We're Hiring!

Second Foundation Partners is looking to hire for three new positions!

Please check out Careers at Epsilon Theory for more details, and please distribute the link to anyone you think might be interested!

Epsilon Theory In Full

Epsilon Theory In Full

 

The soul of Epsilon Theory is our long-form content, a library of hundreds of pieces written by Ben, Rusty and others over the course of the last 5+ years. These are the print-and-take-home-for the weekend notes that made Epsilon Theory what it is today.

Programmable Money & Auto Public Offerings (by Silly Rabbit)

By Ben Hunt | August 1, 2017 | 0 Comments

Programmable money, ImageNet: the data that changed AI research, Auto Public Offerings and the paradox of historical knowledge.

Mailbag! Midsummer 2017 Edition

By Ben Hunt | July 27, 2017 | 0 Comments

Back by popular demand, it’s the Epsilon Theory Mailbag! Today’s edition covers notes from the past two months including “Tell My Horse”, “Post-Fed Follow-Up”, “Notes…

Whom Fortune Favors: Things that Matter #1, Pt. 2

By Rusty Guinn | July 27, 2017 | 0 Comments

Part 1 of this note highlighted the supremacy of the risk decision in portfolio construction. In this follow-up, Rusty observes that many investors may be assuming that the natural risk of asset classes is “right” for them.

Algorithmic Complexes, Alpha Male Brains, and Winnie the Pooh (by Silly Rabbit)

By Ben Hunt | July 19, 2017 | 0 Comments

Massively complex complexes of algorithms, AI vs. human performance, the Alpha male brain switch and explaining vs. understanding.

Where’s the Punch Bowl?

By Ben Hunt | July 19, 2017 | Comments Off on Where’s the Punch Bowl?

On episode 23 of the Epsilon Theory podcast, we’ve assembled the all-star team — Jeremy Radcliffe (Salient’s President), Rusty Guinn (Salient’s EVP of Asset Management), Neville Crawley (Founder & CEO of Engram Labs) and of course, Dr. Ben Hunt — to discuss whether we are at the inflection point when the proverbial punch bowl is taken away, and, as investors, what we do now.

Gradually and Then Suddenly

By Ben Hunt | July 18, 2017 | 0 Comments

The question isn’t whether the barge of monetary policy has turned around and embarked on a tightening course — it has — the question is how fast that barge is going to move AND whether or not the market pays more attention to the actual barge movements than what the barge captain says.

One Model to Learn Them All and AI Is/Isn’t Taking Over the World (by Silly Rabbit)

By Ben Hunt | July 14, 2017 | 0 Comments

One model to learn them all, semantic scholars, AI is/isn’t taking over the world, and autonomous learning investment strategies.

The Goldfinch in Winter

By Ben Hunt | July 14, 2017 | 0 Comments

Part 2 of Ben’s Notes from the Field series, in which he considers the question: what can a bird teach us about value investing? To everything there is a season.

Notes From the Field

By Ben Hunt | July 7, 2017 | 1 Comment

What does farming have to do with investing? Quite a lot, actually. In this first of a series that takes on a life of its own, Ben discusses bees and bonds, eggs and ETFs, and more.

Whom Fortune Favors: Things that Matter #1, Pt. 1

By Rusty Guinn | July 6, 2017 | 0 Comments
President Camacho

Of all the decisions you make as an investor, how much risk you take outweighs all of them. It is more important than costs, more important than diversification, more important than picking the right stock / fund / investment.

Post-Fed
Follow-Up

By Ben Hunt | June 22, 2017 | 0 Comments

A quick post-Fed follow-up to “Tell My Horse”, the best-received Epsilon Theory note to date (thank you!). I’ll jump right into what I’ve got to say, without the usual 20 pages of movie quotes and the like. Well, I’ve got one quote above, because I can’t help myself. They’re the lyrics to the best break-up song ever, and they’re what Janet Yellen was singing to the market on Wednesday.

AI & Video Games, Tricky Chatbots and More… (by Silly Rabbit)

By Ben Hunt | June 22, 2017 | 0 Comments

AI and video games, tricky chatbots, the quantum age has officially arrived, and your high dimensional brain.

Does It Fly, Really?

By Ben Hunt | June 16, 2017 | Comments Off on Does It Fly, Really?

On episode 22 of the Epsilon Theory podcast, we’re in Las Vegas at the 2017 EQDerivatives conference. Both Dr. Ben Hunt and our guest, Devin Anderson, managing director in equity derivative sales at Deutsche Bank, were speakers at the event this year. In a nod to David McCullough’s 2015 book, The Wright Brothers, this episode explores whether the ubiquitous ideas floating around finance today actually have wings and can fly.

Long Short-Term Memory, Algorithms for Social Justice, and External Cognition (by Silly Rabbit)

By Ben Hunt | June 14, 2017 | 0 Comments

DARPA funds a graph analytics processor, exploring long short-term memory networks, auditing black box predictive models, fast iteration and language from police body cameras.

The Summer Reading List (by Jeremy Radcliffe)

By Ben Hunt | June 12, 2017 | 0 Comments

In which Jeremy Radcliffe recommends Bob Lefsetz, Scott Galloway, Scott Belsky,Tim Urban and the gang at Hoisington.

Tell My Horse

By Ben Hunt | June 12, 2017 | 0 Comments

So yeah, I’m overweight and I need to get more sleep. I’m not happy about the market, and I’m anxious about living up to my obligations to my partners and clients. But I wake up every morning thinking independent thoughts about idiosyncratic risks. I’ve got a Tribe. I’m nobody’s horse. And that’s about as good as it gets here in the Hollow Market.

Chili P is My Signature: Things that Don’t Matter #5

By Rusty Guinn | June 9, 2017 | 0 Comments
Jesse After His Chili P Phase

The second moral license from a wise emphasis on passive investing is spending inordinate amounts of time on tilts, trades and tactical ideas that will never influence our portfolio results.

Quantum Supremacy, Correlating Unemployment, and Buddhists with Attitude (by Silly Rabbit)

By Ben Hunt | June 7, 2017 | 0 Comments

What web searches correlate to unemployment, verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and methodologies with a fragility problem.

Complex Systems, Multiscale Information and Strange Loops (by Silly Rabbit)

By Ben Hunt | May 31, 2017 | 0 Comments

Complex systems, machine learning software creating machine learning software, one-shot imitation and the power of the platform.

She Screams, He Kidnaps (by Silly Rabbit)

By Ben Hunt | May 24, 2017 | 0 Comments

Proximity of verbs to gender, wiki-memory, fool me once (and twice), and a veritable zoo of machine learning techniques.