Edward Thorpe is a man we underestimate.
Thorpe is well known in the quantitative investment industry. He is known as the father of quantitative investment, the originator of quants, and is as famous as James Simmons. But out of the circle, Edward Thorpe is somewhat unknown. In the general public’s impression, Thorpe is nothing more than the prototype of the “Blackjack” movie, the genius who used mathematics to defeat the casino, and maybe some Geek.
Thorpe’s undervaluation stems from our valuation system. In our traditional society, which pays more attention to virtue, meritorious deeds and words, and determination to establish a destiny to create peace for all eternity, the social value created by human beings is often more emphasized when the coffin is put on the coffin.
Investors like Edward Thorpe who play tickets everywhere are obviously not in the mainstream in our social evaluation system. Not only Edward Thorpe, even Buffett, it is difficult to leave a single word in the history books. Now, how many of us know Wu Bingjian, the richest man in China during the Qianlong era?
Edward Thorpe’s life, according to his own evaluation of life: “Life is like reading a novel or running a marathon. Getting to the end is often less important, and the journey itself and the experience along the way are more precious.” Whether it is according to The splendid level of life is still material wealth. From the perspective of a secular society, he is obviously successful.
About Edward Thorpe
We still have to show off the life of Edward Thorpe.
The so-called great things are avoided, and it is necessary to become famous as soon as possible. These curses to ordinary people are blessings to geniuses. Thorpe was born during the Great Depression in the United States in 1932. He won the first place in the California Physics Competition in high school, and was shortlisted for the Westinghouse Science Genius Award.
After graduating from the Ph.D., Thorpe went to famous universities such as the University of California and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology New Mexico. During this period, Thorpe discovered the secret of winning in the gambling game of blackjack, which not only made himself financially free in the casino, but also In 1962, when Thorpe was 30 years old, he published “Beat the Banker”, which instructed people to dig the casino’s wool. This book later turned the American casino upside down and became an enlightenment textbook for many Wall Street bigwigs. In addition, in order to predict the outcome of roulette, Thorpe also cooperated with Shannon, the father of information theory, to develop the world’s first wearable device.
After being blacklisted by casinos, Thorpe moved to Wall Street. The Princeton-Newport Company established by Thorpe, in the nearly 20 years from 1969 to 1988, did not have a loss in the company’s products for a year, and the annualized rate of return for customers after deducting expenses was as high as 15.1%.
In 2017, Thorpe published his biography “The Man Who Conquered All Markets”, and summed up his life. The Chinese version was published in 2019, and we have today’s article.
Edward Thorpe’s Wealth Code
Good reading does not seek to understand, usually in a derogatory sense. In fact, the next sentence of the original text is “every time I understand it, I will happily forget to eat”. There is no need to think about reading all of a book from the very beginning. Just like people, only people at the same level can communicate with each other. When your experience and knowledge reserve is not enough, you can’t communicate with books. It is better to read it roughly and wait until the right moment to knock on the door.
The general comment on Douban for the book “The Man Who Conquers All Markets” is that “the first half is a good book, but the second half is too casual, and there is nothing profound.” In fact, it is just the opposite, the first half can only be counted. The general level of the starting point Shuangwen, the kind of three books for a dime, the second half is the essence.
The role of literature and philosophy in this world is greatly exaggerated. Metaphysical things can only enrich your spiritual world, and its biggest role is to make you less concerned about material things.
In his biography, Edward Thorpe, adhering to the rigorous attitude of his academic background, clearly explained his rich history to us. The American steel magnate Carnegie said that “to die in great wealth is a disgrace”, and the title of the book should be “How to Die in Disgrace”, or “How to Be Poor and Only Have Money”.
We have summarized several of Thorpe’s rich paths, which are completely practical wealth codes to share with you.
One of the wealth passwords: The real financial management lies first in the confidant – arm yourself with accounting statements
The sales manager of the bank’s public fund in a securities company always said something like “If you don’t manage your money, your money won’t take care of you.” No matter what they think in their hearts, it’s true.
But financial management is not stupidly sending money to these institutions. The first thing to do is to know the enemy and have a full understanding of yourself, rather than relying solely on intuition.
Thorpe gave everyone a simple method, which is to put the three watches on the accountant on himself. The image above is a template of a personal balance sheet given by Thorpe. Assets include our real estate, cars, furniture, and some liquid assets, stocks, cash, etc. Liabilities are generally bank loans, credit cards, and the like, and net assets are the difference between assets and liabilities.
The income statement is where we list our income and expenses for a year and calculate the amount of wealth we can have left each year. The cash flow statement is mainly used to evaluate the use of large amounts of funds every year, so as to avoid sudden expenditures that disrupt the existing life.
I think this thinking is the biggest highlight of Thorpe’s biography, and it is worthy of our reference.
