As I noted many years ago, I approach each and every trade as if my reasons to make the purchase are possibly wrong. Indeed, I approach stock trading expecting to be wrong. (Its an ego free way to plan stop losses).
I find it healthy to occasionally look at what else I have been saying or expecting or writing or thinking that might not have been right, or that time has prove to be dubious at best, totally wrong at worst.
What follows is a short list of things that either 1) I have been wrong about, or 2) people whom I respect disagree with me about, or 3) I have demonstrated a form of tone deafness about :
• High Frequency Flash Trading: Kid Dynamite takes me to school on HFT, noting You Really Shouldn’t Care So Much About Flash Trading;
• Front Running Monies: Mike Santoli of Barrons chastises my math, telling me “Don’t hurt yourself trying to arrive at anything near $22b for flash. It’s likely some vague guess of all revenue tied to HFT, most of which is quasi-market making activity. It was a little-understood loophole, now closed. Trading has never been faster or cheaper, and is more frictionless for the little guy than the fund needing to move size. The ill-informed sanctimonious rhetoric surrounding it has been ridiculous.”
• Nobel Irony: Felix Salmon tells me I am like Alanis Morisette in that i do not understand what irony is (no, its not like rain on your wedding day — that’s merely inconvenience)
• Wall Street Bonuses: As 90% of you made clear to me, Wall Street bonuses ARE something to be upset about. (My RSS feed did leap to 47k from 42k on that post, so someone agreed wit me).
In order, I think Santoli is totally correct, Kid Dynamite has a valid point (but where there is front running, we disagree), readers pointed out something that many people are upset about (and that I perhaps shrugged off too quickly) — but I still believe bonuses are not the most important systemic or political issue out there.
As to Felix, my record remains (heh heh) unblemished whenever we disagree.
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Ahhh, that felt good . . . What have you been wrong about recently?
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