The beguiling promise of decentralised finance - And its many perils (危險)

 

The earliest adopters of bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, used it to buy drugs, while cyber-hackers now demand their ransom in it. Hundreds of millions of dollars of ether, another digital money, were stolen this year after hackers found a bug in some code. Many “believers” are in reality trying to get rich quick from the global mania that has seen the value of cryptoassets reach $2.2trn. Others are freakishly devoted. The entrepreneur who announced in June that El Salvador was adopting bitcoin as an official currency sobbed on stage, claiming it would save the nation.

The crooks, fools and proselytisers are off-putting. Nevertheless, the rise of an ecosystem of financial services, known as decentralised finance, or “DeFi”, deserves sober consideration. It has the potential to rewire how the financial system works, with all the promise and perils that entails. The proliferation of innovation in DeFi is akin to the frenzy of invention in the early phase of the web. At a time when people live ever more of their lives online, the crypto-revolution could even remake the architecture of the digital economy.

DeFi is one of three tech trends disrupting finance. Tech “platform” firms are muscling in on payments and banks. Governments are launching digital currencies, or govcoins. DeFi offers an alternative path which aims to spread power, not concentrate it. To understand how, start with blockchains, vast networks of computers that keep an open, incorruptible common record and update it without the need for a central authority.

Bitcoin, the first big blockchain, created in 2009, is now a distraction. Instead, Ethereum, a blockchain network created in 2015, upon which most DeFi applications are built, is reaching critical mass. Its developers view finance as a juicy target. Conventional banking requires a huge infrastructure to maintain trust between strangers, from clearing houses and compliance to capital rules and courts. It is expensive and often captured by insiders: think of credit-card fees and bankers’ yachts. By contrast, transactions on a blockchain are trustworthy, cheap, transparent and quick—at least in theory.

Although the terminology is intimidating (fees are “gas”; the main currency is ether, and title deeds over digital assets are known as nfts), the basic activities taking place on DeFi are familiar. These include trading on exchanges and issuing loans and taking deposits through self-executing agreements called smart contracts. One yardstick of activity is the value of digital instruments being used as collateral: from almost nothing in early 2018 it has reached $90bn. Another is the value of transactions that Ethereum is verifying. In the second quarter this reached $2.5trn, around the same sum as Visa processes and equivalent to a sixth of the activity on Nasdaq, a stock exchange.

The dream of a low-friction financial system is just the beginning. DeFi is spreading to more ambitious terrain. MetaMask, a DeFi wallet with more than 10m users, acts as a digital identity. To enter a decentralised “metaverse”, a looking-glass world with shops run by its users, you link your wallet to a cartoonish avatar who roams around. These digital worlds will become the subject of intensifying competition as more spending shifts online. Big tech firms could impose huge taxes on these mini-economies: imagine Apple’s App Store charging fees, or Facebook selling your avatar’s intimate secrets. A better alternative might be decentralised networks that host applications and are run mutually by users. DeFi could provide payments and property rights.

Crypto-enthusiasts see a Utopia. But there is a long way to go before DeFi is as reliable as, say, JPMorgan Chase or PayPal. Some problems are prosaic. A common criticism is that blockchain platforms do not scale easily and that the computers they harness consume wasteful amounts of electricity. But Ethereum is a self-improvement machine. When it is in high demand the fees it charges for verification can climb, encouraging developers to work on minimising the intensity with which they use it. There will be new versions of Ethereum; other, better blockchains could one day replace it.

Yet DeFi also raises questions about how a virtual economy with its own norms interacts with the real world. One worry is the lack of an external anchor of value. Cryptocurrencies are no different from the dollar, in that they rely on people having a shared expectation of their utility. However, conventional money is also backed by states with a monopoly on force and central banks that are lenders of last resort. Without these, DeFi will be vulnerable to panics. Contract enforcement outside the virtual world is also a concern. A blockchain contract may say you own a house but only the police can enforce an eviction.

