I’ve been in markets for close to twenty years. What has been my persistent takeaway, aside from the fact that there’s always more to learn about markets, is that whilst markets do change, themes do reoccur. It’s been nearly a decade since I first spoke at a TradeTech FX event. I thought it would be…
Category: General
Data, General
How to judge a forecast
by Saeed Amen •
Let’s say I go to a burger joint, and want to forecast how good the burger will be. First, I need to use a bunch of input data. This can include observations derived from questions, such as how many people are in the restaurant? How much is the burger? What are the ingredients of the…
General
A decade of working independently
by Saeed Amen •
A decade once seemed like an insurmountable stretch of time to me. Yet as the years have raced by, a decade has become far more tangible. It was with a certain sense of shock, that I realised it has been exactly a decade since I quit my last “proper” job, at Nomura. So I thought…
Data, Events, General
Thoughts from Lisbon LxMLS on ML, LLMs/ChatGPT and more
by Saeed Amen •
Lisbon will forever be associated with exploration given its position and history. Cabo da Roca nearby is the last land you’ll see in mainland Europe before you head across ocean, as countless Portuguese explorers have done so in the past. The sea also impacts the diet: Bacelhau, salted cod is the national dish of Portugal.…
General
Trend following and VCs
by Saeed Amen •
There’s a trend with burgers. Go into some burger joints, and they’ll be offering a “wagyu” burger. This is generally code for charging you more for a burger. Wagyu steak tends to be prohibitively expensive. The difficulty with a burger, is that the meat gets minced, so even if what you are getting served really…
Data, General, Macro
Why forecasting economic data is so hard
by Saeed Amen •
I like burgers and I also like to try new burger joints. There’s always a risk to trying new a place. Maybe the burger won’t be cooked in the same way, maybe the patty won’t be quite as good quality, maybe the chips will be soggy etc. In some cases, it could be a factor…
Events, General
Berkshire Hathaway Meeting in Omaha
by Saeed Amen •
The Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting returned in person for the second time after COVID this weekend in Omaha. As noted by Warren Buffett, there was somewhat of a clash in the calendar with the Coronation over the Atlantic, although he did quip that they had their own King Charles here at the meeting, in the…
Data, General
Clean data and Twitter blue ticks
by Saeed Amen •
I’m not a very good cook, although I can make a good burger, and this opinion is obviously in no way biased! One of the few things I do know, is that you need to make sure that before preparing the vegetables from your burger, like lettuce and tomato, you need to clean them first…
General, Macro
Inflation forecasting for VCs & corporates
by Saeed Amen •
Let’s say you want to have a Whopper, but there’s a shortage of some of the ingredients, let’s say tomatoes. To increase your chance of getting a full burger without any missing tomatoes, you could try going to multiple Burger King restaurants. However, this is probably going to be a futile exercise if there’s a…
Data, General
Dealing with rare events in financial models
by Saeed Amen •
Harold Macmillan, the British prime minister between 1957-1963, was once asked, what was the most challenging thing he faced. His reply was “events, dear boy, events”. It may well be an apocryphal, and it has been suggested that he instead said “the opposition of events”. Politics is obviously not the only place, where events have…