Quote of the Week

Caston glared. "Observation selection effects are totally commonplace. At the supermarket, have you ever noticed how often you find yourself in the longer checkout lane? Why is that? Because those are the lines with the most people in them. Let's say I told you that Mr. Smith, about whom you knew nothing at all, was standing in one of those checkout lines, and you had to predict which one, based only on knowing how many people were in each line."

"There'd be no way to know."

"But inference is about probabilities. And the most probable outcome, obviously, is that he's in the line with the most people in it." Once you step back and consider yourself from an outsider's perspective, it becomes self-evident. The slowest traffic lane is the one with the most cars in it. The laws of probability say that any given driver is most likely to be in that lane. That means you. It's not bad luck or delusion that makes you think the other lanes of traffic are going faster. More often than not, they are going faster."

Great quote from a great book, The Ambler Warning by Robert Ludlum.



If you haven't read it...you should.

The book, while not about investing or the market, contains two fictional characters who fit well with characters in the investment world. One of the characters lives by gut feel alone. Instinct. The other...100% logic, statistics, probabilities, just the facts ma'm. Interesting to see the development of these characters and how they find common ground.

Later Trades,

MT