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Step 4 TED-talk 3: How algorithms shape our world

I think this TED-talk was quite fascinating because you get to know the way big transactions take place without disrupting the market. But as told it doesn’t always go as planned. Sometimes it goes wrong, and we don’t even know what kind of algorithm we have written. I also think it is mindboggling that we terraform the earth to get a few microseconds faster response time to close a deal even faster. This way traders can earn more money and I think that this goes al little too far. We shouldn’t transform the earth so traders can earn more money it just doesn’t feel fair. The picture in the beginning of the talk was really striking for the subject of this TED-talk. 

“They’re moving a million shares of something through the market.”

- I chose this quote because these words don’t really make clear how much it is. When you factor in the price of one stock and multiply it with the amount of stock it is getting really staggering. 

“Actually, 1.7 million is plenty”

- This quote indicates that there is no human supervision on what algorithms are doing, and it shows if there isn’t any supervision what it can do on its own. 

“And when you think about this, that we're running through the United States with dynamite and rock saws so that an algorithm can close the deal three microseconds faster, all for a communications framework that no human will ever know, that's a kind of manifest destiny; and we'll always look for a new frontier.” 

- This part of the story makes me kind of sad. It shows what we are willing to do to earn a little bit of extra money. 

Link to TED-talk: click here

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Step 7 new words

When I was listening to the Yale lecture I choose I came across a new word called: ‘tangency’. It was used to describe some sort of portfolio but I had never heard of the word to describe some sort of portfolio. So I had to look it up. Tangency or tangent is the name for a straight line that is touching a curving line in mathematics. This word probably isn't used that often in everyday English but I at least learned something new today. 

When I was watching the TED-talk about algorithms is heard the words ‘ossify’ and ‘calcify’. I have never heard of those words, so I had to look them up. ‘ossify’ means that things are not able to change, they are fixed. ‘Calcify’ is kind of similar but not exactly. Calcify means that something is fixed but can change in contrast to ossify. 

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Step 6 my experience abroad

I have several experiences abroad that I can tell about, but since I'm writing this for the English subject, my travel and stay in London seems the most suitable for this assignment. In 2017 we went to London with the third grade of the MAVO and we stayed with host families. The cultural differences only really stood out with the host family and you experienced them yourself. Taking off shoes in the hallway is very common there, while in the Netherlands that is not the case at all. The breakfast there was also very different than we have in the Netherlands, so the English breakfasts eat warm in the form of hearty food such as beans and sausages. Although they did take us into account with breakfast and we could just eat Dutch chocolate sprinkles. Though they ate marmite as a spread. When we were actually in the center of London, it was mainly gettingused to the crossing points. Because you are used to looking to the left, but because they drive on the other side of the road in England you have to look to the right. It was also noticed that in speaking people often speak very politely. That is something that does not happen much in the Netherlands, although we Dutch are rather quick and direct in answering according to foreign people. I had a great time in London and I’m looking forward to going back to London in August 2022.

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Step 5 Yale lecture: Portfolio Diversification and Supporting Financial Institutions

This Yale lecture was about portfolios and how to make sure you have a good spread in your portfolio. Of course, a number of theories were brought up from Nobel winners. But it all started with an example of the first publicly issued shares, and that was from the VOC. The VOC was a very fast growing company and that is why many people wanted to own a part of the company. Because the shares could be freely traded on the Amsterdam stock exchange and everyone were talking about it, there were also different opinions about the company's price. And so people started speculating about a stock. This made shorting a lucrative business. This happens quite naturally. If you only own a stock, you are highly exposed to only one company, which means that you run a lot of risk. In other words you put all your eggs in one basket. That is why risk management and diversity in your portfolio is important.

After the intro about the voice, he continued on the origins of research into portfolios. Because it turned out that before 1952 nobody had researched the performance of different portfolios. Harry Markowitz was the first to research this. His research was so revolutionary that it eventually won him a Nobel Prize. After explaining how and what Markowitz had done, he continued with a formula that indicated what a high-risk and a less-risky asset are related to. Of course, the more risk you take, the more you get in return, but it turns out that you can calculate your best return. And he also showed that if you add several things to your portfolio that you can still calculate it. But that it is important to include different types in your portfolio, otherwise the spread will decrease.

