#the predictions should be taken w a grain of salt

[nydlewds]

Hm. Kinda pissed.

My roommate's a p superstitious person that believes in the Chinese zodiac. She offered to read me and another person their fortune, but since it's in a different language, it's a little hard for her to get the best understanding of it.

I asked her what she read about mine, and even though she said she hasn't finished reading everything, she started giving me a very in-depth prediction based on what she knows about me and said that overall, it's looking like a pretty 'meh' year where I should stay put and sorta let things happen as they come.

She also has a LOT of bias towards this year's zodiac animal and it honestly really showed in my reading.

I knew this year would be one of many big changes bc there'll be a lot of and opportunities for changes, so I kinda nodded and felt like I knew what to expect this year after hearing that (stress and disappointment). But I was curious on what an actual prediction for my sign would be from others, so I checked out some videos of other people making predictions.

I watched 2 videos from 2 separate channels dedicated to making these predictions and both said that this year was going to be a great year for my sign?? That it's actually a great and very important year of change, and it's important to be very deliberate with my intentions and goals?? There were some things that lined up w what she said and what they said, but held very different connotations.

And I'm just like bud, are you fucking kidding me?

I generally don't take this stuff to heart bc I usually end up forgetting what my fortune said like a month in, but man, I was really anxious and feel really confused about what 2025 has in store for me. Roommate literally said this year's zodiac and mine absolutely clashes, but?? This year's zodiac?? Actually goes really well with mine?? And that's why others predict it'll be a good year??

It's small potato problems but I'm just pissed at the dread and disappointment I felt from hearing that vs. the comfort I would've received (and honestly needed) from hearing the other prediction.

This year's genuinely going to be an important year for me, I feel. And I feel like the overall message I got from her prediction was that there's very little I can control in my life... but what I actually REALLY need to know is that despite how I'm feeling now, I DO have control over my life, even if I can't control everything about the outcome.

Like man. It just fucking pissed me off :/

[buildsoil]

This thread was a response to the idea that we should put aerosols in the atmosphere. There are solutions we could be putting our energy towards:

Most of the proposed responses to climate change don't fundamentally address one of the largest sources and solutions to the situation: restoring soil through regenerative agriculture and grazing. Current agriculture is rapidly causing soil to lose carbon- and this is fixable.

the numbers vary as the destruction of soils is so backgrounded that it has only recently been brought into international discussions. But the levels of carbon storage in living biological soils are enormous.

but it is reasonable to attribute 30-60 ppm of the problem to soil loss which opens up a big realization: the WAYS we've used oil is as big of an issue as the use itself. how have we used it? by combing over the world's carbon storage every April.

i know a lot of people have come to see Organics as a luxury but it's important to remember where the word comes from: a focus on the organic matter content of soil rather than applying salts and fertilizers which kill soil biology.

we used around half of the world's oil to tear apart and oxidize the carbon storage in the soil and, unlike a lot of the BIG PLANS out there to block the sun or fertilize  oceans, fixing soil loss would be a way to direct our remaining oil energy to solve a TON of other problems:

if we were to focus our civilization onto restoring the basis of life: the storage and moderation of water, the capacity of landscapes to support complex grasslands and forests, then we can have a basis for a future.

Regenerative Agriculture is possible & understood: polycultures, agroforestry, silva-pastoralism, intention planned grazing: all can mimic and work with natural systems and restore the link between CO2, plant, fungi and bacteria, and soil storage. While feeding people. Right now.

This is the one change this is within our grasp that can happen on the scale of space (pretty larger areas) and time (in a time-frame of 10ish years) that can actually fix a number of problems that are about to be irreversible:

ocean dead zones, the breakdown of communities, lack of local resilience, lack of jobs, broken food system, famine, flooding, die-off of insects and the food-webs that need them, etc etc etc

since the start of the industrial revolution we have used around 944,000,000,000 barrels of crude oil. Which has the same amount of energy as 91,752,708 first atom bombs.

right now, at the peak, we use 87,421,000 barrels of oil a day, which has the energy of 8,500 atom bombs.  every day we use that energy to forge metals, throw cars down the road, lift buildings, but also to rip apart the landscape.

taking apart soil has grown a large population but it also lead to the loss of more than 1/4 of all farmland over the past 50 years. and it's accelerating. what if we use that energy to stop erosion, improve infiltration, plant trees, inoculate subsoils with important microbes?