Governance and accountability in DeFi-land are rudimentary. A sequence of large irrevocable transactions that humans cannot override could be dangerous, especially as coding errors are inevitable. Money-laundering has thrived in the ungoverned grey zone of services lying between Ethereum and the banking system. Despite the claims of decentralisation, some programmers and app owners hold disproportionate sway over the DeFi system. And a malign actor could even gain control over a majority of the computers that run a blockchain.

Alice’s adventures in DeFi-land

Digital libertarians would prefer that DeFi remain autonomous—imperfect but pure. Yet to succeed it must integrate with the conventional financial and legal systems, as Gary Gensler, a crypto-expert who is America’s financial watchdog, has outlined. Many DeFi applications are run by decentralised organisations which vote on some issues; these bodies should become subject to laws and regulations. The Bank for International Settlements, a club for central banks, has suggested that govcoins might be used in DeFi apps, providing stability.

Finance is entering a new era in which the three novel but flawed visions of tech platforms, big government and DeFi will compete and intermingle. Each embodies a technical architecture and an ideology about how the economy should be run. As with the internet in the 1990s, no one knows where the revolution will end. But it stands to transform how money works and, as it does so, the entire digital world

A giant depart : The mess Merkel leaves behind

 

The list of neglected issues is long (see our Special report). Germany looks like a purring luxury car; pop the bonnet, though, and the signs of neglect are plain to see. The public sector has failed to invest adequately or wisely, falling behind its peers in building infrastructure, especially the digital sort. This hampers not just whizzy new tech firms, but every other company, too

Germany’s most severe domestic problem is a failure to reform its pension system. Germans are ageing fast, and the baby-boomers will place an even heavier burden on the budget later this decade as they retire. On climate change, Germany has also been sluggish, and still emits more carbon per head than any other EU big country, not helped by Mrs Merkel’s shutdown of Germany’s nuclear industry after the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011

啊德國本來就歐洲工業最大國, 難不成生產一堆化學原料和高檔車, 碳排放仍然全歐洲最低的, 有可能嗎 !! 

The Pros And Cons Of Cloning 13F’s 投資照抄 避險基金13F 優缺點

 

Toby Carlisle

You can’t see all of the portfolio either because you can’t see international holdings and you can’t see shorts that they have on which you might be looking at half of arbitrage or something like that. And you can’t see any option positions that they have on site. You’re getting one picture of the portfolio. The other, that’s a weird one. And I think I learned this from Meb when I read his book was that you shouldn’t buy the biggest holding, because that’s the one that’s run up the most, I think.

避險基金不會公布short selling部位, 照抄13F 你只是看到基金的一個面向, 另一個面向你可能不知道 . 你不需要一定跟風 基金最大的投資部位, 那只是他們最大的持有部位, 就單純這樣意義

Wes Gray

As you say, we’ve done our own research on this, because we’ve always had big family offices asked about doing this strategy. And to your point, Toby, the irony is you don’t want to actually conviction(信仰) weight in accordance with how the actual managers weighed them. You generally want to own their smaller, tiny positions. That’s actually where they get the most mojo. It’s not usually their biggest position, typically, because I like tracking error concerns, or capital allocation concerns, or other things that are actually unrelated to how much actual conviction, and more related, arguably, with the incentives of asset management business.

 你反而要注意基金裡面持有較小的部位, 反而往往是他們獲利的真正來源 (mojo)

 

 

Wes Gray

Well, there’s always out performance because, generally, to Toby’s point, when people pick their baseball players, they focus on people that are performed well after the fact. So obviously, if you clone holdings of people that you choose as your baseball players, they usually choose baseball players that have hit homeruns, not necessarily those that strike out all the time. So obviously, the back tests are incredible. [inaudible 00:11:57] is a danger in the first place. So then the empirical question is, okay, great, we know they all work, but how do we extract the most, quote unquote, alpha, or kind of ride the cocktail value looking at these 13F positions?

