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Recently, the Los Angeles Kings made a point to reference the fact that their team needs to generate better chances. This topic was revisited in a recent piece on pursuing Joe Thornton. In both pieces, the Kings are discussed as needing to generate higher quality chances to the slot area, whether that’s through passing or skating.

A little backstory: I diagnosed and wrote about this last year after viewing then Kings assistant coach Davis Payne’s presentation on generating offense during the coaching clinic at the NHL draft in Buffalo, NY. With the right data, it becomes possible to measure and evaluate how a team generates offense. Rather than look at the location of the shot, sequential passing data allows us to measure the impact on goal-scoring from different origin points on the ice, as well as the evaluating whether a pass or a shot was a better choice given the situation. Some of the findings from my work has led to the conclusion that teams don’t play behind net often enough.

Without going too deep into the numbers, the reason why playing behind the net is advantageous is because it predicts the rate at which your team will score goals much better than most other offensive metrics. So, if a team is dominating the shot totals, but struggles to score, it is worth the investment to review just how the team manufactures offense and seek to improve the quality of the team’s output. Let’s have a look at some NHL teams to illustrate the point.

2015 – 2016 Team Shot, Goal Rates and Shooting Percentage at 5v5 (data from NaturalStatTrick.com)

The above chart shows that despite leading the league in shot generation, the Kings did not score on par with other prolific offensive teams like the Stars or Pittsburgh Penguins. This is partially due to the Kings completing “Dangerous Passes,” which are what I call a shot assist (pass preceding a shot) the originates from below the goal line or moves across the slot, as a lower percentage of their overall offense compared to the rest of the league. Let’s look at this most recent season to see what, if anything, changes among the leaders.

2016 – 2017 Team Shot, Goal Rates and Shooting Percentage at 5v5 (data from NaturalStatTrick.com)

The Kings have no issue with generating shots and getting possession in the offensive zone, but suffered from creating many dangerous chances as I outlined last summer. Again, we see the Kings as the lowest team in the league when it comes to their shot selection. Basically, less than ten percent of the Kings shots are the result of a dangerous pass. You can see how some of the more successful teams via goal-scoring rates have higher dangerous pass percentages.

So what? Sequential passing data offers a way for a team to quantitatively evaluate how efficient a team’s offense really is. As you can see, the Kings generate a lot of shots, but have the worst proportion of quality chances to shots in the league. This should lead to a team revisiting how they play the game. Naturally, I wondered what it would look like if a team made the conscious decision to run more of their offense from behind the net. I think the examples below would be a good start.

The diagrams that follow are from a larger piece of work that expands on the position designations (You can view the entire piece which goes through each phase of the game and how we can apply data analysis to improving a team’s system), but briefly: defensemen are replaced by backs or wingbacks to make supporting the forwards and jumping into the play a bigger part of their identity.

Principles of Playing Behind the Net

Before I get into examples, there is one other point I want to articulate about offensive zone strategy and that is the net front presence. I don’t believe it is wise to simply plant a player in front of the net at all times. I do feel that many teams will feel compelled to have a player defending their net at all times, however. So, if the offensive team simply makes continuous, cycling runs towards the net with multiple players at different times, it creates confusion among the defenders and will likely end up with an open player elsewhere on the ice, or lead to the offensive team outnumbering the defending team at the net.

The reason for this preference is that planting a player at the net limits your options for passing and creativity. Shooting for rebounds or deflections isn’t a bad play and shouldn’t be condemned, but preferably, teams should try and create multiple passing plays by having five options all over the ice. This advantage becomes obvious if the defending team insists on a defender near the net, allowing you to play 5v4 along the perimeter and probe for openings and quality chances.

If our offense were to set up behind the net with one or two players, having a third remain stationary at the net front leads to a very crowded area. However, if this player, and others on the team, regularly are in motion, it creates gaps that our team can exploit. Playing behind the net forces teams to be responsible for a larger field of vision (everything in front of goal in addition to behind it), rather than teams playing at the point or on the wall.

Furthermore, completing multiple passes prior to shooting is a boost to a team’s likelihood of a team scoring a goal. The numbers are higher due to the strain that sustained possession puts on the opposition. Having to stay with your marker, maintain lane and gap integrity, often times at skating through and around the zone, this all leads to openings. Jonathan Quick wrote that the strain this puts on a goalie’s legs when you play behind the net is more than if a team plays higher in the zone or along the perimeter.

