Changes to ETF Trading Portfolio

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Been meaning to do this for awhile, but the New Year a good time to make a clean break. You can see from the correlation matrix below that there was a lot of overlap among the ETFs I followed, and many of them are now so illiquid that they are untrade-able, even on a weekly basis! 

Click to enlarge

DUG and SCO are highly correlated with the more liquid ERY, so they both get the boot.

DXD and FAZ are highly correlated with the more liquid SDS, so those two get the boot.

MZZ is completely illiquid and highly correlated with TZA, so it gets the boot.

EPV, FXP, SMN, SRS, TYP, YCS, and ZSL are all illiquid -- all get the boot.

Even though QID is highly correlated with SDS, I'll keep it for now. 

VXX is very liquid but I prefer to keep the inverse XIV instead.

So that leaves us with: DZZ (gold), EDZ (emerging markets), ERY (energy), EUO (Euro), QID (Nasdaq 100), SDS (large caps), TBT (long treasury bond), TZA (small caps), and XIV (inverse VIX). 

This is how the post will look from now on:

Books Read -- Emil and the Detectives

Added on by C. Maoxian.

I'm going to try to read a book a week in 2016, ok, round it down to 50 books. Emil and the Detectives was actually an Xmas gift to my ten-year-old son, but I read it first. It was charming. Did have some disturbing pre-visions of Nazi youth (book written in 1929 ... four short years to 1933). Favorite line: "Four million people lived in Berlin, and not one of them was interested in Emil Tischbein."

Shake Off Your Lowly-born Tags

Added on by C. Maoxian.

From my Spotify Weekly Discover list ... people, places, things name-checked in this song: Marlene Dietrich, Zizi Jeanmaire, Balmain, St. Michel Boulevard, the Rolling Stones, Sacha Distel, the Sorbonne, Picasso, Juan-les-Pins, St. Moritz, Napoléon brandy, Aga Khan, Naples. Sarstedt bemoaning social mobility? Sung from vantage point of sibling who didn't make it?

Note white people rocking listlessly in foreground (1969). 

Relegation Zone

Added on by C. Maoxian.

The Arctic Monkeys are no longer kids ... I like a lot of their songs, even recent ones ... another lost love song ... you'd have a lot of them too if Alexa Chung were your ex ... the absurdity of the tractor pull is inspired. 

New Sandbox Additions

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Santa brought the kids some earth moving equipment and a sandbox. He placed the latter in the basement and filled it with 700 pounds of sand, which strained his old back. 

The sacred rule of only buying automobiles from the Axis powers also applies to toys. I love the Siku 1:50 stuff. Daddy has his own corner of the sandbox and is known to make rumbling sounds while improving the site.