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This man is described as an "independent market trader" in the attached article. His twitter profile ( http://twitter.com/#!/alessiorastani http://twitter.com/#
by Construct 15y ago
This man is described as an "independent market trader" in the attached article. His twitter profile ( http://twitter.com/#!/alessiorastani http://twitter.com/#!/alessiorastani ) describes him as a "Keynote speaker" and a "Mentor and dedicated to helping others succeed". That doesn't exactly inspire much confidence. In fact, it is pretty obvious that he has set out to make a name for himself through this controversy.
Furthermore, he has obviously bet heavily on a near-term market crash. He's now financially and emotionally invested in a market crash, so of course he will be confident that it's going to happen. And if his doomsday video circulates the internet and makes a dent, however tiny, in investor sentiment then he has also effectively pushed the market (in a very tiny way) toward his goal.
Take a look at one of his recent tweets: "I've been waiting for this stock market crash for 3 years. #finance #economy"
The world economy is in trouble, no doubt, but let's remain reasonable and rational here. Spend enough time around financial types, and you can always find a doomsayer like this man in any sort of economy.
- kayhi 15y agoLooks like more investigating has been done: http://goo.gl/Yp447 http://goo.gl/Yp447 with the result not looking good along the same lines that you mentioned.
- silverbax88 15y agoThis is an extremely valid point. If you look at the stories that are posted daily on Yahoo! Finance, nearly all of them are market predictions by people with a vested interest in their predictions (beyond simply trying to be correct). I think this is still lost on most consumers; most people think stock analysts are the same as economists, and that's completely wrong. A good economist will tell you that they can't predict the stock market, but they can tell you what the economy will do. That's enough to let you know that the direction of the economy and the stock market are not directly linked.
- jprobert 15y agoI agree with the fact that most people who make these comments have a bias. While these bias must be disclosed they are often not done so until the end of the video or article that they've written. It should be required that a person disclose any potential biases at the beginning of their argument so that the audience has a clear understanding of what motivates them.
- dxbydt 15y ago>> A good economist ...can tell you what the economy will do. I was sipping a venti mocha when I read this and I laughed so hard there's mocha all over my keyboard. There are people here, actual paid economists, who are doubling up in laughter at your assertion.
- irrumator 15y agoI don't know what else to expect from a thread with an editorialized title taken from Reddit and ZeroHedge of all places.
- silverbax88 15y agoThat's funny, because I have some actual paid economists who work for me and they are scarily accurate. But I could throttle back and say 'they know what the economy will LIKELY do'. I still think you are transposing economists and analysts.
- daeken 15y agoNo, an economist knows what the economy should do, not what it will do or is likely to do.
- silverbax88 15y agoSure, I can accept that.
- mattm 15y agoOr can explain what has happened in the past.
- steve8918 15y agoJust out of curiosity, did any of your economists predict the US recession back in 2007, or the US housing crisis? From what I recall, almost none did.
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- hvs 15y agoActually, only a dishonest economist would say, "they can tell you what the economy will do." NO ONE knows what the economy will do. People make educated guesses, some better than others, but for every economist that tells you one thing, you can find another that will tell you the exact opposite.
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- patrickgzill 15y agoI think you need to do a Yahoo! search on Lawrence Yun, economist for the National Association of Realtors. Then you will understand why I find your comment quite humorous....
- bediger 15y agoWouldn't someone employed by realtors be one of those vested interest parties, who can't make a rational prediction, because they'd loose their job if they did?
- marcamillion 15y agoI think a more accurate statement is that a 'good' economist can tell you what the economy MIGHT do, based on what it has done in similar circumstances in the past. Economics is the study, and explanation, of the way things work - from a historical perspective.
- markbnine 15y agoIt's strange seeing a doomer post here. When HN starts colliding with ZH, things must be glum. Is this bizarro day? Typically I come here for the start-up-optimism, technology-will-save-the-world, how-i-made-twelve-million-dollars-from-a-weekend-project posts. . .