Look at these examples to see how the defending team is at a disadvantage when teams play behind the net.

The Playbook

Below are examples of how a team can use this analysis to tweak their tactical approach, likely resulting in better offensive chances. While playing below the goal line is highly predictive of goal-scoring, the actual shooting percentage rates are as follows: single pass from below the goal line preceding a shot has a little over 6% chances of scoring, multiple passes from below the goal line preceding a shot has over 10% of scoring.

SJ

GIF

Here Joe Thornton collects the puck in the corner and sends it below the goal line where he has support. Tomas Hertl picks it up and has the option to pass to Joe Pavelski on the other side of the net, or make the centering pass to Brent Burns, who has activated and presents as an option at the net. Had either Hertl or Pavelski simply positioned themselves at the net, Burns might not have activated and been open. This is why cycling players through the slot while the puck is down low is advantageous as the defenders have to continually assess where the attackers are.

SJ2

GIF

Here Justin Braun activates down the wall and sends a pass over to a Michael Haley below the goal line. Melker Karlsson starts to leave the slot, but follows Braun’s pass and then cuts through the slot for the easy goal. Had Karlsson simply remained at the net, the Wild defenders could have marked him easier. Again it is continuous movement that creates the openings.

PIT

GIF

Here you can see what playing below the goal line does to a team when they collapse all five players below the faceoff dots. The New York Islanders do that and fail to prevent Phil Kessel’s pass out in front. No one accounts for the Pittsburgh Penguin player behind them due to where the puck is. By simply shifting the opponent’s attention provides cover for your teammates to get into an ideal shooting location.

MIN

GIF

Mikael Granlund takes the puck away behind the net, passes over to a teammate, who then is either trying to bank this in off the goalie or passing to Mikko Koivu in front. Either way, because Koivu doesn’t stand in the slot, he is unmarked when he makes his run into the area, leaving him wide open for the goal. Continuous movement in and out of the slot, playing below the goal line, and a defense that’s reacting instead of attacking are all staples of efficient offenses.

So, what would an actual system look like that’s based around these concepts? Below are some ideas.

Fig. 61 – High Triangle Rotation

The options off of this rotation are numerous. A hole in coverage will naturally open up due to the crossing and routes run by the wingbacks and Rover. The first read should be a one-timer from the wingback coming down from the point. A second option would be if the player crossing across the slot finds some open ice and pops out for a chance. A quick switch behind the net allows for new passing lanes.

You could also flip the triangle and rotate a player in front of the net with the two players below the goal line. This would be similar to specific lacrosse tactics. There you would be trying to draw players away from the goal and hitting one of the wingbacks cutting down the dot line and across the slot. This may be more appealing if teams do not want to deal with the risk that comes with having the high triangle, as a misplaced or intercepted pass could start a rush the other way. By flipping the triangle, there are two players higher in the zone rather than a single point player.

Wingback Down the Wall / Scissor Play

If the opposition has collapsed due to our behind the net presence, we will need to draw them out again. Using the open space on the wings, our forward and wingback switch (pass preferred, but optional) and the other wingback makes runs off of the Rover’s movement back to the point. The goal here is to attack space in the slot as the opposition spreads out and reacts to the new movement.

High Wingback exchange.

Here the Rover has the puck on the half-boards. If the wingbacks are marked tightly,, an alternative  would be to have the wingbacks exchange position with one coming to the puck for an outlet and the other making a backdoor run at the far post. The slow forward, always positioned just outside the net-front defender’s reach, acts as a shooting option or can dummy the Rover’s pass through to the wingback coming downhill.

The Rover can also send a pass low and that forward can pop out the other side looking to hit the wingback for a one-timer.

Net Front Cycle, Phase 1.

Another option of a switch, and something I discuss at the outset of this section, is to have a net front presence by way of cycling players in and out. Here is how that play starts. As the winger and back exchange along the wall, the center makes a run towards the net. At the same time, the weak-side winger releases behind the net.

Net Front Cycle, Phase 2

As the play develops, we have a direct option to pass to the center, shoot/pass for a high tip in the slot, or pass low for a touch pass back to the center.

Net Front Cycle, Phase 3.

