OZY: Can Investors Trust Wall Street's New Ticker Tape?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It wasn’t long ago that IBM Watson emerged as a new kind of Jeopardy! champ in a battle of knowledge against two human quiz whizzes and proved what had long eluded scientists — that computers really could emulate human intelligence. Now one of the brains behind that same technology is playing a part in trying to shape a more democratic Wall Street.

Meet Social Alpha, a New York City-based startup created a couple of years ago by Prem Melville, who not only holds a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence but is also a veteran of the IBM Watson Research Center. Social Alpha’s programs are designed to scour Twitter in an effort to pinpoint hot investing tips — in real time — “to increase profitable trades and reduce investment risk.” How, exactly? Well, it attempts to pinpoint what analysts and investors are saying about stocks in your portfolio or how people feel about certain new investment opportunities, among other things that get discussed in tweets.

Read more here.

U.S. News & World Report: Why There's No Better Time to Buy Commodities

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Commodities haven't just had a rough year. It's been more like a rough half-decade, in which prices of raw materials and foodstuffs were halved. Once a mainstay ingredient in the investing soup, this asset class is now being shunned, and some people are making ever more bearish price forecasts. 

So is it time to jump back in and gain the well-documented investing benefits of adding metals, grains and energy into your investment pot? Maybe so, and there are good reasons to consider it (plus some pitfalls to avoid).

Read more here.

Forbes: Quit With No Net? Hard Work But Worth It -- Tess Vigeland

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Quitting the job that’s killing your soul!  It’s one of those seemingly ever present fantasies of office workers. But to quit without a net, that’s unnerving to the vast majority of people. Yet it’s what long time radio host Tess Vigeland did. She recently wrote a book about her experience: Leap: Leaving a Job with No Plan B to Find the Career and Life You Really Want.

Unlike many confessional books this one won’t tell you how easy it was. Or that the post-quit euphoria just kept on going for months. Or that everyone should do it because, hey, what the hell.  No, the story here is quite different. If you believe Vigeland, it’s hard work and there will be loads of anxiety. It will upend your life in ways you never imagined. Read more here.

Forbes: Ten Money Tasks To Get Done By Thanksgiving

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It might feel as if summer is barely over, but truthfully Thanksgiving is just weeks away followed quickly by holidays. Then it will be 2016. So don't dally, here are the money related tasks that you need to get started on now:

1. Set a budget for holiday gifts and then stick to it. It doesn't matter how small or large an amount you decide to allocate, just don't spend more than you can afford. If you are a little strapped this year, then maybe make something instead, like a painting. The truth is, your true friends really love you for your company not what physical things you give them.

2. Plan how much money you want to give to charity this year. Then send the money. I normally recommend making such payments at the beginning of the year, but we all forget sometimes. If you did, then do it now and then keep a record for tax purposes. It might help reduce what you owe the Internal Revenue Service. Read more here.

Photo by SJ . on Unsplash

Forbes: Nobel Economist Deaton --Trade Not Aid Makes You Rich

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Congratulations to the Nobel prize committee for actually awarding a free trade advocate the prize for economics. That view that trade makes us richer, along with bare knuckle free markets, has been somewhat quiet in the field of late as central planners emerged from their closets during the financial crisis. That’s why it is extra special that the new economics Nobel laureate is canny Scotsman Angus Deaton. Read more here.

Angus Deaton

Photo by Holger Motzkau, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: @StockCats Says Fed Bubble Biggest Problem Facing StockMarket

By SIMON CONSTABLE

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW — The person who tweets under the twitter handle @StockCats kindly agreed to open up to Forbes readers.  StockCats doesn’t look kindly on what the Fed is doing.

I’ve long been a fan of what StockCats writes, but Twitter’s 140 character limit is somewhat limiting for anyone, even a cat lover. The best line next to the avatar on the twitter feed: “I work hard so my cats can have a better life.” It’s hard to disagree.

Here, presented lightly edited, are the questions and the cat-answers.

Read more here.

U.S. News & World Report: How Global Conflict Can Boost Your Portfolio

By SIMON CONSTABLE

When the world goes to war, should you fortify your portfolio with defense stocks? Technically, we might not be in a world war, but little by little, the globe is becoming a chaotic jumble of military conflicts.

Some conflicts are burning slowly, like that in Ukraine; others, such as those across the Middle East, are raging. Either way, governments around the world are seeing the need to arm up, if only to head off unwanted excursions from neighboring countries.

If spending does pick up, it could bring in some huge profits for those companies manufacturing the latest high-tech weaponry, smart bombs and warplanes. Specifically, it's companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp. (ticker: LMT), Northrup Grumman Corp. (NOC), Raytheon Co. (RTN), General Dynamics Corp. (GD) and Boeing Co. (BA) that should profit.

Read more here.