Why was this lecture relevant to me? 

This lecture was relevant to me because I personally have learned allot in the past year about building wealth and investing in general. This subject also is part of my dedication to building a sustainable dividend portfolio. This Yale lecture helped me to better understand the way you must account for variable stocks when diversifying your portfolio. The lecture was a bit too much mathematical to really understand everything but when he explained with examples it got a lot clearer what he was talking about. This lecture also brought more insight into the origin of the shares. As a Dutch I liked to hear that the shares were devised by a traditional Dutch company and the way people deal with them was already developing then.

Link to Yale lecture: click here

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Step 4 TED-talk 2: What is dyslexia?

As a person with dyslexia myself I have heard allot about dyslexia in elementary school but never really understand why I have a light form of dyslexia and others haven’t. this TED-talk made it clearer that it just is the way dyslexia works and that it makes people with dyslexia very creative, that’s the funny part because I was always drawing and painting from a young age and I was pretty good at it too. I didn’t know it was since I’m dyslectic. I also didn’t know there were a lot of famous people that were dyslectic as well, like Walt Disney and albert Einstein. Having dyslexia doesn’t really hold me back from realizing my dreams but this talk shows that even if you have difficulties, you still can do anything.

“Time spent decoding makes it hard to keep up with peers and gain sufficient comprehension.”  - Personally I find this funny because I experienced it myself when I found out that it took me very slowly to finish reading a piece when others were already done. this was before I was diagnosed, and then it was mainly seen as a problem.

“Dyslexia also runs in families.” - I didn’t know that it was hereditary, and as far as I know nobody else in my family has dyslexia. So that was a bit of a surprise. 

“People with neurobiological variations like dyslexia, including such creative and inventive individuals as Picasso, Muhammad Ali, Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Spielberg, and Cher, clearly have every capacity to be brilliant and successful in life.”

- I think this part was quite inspirational because it shows you can do anything, like I said in my response about this talk.

Link to TED-talk: click here

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Step 4 TED-talk 1: How can company continue to thrive in times of change?

This Ted-talk a bit hard to listen to because Patrick Forth was quite hard to listen to. The essence of this talk really is still important today. It’s also interesting to learn about the speed that companies must change to keep being relevant. For example, I didn’t know that three quarters of the fortune 500 list isn’t known to most of the people. I assume that if you have some affinity with investing you get to know most of the large companies. Most people won’t know those companies because they aren’t as innovative as most of the well-known companies we use in our daily lives. But that show that being able to change must be one of the fundamentals of your company to keep being relevant to the consumer.

“Three quarters of the fortune 500 list in 2020 will be names you have never heard about.”

- This quote shows how important it is to keep innovating even if your company already is one of the five hundred biggest companies in the world.

“It is about change management; it’s about making that change happen upscale in an industrial level.”

- This quote really strikes what change is about, most companies say they are working on the future but, they don’t. this is characteristic for large companies because they think they are too large to fail. Just like Kodak.

“I think competitive advantage will mean the speed and the effectiveness of your organizations ability to change.”

- I think Patrick Forth describes the essence of agile, and I whole heartly believe that agile is one of the fundamentals of a modern-day company. Without being able to adapt to changes your company will end up like Blackberry or Kodak.

Link to TED-talk: click here

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Step 3 article 3: NIO: 'Tesla killer' wants better US-China cooperation

This article by BBC is about the problems the US-China relation creates for Chinese companies. Especially the domestic EV companies. William Li, the founder of NIO spoke to the BBC in shanghai about the international relationship between the US and China. The current relationship isn’t all that good to say the least and it makes doing business internationally hard for NIO. Other big Chinese companies like Alibaba has been under increasing pressure from Chinas financial and anti-monopoly regulators, and many are worried that another Chinese tech firm might be next. When Li was asked about his opinion about the crackdown on tech companies, he gave a very politically correct answer. The BBC reporter suspects that drawing attention to their efforts is a “balancing act”.