If the pass doesn’t come, the center vacates the slot and moves to cover the point. This opens the lane for the weak-side back to make a run, coupled with either the deep forward to pop out or for the boards-side winger to fill the center’s place. The winger now at the point can reset by bumping it back to the center as they come to the point, shoot, hit either player making a run, or pick a corner to reset below the end line and get it to the deep forward.

As this play unfolds, you likely have coverages failing and someone spring free during the runs being made.

Middle Exchange

As mentioned above, with the puck behind the net, the wingers exchange with the center moving towards the far post. The center will end up behind the net near the far post. The attacker’s primary read is to hit the weak-side winger coming in behind the run of the strong-side winger and center. The secondary read would be the strong-side winger’s run to the far post. The third would be a play to the center either at the net or after they have taken position below the goal line. Back remains an outlet.

Conclusions

Hockey analytics still has a ways to go with accounting for everything happening on the ice, but one way it can start to have an impact is in shot selection and offensive tactics. This has a trickle-down effect into player selection also, as a shift in preferred shot sequences will naturally lead to preferred skills. Coaches should always be evaluating their team’s play and working to ensure they are operating at maximum efficiency when in possession of the puck. One way to do that is to play below the goal line more often.

For more Analysis from Ryan checkout his article

Forecheck Data Analysis

The post High to Low in the Offensive Zone appeared first on Ice Hockey Coaching Tips & Drills.

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Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

For at least three decades, experts have noted the growing militarization of America’s police forces. The proliferation of Special Weapons and Tactics forces, or SWAT forces, is the most obvious example of that trend. Originally, such units were designed to deal with exceptionally dangerous situations (such as mass hostage incidents) in which lightly armed police would be outgunned. Not surprisingly, the first SWAT contingents originated in America’s largest and most dangerous cities.

That situation has changed dramatically. Small cities and even some modest-sized towns now have such heavily armed units utilizing military hardware and traveling in armored vehicles. They look—and act—far more like military combat units than anyone’s traditional conception of police. And the missions of SWAT forces have greatly expanded since their original formation. Increasingly, local authorities use them in routine matters that involve little or no danger of major violence from the targets of police action.

Needless to say, the neighbors were both stunned and alarmed to see such an operation take place in their quiet community. One mother stated: “I went to my daughter’s room and looked outside their window to see if I could get a better view of what was going on, and there was a man in fatigues with a sniper rifle laying in my neighbor’s driveway.”

Unfortunately, such incidents have become all-too-common as local authorities seek new missions to justify the existence of SWAT teams and to keep the personnel alert and well trained. The expansion of SWAT units and missions is closely correlated to the existence of federal programs making surplus military hardware available at little or no cost to local police forces.

Such deadly toys have become a prime justification for law enforcement budget increases and the receipt of federal grants in communities around the country.

The war on illegal drugs has been the primary justification that authorities use to create and expand SWAT units, and antidrug raids are their primary mission. The drug-war rationale has some plausibility, since narcotics traffickers are sometimes extremely violent criminals. As concerns about terrorism became more salient, especially after the 9/11 attacks, that mission augmented the drug-war justification. Politicians, even in small communities with virtually a nonexistent possibility of being a terrorism target, highlight the alleged danger (along with the menace of illegal drugs) to pump-up police budgets and gain the military hardware from Washington.

Thus far, efforts to rescind or even curtail the federal program have proven unsuccessful. The militarization of America’s local police proceeds unabated. That is an alarming development. General Colin Powell, at the time chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed that the military’s purpose is to “kill people and break things.” Military forces operate in enemy territory and tend to view all people there as potential adversaries who could prove deadly to them.

The purpose of America’s police forces is (or at least should be) totally different. Their legitimate role is to protect the life, liberty and property of people living in a free, constitutional republic. It is extremely unwise to confuse or conflate that role with the function of the U.S. military. Yet, that is what is occurring at an alarming rate.

The Posse Comitatus Act, which Congress passed in 1878, severely restricts the role of the military in domestic law enforcement. Unfortunately, that restriction has experienced significant erosion in recent decades, with some prominent political figures deriding the statute as “archaic.”

Even if the language of the act remains more or less intact, it will have little relevance if the proliferation of SWAT units continues. SWAT personnel are combat soldiers in everything but name. It matters little if they are technically police operating as part of a local government if their weapons and tactics are those of an occupying army. The old adage that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, applies to the SWAT phenomenon. The sight of such combat forces deployed in civilian neighborhoods in the United States is jarringly reminiscent of the images Americans once believed confined to repressive police states. It is tragic that such images are now the norm in America itself.

