News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on One-quarter of the world’s pigs died in a year due to swine fever in China. Parent comment

Re:One-quarter of the world’s pigs died in a year due to swi... by Psyladine on Friday January 03, 2020 @07:35AM (#21945357)
Read Liar Poker, Michael Lewis's expose of Wall Street in the 80s.

One sterling example of what makes a great trader came when he was woken up to news of Chernobyl. Like most people aware of the disaster, he was thinking in terms of fear, long term effects of radiation and nuclear anxiety. His trader friend called him with a tip to buy potatoes. He called back to say also diapers.

The trader correctly identified market trends in reaction to both nuclear radiation on global food stocks, and human behavior aggregates to nuclear anxiety (which in 9 months leads to higher demand for diapers).

It's a state of mind not entirely human, but understanding human behavior.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:One-quarter of the world’s pigs died in a year due to swi... by majos on Friday January 03, 2020 @08:17AM (#21945563)
> human behavior aggregates to nuclear anxiety (which in 9 months leads to higher demand for diapers).

Is this real? Similar claims were made about a baby bump around June 2002 (9 months after 9/11), but nothing happened [1].

[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/baby-boom-3/

[ Parent | on HN ]