Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 07:05:38 11/16/98
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On November 16, 1998 at 04:24:16, Amir Ban wrote: >On November 15, 1998 at 21:27:27, Robert Hyatt wrote: > >> ... I ignored the stock business as that was silly but not >>insulting in any way. > > >Ever since Bruce commented on this stock issue I dropped it because it has no >real importance, but I'm getting fed up with being flamed over this. > >As a point of fact, it's perfectly true that IBM stock rose 20% (actually more) >in the timeframe of May 97. This rise was significantly over the S&P 500 index. OK... I'll drop that too. It *was* poor research however, because you could also assume that DB winning resulted in a huge jump in Compaq's stock, or in any other stock of the time... That was a "fat" time in the US stock market. And as I said, I'm not trying to "flame" you over this because it was only a statement made without any real foundation, but it definitely was *not* an insulting statement. >No, it's not possible to prove that this is a result of the match, just as it's >not possible to prove that any stock movement up or down is related to any >concrete event. But: Yes, it is quite likely that the match affected stock >prices, and companies stock has been known to move more than 20% in response to >smaller events than gigantic media exposure of a success story. Such a rise, by >the way, only indicates a public expectation of a 20% gain in future >profitability (not revenue, Bruce), which may be wrong, but public expectations >often are. > >To say that the rise is a result of the match is perhaps jumping to conclusions. >To state as proven that it is not is foolish and ignorant. That's nonsense. Stop by your local university and chat with someone in the economics department. And let them show you a couple of graphs showing the trend for the entire stock market in that time frame... IBM's stock was not the best performer by any stretch. There was a pretty good "technology stock" rise in that time-frame which began well before the DB match (in anticipation of a DB win? I doubt it.) > >Sometime when the CCC charter will be revised I propose an item that says Bob >can only post on topics he understands and bothered to check the facts. > >Amir I'll agree to that if you will. In the stock case you are well off-base. But I'm still waiting for some supportable reason for claiming that the DB guys "carefully avoided any computer vs computer competitions after losing to Fritz in 1995" because that is a direct accusation that isn't supported by *anything*. That's been my problem with this all along. I defended Fritz against claims of cheating on the SSDF. I'd defend *anyone* against such if it wasn't proven or at least supported by some evidence. In the case of the above statement, there's no possible way it could be true unless you want to make a case that they carefully avoided playing in tournaments that didn't exist, but they probably wouldn't have played *if* there were such tournaments as well. Isn't this *exactly* the argument several of us had about fritz being number 1 a while back? ie *no* evidence except "fritz just can't be at the top because when *I* play it vs xyz on my machine xyz always wins..."??? Yet no one ever offered a single game from the SSDF games and said "ok, here is a place where either fritz or xyz simply won't reproduce this move, so something odd happened." IE when someone is accused of what I would label as unethical behavior, I'd like some proof or something concrete to support such a public statement. Otherwise it ends up as poppycock. But as far as my "not knowing anything about what I say with respect to the stock market" I'll remind you that *my* comments came *after* I had a chat with an economics prof here that I know of. He, out of curiousity more than anything else, popped up some stock market graphs and looked at what happened during 1997. The entire market was on the upswing well before the DB-Kasparov match, and this continued for well after the match was over with no real correlation to the exact dates of the match at all. Bruce posted some data. This prof provided some more. But even without an economics degree I recognize baloney when I see it... I do eat it occasonally. And this was definitely "it".
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