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A look at Trupanion (TRUP) - a long-term compounder [Variant Views]

Jim Chanos: US economy is worse than you think [INET Economics]

A chat with Peter Bernstein [Jason Zweig]

Bob Rodriguez: We're witnessing development of "perfect storm" [Advisor Perspectives]

A skeptic's view of popular stocks [Barrons]

Bruce Berkowitz seeks return to glory by betting on Sears (SHLD) [WSJ]

Stockpicking is dying because there are no more stocks to pick [WSJ]

Surveying the direct to consumer landscape [Medium]

Tencent rules China; the problem is the rest of the world [Bloomberg]

A pitch on Cars.com (CARS) [Barrons]

Habits of people who know how to bring out the best in others [Fast Company]

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DPG - Deterministic Password Generator

DPG is a deterministic password generator that does not store data or keep state. Its output is based purely on user input.

To Build C++ executable

To Build Java jar

To Run Python, Java or C++ version

$ python dpg.py
$ java -jar dpg.jar
$ dpg "The sentence" word

Usage Recommendations

• Use the same sentence everywhere. Commit it to memory.
• Use a different word for different sites. Be consistent with case (e.g. google, facebook, twitter, etc.)
• If you need to change all of your passwords, change the sentence.
• If you need to change one site password, change the word.

Why traditional password managers are flawed

I wrote DPG because I sometimes work in highly audited/regulated environments and I needed a way to recall dozens of complex passwords that change frequently and I disagree with the core concepts of most traditional password management software in use today. I believe that their approach is fundamentally flawed.

If after reading this you still wish to use a traditional password manager, I suggest that you put your passwords into a plain text file and symmetrically encrypt it with GnuPG or use Password Safe.

OK, onto my argument. I disagree with two common concepts used by traditional password managers:

1. Password Storage
2. Remote Systems & Web Browser Integration

When passwords are stored, they must be encrypted and then retrieved later when needed. Storage, of any type, is a burden. Users are required to backup stored passwords and synchronize them across devices and implement measures to protect the stored passwords or at least log access to the stored passwords for audit purposes. Unless backups occur regularly, if the encrypted password file becomes corrupt or is deleted, then all the passwords are lost.

Users must also devise a "master password" to retrieve the encrypted passwords stored by the password management software. This "master password" is a weak point. If the "master password" is exposed, or there is a slight possibility of potential exposure, confidence in the passwords are lost.

My other concern with password storage is proper encryption. Are you sure the encryption used to store the passwords is implemented correctly? Has the encryption been externally validated? Some password management software is closed-source and proprietary and cannot be verified or validated in any way. Encryption is hard. Even expert developers with many years of experience make mistakes that render encryption weak or in some cases almost useless.

Now, for my second disagreement with traditional password managers. I believe that password management should only occur locally on end use devices, not on remote systems and not in the client web browser.

Remote systems are outside the user's control and thus cannot be trusted with password management. These systems may not be available when needed and may not be storing or transmitting passwords correctly. Externally, the systems may seem correct (https, etc.) but behind the scenes, no one really knows what's going on, how the passwords are being transmitted, generated, stored, or who has access to them. And, many popular cloud-based password managers have reported multiple security breaches. Here are a few examples: 1, 2, 3.

Web browsers today have "everything but the kitchen sink" capabilities built-in and are becoming more and more complex each year. They are turning into whole platforms that have browser plug-ins and extensions for every possible need known to man. While many of these add-ons are handy and useful, you should not trust these add-ons with password management. Browsers are just too complex and have far too much going on to trust them with password management.

DPG addresses these flaws. Here are the key design concepts.

• DPG does not store passwords, it only generates passwords as needed. Because of this, the need to backup, synchronize and properly encrypt passwords is removed. This eliminates the weak point of having a "master password" that immediately unlocks all of the other passwords. There is nothing to audit access to and nothing to become lost, stolen or corrupt. No storage means you have none of the problems associated with password management storage.

• DPG only runs locally on end-use devices. It is a stand-alone application that does not rely on remote systems, and it is not integrated into web browsers along with numerous other browser "add-ons".

• DPG is open-source and the passwords it generates can be verified and validated by other implementations.

Password managers are important, but they shouldn't be difficult to deal with or untrustworthy. DPG removes many of the issues that I have experienced with traditional password management software. I hope you find it as useful as I have over the years.