It's almost required to have exposure in China when investing. So strong growth stock such a NIO and Alibaba are a must when having exposure in China. It doesn’t take away the fact that is quite frighting that the Chinese government is forcing companies to gift money to the community under the name of their ‘fair share’. In NIO’s case I believe that it still has the potential to surge. But you must keep in mind that the government has a whole other role in china that the government has in any other western society. The product NIO is producing has the opportunity to rival European EV’s and especially Tesla regarding interior building quality. This growth prospect doesn’t scare me, but you still have to be cautious.

Link to article: click here 

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Step 3 article 2: Judge in Fortnite case loosens Apple’s control over App Store

This article by the Guardian is about the antitrust lawsuit against Apple’s App Store. The App Store might restrict how developers can collect payment from users. One of the developers called Epic Games who didn’t like the way Apple forces them to use Apple’s platform to get paid by users filed the lawsuit against Apple. The court decided that apple isn’t allowed to prohibit developers from telling users about other places they can go to pay the developer directly rather than using Apple’s payment mechanisms. The court also said that Apple cannot ban developers from communicating with customers via contact information that the developers obtained when customers signed up within the app. But judge Gonzalez Rogers didn’t grant Epic’s whish; forcing Apple to open the iPhone to third party App Stores. This ruling isn’t a win nor a loss for both parties but this feud if far from over. 

I personally think that this matter could reform the way apple makes money from the App Store. when they must stop with charging developers the 30% fee, they will not be able to profit as much from their position as they used to. I care about the safety of my device and the ease things work on my iPhone. It is good that developers won’t be forced to use certain thing by apple, but they should be forced to keep the quality bar as high as it is now because the Google store is a mess regarding applications. There is a lot of junk apps that don’t work properly or don’t have a use case at all. Apple should have the power to prevent that happening to the Apple Store. 

Link to article: click here 

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Step 3 Article 1 Nvidia seeks EU approval for Arm deal, decision due Oct. 13

This article by Reuters is about the anticipated ARM deal. The tech company Nvidia has announced to purchase ARM but competitors have expressed their concerns. ARM is a company that also supplies Nvidia’s competitors with critical intellectual property. Before the deal can go through regulators around the world will have to investigate the deal because ARM won't be an independent company anymore and Nvidia would then have the technology information from its rivals. It looks like the EU will approve the $54 billion takeover of the British chip designer ARM. But the EU won't be enough, Nvidia will have to wait for the American, Chinees and British antitrust regulators yet have to give their opinion and make a decision on the deal.

As an investor of Nvidia I think the deal should go through even though I understand the concerns of Nvidia's competitors like samsung and AMD. Because Nvidia is now taking control of a company they depend on to make the products they make. And that's something no company wants. The deal would make Nvidia an even stronger company and will be able to accelerate the company's growth as Nvidia can now apply ARM's technology to their own products. That, in turn, will be good for the company's numbers and thus Nvidia's shareholders. So I'd be happy if the deal went through. Not only the financial aspect, but also the possibilities that Nvidia then has to make new, more efficient products. their graphics cards would benefit greatly from it and that would make me extra happy as a gamer.

Link to article: click here

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Step 2: My English language history

My English language history has undergone considerable development. But let's start at the beginning. 

In primary school, I understood very little about the English language, but that already changed when I entered the first year of secondary school. It was still hard to understand, but when the basics were taught it got easier to understand. In the following two years there were clear improvements. But I only really started to get a feel for it when we went four days to London in the 3rd year. It was quite an experience, especially because you only then hear how English is actually spoken and how you should respond yourself. When we got back I noticed I could understand English spoken movies and youtubers who only spoke English much better. This made that I was no longer stuck to Dutch content. 

Besides my trip to London I also spoke English on vacation, for example, when we were in Greece. There were some other kids from the isles of Wight so I had to speak English with them if I wanted to interact with them. I also read books in English, such as A Christmas Carol. I'm currently reading The Little Book That Still Beats The Market. But I guess I learned most of the English passively during my online game sessions. I mainly played Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege and Battlefield. Most of the games I just mentioned have a large International fanbase so interacting with other players will most of the time be in English. So that's why I learned allot of English during gaming.