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
Most people who get into options are seduced by levered returns, but for the relationship to go from a fling to the real thing, they commit to learning about “vol”: implied vol, realized vol, vol surfaces. I’ve declared that options are ALWAYS about vol. This is snobbery to the same degree as reserving “champagne” for sparkling … Continue reading the easiest win in options is for stock traders→ The post the easiest win in options is for stock traders appeared first on Party at ...| Party at the Moontower
I referenced one of Kevin’s articles about funding trades in Thursday’s letter. I have several of Kevin’s tweets saved. This one is a counterintuitive argument for why the stock’s left tail is probably smaller than you think. In a June 9th tweet, Kevin considers one of ASTS insider sales: Scott W sold 50k shares today. Here are … Continue reading Insider selling that’s…bullish?→ The post Insider selling that’s…bullish? appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
For Friday’s family pizza/movie night, we finished watching the 1978 Superman starring Christopher Reeve. It’s one of my favorite movies, so I was nervous it would feel too outdated to the kids, but phew, they approved! My older kid likes rocks and crystals, so he loved the “programmable” sunstone that acts as a telecom, computer, … Continue reading reality is more than memes→ The post reality is more than memes appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
When I was trading trainee we used to play a put/call parity game to sharpen our mental arithmetic. I used to get perfect accuracy in the 30-40 second range at my best. My friend Tina was the firm champ at about 18 seconds. Just over 1 second per question. Being fast was a job requirement, but you … Continue reading the difference between 99.8 and 99.9→ The post the difference between 99.8 and 99.9 appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
Yet another vibe-code project. This one went viral because…it’s a game! It’s a replica of the one we trained on an eon ago at SIG. It’s a put-call parity game. The formula for put/call parity is: C = (S - K) + P + RC where: C = call value P = put value S … Continue reading Learn put/call parity with this free game→ The post Learn put/call parity with this free game appeared first on Party at the Moontower.| Party at the Moontower
My friend Khe has been working with hedge funds and Wall Street firms to help their teams get more out of LLMs (his weekly letter How To Future-Proof Your Career with AI is consistently practical. On a personal note I feel like Khe’s cadence is about 1-month ahead of my own LLM-discovery arc. I’m just getting started … Continue reading i can’t wait to replace myself→ The post i can’t wait to replace myself 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
