First a follow up to an idea from a couple of months ago about creating some sort of fund that would make constant bets on Kalshi or Polymarket. The idea was not so much hold bets through to the conclusion but to use an algorithm to scale in and out as prices change. The hope would be some sort of uncorrelated, absolute return outcome that maybe did a little better than T-bills.
The NY Times wrote about something not that close but sort of close. The article was about arbitraging between two markets when they price outcomes differently. If between the two markets the yes and the no outcome add up to less than a dollar, then a combo bet could be placed to capture the pricing discrepancy, very much hitting singles. The article profiled a mathematician who the Times reports has made over $1 million in the last three years.
The arb isn't betting on outcomes it is exploiting inefficiencies and discrepancies.
Torsten Slok is concerned about the enormous size of the three largest index ETFs; VOO, SPY and IVV.
I think it is important to understand that indexes have flaws and drawbacks and it is prudent to know when to deviate from tracking too close to the index. With 50% in tech plus communications, I believe this is one of those times. I have no idea if anything bad will happen but the concentration of risk in those two sectors seems obvious.
And we'll close out with a fire department buddy who is my age but retired. Part of his post-retirement routine is that he picks up shifts at his church as an EMT during Sunday Services which is not uncommon for larger churches. I believe he has done similar work at the arena in Prescott Valley that has concerts and is the home field for our indoor football team.
Another former fire department colleague used to get event gigs for EMS down in Phoenix, mostly concerts and festivals. The last time we had a serious fire here was the Crooks Fire in 2022. The community was evacuated and our station house hosted one of the divisions working on the fire as well as the structure protection group.
As part of this contingent working from our firehouse, there were two EMTs and an ambulance. The EMTs sat in front of our station house on their phones or tablets just hanging out waiting for someone to need help. They were doing nothing wrong, their job was to be on standby and wait in case someone got hurt. There are also teaching/training opportunities for people with EMS credentials.
The point here is there can be plenty of ways to pull together a useful income in an area that might be as relevant to you if needed as EMS is to me. None of these EMS opportunities strike me as punching clock on a regular basis. Taking shifts with the ambulance company would feel like giving up some independence.
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