- T-zex 15y agoYou can look into this as a 3 yeal old dream comming true, a guy will become rich and he also gives an advice how to make money :)
- fleitz 15y agoThis is exactly a "how-i-made-twelve-million-dollars-from-a-weekend-project". Winter is coming, buy shorts. Too bad Groupon didn't IPO shorting that stock would be gold in this market.
- zackattack 15y agoI use ZH to keep my pulse on the market and HN to learn tech market fundamentals.
- rgraham 15y agoI heard recently that market naysayers had 'predicted twenty of the last two recessions'. I think that about sums up this activity whether or not the predictions are made by interested (read: untrustworthy) men.
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- fleitz 15y agoThat's the great part about the market, you don't need to have these debates, you think he's wrong? Take a position against him and in a few months time you'll have dollars instead of upvotes if you're right.
- xianshou 15y agoThe other wonderful thing about the market is that it doesn't care whether you have favorable odds if you only take one bet. Lucidity in a debate is much more likely to produce upvotes than 55% odds on a single speculation about the market is to produce dollars. (As Keynes said, "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you or I can remain solvent.")
- chernevik 15y agoGoldman Sachs haven't Canute-like powers, they simply have better tide tables. So anyone claiming they "rule the world" should be viewed skeptically. That said, we've had several decades of large and various constituencies "financially and emotionally invested" in the government absorption of risk (via Freddie / Fannie, Greenspan Put & Too Big Too Fail), and in the excess stimulation of demand via deficit spending. The linkages between fiscal policy preferences and political ideologies, of all stripes, really shouldn't be that hard to figure out. I mean, it really shouldn't be that hard to think about what, say, a Paul Krugman believes to be ideal long-term policy, and what that might imply for his forecasted outcomes of various short-term initiatives. Or for your standard issue right-wing think tank circa fall 2003. By all means, let's inspect this yo-yo's motives and their influence on his opinions. But if we're symmetric about it, we'll overturn a lot of rocks far larger than needed to hide this wannabe.
- asto 15y agoBig banks do rule the world! Not for the reasons he implied though. Take a look at Goldman's alumni list for example. So many people in power positions. And there's all the money big businesses put into politics. It's not charity! You don't think the ability to lobby effectively counts for anything? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Alumni http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Alumni
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- themichael 15y agohttp://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/09_september/27/statement.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/...
- leverage 15y agoThis guy is an independent trader because no one would hire him. He's misguided in his understanding of the markets. Goldman Sachs is an investment bank. When he says "anyone can make money from a crash", he's right: any INDEPENDENT investor/fund. Such as a hedge fund or himself, an "independent trader". These people are referred to as the "buy side". However, Goldman Sachs, as well as all the other banks he probably thinks "rules the world" is on the sell-side. The sell-side provides "prime" brokerage services to the buy-side clients -- that is they connect buyers and sellers via the exchanges. In fact, with the upcoming Volker rule, no investment banks will be allowed to engage in proprietary trading (trading for profit with the firms money), which is what the buy-side does. Investment banks might actually lose money in recessions because they might take illiquid, toxic assets onto their books to service demand (point and case: the mortgage crisis). And securities is only a part of the investment bank business model. Advisory services, largely driven by M&A and IPO volume, provide a decent chunk of profits for banks. Capital markets dry up during recessions, which will completely stifle M&A and IPO activity and therefore revenue on that side of the bank. This guy is full of shit. When asked what to invest in when the market goes down, his best advice is bonds and "hedging strategies". Bonds do indeed rise in value during bear markets, however hedging has almost nothing to do with profit or loss. Hedging is risk management: covering your ass in case of an unexpected move. For example, if I expect a downward market turn, as per his advice, I might buy up treasuries. But, to "hedge" the possibility that the market moves UPWARDS instead, I might buy an index tracking the Dow, which will increase in value as the market moves up. In this case, hedging is actually DECREASING my profits in the case of a downward movement in the markets. There are much more intuitive ways to play a downward market.