just to put in perspective the sheer energy part of the problem: “The energy released so far from crude oil is only 100th of the energy of the impact of the astroid that killed the dinosaurs 65 MYA.“

(these are slides from a talk i gave last year)

Ruddiman has argued that agricultural climate change started 10k years ago

and we are ON TRACK for the catastrophic predictions of The Limits to Growth by Donella H. Meadows and others:

but the thing is, building soil back isn't impossible and with a coordinated effort, a lot can happen. in 1970 Earl Butz changed farm policy to subsidize corn production, agriculture is one of those things that can instantly redirect a huge amount of fuel energy into new goals.

and at the same time, it is something people can do on personal, local, regional, state levels as well: we don't have to wait for the power to change.

a simple thing is to start to find soil-improving ways to replace degenerative agriculture. One I suggest is to start seriously considering Chestnuts in urban and residential contexts as a carbohydrate source. Perennial, carbon-storing, and able to produce as well as grains.

another is to rethink meat but not in the ways you think. right now, convention production is unsustainable pollutive & requires mass grain agriculture But when cows are managed in tight moving herds/they are able to be used for ecosystem repair. I have seen this with my own eyes

grassland & predators coevoled w/ clumped herds of grazers hitting deep-rooted perennial grass & moving on built the massive storages of carbon rich soil that allowed agricultural civilization to start. Now we've used up what they made: it's time to restore it. not dimming the sun

we could be planning our cities, towns, and residences to spread and store water, improve soils, and also store carbon. I would recommend looking to the water systems of Italian hilltowns, the parks of Olmstead, and the soil-building keyline systems of PA Yeomans for inspiration,

if humans started put as much energy into the improvement of the foundational life support systems as we do for the high trophic levels of tech we wouldn't have half of the problems we have now.

because we would be net-producers and ecosystems would grow in our footprints. this is possible. we know how to do it.

o, yeah, we all have to build as much soil as possible over the next ten years. not all of us even realize there is a problem so we'll have to build soil for them too. We can do this.

To put it in perspective it will require taking all of our ag lands and raising the organic matter content of the top foot by about 9%. We can shatter and inoculate subsoils and rapidly improve them through compost teas, restoring grassland, and stopping microbe-killing ag

I was ranting about this in another thread too: (LINK)

-----

So wow thanks for all the reads likes & retweets. I'd like to say that i've been working on these issues for years, though i'm taking a hiatus to study spatial data science to be more useful. Two years ago I was building a project to implement these ideas, and i still intend to. (LINK)

I also still keep open my ongoing gofundme fundraiser that paid for a lot of my initial research. For every $5 I get I devote at least an hour of work toward my project.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/theworldtree

-----

one VERY important piece to add. Most of the ideas and techniques we have in our toolkit were worked out by, the use-rights held by, and the knowledge taken from indigenous people. So when I give talks I spend a LOT of time on this slide:

well-meaning white people: "but we are trying to repair the planet. it's a good use" if it's the  technique that will work and the indigenous developers of the idea don't want to grant use-rights, then give them back the land

I did a follow up thread with some answers to questions here: LINK

[yoomster]

YTTD Theory: Joe’s Choice?

(Warning: Mild Ch 2 Pt 2 Spoilers but mostly Ch 1 Pt 2 Spoilers)

The above screenshot is from Ch 2 Pt 2. This is just my take on what this conversation’s about and a possible additional theory about Joe

(sorry if people already figured this out and it’s common knowledge lol my yttd/kgs circle is small)

My take: Kai’s telling Joe that Sara’s the Keymaster of the 1st Main Game in this camera footage.

In the Ch 2 Pt 2 scene, Sara and Keiji are looking back at security cameras of Ch 1 Pt 2. This takes place after Sou is seen placing the Sacrifice card down in the bar.

We know by now that Kai was the Sage of the 1st Main Game, and I think at this point he has already gotten the Sage card and knows that Sara is the Keymaster through his tablet (as Keiji has proven in Ch 2 Pt 2, the tablet is how the Sage knows the Keymaster’s identity, and they know before the Main Game. By Ch 1 Pt 2 everyone has received tablets. Why not assume Kai found out the Keymaster’s identity by the same method as Keiji?).

What’s my evidence towards this theory?

