 500 Index 85-90% of the time.

I saw a quote from someone amazingly rich and successful - who's name escapes me for now.  When asked about his successes in investing, he said that he always bought too high and sold too low.

[Alkie]

Ok, just because the games on right now suck, and I wanted to see what would happen, I just flipped a single penny for each game of the playoffs to see if my penny would beat anyone in the TZ Office Pool.  

Here's how the penny did:
OAK (H) vs MIN (T)
OAK in 5

DET (T) vs NYY (H)
DET in 5

STL (H) vs SD (T)
SD in 3

LAD (H) vs NYM (T)
LAD in 4

OAK (H) vs DET (T)
OAK in 6

SD (T) vs LAD (H)
LAD in 7

OAK (H) vs LAD (T)
OAK in 7

Out of 37 entries, my penny just tied for 8th in the TZ Office Pool, with more points than 26 of the humans.

[Alkie]

Quote:

I saw a quote from someone amazingly rich and successful - who's name escapes me for now.  When asked about his successes in investing, he said that he always bought too high and sold too low.

Human psychology.  Without a time machine or the ability to see into the future, people will almost always "invest" (we call it gambling) on emotion.  They'll buy after something has gone up, thinking it will continue to go up and sell once something has gone down, thinking it will only get worse.  

What I think is amazing is that most people can't tell you what they're eating for lunch tomorrow, but they think they can tell you which direction stocks will move over time.  

We should probably take this discussion to PM.

[Limey]

Quote:
Human psychology.  Without a time machine or the ability to see into the future, people will almost always "invest" (we call it gambling) on emotion.  They'll buy after something has gone up, thinking it will continue to go up and sell once something has gone down, thinking it will only get worse.  

What I think is amazing is that most people can't tell you what they're eating for lunch tomorrow, but they think they can tell you which direction stocks will move over time.  

We should probably take this discussion to PM.

At the risk of this turning into a snuff-thread, here's Bill Maher's "new rule" regarding experts who make bad predictions.

[Greg]

Quote:

Human psychology.  Without a time machine or the ability to see into the future, people will almost always "invest" (we call it gambling) on emotion.  They'll buy after something has gone up, thinking it will continue to go up and sell once something has gone down, thinking it will only get worse.  

What I think is amazing is that most people can't tell you what they're eating for lunch tomorrow, but they think they can tell you which direction stocks will move over time.  

We should probably take this discussion to PM.

The Link

Alkie,

The website's synopsis of the above link; "Dan Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of Stumbling on Happiness. In this memorable talk, filmed at TED2004, he demonstrates just how poor we humans are at predicting (or understanding) what will make us happy. (Recorded July 2005 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 22:02)"

You should check it out.

[Alkie]

This is great.  Thank you very much.  PM me if you have more.

[otterj]

  extremely interesting stuff

 gang freakonomics

along with  happiness

and

 some crazy shit

[Greg]

Quote:
 extremely interesting stuff

 gang freakonomics

along with  happiness

and

 some crazy shit

Malcolm Gladwell's speech is also very good.