ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

  Many Economists see a period of both Inflation as well as Recession for the US economy in the months ahead- two scenarios at opposite ends of the spectrum of possibilities for an economy. This is a situation which they call Stagflation- a stagnant but also inflationary economy.  In this post we explain why, how Stagflation happens and the sequence of events. The flow chart above together with the notes below explains how the US Administration’s trade war tariffs can lead to stagflation:  • The process starts at the top with the implementation of high tariffs (Tariff Policy). • This leads to higher import costs, which in turn causes higher prices for goods—resulting in inflation. • As prices rise, consumers cut back on spending, which reduces corporate earnings. • Lower earnings force companies to lay off workers, increasing unemployment. • The combination of reduced spending and higher unemployment leads to a recession or stagnation. • At the bottom, ...

 TRUMP’S TARIFFS ON CHINA MAY EVEN INCREASE US-CN TRADE DEFICIT The US has always had a big trade deficit with China. The 10-year chart below shows the wide gap between US Exports to China (Blue line)  and US Imports from China (Orange line). The reasons 1. The strong seasonal/cyclical character of US Imports from China which were obtained  by decomposing data into trend, seasonal/cyclical and residual components  (Orange line in chart below) indicates that these are intermediate goods that are the input for US manufacturing and demand and correlates with their inventory cycles. The US cannot do without such inputs for their manufacturing because Chinese goods are much cheap and of high quality. Chart below shows the strong seasonal/cyclical nature of US imports from China (Orange line). US Imports from China show a seasonality strength of 0.37 versus 0.26 for Exports to China.  2. Frankly, Chinese consumers and manufacturers  don’t want US goods...

Data is for 2023 from the CIA Factbook, an interesting website to read https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/ Introduction to Fuzzy Logic Fuzzy Logic algorithms are a way of looking at the world, not in black and white but shades of grey with black and white at the extremes (like “Fifty Shades of Grey “ the movie.) Japanese consumer electronic appliances have been using Fuzzy Logic for decades. Examples: • Washing Machines: Japanese washing machines use fuzzy logic to sense the load size, fabric type, and dirtiness of clothes. The machine then adjusts the water level, wash time, and detergent amount for optimal cleaning. • Rice Cookers: Fuzzy logic rice cookers monitor temperature and moisture, adjusting cooking time and heat to produce perfect rice regardless of the amount or type. • Air Conditioners: Fuzzy logic air conditioners sense room temperature, humidity, and even the number of people in the room, then adjust cooling power smoothly for comfort and energy efficiency. • ...

  In the Table above, IR stands for the interest rate of the country as set by Central Bank or Monetary Authority. The Table shows that SGD is not either significantly over or undervalued, and the Governments 'control' of the SGD is just about right. The currency to watch out for is the JPY. Japan's current economy is fragile. With a Debt/GDP ratio of 260%, rising inflation and the impact of Trump's trade tariffs on Jaoanese automobiles and steel yet to be felt, we may see the Yen extend its downard trend.  Add to that, yesterday's Upper House elections in which Ishiba's LDP coalistion performed badly, we may see the conservative, nationalistic and right-wing faction of Japanese politics extend its influence  on foreign and domestic policies and create an environment of insatbility-all to the detriment of the JPY. The SGD/JPY chart below shows that JPY may cross below its 10-year low. Calculating the intrinsic value of a currency is complex because currencies ar...

  Scientific Name and Physical Description Colugos belong to the order Dermoptera and are divided into two species: the Sunda colugo (Galeopterus variegatus) and the Philippine colugo (Cynocephalus volans). These arboreal mammals are medium-sized, with a body length of about 35–40 cm (14–16 inches) and a weight of 1–2 kg (2–4 pounds). Their most striking feature is the expansive membrane of skin, known as the patagium, which stretches from their neck to the tips of their fingers, toes, and tail. This web-like structure allows them to glide effortlessly between trees, covering distances of up to 100 meters (328 feet) in a single leap. Colugos have large, forward-facing eyes that provide excellent night vision, as they are primarily nocturnal. Their fur is soft and mottled, providing effective camouflage against tree bark. Despite their resemblance to flying squirrels, colugos are not rodents but belong to their own distinct order. Geographical Range and Habitat Colugos are native to...

The two charts above only tell the story up to 2023 from the Tariffs  imposed during Trump's first term together with those imposed by the Biden administration. And we have to wait till 1 August to see what Trump does-- TACO out again, or follow through on what he said, or make some adjustments. So far, as of today, the UK, Vietnam and Indonesia have 'caved in' to avoid the punishing Tariffs on them announced by Trump. Japan is particularly vulnerable due to its exports of automobiles, steel and machinery to the USA but is holding up strong to Trump. Germany's very high Trade/GDP ratio at first sight seems to suggest its very vulnerable. But it is part of the EU and has some relief and exemptions from trade Agreements negotiated between USA and EU. I am not sure why Indonesia bowed to Trump. Its Trade/GDP ratio is very low. Unless its all about Palm Oil which has a large market in the US , also President Prabowo is streetsmart and wily and knows to to pander to  Trump...

  In the context of AI, grokking refers to a phenomenon where a neural network, after appearing to overfit its training data (performing well only on the training set), suddenly and dramatically improves its ability to generalize to new, unseen data. This "delayed generalization" can occur after a period where the model's performance on the training data seems to have plateaued. Essentially, the model "groks" the underlying patterns in the data, not just memorizing it, and this understanding manifests as a sudden improvement in its ability to generalize and make accurate predictions on data that it had not previously seen. (something that humans do). Grokking is like the AI equivalent of  Enlightenment when it “begins to see the Light”. The chart above illustrates the meaning of Grokking. A Neural Network is trained on data to predict. The Blue line depicts what normally happens as each training cycle of the neural network progresses. Here we see that accuracy o...