It’s this point here in the 1st Main Game:

This line by Gin takes place after the preliminary vote of the 1st Main Game, after the 5 candidates have been chosen. Joe apparently said this to Gin before the vote.... Which makes sense, right? At this point, you’ve probably already countered Sou’s claim that he’s a Keymaster once or twice, right, so of course Joe would believe that you’re the Keymaster?

Well, what if you, Sara, DON’T claim Keymaster? You have the option of entirely skipping Sou’s first claim to be Keymaster in the 1st turn, and you have the option of not claiming Keymaster several times throughout the Main Game even when Sou’s lying to everyone. What happens if you keep your mouth shut? Does Joe still say this to Gin?

The answer’s yes. I just did a playthrough where I deliberately avoided having Sara claim Keymaster the whole time. (Lemme know if you actually want to see the recording but it’s me just skipping through most of the scenes really quickly and playing the game Fast, i just wanted evidence on this theory). After the first preliminary vote, these lines happened:

This takes place RIGHT after Miley lists the 5 people nominated in the preliminary vote, and Sara and Joe don’t say these lines if Sara had claimed Keymaster before. (compared w/ manlybadasshero’s lp and my memories of my previous playthroughs)

No other character reacts to Sara’s claim here, which means it’s possible that only Joe had heard her.

((tfw i didn’t expect sara to involuntarily confess keymaster so i just skipped through this scene too and had to scroll back through the log orz))

Anyway, unless this is some writing error or a mistranslation (which I doubt), this scenario + Gin’s line earlier can be combined as evidence that Joe believes that Sara is the Keymaster even before she claims that she is. It’s not solid evidence admittedly lol but it’s something. And I think he knew this through this conversation he had with Kai.

Well, then, what about the Sacrifice Card? Wouldn’t Kai warn him about how dangerous that card is?

Or would he?

The truth is, it’s not confirmed whether Joe has the Sacrifice card during this conversation, but... what if?

What if Kai actually told Joe about the Sacrifice card and what it does?

And what if Kai told Joe to take the Sacrifice Card to try to get him and Sara out?

I predicted Joe would get the Sacrifice Card on my first playthrough because only he and Sara had motivation to use it at that point in the game. At this point the characters theorize that either he picked it up by coincidence or that Sou manipulated him into picking it up, but neither of those scenes have been explicitly shown yet.

So what if he willingly looked for the Sacrifice Card and found it?

Joe would be risking his life and he’d be risking others’ lives, but there’s a chance he can get Sara out, right? So he took that chance.

But maybe as he’s sitting in the bar with the card, thinking “Maybe none of these guys are bad guys after all,” and wonders what’s the best choice

And holds onto the Sacrifice Card, which will almost guarantee that he’ll die, because there are three options:

1. He gets Sara out with the guilt of 10 other deaths on him  2. He alone dies by the Sacrifice Card. 3. He abandons the Sacrifice Card and almost guarantees death to next person who picks it up.

And well, what if he in the end chose the card because he didn’t want anyone else to die by the card? But also, just as importantly, because he didn’t want to vote anyone but himself anyway?

TLDR? Joe might’ve known exactly what the Sacrifice Card would do, and chose it on purpose for both Sara and possibly his own sake.

(This is just a theory and should be taken with a grain of salt. I enjoy theorizing and building on my theories, so I may talk about this theory in the future as if its’ canon but it isn’t u_u! This is just my speculation. Also please note, while the Joe & the Sacrifice Card theory is really interesting, that’s the one that has almost 0 evidence--I just want to acknowledge that before I get slammed with arguments. 

Let me know what you think but if you wanna Debate about it hit me up in my DMs instead of on reblog or note replies)

[dailytechnologynews]

What can we expect out of AMD's Navi 20 GPUs?

I wanted to make a post containing some speculation about the next gen Navi cards. My goal here was to try to get a good approximation of what these GPUs will look like without relying on overly speculative assumptions. Of course, it's still largely speculation and so should be taken with a grain of salt. Hopefully we get some good discussion out of it.

Release Window

We got news recently that RDNA2 is still in design, so we can be pretty confident that AMD can't release their new architecture early next year. I assume that Navi 20 GPUs will release in the summer of next year, following the usual release cycle.

