Topley’s Top Ten – December 27, 2019

Author

Matt Topley
December 27, 2019

1.Since 1928 the S&P is Up Just Over 50% of Trading Days But that Translates to a 18,000% Return.

Happy holidays from Bespoke!  Please see the bottom of this email for a great membership deal.  Also, tune in to CNBC between 12:15 PM ET and 1:15 PM ET today to see Bespoke’s Paul Hickey.  52.3%.  That’s the percentage of all trading days throughout the S&P 500’s history since 1928 that have been up days for the market.  Even though just barely more than 50% of trading days have been up days, it has translated into a price change of 18,157% for the S&P 500.  Casinos are wildly profitable using a similar format.  They only have to win slightly more than 50% of all bets made to make a tremendous amount of money.  The beautiful thing about investing in the stock market is that you get to be the casino for once!  2019 has been a great year for the S&P 500 with a gain of more than 28%.  As shown below, the index only needed to trade higher on 59.3% of days to generate a 28% gain.  But positive days occurring 59.3% of the time in a trading year is actually very rare.  Only five other years since 1928 have seen up days more consistently with the most recent coming in 1995 when 61.9% of all trading days were positive.   (Past performance is no guarantee of future results.)  Our 2020 Outlook report is a must-read heading into the new year.  Really.   If you haven’t maxed out on holiday spending or if you have research budget left for 2019, consider joining Bespoke for HALF OFF for the next 12 months!  Our 2020 Outlook report is included with whichever member From 2006 to 2017, the number of PE-backed companies increased 106% while the number of publicly traded companies fell 16%. ship level you choose.

Bespoke Investment Group

2.Private Equity Snapshot …. From 2006 to 2017, the number of PE-backed companies increased 106% while the number of publicly traded companies fell 16%.

IanMcKinnon

3.Oil and Gas Stocks Price to Sales Ratio at Record Lows.

Twits noteEnergy service stocks never looked so cheap – Price to sales ratio now belowtimes that preceded major bottoms, and One of the few industries trading at 1xannual revenues.   OSX was the only sub-index tradingvery heavy on Tuesday.

From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading

4.Russian Stock Market +30% Lockstep with Oil Prices.

RSX Russian ETF vs. Oil

5.Crude Oil Implied Volatility Plunging.

The Daily Shot

6.Oil Prices Up But Unleaded Gas Still Well Below 2019 Highs.

7.2019 Winners and Losers

LPL Blog

8.Is America’s Love Affair with Driving Coming to an End?

WSJ

miles than they did before 2007-09 recession

Americas Love Affair WithDriving Takes a Back Seat-By David Harrison

9.Women Becoming the Majority of University Students in the Middle East….Iran Moved Above 50% This Year.

10.9 Key Principles of Learning a New Skill

Thescience of learning new skills for mature brains.

Source: Zjarral1 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

Learningnew skills can be a great way to keep an aging brain in shape. How can adultslearn new skills more effectively? Learning techniques vary depending on theskill and the person.

Deliberatepractice is purposeful; it knows where it is going and how to get there.Purposeful practice is not just performing the same activities over and overwithout immediate feedback on the outcome. Evidence has shown that deliberatepractice can produce impressive results (Ericsson et al., 2018).

Here aresome general rules you can follow in your pursuit of mastering a new skill(Ericsson  & Pool, 2016).

1. Setlearning goals. Having a clear goal in mind before you begin your journeyis essential. Without knowing where you want to get to, you cannot plan.Having narrow and precisely defined goals and questions are far betterthan broadly defined goals and questions.

2. Startsmall. Purposeful practice is all about putting a bunch of baby stepstogether to reach a longer-term goal. The key thing is to take the general goal(get better) and turn it into something specific that you can work on with arealistic expectation. Set yourself deadlines. This way, you will know if youare starting to fall behind or have plateaued.

3. Getfeedback on mistakes. You have to know whether you are doing somethingright and, if not, how you are going wrong. Determine your weaknesses andfigure out ways to address them. The joy of seeing yourself to improve atsomething is very encouraging.

4.Stay focused. Deliberate practice is deliberate. That is, it requiresa person’s full attention and focus on a specific goal.

5. Usemental representations. A mental representation (standard) shows you“what you are supposed to be doing.” Mental representations makeit possible to monitor how one is doing, both in practice and in actualperformance. For example, in music, mental representation allows expertmusicians to duplicate the sounds of a piece that they want to produce whilethey play.

6. Getout of your comfort zone. Getting out of your comfort zone means trying todo something that you couldn’t do better. Doing the same thing the same way isa recipe for stagnation. When you run into an obstacle, improve gradually,until another barrier arises.

7.Mindset matters. People often shy away from learning a new skill, such aslearning to play a musical instrument at a later age. The biggest hurdle foradult learning is attitude, such as a lack of confidence. Eventually, that lack of confidence maybecome a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the cognitive skills slowly declinethrough lack of use.

8.Sustain motivation. Maintaining the focus and the effortrequired by purposeful practice is hard work. When you quit a project that youhad initially wanted to do, it is because the reasons to quit eventuallyoutweigh the reasons to continue. So, to maintain your motivation, you can bothstrengthen the reasons to continue and weaken the reasons to quit.

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9.Exploit the power of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity has been shown to beintegral to adult learning and development. The power of neuroplasticitysuggests that we are not stuck with the brain we were born with, but have thecapacity to willfully alter our minds and bring about enduring changes inour mental and emotional state (Davidson and Begley, 2012). However, thatmalleability decreases with age, making it progressively harder to learn. Thatmeans older adults require specific types of training (e.g., self-paced) tolearn new skills.

Ameaningful life

The take-home lesson is that to keep our minds sharp in older age, we need to engage in new challenges (e.g., learn a new skill). Lifelong learners get great satisfaction and pleasure from exercising their abilities and feel a tremendous sense of personal achievement from pushing themselves to develop new skills.