a day of learning

the first talk

was about ESG investing, (environmental, social, and corporate governence). i learned:

- ESG scores done by ratings agencies and various parties are very, very unhelpful in assessing real ESG impact. in fact, they disincentivize investment in dirty industries, the very place we need to put money in order to make new, cleaner processes that require massive R&D to innovate on.

- most ESG funds have the tech giants in there, only because those tech giants do a great job of marketing themselves and cleaning up their corporate operations emissions.

- controversy scores are included in ESG ratings, which just measures how environmentally harmful a company is *percieved* as being. companies like exxon have high controversy scores, yet has been the foremost investor in carbon capture technology, for example. much to reconcile here.

second talk was about shit i didn't quite understand.

third talk was far too simplistic, about the two challenges of a stock picker:

- first challenge is picking the stocks

- second challenge is delivering those returns to investors

- equity investing is volatile, so even if a fund performs well, lots of those possible returns are destroyed by investors putting in and taking out their money at inopportune times

fourth, was a luncheon with a federal reserve board of governor's nominee.

- jerome powell's calendar is public, two months after the fact

- political contributions of the federal reserve's employees are listed

- 90% of those contributions go to democratic candidates

- jerome powell made a call to mitt romney and three other senators the day of the vote for this person's confirmation. then, a senator in favor of the confirmation got covid and could not show up for the vote. usually, this means another opposing vote will abstain in order to not let the unusual circumstance impact the outcome, but nobody did.

- the federal reserve is an intellectual monolith.

- the triple mandate of the federal reserve is: 1) maximum employment, 2) stable prices, and 3) moderate long-term interest rates. somehow, the federal reserve has lost track of this mandate.

- there is a difference between different types of gold standards, the details of which i don't recall.

fifth talk was excellent, and was about how everyone seems to have given up.

- tons of stock fraud.

- tons of biotech fraud, people claiming things that aren't so.

- the fda approves things that probably shouldn't be approved, but even the prospect of having fda approval for a drug can send a bullshit drug stock skyrocketing.

- the sec issues official-looking slaps on wrists but nothing really happens

- shortsellers are viewed as really bad, but maybe they shouldn't be — especially when they're calling out very real frauds

- he hates stock imagery. same.

sixth talk was interesting but i don't remember much.

seventh talk was very technical, but:

- monetary policy has created some fundamentally "wrong" prices of long term options

- there is an opportunity in derivatives to profit off of a rise in interest rates because of this underlying incorrect pricing

eighth talk was about gold

- guy sitting next to me said, "the gold bugs come out every year, and every year they are wrong again."

- i wouldn't be surprised if soon, they are correct.

i met a bunch of people today, including the host, who was amazing.

alex, james, james, james (that's right, three james'), brian, harley, judy, sumit, dustin, andrew, and more that i can't remember.

it was a pleasure to be there.