Dies and CU count

We know both Sony and Microsoft will want a cut-down GPU die with around 40 CUs because that's what fits the new consoles' cost and power consumption. It's also logical to expect a full 64 CU Navi die, since 7nm is maturing and AMD is heavily incentivized to release a successful high-end (high margin) GPU. Past that, manufacturing more dies is expensive and AMD can sell cut-down dies to fill their product stack, so there's not a lot of incentive to go for more. In the past few years, AMD has not launched many new dies and only a handful were bigger than the size you would expect of a 64CU Navi die (~400mm2). In my opinion, big die and a medium die is really the most obvious guess, but AMD could surprise us.

Ray tracing

The next generation Navi cards will support hardware ray tracing acceleration. Unfortunately, there's not much point in trying to predict the performance of AMD's implementation as we don't know anything about it outside of one patent.

Architectural Improvements

We can expect the RDNA2 architecture to improve raster performance but it's difficult to say by how much. Historically, AMD has been content with rebadging and re-releasing GPUs, sometimes upgrading the process. However, I personally don't believe that they will be satisfied with adding raytracing to RDNA and calling it a day, as they are already significantly behind on Nvidia in efficiency and raytracing will further stretch AMD's limited power budget.

TSMC N7P

TSMC has started rolling out a more optimized version of their 7nm DUV process called N7P. It's fully compatible with the first generation and provides 10% power reduction or 7% performance. Expect AMD to make use of it come 2020.

VRAM type and size

AMD has put HBM in their last two high-end products (Fury and Vega), so it makes sense that they would continue the trend. Samsung and SK both announced improved versions of their HBM2 products for 2020 that provide up to 16GB of memory and speeds of over 400GB/s per stack. I would expect AMD to use two stacks of HBM2E for a bandwidth of around 900GB/s. In fact, I would even speculate that they will put a single stack of HBM2E in medium Navi 20, as the numbers fit a midrange card very well. Considering that the most expensive part of this type of memory is the interposer, it's much easier to justify using single-stack HBM for midrange products. What's more, console makers would greatly benefit from the reduced energy footprint, as it will translate to higher frequencies for the rest of the APU. Whether AMD uses HBM2E or GDDR6, the performance characteristics will be very similar for PC users, with GDDR6 being less energy efficient. Finally, concerning the amount of VRAM, I assume that medium Navi 20 will get a bump in memory, since consoles will need the extra space for higher quality assets and we've been at 8 gigabytes on GPUs for a while now. Consequently, we should expect big Navi 20 to have more VRAM than its smaller equivalent.

Speculated characteristics

GPU RX 580 Vega 64 RX 5700XT Medium Navi 20 Big Navi 20~~~~ CUs 36 64 40 ~40 ~64 Process GloFo 14nm GloFo 14nm TSMC 7nm TSMC 7nm+ TSMC 7nm+ Die Size (mm2) 232 486 251 ~250 ~400 VRAM Type GDDR5 HBM2 GDDR6 HBM2E HBM2E VRAM (GB) 8 8 8 12-16 24-32 Bus Width (bits) 256 2048 256 1024 2048 Memory Clock (GB/s) 8 1.89 14 3.2 (Sam.) 3.6 (SK) 3.2 (Sam.) 3.6 (SK) Memory Bandwidth (GB/s) 256 483 448 410 (Sam.) 460 (SK) 820 (Sam.) 920 (SK) TDP (W) 185 295 225 ~200 ~300 Release Date April 18, 2017 August 14, 2017 July 7, 2019 Summer 2020 Summer 2020

Conclusion

What do we get out of all this speculation? Medium Navi 20 will be very close to a 5700XT with better efficiency, more memory, raytracing and perhaps better raster performance due to architecture. Because the 5700XT already runs on the tail end of the power/efficiency curve, I don't expect much higher frequencies and memory bandwidth should be quite similar. Looking over at Big Navi 20, it looks like a good competitor. If we extrapolate from the 5700XT, big Navi 20 has 50% more cores and twice the bandwidth and so it should beat the 2080 Super (~+20% perf vs 5700XT) by a significant margin. Of course, Nvidia will release their own 7nm GPUs which compare better, but the improvement is significant enough that I believe AMD will be in a comfortable position come 2020.

Thanks if you took the time to read this, I hope it was insightful.

