Alpha Byte

You must build and hold firm to your own sense of value, grounded in reliable facts and analysis. Only then will you know when to buy and when to sell. Only with a well-developed sense of value can you cultivate the discipline to take profits when asset prices are soaring and everyone believes they will rise forever, or the courage to hold your positions during a crisis — even as prices fall day after day — and buy at below-average prices. Of course, to profit in such situations, your estimate of value must be accurate.

Many people have the intellect needed to analyze data, but few are able to look more deeply into things and withstand the enormous psychological pressures. In other words, many will arrive at similar cognitive conclusions through analysis, yet because each is subject to different psychological influences, the actions they take on the basis of those conclusions diverge widely. The greatest investment errors come not from informational or analytical factors, but from psychological ones.

In the bull market phase… to sustain its dominance, the environment must be characterized by greed, optimism, exuberance, confidence, credulity, daring, risk tolerance, and aggressiveness. But these traits will not rule the market forever. Eventually, they give way to fear, pessimism, prudence, uncertainty, skepticism, vigilance, risk aversion, and conservatism… Crashes are the product of booms.

Risk is deceptive. Routine events are easy to estimate — what has happened repeatedly is likely to happen again. But aberrant, once-in-a-lifetime events are very difficult to quantify.

All bubbles begin with an important truth. But as prices continue to rise, investors, seduced by the prospect of a windfall, think less and less about whether those prices are fair. When the last holdout caves in and becomes a buyer, the market has reached its top.

The market is not a scale that precisely and objectively registers the value of each security according to its intrinsic qualities. Rather, we should call the market a voting machine, in which countless individuals make choices driven partly by reason and partly by emotion.

Ole Bjerg, associate professor at the Copenhagen Business School, follows an analytical approach to money that extends from his analysis of financial markets. The starting point of financial market analysis is the distinction between price and value: price is the symbolic representation of an asset's true value, and money is the very precondition for distinguishing value from price. In the chapter on monetary analysis, Bjerg introduces three theories of money and shows how each holds a different conception of the value basis of money. Once again drawing on Žižek's theory, he cites a joke about the brothers Max Weber and Alfred Weber: "You remind me of Emanuel Ravelli." "But I am Emanuel Ravelli." "No wonder you look like him!" In this joke, the symbolic meaning of the subject named Emanuel Ravelli and the real existence of the person designated as Emanuel Ravelli confer symbolic authorization upon the subject, maintaining a non-identical correspondence with each other. From this, the commodity theory of money comes to the surface.

There is a song called "Familiar Stranger," and its message is this: even if you live alongside someone for a long time, you may never truly know them, because they are complex, multifaceted, and ever-changing. Having read Making Money: The Philosophy of Crisis Capitalism by Ole Bjerg, associate professor at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, I want to tell you this: money is precisely that kind of familiar stranger living right beside you.

In the Chinese context, the term "boyi" (博弈) first appeared in the Confucian classic The Analerta — specifically in the "Yang Huo" chapter: "The Master said: 'To eat one's fill all day long without applying one's mind to anything — that is a hard case indeed! Are there not such games as bo and yi? Even playing these would be better than doing nothing.'" The "boyi" Confucius spoke of referred to two distinct games: "bo" was a board game, and "yi" was the game of Go (weiqi). Confucius's mother, Yan Zhengzai, had guided, cultivated, and trained her son in aristocratic rites and pastimes from an early age, which is why Confucius, once he became a teacher, could say that even playing bo and yi was better than "eating one's fill all day without applying one's mind to anything."

Think Slow, Build Fast: The Blueprint for Delivering Big Projects Withou... youtu.be/34ruJ-sOxS4?si… 来自 @YouTube

The phrase "Free Lunch" originated in Western countries during the 19th century. At the time, certain restaurant owners, eager to attract the lunchtime crowd, loudly advertised free midday meals. This was, of course, merely a business ploy — the whole point of offering a "free lunch" was still to make more money, because there was a catch: customers had to buy drinks. Refuse, and you'd be either rudely thrown out or politely shown the door. Later, economists adopted the term to illustrate that the so-called welfare state is nothing but an illusion: the government is not an omniscient, omnipotent God who conjures things from thin air. The money it tosses out with the left hand is simply wool shorn from sheep and milk squeezed from cows with the right — collected through taxation. Citizens never get anything from the government for free; sooner or later, they will receive a bill for every last cent. That is why economists are so fond of saying, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

@george__mack Romanticizing getting sick is wild. Some of us have chronic illness and trust me there's no "rebirth" happening. Just bills.😃

The most alive people I know get sick a few times per year. Sickness humbles people. You dip your toes in the pool of death, and come back reborn. When your sick, you feel what health is. If your healthy all the time, you're the fish that can't see the water.

When Jia Yuanchun returned to the Jia mansion for her imperial visit, she sat with her family after all the fanfare and festivities, and as they talked about her life in the palace, she let out a loaded sigh, calling it "a place where one never sees another soul." Yet when the visit was over and the conversations done, she had to follow the prescribed schedule and route back to that very "place where one never sees another soul." Why did she have to go back? Why return to somewhere she so deeply loathed? Because in that society, she had no choice — no power or freedom to choose. There was simply no alternative.

