Racing Imitates Wall Street

Courtesy of HorseRaceInsider.com

Barron’s, last week, asked this question: “This economy keeps dispensing with decades of statistical precedent. We have a 23-year-high inventory of unsold homes, a 49-year-low in per-capita home sales, a 28-year-low in consumer confidence, and an all-time high in inflation-adjusted oil prices. With it all, is it impressive of inexplicable that the Standard & Poor’s 500 is merely at a one-month low, and just 12% below an all-time high?”

Impressively or inexplicably, racing mirrors the financial markets. Quite fittingly, Michael Iavarone and others from IEAH Stable and the New York Racing Association were on hand last Wednesday to ring the bell that signals the opening of trading on the New York Stock exchange, a place, it turns out, with which the suddenly high-profile ex boiler-room penny stock dealer was altogether unfamiliar. By then, Bloomberg News and others had exposed Iaverone's claim to have come from the hedge fund world as ... well, a lie -- and hardly a little white one.

Scoffing as decades of statistical precedent embraced by those who made cases against his Kentucky Derby prospects based upon long-cured, Big Brown remains undefeated less than a week before he will attempt to sweep the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes. Like those holding short positions in the S&P 500, who await the return of cold reality on Wall Street, they observe the current events in and around Barn 2 at Belmont Park and attempt to weigh their potential to thwart Big Brown.

Continue reading...