[annashipper]

Megapost Nr. 3 - June 23rd 2018

London Anon:  Hello, Anna, London Anon's here! Did you saw the latest tweet from James R.? He's in London now and tweeted about" breakfast in pal's house, vegan (! ) breakfast and how pal's small children wanted to hear some piano music 😂. No names. It could be just a friend. But is it a tiny shoutout to Ben and "his imaginary kids" ? James wants to play some PR or what? Sorry, i can't do screencaps. I was browsing Twitter, saw" vegan friend with kids and piano" and nearly choked on my coffee. 

Anna:  Hi London Anon and welcome in our midst!  :D

I’m sure James’ tweet was referring to Ben.  The question is why they don’t realise baity tweets don’t work on any of the Skeptics anymore.  On the plus side, at least James is a great friend who’s willing to go the extra mile for Ben.  

*

Nonny Nr. 1:   hahahhaha yeah, its gonna take more than that to convince me these kids are real. like, i dunno, seeing them. alive. once. in their life

Anna:  But... we’ve already gotten a pap walk in HD from NYC for Pilo, and Weirdo was even smiling for the paparazzo who was taking the pics Nonny.  What more do you need to be convinced?  :P

*

Nonny Nr. 2:  oh man, they really are painting a very specific family image. its the exact image i expected of ben and sophie. totally unreal and unbelievable, but totally predictable. these people are disgusting, and i include james the liar in that pile of disgusting as well. 

Anna:  Sorry Nonny, but I don’t agree with you.  I would (and have actually done it in the past) lie for my friends.  I actually think James’ tweet would have been a great touch in furthering the narrative Ben’s trying to push, had it only come at least 2 years earlier...

*

Nonny Nr. 3:   they really need to get someone who lives on the street to talk about the kids, proving that they are seen in the area, since there is no evidence that they've ever been spotted in the nabe in years

Anna:  Nonny, do “hardcore skeptics” who just happen to live very close to Ben’s new property and have seen Ben with his family around the neighbourhood multiple times count?

Cause I get such anonymous asks almost on a weekly basis, and the anonymous people who send them to me are VERY skeptical of Ben’s private life, even though they know for a fact the children are definitely real and they always report that Ben gazes at Weirdo tenderly during their strolls.  None of them take pictures of the adorable family of course, because they respect Ben’s privacy too much for that, but they do see them out and about almost on a daily basis.  And they are hardcore skeptics of course.  They invariably tell me that on every single such ask I get.  

Of course I never understood what they’re skeptical about given what they have witnessed with their own two eyes... but I believe them.  And so should you!  

*

Nonny Nr. 4:   they should all go for a post breakkie stroll. im sure the neighbours are wondering where all the kids are

Anna:  I'm sure I’ll get reports from at least 4 different very skeptical anons tomorrow about it Nonny  :P

*

Nonny Nr. 5:   hey PR? can we get a move on? we all know you have this story written, and this is all a narrative that is going to be controlled and released, lots of little stupid things like this, to wrap it up in an end w no blame. can we move it along? getting bens friends to lie like this is annoying. i know you have to but lets pick up the pace.

Anna:  Now, THAT would be lovely Nonny.  Intern, let’s skip all of the unnecessary baitiness and speed the whole thing up after Weirdo’s Wimbledon photo ops, shall we?  

*

Nonny Nr. 6:   “ The uninstalling of PrBatch won't happen...” I’m sorry honey nonny, you may take it in wrong order, when BTCC decides to take back his own life the shownance ends and the PRBatch uninstalls, not the other way.

Anna:  Nonny, I couldn’t possibly agree more.

*

Nonny Nr. 7:   I didn't view the TCA thing as a snub tbh, miniseries actors aren't commonly in the individual category. There's no rule against it or anything, maybe the critics feel TV is more shows? Over the last 25 years, only two miniseries actors have ever between nominated (Pacino for Angels in America and Giamotti for John Adams; no actresses at all). That's out of over 100 nominees.

Anna:  Actually Nonny, Sara Paulson received the award two years ago for her performance on The People VS OJ Simpson.

*

Izzy:   "To be perfectly honest, this is the first time I ever even heard of the TCAAs."- it's not new at all but from what I understand the ceremony is a private event. So I think it not being televised makes it forgetable lol

Anna:  I’m sure that has A LOT to do with it Izzy  :o)

*

@i-luv-benny-c:  Wow, that part where BC lectures the magazine interviewer who dares to ask about his family.  He should have stopped after “Sorry but I don’t talk about my private life”.  And then he goes on to talk about his private life!  His OTT defensiveness (both verbal and non-verbal) reminds me of his saying 2 years ago that people think his wife and child are PR stunts.  And his statement, “This is a touchy issue for me” convinces me even more that his family is fake.