  80 % of Singaporeans live in and own the Housing Development Board (HDB) public housing units built by the government to provide affordable and quality housing to the masses. Life in the HDB  is a subculture all its own. And contributing a large part towards this subculture are the heartland coffeshops that provide a community gathering space; where the denizens of the estate gather to eat, talk, and drink.  The extract below is from a post in my Facebook on the going ons of a coffee shop near to my place of abode. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ON HEARTLAND COFFEESHOP STALL OPENING BANNERS AND NICKNAMES FOR CUSTOMERS. 1. The coffeeshop near where I live has a high turnover of food stalls. When new stalls open, inevitably you see banners like those in the images above.  By the names of the well-wishers you can tell that they belong to a certain group of Singaporeans. I wouldn't ...

Students of mathematics (like me) may initially find great difficulty in understanding Vectors, Matrices, Eigenvectors and Eigenvalues. A good way to understand them is to visualize. So in the 3-Dimensional chart above is a chart  with  an example of what  Principal Component Analysis looks like. (The math applies to any number of dimensions but since humans cannot visualize more than 3 dimensions we use this diagram.) So above we have a box with axes x,y,z, showing 3 Eigenvectors-Red, Blue and Green. You can see that they are orthogonal (at right angles) to each other, thus reducing the dimensions of the data space and producing a data space which captures the highest degree of  variance, that is the essence of the data. Now, Eigenvectors only show the direction of the vector. They length of the vectors is the Eigenvalue.Eigenvalues tell you how much the data spreads out along each axis (how important each direction is). So, PCA helps you find the most meaningf...

What is PSO and how was it used here? Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a computational method inspired by the way groups of animals, like birds or fish, move together in search of food. If you see a swarm of drones doing a light display or videos of wild geese flying in formation, or a school   of fish moving as one superorganism when alarmed that’s PSO.  In other words, PSO embodies the old adage of “Wisdom of the Crowd. In finance, PSO is used to find the best mix of investments by simulating a "swarm" of possible portfolios, each adjusting its mix based on both its own experience and the experience of others in the swarm. PSO and the “wisdom of the crowd” in Finance is not unlike the real-life practice of following the crowd, listening to rumours and over-reaction to extreme changes in the market environment. Does Wisdom of the Crowd work in Investing? In this project, the swarm was made up of individual investors. The buy sell rules and prices were decid...

Singapore was born on 9 Aug 1965 and ASEAN was formed on 8 August 1967. This post takes a look at the economies of Singapore and its ASEAN neighbors.  Singapore’s small land area and population belies its economic   heft.  The following images illustrates Singapore’s economic status in ASEAN and its contributions to the ASEAN economy. The objective of this post is to show that in the mayhem generated  by Trumpian fake Economics, and MAGA geopolitical tensions with China, ASEAN is by itself an economic power house with its 670 million population (8.4% of World population) and US$3.8 trillion GDP (3.5% of World GDP, 5th largest economy in the World).  ASEAN is also China’s largest trading partner accounting for 17% of China’s total trade- and that is an important fact to take note of when dealing with an isolationist USA. The statistics on Singapore’s economic status within ASEAN serves to point out the role that Singapore can play in navigating ASEAN through...

Genetic Algorithms (GA) are a class of Artificial Intelligence that encode your model variables as chromosomes. And then you breed them over hundreds of generations mimicking evolution, using crossover and mutation of genes to improve the species. GA applications include optimizing airline schedules, discovery of new drugs and new metal alloys, optimizing capacity of transportation systems etc. But I don’t have the data to practice on these topics, so I use GA to optimize portfolio strategies for the 30 constituents of the Straits Times Index (STI) and compare their performance. The two GA approaches are (1) Elitism where parents compete in a tournament (like the Hunger Games) and  only high-performance parents are allowed to breed and in each generation the children with good performance become parents, and the weak performance offspring are killed. (2) Egalitarianism where any compatible parents are allowed to marry and produce offspring.  The performance of strategies 1 and...

  2024 Archtop Tribute AT105 Classic with P90 The traditional sound of the jazz guitar is derived from the hollow body archtop (the wooden top of the guitar is arched) guitar that is the instrument of choice for most jazz guitarists. Musical qualities aside, IMHO hollow body archtop guitars are by themselves, one of the most beautiful objects  of art.  Here you see a Made-in-Japan Archtop Tribute ES-175 style guitar. Archtop Tribute is a brand developed by archtop fanatic Masaki Nishimura of Walkin.co.jp. Many archtop fans from all over the world make a pilgrimage to the legendary shop up three flights of stairs in the dark in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. To view his inventory of priceless vintage archtops. Gibson USA was the pioneer of jazz archtops but due to the high cost of production (especially wages) in ghe USA, it was no longer financially viable to produce archtops which have only a limited demand from jazzers and guitar collectors. . Thus they stopped production o...

  Why? (1   - 60-70% of trades in the US equities market are done by automated AI-driven algorithms, including high frequency micro-second trading. These algorithms make their decisions not on economic or corporate fundamentals but on momentum, arbitrage opportunity, pattern recognition etc. (2  -  Previously the USD was a safe-haven currency that investors flock to in periods of economic, political or military instability. But with the chaos that is now going on in the USA, the USD seems to be losing its safe-haven status. As for Gold, it is still a safe haven asset, and recently we have seen the Central Banks of China, Russia, Japan and even some of the EU countires load up on Gold while paring down the amount of US Treasuries they hold. (3- The USD is the lynchpin that holds the US stock market and the Treasuries market together and a falling USD will make any rise in stock or bond prices unsustainable. Would you invest in US stocks if your profit is ...