When I get interested in something, I can get a little – shall we say – obsessed with figuring out how it works.
Just ask my wife and kids.
A recent obsession has been learning how to speed up solving the famous Rubik’s cube and its 45 quintillion possible combinations.
Talk about a headache.
This all started quite by accident when we were all stuck at home during the early days of the pandemic.
I bought a box of popular fidget toys for my youngest son, who was under 10 at the time. It had all sorts of related items in it, one of which was a cheap Rubik’s cube knockoff.
They may not be at the top of any 2023 holiday toy lists, but they’re still around 40 years after the early 1980s craze, when hundreds of millions were sold around the world.
And what’s happening with them is stunning. Even in my own house.
My son preferred the other toys in the box. And I was bored not being able to go anywhere or do anything. So, I thought I would learn how to solve a Rubik’s cube.
In the age-old spirit of friendly competition with Dad, my son took on the challenge of beating my solve times.
He can now do it in under 30 seconds, and I have no hope of ever catching him. If for no other reason than I can’t move my fingers that fast.
It’s extremely impressive to watch him solve a fully scrambled cube in less than half a minute.
But if you want your mind really blown, take a look at Max Park – the world’s best “speedcuber.” Max set another world record just five months ago by solving the 3×3 cube in a blazing 3.3 seconds. It’s worth watching…
This amazing feat becomes even more astounding when you learn how Max got here.
It started a lot like it did in my household.
Max’s family had a Rubik’s cube sitting around that he got interested in when he was nine. Max is autistic, and reduced fine motor skills is one of the effects.
Max’s mother fostered his interest in the cube, thinking it might help both with his dexterity and also socialization. She taught herself how to solve it using YouTube videos. She then taught Max how to do it, and he picked it up quickly.
How is it even possible to solve something with 14.2 quintillion possible combinations in 3.3 seconds?!
The answer is the way to solve any big puzzle, including the stock market.
Luck or Skill?
No one could come anywhere close to solving a Rubik’s cube in 3.3 seconds on luck, trial and error, or both.
There are 302.5 million possible combinations for Mega Millions lottery tickets that everyone buys when the jackpot zooms over a billion dollars.
There are 47 billion times as many possible combinations for the Rubik’s cube.
The difference is the lottery is almost totally random. A number can’t repeat in the first five spots, but otherwise, any number one through 70 could be selected.
On a Rubik’s cube, the square is always the same color. It can be rotated to different locations, but it does not change color.
That makes it possible – though not easy – to map out solutions.
If you notice in the video above, competitive cubers have 15 seconds to inspect the cube they must solve. Max Park’s mind is like a supercomputer, solving it using mental algorithms before the clock starts.
When it does, it’s a matter of executing – with his incredibly fast fingers.
The Key is the Right Algorithms
By running the numbers, you can cut through the noise of seemingly endless possibilities and zoom in on the most efficient solution. And I would call 3.13 seconds amazingly efficient.
The same approach is the key to solving any big puzzle… like the stock market.
Proven algorithms that you run frequently and quickly allow you to cut through noise and avoid the dead-end roads.
If you want to stay on the path to predictable profits, you’ve got to be able to instantly bypass thousands and thousands of stocks that can never get you there.
When I say “thousands and thousands,” I’m not kidding. Out of 26,000 stocks ever listed in the history of the market, 4% generated all of the market returns above treasury bills, according to research done by renowned professor Hendrik Bessembinder,
In other words, 96% of stocks were noise and trash, in the end.
But finding those rare 4% of stocks means screening millions of data points – and fast. That’s where algorithms come in.
Max Park might be able to run his mental Rubik’s cube algorithms in just 15 seconds, but my quantitative analysis system takes a bit longer. It sifts through and analyzes more than a million data points every night while everyone is asleep.
Analysis would be useless if it doesn’t produce the desired result, and that’s where quantitative analysis, AI, and my experience come in.
Why sift through the market of 6,000 stocks yourself? I designed my Quantum Edge system’s algorithms to perform a deep mathematical analysis of roughly 129 fundamental and technical variables for every single one every single trading day.
These aren’t just any variables. To select them, it took me extensive research, studying, and talking to the most successful investors I know. Not to mention my own experience sitting at a trading desk and helping millions of dollars change hands through Big Money buys and sells.
These variables are the best predictors of higher share prices – a 70% success rate through three decades of data, years of daily use, and even more years of back testing.
When I log on early each morning, my computers have already done more data retrieval and analysis than probably an entire brokerage firm. My system assigns a Quantum Score to those 6,000 stocks every single day – a single number that lets me know if each of those stocks is an opportunity, a danger, or just not going anywhere.
That’s like Max Park’s inspection of the Rubik’s cube. I might not be able to do it all mentally, like he does…
But I’m always there, ready for the timer to start anyway. And with just a few additional clicks of the mouse or taps of the keypad, I am left with a handful of stocks likely to solve the profit puzzle that plagues so many investors.
It’s a long way from where I started out in this business. I was as puzzled as anybody else new to stocks. When I made a trade, my boss openly took the opposite position… often without doing much research. Talk about a blow to your ego.
I knew then that I needed to figure out how to figure it out.
I did it with the Rubik’s cube, though that was for entertainment. And I’m pleased to say I did it with investing.
That 70% historical win rate is a powerful path to building wealth. It’s based on cold, hard data proven to accurately predict profits.
And that’s the whole goal of my investing services, including Quantum Edge Pro: To help my readers using technology-enabled superpowers that analyze the right data in the right way to make big, reliable profits – over and over again.
With the market strengthening and all my data pointing to more big gains, now is a great time to put those puzzle-solving skills to good use. (You can learn more here.)
Talk soon,
Jason Bodner
Editor, Jason Bodner’s Power Trends