BC’s response to the interviewer reveals how the showmance has taken its toll on him, aging him well past his years. He lashes out like a trapped animal.  He’s painted himself into a corner and the walls are closing in.  This is so sad.

Anna:  @i-luv-benny-c, you know how I usually don’t agree with you on anything?  Well, today is not one of those days   ;o)

*

Izzy:   "I love that Ben has realised his shortcomings when it comes to providing convincing anecdotes about the pillows, so he seems to have taken a steep turn towards skipping discussing them altogether.  Wise move!"- 

Except hes already talked about his private life enough that its weird to suddenly act defensive that someone mentions it. He interrupts the interviewer to say he doesn't talk about his private life as they refer to something he had already said about it.  Then he goes on to say they travel with him, which sure sounds like talking about something private to me. It would be one thing if he was responding to a particularly prying question but he seemed to get defensive at the mention of them. If he's going to get snippy now when people bring up the kids The Grinch promo is gonna be hella awkward.

Anna:  He’s not gonna get snippy about people bringing up the pillows during The Grinch promo Izzy.  In fact, I expect the pillows to be one of the selling points he’ll be using for the pitch.  I’m sure they’ll be just like the bank notes during The Imitation Game promo   ;o)

*

Mom Anon:  See? I’m not online for the afternoon and something happens! Well, judging by the comments, the Skeptics are taking it with a grain of salt. Could indeed be anyone but it indeed reads like James means Ben. Ah well, the nans will love it!

Anna:  I don’t know if it was you or me being offline for the day Mom Anon, but I’m tempted to go offline for an entire month for no particular reason to just see what’ll happen  :P

[forextraderpost]

The Predictive Power of Investor Sentiment

Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. This classic Buffett quote has echoed through the ranks of investors for decades. But does the data support the methodology? Does investor sentiment, which for many investors is widely considered a contrarian indicator, have enough predictive power to warrant our time and attention? In today’s show, we’ll explore investor sentiment from all angles and help discover which readings, if any, give predictive power to future stock market returns or trends.

Warren Buffet famously said, “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” But, does this contrarian indicator have enough predictive power to warrant our time and attention? Today, we explore investor sentiment from all angles and help discover which readings, if any, give predictive power to future stock market returns or trends.

Considering Unreliability when Consulting the Data on Investor Sentiment.

The best source of objective data on investor sentiment is the weekly AAII survey. They ask member investors about their expectations for the market each week.

While these surveys are ostensibly trustworthy, what investors say and do often don’t correlate. So, the data they gather has to be taken with a grain of salt.

The Methodology of the AAII Survey.

AAII researched sentiment behavior and subsequent market returns: Is the AAII Survey a Contrarian Indicator? 

They looked at the instances where bullish or bearish sentiment was extreme and measured it in levels of standard deviations. For example, they asked whether bearish/bullish sentiment was one, two, or three standard deviations below its average. Then they calculated those extreme readings relative to the subsequent 26-week and 52-week performance in the S&P 500 to see if the sentiment was a contrarian indicator.

Metrics other than the S&P 500, such as bonds or gold, could have been used to make the study more exhaustive, but weren’t.

Takeaways from the AAII Survey.

High bullish sentiment is not a great contrarian indicator.

In the 44 periods where bullish sentiment was more than two standard deviations above average, they found that in the following six months, the S&P was only up 48% of the time, which is well within the standard range or error. Even with extreme levels of bullish sentiment, half of the time the market was up, and half of the time, it was down.

Low bullish sentiment works better as a contrarian signal.

Bullish sentiment has been below two standard deviations of its historical mean 16 times during the survey’s history. Low bullish sentiment led to an average six-month gain for the S&P was about 14%, which is a more interesting takeaway.

High bearish sentiment generally leads to market bottoms.

High bearish sentiment was followed by the S&P rising by a median of 5.6% during the following 26 weeks. High bearish sentiment led to rising stocks 66.3% of the time, according to this study. That is significant enough to say that super-high levels of pessimism generally leads to market bottoms. When people are overly fearful and let their emotions really get the best of them – terrible headlines, huge news stories, panic selling – it’s probably a good time to jump in and start nibbling!

