Blog News – Page 17 – The Aleph Blog

Why Did I Name This Site “The Aleph Blog?”

Posted on 22 November 2007 by David Merkel

I’ve been asked about the website name a number of times lately, so I want to explain the reasons behind the name.? Now, two of the reasons were listed on my first post:

Thanks for coming to the Aleph Blog. This is a work in progress, and suggestions are solicited for both style and content.

The Aleph Blog derives its name in two ways: first, Aleph is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek Alpha. Alpha is what is desired out of investment managers ? outperformance versus a client?s benchmark. I have my methods for doing so that I have described over at RealMoney, and will continue here at my blog. Second is that the Hebrew letter Aleph corresponds to the word for ?Ox.? Well, what?s more bullish than an Ox?

I look forward to communicating with my readers, and building this site into something that a lot of people can learn from and enjoy.

Sincerely,

David

That was nine months ago.? The blog has come a long way since then.? There were several other reasons why I chose the name.? In the mid-90s, I wrote out a business plan for a fund that I called the Aleph Fund.? My goal was to create a Value investment shop called Aleph Investment Advisors, or something like that.? Why Aleph, though?? Why not Alpha?

Aside from the fact that “alpha” has been grabbed by others, I’m a little quirky.? Friends of mine call them “Merk Quirks.”? Because “alpha” is overused as an investment word, but the concept has validity, I decided to adopt the Hebrew version (aleph) in place of the Greek version.? My rationale involves my view of Western culture.? Given the influence that the Bible has had on Western culture, I view the Jewish impact to be as great as the Greek impact, but the Jewish part is underappreciated.? To most Christians, the part of the Bible written in Hebrew (Old Testament, Tenach) is more opaque than the part written in Greek (New Testament).

I’m a Reformed Presbyterian.? We view the Bible as a whole, and our pastors learn Hebrew (admittedly rudimentary), and Koine Greek.?? It’s important that those who lead us be able to understand the original languages as best they can.? For me, I pick up on a bit here and there.? If it wasn’t enough for me to see an “aleph” as the beginning of Psalm 119, it might have been enough for me to see the mathematical “aleph-null” when I was a kid — an expression for the total number of integers.? Aleph is big, very big.

That’s why I called this “The Aleph Blog.”? It dovetails into my personality, and it sets my investment blog apart from blogs that have more conventional names.

With that, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving.

Sincerely,

David

Almost Done With The Presentation

Posted on 11 October 2007 by David Merkel

The Society of Actuaries presentation is a “labor of love” piece.? When I say that, I mean that it took a lot of effort to think through and put together.? If you have a subscription to RealMoney, you can look through the articles on my Major Articles List.? Most of them are still relevant today.? I wrote long-dated pieces for RealMoney that would stand the test of time.? For what they paid me, they really got their money’s worth. 🙂

I don’t have a lot to say tonight.? I’ll be back to regular blogging tomorrow evening, because my presentation will be done.

Power Outage

Posted on 28 September 2007 by David Merkel

Apologies for not posting last night.? A power outage hit our neighborhood, and ate my post.? It also ate a decent amount of the work I was doing to respond to some questions of Bill Rempel, aka NO DooDahs!? It seems that I am used to having the “autosave” on at work and not home.? Well, that will change.

I should have something more up this evening, with a big post off of Bill’s questions Saturday evening.

Advertising Notes

Posted on 26 September 200722 June 2017 by David Merkel

I’m about to add advertising to my blog, and I’d like to ask a small favor from my readers.? If you happen to see an advertisement that is morally objectionable, please send me an e-mail.? Include the URL of the ad.? Examples would include:

Payday lenders
Gambling
Tarot Reading
Known Investment Scams

There are likely more, but that’s a start.? Google on ads is not “don’t be evil,” but rather, is amoral in their ad filtering, not allowing even for rudimentary category blocking.? One has to block ads URL by URL.? Klunky, if you ask me.

Again, thanks to all my readers for their help in making this a better site.

Post 300 (Mainly About Friends)

Posted on 20 September 2007 by David Merkel

Well, its that time again.? WordPress informs me that this is post 300.? For me, that means a time to stop and reflect, and let readers know what’s going on in my life.

