The year before my mother passed away, she taught my son a song about a little boy and his toy ship. Every time I hear the song (“Im pokrik navak” here), I remember my childhood. I remember my mother and her words here and there that in hindsight seem to all have had a purpose. She would sometimes make a comment about something that seemed irrelevant or unimportant at the time…

Earlier I wrote about separating the wheat from the chaff but today a few sentences in comments of a post provided much food for thought. The lens of our minds often paint a very distorted picture of ourselves and, as a result, of others and the world around us. Unfortunately, since we only have a single point of reference, it is difficult for many of us to catch…

On my drive home this morning, I was thinking about my greatest daily challenge. This is an activity that consumes significant amount of processing power of my brain yet happens almost completely subconsciously without impacting anything else. It is like the markets – never completely understood, conquered, or tamed, yet having significant impact on our lives…

After searching for a long time, I finally discovered sky.fm, an Internet radio station serving up solo piano. I’m not an artist or someone with deep appreciation of the fine differences in piano music, but I very much enjoy the unique sounds of the plain vanilla piano…

I have been reading a number of trader blogs recently trying to get a qualitative read on the mood hoping to find traces of capitulation. Unfortunately, the mood seems to be “hopeful.” As S&P500 approaches the November lows, VIX is actually half of where it was then. As usual, all participants are trying to determine what may happen next. Some apply complex metaphors from other paradigms to the various markets to see if these explain the numbers…