When stocks and markets reverse, it doesn’t have to come from a peak in sentiment.

In the 2008 July 3rd – July 17th period, right before the market started to crash that summer, the bullish sentiment was unusually low (23%, 22%, 25%).

People are generally bullish until markets go down, then they’re bearish.

People don’t flip flop between bullish and bearish each month. If people are bullish and then the markets go up, they remain bullish until some outside force causes them to change their sentiment.

If people are really bearish on the market, we could be seeing a bottoming process happen in the next six months. The research would say that 66.3% of the time, the market bottomed in the next six months.

Why TD Ameritrade IMX Research Might be More Trustworthy.

The IMX is TD Ameritrade’s ‘Investor Movement Index’.

This research helps get a sense of what people are doing with their money, versus what they say they’re going to do with their money. What TD Ameritrade does with the IMX is take all of the data that they have on client accounts and look at what people are actually doing with their money.

Evidence of Contrarian Indicators According to TD Ameritrade IMX Research.

According to the last three or so years of the IMX charts, periods where the IMX was really high lines up in many cases with market tops, or at least periods in which the market stalls.

December 2017 was one of the highest readings on their metrics, and the market completely stalled for about a year. The next highest reading was September of 2018, right before the market went through a huge drawdown heading into Christmas. Another one happened right at the beginning of 2020, where the indicators started to rise from September 2019 through January 2020. This time the thing that pricked the bubble was coronavirus.

Therefore, this research potentially reveals what could have been good contrarian indicators.

The same thing happens in reverse. When you look at IMX, where people have really low levels of activity, this often leads to periods where markets start to bottom.

Takeaways from the AAII and IMX Research.

Things need to be taken with a grain of salt. But, you generally get an ebb and flow, where when things get overbought, they get oversold.

This doesn’t mean things will turn on a dime. It’s a process, but it tells you where you are generally in the process, so you can keep your head on a swivel.

Research Study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Research Methodology:

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco went through research on investor sentiment and consumer sentiment and momentum combined to see if any of those two things could potentially predict market returns in the S&P.

This is a very short period for predicting, but it is what it is. The research can be found here: Using Sentiment and Momentum to Predict Stock Returns

The Value of Combining Metrics in Research and Investing.

When you look at metrics independently of one another, they’re not that great. When you start combining them, i.e., sentiment plus momentum, and combining indicators and technicals, or methodologies, that’s where a lot of power lies.

This applies to trading as well as far as the idea of correlation. A combination of investment strategies or technical indicators together in a portfolio oftentimes leads to the best results.

Findings:

Today’s Main Takeaway:

Sentiment shifts over time, and it is these broad shifts, not pinpoints of vertical sentiment spikes, that create tops and bottoms in markets.

Overly optimistic/pessimistic investors, consumers, attitudes, and characteristics are usually typical of market tops and bottoms. But, they don’t create new stock prices to change direction all the time.

Be cautious when you see these spikes. But, don’t say, “Yes, everyone’s pessimistic. It’s going to be a bottom,” or, “Yes, everyone’s really optimistic, it’s going to be a market top.”

There’s definitely pockets of predictability in sentiment extremes. Still, it’s not enough to say that all the time at this one level, or that one level, it’s going to cause the market to completely reverse.

Investor sentiment is something you should keep an eye on, but it’s not something you need to religiously check every week.

Option Trader Q&A w/ Lasan

Trader Q&A is our favorite segment of the show because we get to hear from one of our community members and help answer their questions live on the air. Today’s question comes from Lasan:

Hey, Kirk. This is Lasan. I have been listening to your podcasts and they’re really helpful. I have a really important question for you. One of the strategies that I use and I use it and it’s one of the best is selling the strangles and straddles. The issue with them is that our downside is like – and the potential of losing is unlimited. I wanted to know how the allocation works in here because you said that we should allocate the maximum risk and the maximum loss amount to 1% to 5% of the portfolio. But on the strangle, we don’t have any maximum loss. How does this work? Please explain. Thank you.

Remember, if you’d like to get your question answered here on the podcast or LIVE on Facebook & Periscope, head over to OptionAlpha.com/ASK and click the big red record button in the middle of the screen and leave me a private voicemail. There’s no software to download or install and it’s incredibly easy.

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