@HayekAndKeynes Or proof that governments printed so much money the numbers just got ridiculous. That's not progress, that's inflation with better branding.😅

Quadrillion becoming more common word is proof we are entering the exponential age

@FluentInFinance We get one of these "revolutionary cancer breakthrough" headlines every single month. Wake me up when it actually passes human trials.😅

JUST IN: Scientists built bacteria that EATS cancer from the inside out. The future of cancer treatment isn't a drug. It's a living organism that devours tumors from the inside. Here's how it works: Solid tumors have a dead center. No oxygen. No blood flow. Just dead cells and nutrients sitting there. Most cancer drugs can't survive in that environment. They get blocked. They break down. They never reach the core where the tumor is most protected. But researchers at the University of Waterloo found something that THRIVES there. It's called Clostridium sporogenes. A bacteria found in soil that loves oxygen-free environments. Researchers send spores directly into the tumor: 1. The bacteria wakes up in the dead, oxygen-free center 2. It starts consuming nutrients and growing 3. It multiplies and COLONIZES the space 4. It eats the tumor from the inside out Then they added something called quorum sensing. Bacteria communicate through chemical signals. When enough bacteria pile up INSIDE the tumor, those signals flip on the oxygen-tolerance gene. This means the bacteria won't activate in your bloodstream. It only activates inside the tumor, where it belongs. Think about what that means. Chemo hits everything. Good cells. Bad cells. Your hair. Your gut. Your immune system. The cancer suffers, but so does the rest of your body. This is different. This is a PRECISION weapon. A living, self-regulating machine that targets only the tumor's environment and ignores healthy tissue. The team is now heading into preclinical trials and testing it on real tumors. We are watching history happen.

It should be said that whether one emphasizes betting on the horse or betting on the jockey, both views have merit and both have their blind spots. The Chinese character for "enterprise" (企) literally means "resting upon people," implying that people are the absolute core of any business operation — which is why betting on the jockey makes perfect sense. However, a business is also made up of its equity structure, physical assets, technological capabilities, policy environment, and industry conditions. Even when it comes to people alone, a company is built and run by a great many individuals, and the actions of a handful of senior executives do not always determine whether the enterprise thrives or fails — which is why emphasizing the horse is equally sound.

Bet on the horse or bet on the jockey — this has long been a hotly debated topic in the world of capital markets and securities investment. Some emphasize betting on the jockey; others emphasize betting on the horse. Some argue you should bet on the jockey, never the horse. Others say bet on the jockey, but bet on the horse even more. Having studied these competing views and drawn on my own practical experience, my conclusion is this: ideally, one should weigh the horse and the jockey equally, while shifting the emphasis according to the specifics of each situation.

The "wealth doesn't survive three generations" phenomenon is common both in China and abroad — only the wording differs. The Portuguese say: rich farmer, noble son, poor grandson. The Spanish say: innkeeper, wealthy son, begging grandson. The Germans sum up the three-generation saga as "create, inherit, destroy." Yet families that have broken this curse are far from rare, and what sustains their lasting prosperity is nothing but the practice of frugality. To choose frugality over extravagance when you can well afford luxury — that is a virtue, a wisdom, and a realm of character all its own.

@ishaqsamaila5 Funny how "confronting power head on" only applies to countries with oil. Where's that energy for Saudi Arabia? Selective tough guy behavior isn't strength, it's business.

Presidents like Donald Trump are rare. You can like him or hate him, but you cannot ignore what he represents. This is a man who confronts power head-on. While others hesitate, calculate, and play safe, he steps in and acts. He challenged Iran directly. He disrupted their influence, blocked their expansion, and pushed back against networks that many believe have fueled instability across different regions. Some of you don’t fully understand what that means on a global scale. That’s fine. Not everyone follows power dynamics or international strategy deeply. But think about this: When last did you hear of a direct threat successfully shaking the United States or the world under his watch? Exactly. Strength deters chaos. Whether you admit it or not. Even institutions like the European Union move carefully around situations like Iran. It’s a complex game of diplomacy, fear, and consequences. But Trump doesn’t play that game the same way. He confronts it. Call him controversial. Call him aggressive. Call him whatever you want. But leadership is not about being perfect. It’s about making decisions others are too afraid to make. He is not trying to please everyone, and that’s exactly why many people don’t understand him. Man has brought peace to the world I pray he completes this mission. Pressure Iranian leaders to open up the country. Allow free speech. Allow equal rights. Give women their freedom. And watch how everything begins to change… A more open society. A different future for the next generation. God bless America. Long live Iran. We are about to enter one of the most peaceful times in world history. God punish haters of peace ✌️ @ishaqsamaila5

@morganhousel Kids aren't dumb though. They just trust you completely. That's not placebo, that's love doing the heavy lifting.

You see the placebo effect in young kids. Give them Advil when they're sick and THIRTY SECONDS later they say, "It's working, I feel better."