ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

Jungle food: Purple hill rice, pickled small river fish, chicken soup cooked in bamboo, pickled jungle fern, river fish crackers. I brought Cristina and her fellow Igorot friend (who has just come to Singapore for work)  to eat at Kantin@Jewel a restaurant serving the food of the tribes in Sarawak. See photo captions. The food is not really authentic though they do use the wild herbs and vegetables found in the tropical forests. The Igorots of The Philippines, the Dayaks of Sarawak, the Nagas of Nagaland, India are all descended from the aboriginal tribes of  Taiwan. These fierce warlike tribes with their common  head-hunting tradition were never subdued by the foreigners who invaded and colonized their country - the Japanese in Taiwan, the British in India and Malaysia, the Spanish, Americans and  WWII Japanese Army in The Philippines. But those who accepted the Christianity brought by missionaries were transformed.  But even today, some Nagas are still fightin...

 A big Thank You to EODHD.com for the data without which this post could not have been written. The Close of Silver (XAGUSD) as of Friday 24 Oct 2025 is 48.62.The 21 business days ahead forecast for spot investment grade Silver bullion is summarized thus:  10% chance of going below 48.32 50% chance of being 54.33 10% chance of being above 60.80 Methodology We prefer to apply probabilistic quantile forecasting due to the highly unstable situation as the MAGA Man keeps changing his policies almost daily, and even just the words he uses generates  asymetric shocks to the model that renders straight forecasts useless.  Model input variables:  10yr Treasury yield US Dollar Index Spot Gold price S&P500 US Unemployment Rate Methodology Methodology summary (plain-language bullets) Data we used Daily end-of-day prices from EODHD for Silver (XAGUSD) and Gold (XAUUSD). Macro/market context series (Dollar Index, 10-year Treasury yield, S&P 500, unemployment). We rei...

  The patterns on a Giraffe’s body, Dragonfly’s wing, dried mud, Tortoise shell, Bee Hive honeycomb structure and many other objects in Nature are generated by an algorithm to create Voronoi maps- named after Georgy Voronoy who discovered and write about such patterns.   Why did Nature create Voronoi patterns? Efficient use of space:  The pattern is ideal for maximizing the contents of a limited space, as seen in the construction of bee hives or cellular structures in muscles. Structural strength:  It provides a lightweight yet strong design, with properties that can be optimized for specific needs, such as impact absorption in biomimetic components. Optimal resource/function distribution:  The pattern helps organize and distribute resources or functions evenly. Voronoi pattern applications in everyday life Voronoi Algorithm in a nutshell in simple language A Voronoi diagram splits a plane into regions aroun...

A big thank you to EODHD.com for the data of XAUUSD and XAGUSD. Quality data at affordable price.   In times of uncertainty, investors turn to Gold. But spot Gold is now around USD4000 per troy ounce. On my trip down to www.indigopreciousmetals.com to buy bullion, I saw many people now buying Silver. Old folks, rich Indonesians and rich Indians. Why? Silver is not a Central Banks reserve currency like Gold, but it also has many industrial uses: See screenshot below. Besides the price of silver is only USD52 per troy ounce. XAU is Gold spot price XAG is Silver spot price. The 40 days ahead median forecast price for XAU is USD4208 and for XAG is 53.46. See charts below. [for methodology on Quantile Forecasts using Gradient-Boosted Decision Trees see previous recent posts on this blog ]. What is interesting is that proportionally speaking XAG has more potential than XAU. (The redline of XAG sits nearer the top of the green forecast band box.) And so if you look at the third chart be...

Thanks to EODHD.com for the price data that make my posts possible. When you need high quality financial markets data, you can rely on EODHD.com-they are the best.  EODHD clients who are financial modeling enthusiasts or funds are welcome to contact me for writing or analysis tasks:    tiankhean@gmail.com .  I live in Singapore so there may be time zone differences to take into consideration Introduction When we are not using fundamental data for investment analysis, we use price and volume data (Open, High, Low, Close, Volume).   RSI, MACD, Moving Averages, Stochastics and all those TA tools. They may be useful for visualization of momentum, trading range, volatility, reversion to the mean and so on. But when it comes to probabilistic predictions, clustering and classification for arbitrage, portfolio optimization or complex pattern recognition, advanced statistical techniques have a clear edge.   Many of these techniques have always been there, but th...

  Folk music icon Bob Dylan’s song “The times they are a-changin” has never been more true. We are living in a period of unprecedented geopolitical and economic upheaval-the final consequences of which we are not yet able to discern. Uncertainty is the silent killer of financial markets. But while Uncertainty by itself is bad for the financial markets, the events that unfold during the period of uncertainty can be either good or bad. More US tariffs? Bad. Fed rate cuts? Good. Powell’s term ends in May 2026 and new Trump-appointed Fed Chair leads to even more rate cuts in 2026? Good in the short-term. This leads to heightened inflation and asset bubbles in the long-term? Ultimately bad.   So, today we design a portfolio in which the main objective is to be low risk and yet yield a return that is above the rate of inflation. And we will do an analysis and 1-year ahead forecast for the Portfolio, and use the SPY ETF as a reference benchmark.   We   are not att...

A jazz archtop guitar's tone is a composite of  the type of wood(s) used in it's construction, the. pickups, the material and design of the bridge, as well as the type of strings used and also the size and the depth (thickness) of its body. Full-bodied electric jazz archtops like the Gibson 16" lower bout ES-175 and the 17" lower bout Gibson L5CES are known for their woody  tone, a tone much cherished by jazz guitarists. They are also very resonant. Both guitars  have a depth of about 3.5". One big disadvantage of deep body archtops especially if the top of the body is solid carved wood is that they are prone to feedback, which makes them less playable, especially for live performance on a stage.  L5CES have solid carved Spruce top while ES-175 have laminated Maple top which is less prone to feedback. Guitar manufacturers have sought to reduce the feedback by reducing the depth of the body. Here, we see two made in Japan archtops (Left: D'Angelico...

  Data from FRED as of 30 Sep 2025. In this post we explain the use of Markov Regimes Switching Risk-On/Risk-Off Model (MRS) for Treasuries.   The characteristics of Debt securities as an asset class are very different from Equities- the issuers and holders of Debt securities, the way they are traded, the role of liquidity, the importance of persistence and duration in yields- all make risk-on/risk-of models useful. Markov-type models with their wide scope for modifications e.g. Hidden Markov, Semi Hidden Markov; and enhancements are very well suited to this task. In this post we will show the current state of risk for different tenors of Treasuries.   We also have a supplementary paragraph to show why Money Market Funds are low -risk. Methodology We model regime shifts in Treasuries using price-based, weekly slope signals rather than raw yields.   Using prices (and their derived yield differences) ensures direct linkage to investor gains and losses, while avo...

 As a multi-racial, multi-cultural nation, Singaporeans' taste buds are probably among the most diverse in the world. And being an island nation, Fish constitutes a large part of our diet.  I am sure many would love to identify the fish they have bought from the market for cooking. This Food Fish Identification Guide is extracted from Pasarfish (https://pasarfish.com). Pasarfish is an educational outreach platform for the  public that aims to stress the importance of seafood in our cultural heritage and also as a protein that many depend on for livelihood and as a main source of food. It also hopes to create awareness of environmental sustainability, the impact of overfishing and water pollution. In addition to this Food Fish Identification Guide, Pasarfish conducts fish market tours, fish tasting and cooking sessions; and produces beautifully colored merchandise which you can buy online (stickers, press-on fingernails, recipe cards etc) Kudos to Elliot Ong and Kenny Lek ...