The blog has been live now for about seven months, and it has seen growth.? Growth in readers at syndicated sites (I’ve lost count), growth in readers through Feedburner (RSS) and Feedblitz (e-mail), growth in the number of blogs linking to me, growth in comments, personal e-mails, and spam.? Since the blog started, I have screened out over 6000 spam comments.? It fascinates me how much effort goes into trying to penetrate the comments filter of this blog.? I review the spam filter periodically to rescue the 0.1% of captured posts that are genuine.

As in most of life, we don’t succeed purely on our own.? It helps to have friends.? My most personal support comes from my family and my church.? Beyond that, though, I don’t think this blog would have gotten where it is today with the aid of James Altucher at TheStreet.com, Abnormal Returns, Charles Kirk at the Kirk Report, Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture, StumbleUpon.com (surprising how much traffic has come from there, and all recent), Roger Nusbaum of Random Roger’s Big Picture, Bill Luby at VIX and More, Seeking Alpha (Aleph – Shalom), and Jeff Miller at A Dash of Insight.? A special thanks to my friend Cody Willard who encouraged me to do this early on, and who has received the promotion of a lifetime recently by becoming an anchor at the new FOX business news channel.? The quality of insight in business journalism has just taken a turn for the better.

Speaking of friends, I’d like to talk a little about what I am up to now. ? No one has bitten yet on my equity management product, which has handily outperformed the market over the past seven years.? In one sense, that’s no surprise.? Doing well with a small asset base is not going to attract many takers, even if you have done in a liquid, disciplined, institutional way, as I have.? But I am still talking to people, and I have a four page synopsis of what I have done over the past seven years.? If any of my readers has an institution or a wealthy friend that you think might like to seed me (early investors get advantageous terms, permanently), please e-mail me.? Any real referral puts you in my “friend for life” category.

We’ll see where this leads. My dream is to manage money for others using my eight rules, and eventually set up a mutual fund so that smaller investors can join in.

But friends help in other ways also.? Two friends have decided to employ me as a consultant.? One for bond management advice at his bank, and management of two balanced funds, and another to analyze four insurance companies that he owns big stakes in to get a second opinion.? I am available for other consulting arrangements as well.? My wide (shallow?) skill set makes me particularly good for projects requiring knowledge of a broad range of subjects.? I’d like to say that no problem is too tough for me to take on, but that’s probably not true.? I have solved many tough problems for life insurers and investment firms, though.

Friends help in other ways also.? I have an article coming out in MoneySense magazine in November; an editor came to know me through RealMoney and my blog.? I am friends with a number of public insurance management teams.? One of them has granted me an interview in October; we will see where that leads.? My friends from my corporate bond management days are helping me as best they can; I need all the help I can get.

That’s what I am up to now, aside from seeking for venture capital for a friend, and aiding other friends in their business pursuits.? Oh, and seeking out other writing assignments.

A special thanks to the 22% of my audience that hails from outside of the US.? It surprises me that I have many readers in Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, China, Uruguay, France, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, South Korea, India and Taiwan.

Now, about future blog plans. ? Here’s what I have coming up:

Build out my books page, with book reviews, complete with a little Amazon store.
Articles: How markets and traffic are similar, When to be flexible versus rigid, hidden correlations in strategy, problems in academic finance, rescuing Capitalism from capitalists, and more.? Also more articles that answer reader questions.
My usual coverage of current topics, particularly when things are hot.
One more thing: a stock picking contest, akin to the Value Line contest done in the mid-1980s, with a prize to the winner.? This contest will test skill in picking stocks, rather than luck in trading, as so many contests do.? Sponsors are welcome to apply, otherwise the prize will come out of my pocket, which means it won?t be large.? A sponsor will receive free advertising on my site for the duration of the contest.

Finally, thanks to all my readers who take time to read what I write.? It is a pleasure to produce content for you, and I will do my best for you.

Throwing the Switch on a New Blog Design

Posted on 7 September 2007 by David Merkel

I feel a lot better now.? It took more effort than I expected to do the redesign, but now it is done.? Comments are welcome, as well as suggestions.? Would a calendar be useful, etc?? I did not expect that I would have to learn some PHP and CSS, but it proved useful to do so.? Almost makes me want to tell stories about programming exploits in my early career, but I think I would bore most of you silly.

