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A few weeks ago, I was browsing Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park and saw a new book called The Patterning Instinct on their Recommended Reading table. Anything with the word “pattern” in it catches my eye, but it turns out this doesn’t have anything to do with the kinds of patterns you and I deal with in the financial markets. Instead, it is an engaging and deeply thoughtful exploration about how culture informs the way we think, live, and engage with one another (and with higher powers).
That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past. – Ecclesiastes 3:15
I was mulling over for something to write about, and my eyes landed on the spine of the book 
The Fourth Turning, which is included in Slope’s Recommended Reading list. As I started thumbing through the book (already copiously highlighted by me), I wondered if I had already written on Slope about it. It turns out, yep, I did so twice – – first in August 2012, and second a couple of years after that. Hey, with over 20,000 posts on Slope, I’m entitled to forget.
If you’re interested in the book, I’d suggest checking out those two prior posts, but I’ll just say in brief that the book (written in 1997) contends that a “millennial crisis” will start in 2005, plus or minus a few years, and will last about twenty-five years from then. I daresay the authors would now agree that the 9/11 attacks constitute the “event” kicking off this fourth wave. As I’ve mentioned, the moment I saw the second plane hit, the first words out of my mouth to my wife were, “This changes everything.” Now, sixteen years later, I’d say that was true. (more…)
I’d like to do what I guess could be considered a flash sale of my latest book, which is described on the liner notes thus: “Making copious use of charts and basic technical analysis, Knight demonstrates how external shocks tend to create extreme reactions in the financial markets and how these predictable reactions provide opportunities for investors and traders to profit. Knight traverses five centuries of financial market history, from Tulipmania in the 1600s to the contemporary sovereign debt crisis. He looks at each event from the prism of the financial markets, examining the market climate prior to the event, during the event, and following the event.”
Good morning, everyone. I wanted to apologize that I’m going to be in absentia for the trading day, as I have some important family business to attend to (if any outside contributors want to put up a draft, great, because I’ll probably find a spare moment to post it).
In the meantime, I wanted to offer up a book review of A Rabble of Dead Money, recently 
published and written by Charles Morris, an esteemed economic historian. It describes itself on the cover as about “The Great Crash and Global Depression: 1929-1939”, but the vast majority of the book is about the period prior the the depression itself.
For me , the book was a “10” for about 60% of the text and a “5 to 6” for the other 40%. The problem isn’t the writing – – Mr. Morris is an engaging writer with an exhaustive vocabulary and deeply-researched scholarship. The reason a big chunk of the book was, for me, skimmable, was that it focused so much on international economic data such as trade deficits, national account balances, currency exchange rates, and, more than any other topic, the gold standard.
Greetings from – where else? – the Las Vegas Centurion Lounge, where I’m enjoying butternut squash soup, pecan rice, and Brussels sprouts. One of my beloved children just declared to me, without prompting, “I don’t like it here (that is, Las Vegas). It goes against everything I stand for.” So……..no paternity test needed.
Anyway. Back on February 1st, I did a post called A Fool and His Money, which was a fairly epic post, partly about a chap who called himself “Yolowolf” who ostensibly lost a $2.5 million inheritance with really horrible “trading.” If you haven’t read the post, please do, as it’s quite good.