Humans are actually very fragile creatures. In severely aging Japan, the profession of relic organizer was born. Among the 30,000 old people who die alone every year, they piece together the life of the elderly. I have also seen cases where the parents have passed away, and the children who settled overseas have entrusted an agency to sell their domestic house, and all their parents’ relics are packed and thrown away as garbage.
As soon as the three watches came out, I felt unusually small. Recognizing the reality ahead of time will help you plan ahead.
According to Thorpe’s data, the income of the top 0.01% of the nation’s wealthiest households increased 8.58 times from 1973 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, but the bottom 90% of households only increased by $8 per year in those 34 years.
Working doesn’t make you rich, you need other sources of wealth.
The second wealth code: know the enemy
Teenagers don’t know the taste of sorrow, so they use new words to express sorrow. When a person is middle-aged and beaten by this society, he will naturally have more discernment.
Don’t work with people with low morals. If you’re not strong enough to build a business empire yourself, or have a heart as big as God, you don’t need to try to accommodate everyone.
Thorpe not only invested directly himself, but also invested in many hedge funds, and in the process, he came into contact with all kinds of people.
Thorpe’s wife, Vivian, has the gift of being able to easily recognize people she’s seen decades ago, even if their appearance has changed considerably. She was thus able to read a lot of things Thorpe couldn’t see: she once told Thorpe that a partner was “greedy, hypocritical, and you couldn’t trust him” because “you could see him by the way he drove. greedy. And every time he smiles, he is fake, his eyes are not smiling, he is actually mocking you.” It later proved to be the case.
This should be considered mysticism. There is an interesting story in the book. In 1985, Caroline, a cleaner of Thorpe’s company, received $6,000 in compensation for a car accident. A fortune teller told her that Thorpe could double or even triple her money. So the cleaner went to Thorpe. Thorpe recommended Buffett’s Berkshire stock at $2,500 a share at the time. The result was that the cleaners didn’t catch it, and the profit of $100 went out. In 2003, Berkshire’s stock price rose to $70,000 per share.
We also have traditional physiognomy, such as “the eyes and nose of evil and true, the lips of true and false, the spirit of fame and fortune, the spirit of wealth and honor, the claws of ideas, the tendons of hamstrings, if you want to see order, it is all in the language. “It should be added, however, that public speaking in Eastern cultures is resistant to publicity and may even be considered a character flaw. To gain greater influence, it is not to gain greater and wider recognition, but to gain the attention and approval of the decision-making circle, and one’s own views must appeal to facts, logic and rationality. It is much more difficult than simply mobilizing the emotions of the group. (You can refer to the reply of Zhihu user qadg9 under the question “How can I make myself not timid, dare to speak in front of the public, and have something to say, don’t blush, how can I overcome it?”)
Others have nothing to do with morality or metaphysics, and are purely a judgment of personal ability. Thorpe himself is a top investor and obviously has his own unique sense of who can make good returns.
Thorpe has been a staunch holder of Buffett’s Berkshire stock, and he was also the first limited partner of what would become the famous Castle Investment Group (founded by Ken Griffin).
The prestigious long-term asset management firm was founded in 1994, led by a dream team-like combination: legendary trader John Merriwether of Salomon Brothers and two future Nobel laureates Robert Merton and Myron Schuh Erz. So much money was rushing in, but Thorpe shied away from the opportunity, arguing that “the theorists among them lacked ‘street smarts’,” a term that seems so meaningful.
This holiday boss Ling Peng wrote an article “Veterans Don’t Die, He Just Withers” in memory of Julian Robertson, the founder of Tiger Fund. What’s interesting is that there is a comment below “just like my brother, except for performance.”
Wealth Password No. 3: Asset Allocation in Major Categories
Thorpe’s major asset allocation here, first of all, refers to time, money and health.
“I think for every hour I spend working out, I’m going to reduce my day in the hospital down the road,” Thorpe said, adding that “once you figure out your hourly rate, you can see where you’re saving. Time is worth it, and in which cases it takes more time.” His example is that Americans like to spend 40 hours a week or more watching TV, and those who have plenty of “junk” time should use that time for exercise or fitness.
Thorpe also gave his own understanding of compound interest. As the eighth wonder of the world, financial management or investment is the basis for us to maintain a decent life after retirement. For ordinary investors, he recommends investing in index funds with the lowest fees.
It should be said that Thorpe saw through the biggest fraud in the US capital market – Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme very early. Because Bernard Madoff’s yield cannot be explained by the underlying assets, nor can the relevant transaction records be found.
“High yield means high risk. If the yield exceeds 6%, a question mark should be placed. If it exceeds 8%, it is very dangerous. If it exceeds 10%, it is necessary to be prepared to lose all the principal.” The meaning behind this famous saying is that the bottom layer Assets determine the rate of return of wealth management products, and no industry can afford more than 8% of the cost of capital, except for real estate in the past. A decline in long-term funding rates is a high-probability event, even in the face of an external environment where U.S. interest rates are raised.