Over the next few weeks, I will be adding some subdued advertising, and setting up an Amazon Store, with (initially) short reviews of investment books from which I have benefited.? If you want to buy the books, I appreciate it, but my service here will be to give you enough knowledge of what the book is about, that you can figure out whether it would really be of value to you or not.

On a different note, much of next week will be devoted to finishing my slides/talk that I will be giving to the Investment Section of the Society of Actuaries at the Annual Meeting on October 15th.? I’ll post the slides here when I’m done, and you all can have a look at them.? My talk is on the Global Macroeconomy.? Small topic, huh?? I offered others, but that was the one that they most wanted, and would be the most challenging for me.? Good thing that the markets have gotten so interesting — when they asked me to speak back in April, things were much quieter.

Again, I thank you for reading my blog, and particularly for those who register and comment.? You make the blog and my life richer.

Blog Notes

Posted on 7 September 2007 by David Merkel

No post tonight, because I spent a lot of time today working on my site redesign.? I’m afraid most of the time went for naught.? I am getting pretty close to completion, though, and when the new design goes live, I would like feedback on it.? I will miss some design elements of the current site, and I am still working with the new design to make it look better.? It is more functional than the present site, but it is not as pretty, and I’m afraid I’ll have to sacrifice there.? (On the other hand, maybe I need to get a book on PHP programming…)

One more note: Remember when I wrote about Timothy Sykes forthcoming book?? No?? Oh well, it’s for sale now, and there is a link at the bottom of this post.

Oh, wait, one more off-topic comment: be sure and check out this new feature at Google Maps.? Suppose I wanted to go from Baltimore to Milwaukee, but I wanted to go through Indianapolis.? I can type in “21042 to 53005” to generate a map, but then I can drag the path to Indianapolis, and it calculates the optimal path.? Other applications: you are looking at your work commute, and find that the optimal path goes through a construction zone.? You can drag the path to avoid the zone, and it calculates a new optimal path.? Pretty neat.

Site Revamp Coming Next Week

Posted on 1 September 20071 September 2007 by David Merkel

After fruitlessly trying to revamp the code for the WordPress theme that I like so much, I have concluded that I will have to install a new theme and make all the necessary adjustments to the code to bring back all the functionality the I have at present, while allowing for relatively inobtrusive ads. I will be implementing this next week, though the changes may come a little at a time. Comments are welcome; simply e-mail me at the address listed on the Contact Me page.

I thank you for reading me. Your time is valuable, so I hope this site provides continuing value to you.

Blog Notes

Posted on 21 August 200721 August 2007 by David Merkel

Personal news before I start for this evening. My new computer arrived today, I got set up for my Bloomberg trial (I feel smarter already; I can do wonders with a Bloomberg Terminal), and I got my first bona fide offer for advertising on my blog. My problem — what do I charge, and do I need to redesign my site to create more real estate on the screen? Programming isn’t my problem there per se; HTML isn’t rocket science, and I have hacked my way though probably two dozen programming languages in my years as an actuary.

The greater question is what I want my blog to look like for readers; getting a little cash flow is nice, but if it turns off the readers, that’s a minus. Any advice that you all can offer me is appreciated, particularly any counsel from bloggers accepting advertising at present.

Beyond that, I have plans to add a book review section, and I have a number of article ideas, many generously suggested by readers. I will begin writing more longer-dated stuff as the panic subsides, but I don’t see that happening for a few weeks at least.

Blog Notes

Posted on 4 August 200722 June 2017 by David Merkel

I have more good stuff coming next week. For those with a subscription to RealMoney, be sure and catch my article Monday morning.

I have added Feedburner to the blog as an option for receiving my posts, and comments from readers, via RSS. If this is an aid, let me know, and if this is something you would rather not see, let me know. I want to maintain a balance between functionality and simplicity.

I plan on responding to blog comments and returning e-mails early next week. Much as I thought leaving my employment would free up time, many other demands have intervened. Thanks for reading, and keep giving me feedback; it only improves what I do.