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Your Letters
by: SFO Magazine
Readers' Thoughts and Questions |
Dear Editor:
As a trader and reader of SFO since its early days, in the past few years I’ve looked forward to your July issue with the trading psychology theme. I was particularly impressed this July with the Brett Steenbarger/Doug Foster article (“What’s in Your Head: Becoming a Trader”). Their points about the level of commitment – a departure from what typically is written – are right on target. It has been my observation that too many novice traders believe that success involves only getting the right setups or system. There is a much more rigorous process involved in becoming an agile trader, and this piece says what has been lacking.
–Carl Ellis, via e-mail
Dear Editor:
Regarding your January (2005) story entitled, “Where Are Patents in the Financial Marketplace Headed? And Who Owns What?” – one of the complaints against King Charles the 1st was the awarding of monopolies, which crowded everyone else out of a given market. It was seen as damaging business and was a contributory factor in the ensuing civil war.
Patents are monopolies awarded to provide benefits to society as a whole by increasing innovation. They achieve this by reducing the risk – hence, the cost – to the innovator.
Patents of 17 years have been the tradition in pharmaceuticals, for example, because of the high development cost and the risk of failure in individual drugs. But the cost of developing new software and business process ideas is low, and there seems little benefit to society as a whole in allowing software and business process patents. In the case mentioned, one firm will benefit arguably from the work of others, and the rest of us will pay.
–Neil Murphy, via e-mail
Dear Editor:
I must tell you that I expected something much different from your interview with Amy Domini of the Domini fund (July 2005). It has always been my (obviously erroneous) opinion that socially responsible funds were little more than an excuse for “tree huggers” to make a social statement and, maybe if they were lucky, a little profit. I had no idea how open these funds are to including socially imperfect companies with good earnings potential (as long as they aren’t from particular forbidden categories) that are making social progress. In any event, I learned something from this interview. Glad you included it in your lineup of interviews.
–Marshall Jablonsky, via e-mail
Dear Editor:
While I have the greatest respect for both Amy Domini and the Domini fund (see interview in July SFO, “Investing with a Conscience”), I have one qualm I’d like to pass along to Amy.
Let’s not kid ourselves, shall we? Executive compensation is outrageously out of hand; there is absolutely no rationale acceptable for the amounts of money, in direct compensation and stock options, that executives are being paid – or, in effect, are managing to pay themselves.
Stockholders, the ostensible owners of the corporations, are having a more and more difficult time voicing their concerns and objections. The most recent example is Weyerhaeuser setting up incredibly suppressive conditions surrounding their most recent stockholders’ meeting – not really all that different from what might expect from the Gestapo.
The world is in a perilous condition and situation. The disparity between and among individuals and/or nations has grown enormously. This is simply unacceptable, and either we will transcend our seemingly aberrant species’ ways, or mother earth will simply flick off the fleas. It doesn’t have to be this way.
–Don Barshay, via e-mail
Dear Editor:
I just finished the article “Growing Discrimination Models on Trees” by Paul H. Lasky in the August issue. I found the article to be an effective introduction to the concept of discrimination models. Hopefully we will be able to read more regarding the specifics of model development in future issues. One flaw (perhaps editorial) is that the author says “The profits and maximum drawdown results are summarized in Table 1;” however, Table 1 actually shows a matrix of the test results. Could we see the promised data in the next issue?
–Al Gaudet, via e-mail
[Editor’s note: Here’s a correction on the above – Table 1 was incorrectly referenced as summarizing profits and maximum drawdown results (p. 28). Figure 2 actually summarized profits and maximum drawdown on a return-versus-risk diagram.]
 
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Editor's Note
Golf is a mind game, just like trading.
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