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by blastrat 3621 days ago
Finance Theory, the study of stock markets and related matters and which is recognized as an academically rigorous subfield of economics, does not offer the conclusion that being smarter is enough to win in the stock market.

I suppose you could say you could subscribe to and read all the news tickers more quickly? but you'd still have the problem of knowing what to do with the info, like you'd still have to realize how a 1 degree warmer temperature someplace would affect the banana crop, along with you'd have to know everything single thing everybody else in the world knows about their local industry, which the description didn't really say you could do.

To put it another way, IBM didn't conclude that they should plug their Jeopardy winning supercomputer into the market and let it trade stocks. To put it another nother way, the "perfect market hypothesis" says the best you are going to do is what the market is already doing, which is a good thing, it stops you from falling behind, but it doesn't put you ahead.

Now, you might say "what about Warren Buffett", but that's probably more along the lines of the robot's buy and sell people skills, like maybe go into real estate and be a super good salesman coaxing people to buy where there is a lot of sloppy money on the table. There is not a lot of money lying around the stockmarket; while we hear of winners, they are always balanced by losers, and nobody yet knows if the two can be separated in advance.

2 comments

>Finance Theory, the study of stock markets and related matters and which is recognized as an academically rigorous subfield of economics, does not offer the conclusion that being smarter is enough to win in the stock market.

Renaissance would refute that point

I understand what you are saying, but to inform other people it would be better if you indicated that you know what I'm saying. Refute the point? I disagree.

if this robot could do approximately what Renaissance has been already doing, that would not create wealth, that would take Renaissance's milkshake and share it for two, or worse, by creating competition, dry up Renaissance's milkshake for both. i.e. the money that Renaissance is making is not "lying around to be taken", it's already being wrung out of the market, and is being picked up and put in somebody's pocket, Renaissance's.

And for perspective, what Renaissance has been doing for all the time it has existed (65 billion in 25 years is your unicorn) is less than what Apple did, less than what Microsoft did before that, less than Berkshire Hathaway, etc. Facebook... Google... Uber is already closing in on Renaissance's value in a fraction of the time and in terms of trendline will blow past it. "Money lying on the floor of the stock exchange" is nothing compared to actual value creation.

Still, Renaissance is a pretty good gig for some uber mathnerds who realize they don't actually have other ways to create value (as our robot does) so I'd give it a bump for low opportunity cost.

Perhaps, it could just become very good at manipulating the perceptions of the reactive humans who are participating in the market? Create false crisis... Or real ones.
I agree the manipulation of, or it's hyper perception, is a good direction to take; the point I'm making here is that, that doesn't mean "in the stock market"; the stock market is a faceless buy/sell with a lot of savvy players. I think a more direct facing manipulable buy/sell is a better choice, like used cars, insurance, real estate, gold, etc.

the stock market is one of our most efficient markets, that's why it attracts big money, the money is safe; if you are manipulating the stock market to make it unsafe, you're going to attract attention. Better to manipulate as a rug merchant in a bazaar.