Market volatility in all shape and form has over the years turned into a personal passion and lies now at the heart of my current system development efforts. There are several reasons for this, the first most likely being one you probably have heard about before, which is that volatility appears to be a lot easier to predict than market direction. Your mileage of course, as with all things in life, may vary considerably plus as you slowly embark on peeling this onion you’ll discover there are many layers hiding below the surface.

I didn’t know Jason Statham was into statistics but when I told him about my newest project he was more than willing to model for today’s featured image. After which he punched out the camera man, stole my wallet, and ran off with the make up girl. My kind of guy! Alright, obviously we’re all bored to tears here, watching markets pump sideways as investors are waiting for news to emerge out of the annual Jackson Hole symposium tomorrow. So I thought I’d spruce things up a bit by leaking a few goodies:

We have a small cause for celebration today as this will officially be post #4000 here on Evil Speculator. Which incidentally was launched all the way back in early August of 2008 – almost exactly nine years ago. It was a time of wonder back then and electricity had just been invented a few months earlier. I still remember having to take an Uber horse buggy to the evil lair in the morning, on muddy unpaved roads seamed with beggars and packs of rabid wild dogs. Trading was done by telegraph in encrypted morse code and our favorite way of shorting commodity futures was by arson of a hapless local grain farmer. Those were the days! Quite a few of you regulars from back when are [...]

This post was inspired by a Quantopian lecture I greatly enjoyed this weekend and which once again confirmed to me that even the most basic tools and measures taught in the vast majority of educational trading material merely give us a momentary snapshot of the whole underlying picture. To take any statistical or technical parameter at bare face value is akin to judging an entire movie by a single frame or a composition by a single note. So let’s put those 3D glasses on and learn how to dig a little deeper, shall we?