The Daily Update
Today: Bitcoin, Warren Buffet’s net worth, Steph Curry and startups, the minimum wage debate, shorting the VIX, making $12 million, and anti-goals.
Football is almost here 🏈. Hope you having a great day. These are a few of my notes and favorite reads so far this week. Enjoy!
Chart of the day
In case you have trouble locating Bitcoin, it is the grey line, far left. I would note, just because something turns out to be a bubble, doesn’t mean it is destined for the trash pile.
All the other bubbles listed here are still around and thriving. Bubbles have more to do with psychology and FOMO than the utility they deliver. Just my opinion 😉
The magic of compounding
Keep your mind focused on the long-term. Investing is a marathon.
Investing
Seth Golden, a former logistics manager at Target, built a $12 million dollar net worth from $500k over a 5 year period. How? He bet Wall Street’s volatility index, the VIX, would keep falling.[NYT]
From the article:
Now, a new generation of day traders, deploying an expanding array of opaque, high-risk, high-return trading vehicles concocted by Wall Street, are pouring into one of the market’s most arcane corners, making bets on whether the VIX — otherwise known as the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index — will rise or fall.
We are in the second greatest post-war bull run only to be bested by the 90's(so far).
Bitcoin continues to climb. Collectively, the market cap of all the cryptocurrencies has grown 800% in 2017 with Bitcoin accounting for half that growth.[Coin Telegraph]
Not to be outdone, Litecoin(LTC/USD) has rallied nearly 1,400% this year. What is the d/f between Bitcoin and Litecoin? Great question. This article lays it out.[Coin Desk]
Shorting the dollar has been a popular trade. Is it getting to crowded?
Sports + Business
How Steph Curry and other basketball players are getting involved in startups.[Bloomberg]
From the article:
Since joining the Warriors in 2013, Iguodala, 33, has quickly become part of the vanguard of NBA players and other athletes making financial forays into Silicon Valley. He and his business partner, Rudy Cline-Thomas, own stakes ranging from $25,000 to $150,000 in about 25 startups, including the health and beauty brand Walker & Co.; mattress online retailer Casper; personal-finance app NerdWallet; Derek Jeter’s digital publishing company, the Players’ Tribune; and Mayvenn, the hair extensions supplier they met at Andreessen. (Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg Businessweek, is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz.)
Technology + Rasing Kids
Technology is not ruining our kids. We, the parents + our technology are.[Quartz]
From the article:
Turkle explains the cost of too-much technology in stark terms: Our children can’t engage in conversation, or experience solitude, making it very hard for them to be empathetic. “In one experiment, many student subjects opted to give themselves mild electric shocks rather than sit alone with their thoughts,” she noted.
Caleb here-I have given this a lot of thought. I have a three year old and my wife and I are trying to strike a balance with technology. It is hard, it seems we have so much to do, it is just easier to hand our child the ipad and let her watch Youtube kids than engage with her. Hopefully, we will do better.
Personal Growth
How setting anti-goals can keep work from being miserable.[Quartz]
This is along the lines of Charlie Munger’s solution to solving problems. “Invert, always invert”.
Economics
Is minimum wage a good thing? Economist can’t decide.[Quartz]
From the article: Note the bold highlight.
The minimum wage has become a battleground for economists. Thomas Leonard of Princeton writes in his excellent history (pdf) of the minimum wage, The Very Idea of Applying Economics: The Modern Minimum-Wage Controversy and Its Antecedents, that the amount of energy that goes into minimum-wage arguments vastly outstrips its importance as a policy matter. Issues like the design of health insurance, tax policy, and entitlement reform are more important policy issues, he says, but don’t inspire nearly the level of rancor — less than 2% of American workers received wages at or below the federal minimum in 2016.
Quick Facts
What is the largest fast food chain in your state?
