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Blondie, The Cabby, And Asymmetric Information
Porter's Journal Issue #54, Volume #2
Porter Stansberry
May 12, 2025
How Not To Be Taken For A Ride In The Investing World
This is Porter’s Daily Journal, a free e-letter from Porter & Co. that provides unfiltered insights on markets, the economy, and life to help readers become better investors. It includes weekday editions and two weekend editions… and is free to all subscribers.
Liar’s poker investment lessons… Asymmetric information leads to bad trading decisions… Insider trading and front-running are now illegal… Credit card delinquency – not just for the low-income cohort anymore… The U.S. and China pause their trade war, for now… |
Table of Contents
In the October 23, 2024, Daily Journal (“Bonds And Liar’s Poker At Salomon Brothers”), Distressed Investing senior analyst Martin Fridson recounted his experiences with the colorful Salomon Brothers bond traders portrayed in Michael Lewis’s 1989 best seller, Liar’s Poker.
Just a few years before Lewis was at Salomon, flogging bonds and collecting material for what became his first of many best-selling books, Marty had been at Salomon, identifying profitable investment opportunities in the debt market.
The title of Michael Lewis’ book detailing these days comes from an often-high-stakes poker-like betting game played on the trading floor by the highly competitive characters in Salomon’s trading group.
The game involves betting on the digits in serial numbers on dollar bills as if they were suits or denominations on poker-playing cards.
It turns out that liar’s poker didn’t appear in the 1980s out of nowhere – it dates back to a Depression-era gangster film set in New York City.
Marty takes over from here…