Spreads and Solar

The banquet of the markets, with good advice from the Enchiridion

More experiments using openly available data. If you spot mistakes, have suggestions, or can offer context, please leave a comment or get in touch. This is a reader-supported publication. Become a full subscriber to access the archive and follow developments.

May came and went, and we’re approaching the halfway mark of 2025. Time passes quickly when you look backwards, and slowly when you look forward impatiently. In a boxplot of the year so far, all we can now see is the overall distributional shape — but that’s still useful. It gives us a visual intuition for how price variability has evolved.

I was listening to an audiobook rendering of the Enchiridion on Sunday evening. Early on, there’s a passage that recommends seeing life as a banquet — and being a good guest: don’t wait impatiently for the next dish, and when it arrives, take neither too much nor too little. Participate appropriately: patient, curious, receptive, balanced.