Macrowise Shopping List
Fear of recession, trade wars, Brexit, Italy and China are all important risk factors affecting the markets. While one of these events is very likely to happen, it is very unlikely that they will all happen at the same time. So, we see an excess of pessimism that may be causing us to miss some upward opportunities.
Volatility Smile NASDAQ Index , Source: Bloomberg.
Our team has divided assets into 3 categories.
- Rockstars: Stocks in the final stage of a bull market that are about to make new all time highs in the next 6 months.
- Icarus: Some of them are the market darlings. However, our models indicate that they are bubbles crashing or on the verge of a crash.
- Gems: Very depressed assets that may be starting a new bull market.
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This initial shopping list will also be available next Tuesday for the subscribers of Real Vision Research Think Thank.
New Section: Books for Decision Makers
Many of our clients are avid readers. However, many times they don't have time to read all of the books they would like. At Macrowise, we have curated a list of books that focus on improving one’s decision-making process. This is not only relevant to perform as an investor, but in our daily lives as well.
Priyanka Tripathi will enlighten you with the most relevant takeaways of these books. Today we are going to start with ‘Ultralearning,’ a book written by Scott H. Young and published in August of 2019.
This section will be part of our free service.
If you want to recommend a book, just send us an email.
Have you been looking to update your knowledge on current financial market trends or finally master Portuguese? Would you like to gain a new skill or simply learn something new? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, but you don’t have the time to go back to school or spend the time required for traditional methods of learning, Ultralearning, a book by Scott H. Young is what you need to pick up next.
For an entrepreneur seeking a new business, a student starting a new career, a professional switching fields, or anyone wishing to expand their horizons, learning something new and challenging needs to be met with a plan. This book tells you exactly how to effectively and efficiently amplify your learning experience. Unlike most self-help books, this book doesn’t just talk about manifestation but insists on practical methods and experimentation. With the digital boom in the business world, where people are gradually becoming more and more interested in technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, among other things, the lines between business and technology are getting more blurred by the day. One must actively contemplate how to stay ahead of the competition and remain informed. Ultralearning is strategically self-designed, motivated and executed, which makes it as successful as one’s commitment to it.
The book quotes many examples of ultra learners to illustrate how different subjects can be learned in less time than usual. One being Scott himself, who learned a 4-year course degree from MIT in Computer Science in only one year. In another case, Benny Lewis mastered a number of languages through a complete immersion process in the culture of the country to which he traveled. There are nine methods in all outlined in the book and the conclusions are there for your taking if you choose to do so.
1: Meta learning: Draw a map/plan: Start by learning how to learn. Research and draw on your past experiences and competencies to learn new skills easily. Figure out what you want to learn and how the knowledge is structured.
Divide these into the following: Concept (idea to learn), Facts (things to be memorized) and Procedures (things to be practiced).
When you apply this method, you find out what your challenges will be and what your context is. At that time, the learning can be approached by Benchmarking (finding out common methods of learning the chosen skill set) or Exclusion (determining what suits your needs and only learning that part).
2: Sharpen your knife: Cultivate the ability to concentrate. Remove distractions and take notes while you approach difficult topics. Notice what causes you to lose focus and change the environment or mind approach. Create an ability to concentrate by cultivating a calm mind through practicing meditation or developing a relationship between task complexity and arousal, while modifying accordingly as you progress.
3: Directness: Go straight ahead: Learn by doing the things you want to become good at. Use the methods of complete immersion. Stimulate the direct approach through practice. Put yourself in an environment where the demands are going to be extremely high. You will be able to receive direct feedback and improve upon your lessons as you move forward .
4: Drill: Attack your weakest point: Be ruthless at improving your weaknesses. Break down your complex skills into small parts; then master them individually and build them back together again.
5: Retrieval: Test to learn: Testing is not simply a way of assessing knowledge, but also essential in learning to be better. Reconstructing what you have learnt from memory, identifying and determining steps in learning your reactions, cycling between direct practice and drills, while minimizing things that don’t matter to the end goal.
Testing yourself should be the most powerful tool to judge one’s learning by figuring out the best solutions to solve problems such as flash cards, free recall, question book method, self generated challenges and closed book learning.
6: Feedback: Don’t judge the punches: Seek experts and do not depend on only traditional forms of feedback. Use new methods to figure out what your actual progress is and cancel out the noise of negative and irrelevant feedback. Feedback is either positive or developmental and should be taken as such.
7: Retention: Do not fill a leaky bucket: Everyone struggles with this one. Retention of knowledge is the most important part of learning and a few methods highlighted by Scott are as follows:
A: Spread your learning over more intervals and avoid cramming. Semi-regularly do a refresher’s course to remind and train your brain that learning is done regularly and is not a one-off process.
B: Proceduralization: Emphasize a core set of information frequently. Try to remember this one like learning multiplication tables when we were young. We did it so many times that we no longer needed to think while doing the calculations.
C: Over learning: Practice beyond perfect. This is an old method of learning beyond what is needed so the brain retains it for a much longer period.
D: Mnemonic: A picture retains a thousand words. Think of this like the references we made in order to remember letters as kids, B for bat will almost instantly make us recall this method of retention. Associate your imagination with your learning, allocate a shape, memory, color or song to anything you find difficult to remember. This might be a tedious process, but it is very effective for the long term.
8: Intuition: This is a word often used and rarely practiced. In this book, Scott has highlighted a few techniques used by genius mathematician, Richard Feynman, who was almost magical with his brilliance:
A: Write down the problems or concepts you wish to learn.
B: In the space below try to explain it as if you need to teach it to someone else.
C: When you get stuck, go back to your books, notes or the teacher and find the answer. Repeat.
D: Merge the tenacious art of practice and play. Understand the depth of knowledge it is coming from.
9: Experimentation: Step outside your comfort zone: It’s a famous saying that learning begins outside of one‘s comfort zone and this cannot be stressed enough by nearly all the leaders. Experiment with various learning resources, techniques, styles and methods. To improve one’s learning, try the method of copy and create. Simply try the methods or work done before and learn by comparing different methods side by side Test them against new challenges or constraints. Find your superpower in the hybrid or unrelated skills.
Scott points out that the making of a genius is a methodological process and doesn’t happen overnight. However, a few common things between them and ultra learners are: the intensity and the will to learn, the guts to experiment and push boundaries, and most importantly, the priority of learning something new.
Priyanka Tripathi
Content Collaborator
Zürich, September 5th 2019.