Recent history lesson

From a recent edition of the Economist:

"Over the past 35 years it has seemed as if everyone in finance has wanted to be someone else. Hedge funds and private equity wanted to be as cool as a dotcom. Goldman Sachs wanted to be as smart as a hedge fund. The other investment banks wanted to be as profitable as Goldman Sachs. America's retail banks wanted to be as cutting-edge as investment banks. And European banks wanted to be as aggressive as American banks. They all ended up wishing they could be back precisely where they started." (The Economist, "A special report on the future of finance," January 24, 2009, p. 17.)

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The futures are up nicely (yawn) and oil is flattish. There continues to be smart money around calling for a rally. I'll know it when I see it.

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Fund family Dodge & Cox Chairman John Gunn on his firm's performance last year:

“The performance of several of the fund’s holdings in the financials sector was breathtakingly bad,”

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Texas Instruments held its mid-quarter update last night, narrowed the range and didn't go out of business as far as I can tell. I wouldn't buy it but tech overall should act better today, which is not saying much after yesterday.

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Awesome article on quants taking over/not taking over Wall Street.

The Physics of Money

I gotta go to NYC. See you tomorrow.