Positional stocks

January 26, 2012

Conspicuous consumption — buying what others can’t afford — is a disequilibriating force.  Prices get raised and supply is limited.  The goods that are conspicuously consumed are positional goods.

A similar phenomenon occurs in the stock market.  AAPL currently seems to fit the mold.  Fashion changes.  I don’t much believe in predictions, but I predict that “bite of Apple” will have a new connotation in the foreseeable future.

Epilogue

Perhaps the best possible explanation of “positional good”.

Subscribe to the Portfolio Probe blog by Email

Latest posts

Leave a Reply

Related posts

  • Blog year 2010 in review

    December 30, 2010

    The blog year started in August and consists of 30-something posts.  Here is a summary. Most popular Ideas for World Statistics Day A quant review of "The Quants" by [...]

  • The tightrope of the random walk

    December 27, 2010

    We're really interested in markets, but we'll start with a series of coin tosses.  If the coin lands heads, then we go up one; if it lands tails, we [...]

  • Making science happen

    December 23, 2010

    One of the things I'd most like to happen in finance is for a science mindset to take hold. Perhaps this would happen more if society as a whole [...]