Blog Notes – The Aleph Blog

Helping Institutions and Ordinary People Invest Better by Focusing on Risk Control

Posted on 12 July 200713 July 2007 by David Merkel

If anyone is having difficulty registering to use the site, just e-mail me, and I can set you up manually.
I have added a few more categories for my posts. One category will be best posts at The Aleph Blog. I have my own ideas, but you can nominate articles if you like.
I have an article on the VIX coming in the next week or so, also a short piece on a subsegment of the life insurance business, and one summary piece on the “Fed model.”
Longer term, there should be articles digging into mistakes in academic finance, rescuing capitalism from capitalists, flexibility vs. discipline, traffic analogies to investing, hidden correlations, and asset allocation.

Suggestions? E-mail me as well, or just comment below. Generally, I try to respond to comments within a week if I can.

One last late addition… I am republishing this because I added one more feature, the “bizz buzz” button at the bottom of each post. It appears on each post’s distinct page, as opposed to the blog’s front page.? You can get to it from the front page by clicking on the permalink, or the post’s title.? If you particularly liked one of my posts, click on the “bizz buzz” bee icon, and that will recommend the story to others at the “Best way to Invest” website.? Thanks for all of your support as readers!

David Merkel is an investment professional, and like every investment professional, he makes mistakes. David encourages you to do your own independent "due diligence" on any idea that he talks about, because he could be wrong. Nothing written here, at RealMoney, Wall Street All-Stars, or anywhere else David may write is an invitation to buy or sell any particular security; at most, David is handing out educated guesses as to what the markets may do. David is fond of saying, "The markets always find a new way to make a fool out of you," and so he encourages caution in investing. Risk control wins the game in the long run, not bold moves. Even the best strategies of the past fail, sometimes spectacularly, when you least expect it. David is not immune to that, so please understand that any past success of his will be probably be followed by failures. Also, though David runs Aleph Investments, LLC, this blog is not a part of that business. This blog exists to educate investors, and give something back. It is not intended as advertisement for Aleph Investments; David is not soliciting business through it. When David, or a client of David's has an interest in a security mentioned, full disclosure will be given, as has been past practice for all that David does on the web. Disclosure is the breakfast of champions. Additionally, David may occasionally write about accounting, actuarial, insurance, and tax topics, but nothing written here, at RealMoney, or anywhere else is meant to be formal "advice" in those areas. Consult a reputable professional in those areas to get personal, tailored advice that meets the specialized needs that David can have no knowledge of.