 

 

Wes Gray

The other thing we did was, we talked about it in our book, Toby and I’s book, back in the day, then we formally looked at it. You can also look at these names in 13Fs and then map them back to their fundamental factor characteristics. And the question is like, okay, well, if they have 13F conviction, and they happen to look good on whatever you like, value, quality, whatever the heck it is, that’s certainly an additive measure at the margin. You want to do a 13F name, but then also identify that it has low momentum, and it’s a total piece of junk, and it’s the most expensive stock in the world. That’s probably not a great idea, but using 13F is like potential marginal contributor to a factor portfolio. I want to tell someone that’s a bad idea. That seems reasonable to me.

 

Jake Taylor

One other point that I think is important is I will often kind of bias towards managers who I know have an activist bent, because then there are other levers to be going on at the corporate level that can make a difference, and it’s not necessarily just a sort of passive holding.

 

Toby Carlisle

Yeah, I like that.

 

Stig Brodersen

Yeah. Going into this I was so excited about asking that question. I’m really happy you guys are setting me straight. So I do want to say for the record, though, to I think it was Toby’s point about how much the trader, if not it was Jake. I would say that if you do that, someone who is really interesting to follow would be someone like Mohnish Pabrai. He doesn’t trade a lot. Sometimes it can even go years in between and he has a huge international portfolio and not a lot of US stocks. And like he used to say, “There’s 1,000 reasons why people sell a stock, but there’s typically just one reason why they buy a stock.” And I think that’s definitely a pivot for him, but I can easily see why it might not be applicable for everyone else. And we shouldn’t fall into that trap.

 

source : https://acquirersmultiple.com/2021/03/wes-gray-tobias-carlisle-jake-taylor-the-pros-and-cons-of-cloning-13fs/

怪物隊長領導學 - 管理好5-15人, 就準備一直贏

 (第七章 ) 挑水者 : 隊長和戰績明星的關係

Page 179

企業管理學的兩難是, 會努力追求領導地位的人, 往往都不適任。他們只是受到隊長特權和光環的吸引,而並非真心想提升隊伍的目標和價值。

Page 174
媒體的英雄未必是真正的英雄，寵兒也是。我們活在媒體創造的世界，或許有幾分真實，絕大部份卻是虛構。虛構的英雄往往只是現實中的混蛋而已。

 

基恩在曼聯的總教練亞力士, 認為球員真實的運動能力和領導能力是完全不相干, 無關聯的兩碼事。沒錯 ! 隊長的角色有象徵性意義, 因為隊長是代表公司上台領獎接受表揚的人。然而！ 我想要的是真正的領袖, 而不是看起來好看的裝飾品

 

Page 174 最下面

更重要的是, 大部份得冠軍的球隊隊長對於名聲沒太多興趣

page175
我的研究一再說明了, 與一般球迷的想法相反, 挑水者更有可能偏好默默付出,成為強而有力的隊長。事實上頂尖隊伍的領導力極可能是來自隊伍的後方, 而不是前線的明星。或許不是什麼激勵人心的事蹟, 也不會有人因此寫詩或雕刻石碑紀念, 但默默付出, 特別是擔綱防守的堅強後盾, 毫無疑問會是隊伍成功的關鍵。

Page 179

連拿2次NBA總冠軍的San Antonio Spurs馬刺隊, 隊中大當家Duncan大眾始終都不太了解Duncan, 但他的隊友很明白, Duncan的領導驗證了「挑水者」的真正價值。他在隊長群中擁有罕見的才華, 足以掌控比賽, 打出精彩的NBA數據, 但他的領導風格讓他壓抑自己的打球風格, 甚至壓低自己的薪水, 專注於修補隊伍不足之處。他不在意自己的公開形象, 只在乎球隊的勝利。

 

