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Comment by hkmurakami | Hacker News Reader

Related reading: today's Matt Levine piece on how hard it is to make money even with this info. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-16/even-c...

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They make successful trades 77% of the time they had insider information and 45% when they didnt. That clearly is an advantage.

I would never expect a 90% success rate because of how random Wall Street is, but 77% over a period of time definitely is an advantage.

That's a huge advantage. Counting cards in blackjack gives a 50.5:49.5 edge (roughly, there are variables). 77% is absolutely crushing it.

If I read it correctly, they were successful 77% of the time with inside info and 0% without, averaging 45%.

This situation brings to mind last year’s Verge article “HOW AN INTERNATIONAL HACKER NETWORK TURNED STOLEN PRESS RELEASES INTO $100 MILLION” https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/22/17716622/sec-business-wir...

The article include a great line “The [Ukrainian] intelligence agents began running a parallel operation to the Moscovite middlemen, using Turchynov’s access and sourcing their own traders, according to Demedyuk.”

Thank you for the nice link - is this guy (Matt Levine) somehow generally "known" for some reason? I liked the articles but it's the first time I hear the name.

Edit: thanks a lot for your hints/replies!

He is known for his articles about the financial industry, written with clarity and humor.

He is considered to be one of the most insightful (and humorous) finance writers today. He was formerly a Goldman Banker, and prior to this, a corporate lawyer at Wachtell, both firms having the reputation of residing at the summit of their industries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachtell,_Lipton,_Rosen_%26_Ka...

Also a Latin teacher.

I also like his take on the WeWork fiasco.

Is it a fiasco or is it just "shady business" but still successful?

Really just asking because I never heard about that company but saw a few days ago a post about its split into different sectors all having their names starting with "We..." and did not dig further (and I did not find anything useful today using my keywords).

GP is correct, this column is entertaining and informative:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-16/wework...

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