[Xcelerate]

Is Rentech the only group that genuinely manages to predict stock price? Seems like the very observation that it’s still possible would be enough motivation for other groups to catch up over such a long period.

Also, the first realistic approximation of Solomonoff induction we achieve is going to be interesting because it will destroy the stock market.

[belter]

Rentech does not seem to be able to predict the stock market for their customers...

"Jim Simons' Renaissance Technologies suffers $11 billion of client withdrawals in 7 months" - https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/jim-simons-r...

[Xcelerate]

I’m referring to RenTech’s well known Medallion fund, which I believe is now only available internally to longtime employees. Even in the article you linked, it says this fund has “continued to shine”.

[belter]

If you think about it a little bit...And you read "Fooled By Randomness", there are 20 other tricks they could be playing here...Instead of "predicting" the market.

[amelius]

Maybe that would be a good thing. I wouldn't mourn the destruction of the stock market as it's just a giant wealth-gap increasing casino. Trading has nothing to do with underlying value.

[pvorb]

I fully agree. The stock market is just a giant machine that pulls money out of systems.

[itsoktocry]

>The stock market is just a giant machine that pulls money out of systems.

So you think the multi-trillion dollar stock market, consisting of thousands of global companies, has no use beyond "pulling money out of systems"? Weird.

[amelius]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

Just to say, weirdness happens.

[icapybara]

Agreed, if stock prices were predictable by some technical means, they would be quickly driven to unpredictability by people trading on those technical indicators.

[frankc]

This is that old finance chestnut. Two finance professors are walking down the hall and one of them spots a twenty dollar bill. He goes to pick it up but the other professor stops him and says "no don't bother. If there was twenty dollars there someone would have already picked it up"

Yes, people arbitrage away these anomalies, and make billions doing it.

[icapybara]

My point was more that the arbitrage is not systematically predictable, not that the arbitrage doesn’t exist.

[amelius]

And that would make the stock markets accessible to fewer people, further widening the wealth gap.