健策 (3653) - 聯發科(2454) 筆記區

 

健策(3653)的主要業務是散熱產品，導線架，以及電子零件等。最受市場矚目的是伺服器晶片用均熱片、電動車散熱模組/IGBT水冷式散熱模組等產品。

均熱片大量使用於7奈米以下製程的產品，主要客戶有AMD與INTEL等，預估2022年下半年台積電3奈米3D封裝量產時，蘋果和聯發科也會使用此類產品。

內部人持股28.76%，大戶(含外資)持有69.78%，散戶12.61%，外資6.83%，三大法人合計15.78%，投信持股目前略高於外資。 2021Q2毛利29.32%、淨利12.17%，殖利率2.02%，股價淨值比5.8，本益比43.73，ROE13.04，股本12.22億，上市11年。

2021年7月營收783.5百萬元，月增3.63%，年增44.76%，今年三月以來每個月的營收都在上升。每股盈餘2021Q2 2.14，近4季累計6.85，2020年8.26。
公司在桃園龜山，工廠在華亞，大園，以及無錫。

注意到健策的原因是簡之隊簡大推薦，是簡大的雪球股之一。

 

「打2劑疫苗確診病毒量不減」9成是Delta 醫師籲：還是要戴好口罩

COVID-19持續延燒，近期又因印度變異株（Delta變種病毒）使全球確診人數速迅攀升！「打完2劑完整疫苗的人感染仍然會帶一樣多的病毒，研究中的病毒基因分析有9成是Delta的感染者。」胸腔科醫師蘇一峰昨（19日）分享最新研究，並提醒即使打完疫苗，個人防護措施仍不能鬆懈。

Delta變種病毒擴散全球，使多個原先已控制疫情的國家再次變得嚴峻，該病毒傳播力增強，已成多個國家的主要流行病毒株。蘇一峰於臉書發文針對美國最新研究所撰寫的部落格文章，該篇就直接以「美國研究帶來壞消息！打完兩劑疫苗感染者的病毒量與感染能力與沒打疫苗一樣多！」為題，分享美國威斯康辛大學麥迪遜分校收集719名確診者資料，其中122個案的基因定序有9成是Delta感染者。

心得感想 :  看來這次疫情會是打持久戰, 短短 2-3年內公共場所恢復常態是不大可能, 不過這樣也為股市提供一個天然的抑制劑, 避免市場浮濫資金造成無可挽救的 Bubble. 

美債殖利率曲線 - 景氣循環

 

美股韭菜王

 

殖利率曲線重大轉變，但不是暗示經濟衰退。

最近美債殖利率曲線的長、短天期利差收斂，使得斜率持續趨平，有看到一些分析說，債市擔憂經濟衰退，我個人是持著不同想法。

我想債市目前並不是暗示經濟衰退將來臨，而只是在部分定價經濟放緩的預期，主要是針對下列 3 個因子來作漸進式定價。

(1) Fed 緊縮預期、

(2) 今年高基期帶來的明年經濟放緩預期、

(3) 更遠看，升息後帶來的經濟放緩預期。

剛好搭上美債殖利率曲線趨平的市況，所以下面順便跟大家分享殖利率曲線彰顯的景氣 4 循環，一樣具有「復甦、擴張、放緩、衰退」涵義在裡面。

而目前美債殖利率曲線斜率趨平針對上述 3 點的定價，似乎也正暗示我們已進入了第 2 循環。

當然，對應每個殖利率曲線週期，在資產組合的配置上、尤其是作股、債配置的基金，會有一個「基本」相對應的配置，但這就是「基本原則」罷了。

報酬率想要勝過大盤，選股上還是得在各循環內以 Bottom-up 方式去選股，所以大家就在這個「基本原則」下，適宜的參考使用吧。

**貼心小提醒：文長，想直接了解我們現在落在哪一個循環，以及資產配置思路的，就 End 看倒數第二段吧。