Wealth Code No. 4: BS Model
Thorpe still broods over the BS model, which he theoretically first discovered. But sugar cane can’t be sweet at both ends. When he used this model to make money, this discovery was published by Black and Schultz. Later, the two won the Nobel Prize in Economics for this model.
The derivation and proof of this model is beyond the knowledge base of most of us. In fact, its principle is unique. It does not directly calculate how much the option is worth, but saves the country from the curve – constructing a combination with the same cash flow as the option, and pricing the option by calculating the valuation of the combination. To be honest, I didn’t figure it out when I was studying for the exam.
This magic formula is also the source of Thorpe’s earliest earnings on Wall Street. Thorpe uses this formula to calculate the theoretical reasonable value of the option. When the market price of the option is higher than the theoretical value, go short – sell the option to buy the underlying stock, and go long when the market price is lower than the theoretical value – buy the option and sell Positive stock. Thorpe trades options while trading the underlying stock, thus forming a hedge, earning only the risk-free return of market options mispricing.
Thorpe’s approach ensures that he can have stable returns even when the market fluctuates greatly. This neutral trading strategy that does not bet big or small and does not judge the market trend has always run through Thorpe’s investment career, as long as the formula or trading strategy That’s right, all that’s left is solid earnings.
The problem with this strategy is that it requires well-established hedging. In A-shares, due to the lack of hedging tools, only one-sided long positions can only be made, resulting in the inability to implement many mature strategies.
The BS formula is the foundation of modern derivatives pricing. Although I know that most people don’t want to see it again after the exam, but if you really want to make money in this market, you need to pick it up again, of course, this time not for the exam, but for your wallet. In fact, this formula can be applied to convertible bond pricing at least for now.
Wealth Code No. 5: Kelly Formula
The Kelly formula is also a well-known investment formula. Kelly’s formula gives us the optimal proportion of funds when betting, that is, how much proportion of the principal should be taken out for each bet to achieve the best investment results. Thorpe was the first to use this formula to determine the size of a blackjack bet.
The formula itself is not complicated, but the implications reflected are far-reaching.
First, don’t bet on a bet with a negative expected return. In the few years of 2015, A-shares speculated in Internet stocks. At that time, the concept of online lottery came into being. But if you think about it, you can see that the welfare lottery industry is objectively taxed on low-income groups. How can supervision allow it? How is this industry developing? The probability that this concept will eventually materialize is almost zero, and the facts have proved it.
Second, make heavy bets when the expected rate of return is high, and don’t participate or avoid heavy bets when your chances of winning are slim. What he said was the vernacular, but when it really came to his head, he didn’t necessarily understand. The stock market loses seven, draws two and earns one. Many people only need three minutes to make an investment decision, which is obviously disrespect for their wallets and the laws of the market.
Finally, Kelly’s formula may actually magnify risk. Thorpe later admitted that in investment practice, he did not completely copy the Kelly formula, but made a 50% discount according to the result, that is, 50% of the actual calculation result to determine the position.
There is also a general rule in our daily investment, that is, every time you make a move, do not exceed 10% of the position, and the take profit and stop loss are set to three to one, so as long as the winning rate exceeds 30%, you can make stable profits. The formula is not a big problem. The core is stock selection. The Kelly formula is mainly used for risk control, so as to prevent you from losing the opportunity to turn around in the future.
Wealth Code Six: Statistical Arbitrage
It should be said that for those who speculate in stocks, this part is the most important, but for those who specialize in quantitative investment, this part is too shallow. Thorpe’s plan is to use statistics to find the secret to making money long-term in the stock market, or the code of wealth.
Thorpe found that some indicators have a strong correlation with the trend of stock prices. These indicators are called factors in quantitative investing, and many platforms now have factor libraries. The factors given by Thorpe include: price-earnings ratio, dividend rate, price-to-book ratio, momentum (stock price trend), short-selling balance, unexpected earnings, company management buying and selling, price-to-sales ratio, etc. Thorpe combined these factors into a stock-picking model he called a multiple-index asset differentiation system. That is, the multi-factor model of quantitative investment.
Thorpe’s investment idea is to buy the portfolio with the highest model score and then sell the portfolio with the lowest model score, which is also a neutral strategy. In A-shares, we also lack hedging means, but this does not prevent us from using these factors to select stocks that meet our requirements.
write at the end
It should be said that, aside from the cool text in the first half of the book, Thorpe’s book is still very informative, but it takes a certain amount of reserve to fully understand it.
In the book’s final chapter, Thorpe seemingly casually mentions, “The rise of China is changing the geopolitical and economic landscape.” The funniest rant comes from the note below, “My grandson Edward was in high school. Studied advanced mathematics (partial differential equations) at UC Irvine. Thirty-one of the 36 students were from China. Since they did not know Edward was fluent in Chinese, he overheard many candid conversations.”
It seems that American elites have been learning Chinese a long time ago, much earlier than we thought.
Our opponents have more confidence in us than we have in ourselves.
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