Friends, Last Sunday morning’s letter talked about reading. The night before at my cousin’s wedding, he quoted CS Lewis in his speech. Later that Sunday, he was hosting a post-wedding fiesta at his house and the topic turned to book suggestions. He recommended Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. I have the book but haven’t read it. [Actually we … Continue reading can you read better than a 4th grader?→ The post can you read better than a 4th grader? appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
This is the follow-up to last week’s the easiest win in options is for stock traders. In that post, we started with a puzzle that leads to a critical insight: The collective pursuit of option arbitrage means that we can use put-call parity in reverse — to imply the cost of carry instead of assuming one, … Continue reading implying the cost of carry in options→ The post implying the cost of carry in options appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
🎙️Media M&A (Business Breakdowns) In this interview, Matt Reustle talks to Blake Saunders, a media investment banking expert and a partner at Core Advisors: We cover the shift from generational ownership of media assets to rapid-fire M&A, how legacy media companies are responding to the potential of YouTube and Substack, and the dystopian economics of a … Continue reading machine-readable→ The post machine-readable appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
Below is an excerpt from the presentation I did at McCombs Business School at UT Austin. It’s more hands-on to watch it after you take this quiz: Confidence Test (Respondents tend to score about 4 out of 10 on it.) There’s a fun experiment in the video as well. You’ll see just overconfidence and confirmation … Continue reading how overconfidence and confirmation bias create reinforcing loops→ The post how overconfidence and confirmation bias create reinforcing loops appeared first o...| Party at the Moontower
My 12-year-old is a compulsive reader. To the point of me telling him, put the book down, go do stuff. My 9-year-old has no interest in reading. No bowl of porridge in this house is “just right” apparently. I’m more alarmed by the 9-year-old of course. Our environment conspires against reading so it’s more important … Continue reading what happened to summer reading?→ The post what happened to summer reading? appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
Friends, My 12-year-old is a compulsive reader. To the point of me telling him, put the book down, go do stuff. My 9-year-old has no interest in reading. No bowl of porridge in this house is “just right” apparently. I’m more alarmed by the 9-year-old of course. Our environment conspires against reading so it’s more … Continue reading Moontower #288→ The post Moontower #288 appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
SP500 is up about ~33% since the April low. To choose a different reference point, since the Feb high water marks that preceded Liberation Day, these indices have rallied: SP500 ~10% IWM ~ 8% QQQ ~12% SMH ~ 25% A few single stock performances since Feb: MSFT and GOOG ~+25% AAPL ~+5% META flattish AMZN … Continue reading my read on the market from the option lens →| Party at the Moontower
While our exchange students bid us farewell yesterday, this week, much of my east coast fam is visiting to celebrate a cousin’s wedding in Napa. It’s a nice season to get married. In fact, Yinh and I celebrated 16 years on October 2nd 🙂 I mentioned my wife’s pet project about money matters. As you … Continue reading Do my wife and I have separate accounts and other personal money questions→ The post Do my wife and I have separate accounts and other personal money questions appear...| Party at the Moontower
For the second time in three years, we participated in a program to host Japanese exchange students for a week. We do it through local org that brings students a few times a year. Our guests were 2 16-year-old boys, Yuki and Haruto. Here’s how it works: After some vetting, the org matches you with … Continue reading exchange student week→ The post exchange student week appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
I used a pattern to explain it to my 12-year-old on our car ride on Monday. Start with: 8*8 = 64 Let’s call that a * b It feels like if we subtract 1 from a and add 1 to b multipy it should be close to 64 7*9 = 63 Close but a tad lower. What if we keep … Continue reading how I explained vol drag to a 12-year-old →| Party at the Moontower
Friends, Let’s stay with the education theme as we’re still with a week of the new school year. We’ll lean towards finance though… This is a re-print from the Gappy (head of quant research at Balyasny) LinkedIn: Yesterday I was talking to a very smart high-schooler interested in finance, and the topic of college major came … Continue reading Moontower #282 →| Party at the Moontower
Friends, I’ve been saving this one for the start of the school year. For those who start after Labor Day like it should be (my kids have been in school for nearly a month already). I took my boys to Alpha School in Austin during Spring Break this year. School during Spring Break, dad?! Yea, … Continue reading you need motivation to learn the value of pain →| Party at the Moontower
Last week in Adam Smith’s Backdoor, I wrote: The promise of capitalism is its swarm intelligence that maximizes benefit under the curve for the plurality of its members, as opposed to the narrow interests of a corruptible centralized authority. If the “plurality of its members” see the gains as gilded with appeals to capitalism feeling like they are in service … Continue reading capitalism is a temporary condition →| Party at the Moontower
Notable short seller Andrew Left’s firm Citron Research gave his “all roads lead to $40” pronouncement on X this week regarding PLTR 2.90%↑ : Created with TradingView Give Palantir the same $100 billion valuation that Databricks just earned. Where does that put the stock? $40. The exact same math we saw when comparing Palantir to OpenAI. Tyler pinged me before the stock dove … Continue reading Betting on PLTR to $40 →| Party at the Moontower
This summer we started a family tradition — Friday night pizza and movies. Each week we rotate who picks the movie and the pizza place. A few weeks ago, we did a Matthew Broderick double feature. We started with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Turns out I don’t remember seeing this movie before. I just thought I … Continue reading Adam Smith’s Backdoor →| Party at the Moontower