Notes

DPG is based on my earlier SHA1_Pass software in 2009.

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If you follow Tesla’s performance in public markets you’re no doubt aware of the ongoing bull versus bear battle between analysts who follow the company.

While analysts from major investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America typically disagree (to a certain extent) on future price targets for stocks, it’s much rarer for analysts to be totally split on if a company’s stock will go up or down.

And this is just what’s happening with Tesla. Out of 24 analysts who publicly disclose their Tesla forecasts, eight say you should buy the stock or that it’s overweight (meaning they think it will go up), and eight think it’s underweight or you should sell it (meaning they think it will go down). And eight more just say to hold — essentially saying it will perform similarly to the overall market.

Specifically, the lowest price target from the group is $155 from Cowen, and the highest is $464 per share from Berenberg.

The average of these targets is $281.79, which is still a lot lower than the current price of $327.09 that the stock settled at after a 7 percent drop today.

So why did the stock drop today? A few reasons:

Yesterday Tesla announced they delivered 22,000 cars in Q2 2017. While this puts them on track to beat their 2016 year-long deliveries of 76,000, it’s less than expected, which Tesla attributed to a “severe production shortfall of 100 kWh battery packs.”

And this morning, Goldman Sachs dropped their price target from $190 to $180 on concerns that demand for the older Model S and Model X cars have plateaued and Tesla will have trouble meeting upcoming production goals.

Of course, Tesla’s main focus right now is on the more affordable Model 3, which will ship at the end of this month. And while only 100 cars will be produced in August, Elon Musk says there will be 20,000 made per month by December and 500,000 cars per year in 2018.

The real reason for such a disconnect between analysts is that people see Tesla as two different things. One way to look at Tesla is like it’s a traditional car company — and if you value it by that industry standard, it’s absolutely overvalued.

But others see Tesla as a technology and energy company rooted in its self-driving and battery production technology, which could mean that Tesla is currently only a fraction of the size it could grow it.

Whichever theory you subscribe to, we can all agree it’s going to be an interesting couple of months as Tesla ramps up Model 3 production and tries to prove it can finally roll out a car on a mass-market scale.

 

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Barry Rosenstein's activist hedge fund firm JANA Partners has filed a 13D on shares of EQT (EQT).  Per the filing, JANA now owns 5.8% of EQT with over 10.13 million shares (inclusive of options to purchase 1.86 million shares).

This is a newly disclosed equity position  for JANA. They purchased shares in April, May and June at prices ranging from $53.xx to $60.xx.

JANA's Letter to EQT Board

Rosenstein's firm also sent a letter to the board of directions and say they invested because "we believe that the Company trades at a substantial discount to its intrinsic value and has a ready opportunity to unleash this value potential by immediately separating its E&P and midstream businesses into two separate companies, which we estimate could create as much as $4.5 billion (or $26 per share) of value for EQT shareholders."

Additionally, they lay out their case as to why they are against the company's acquisition of Rice Energy.

Embedded below is JANA's letter to EQT:



If you overlaid this position on JANA's portfolio as of the end of the first quarter, EQT would be their second largest position, behind only Whole Foods (WFM).

You can view other recent portfolio activity from JANA Partners here.

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Who needs IPOs when you have blockchain, and a lot of people willing to throw good money, or rather cryptocurrency, after bad something totally unknown.

Presenting the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for Tezos, a blockchain startup which has tapped a virtually unlimited source of funding, and has raised over $200 million in just four days. Tezos is already the biggest ICO in history and with the sale scheduled to continue for another 8 days, may end up raising over half a billion dollars.

Recently, blockchain startup Block.One hit a record funding, raising around $185 million in the first five days of the crowdsale. Prior to that, another startup, called Bancor, netted nearly $150 million in contributions during the first three hours of its ICO.

What makes Tezos different from a recent surge in similar such offerings, is that this ICO is not based on Ethereum and instead operates on an entirely new blockchain, a "self-amending cryptoledger" that rewards developers who upgrade the network's protocols and allows for "seamless," consensual upgrades of those protocols (read the white paper here for more detail). Which, as Mashable points out, makes it a competitor to Ethereum.

Established by a husband and wife team, Tezos is an independent smart contract system built as an alternative to Ethereum. The platform has been under development over the last three years. Arthur Breitman and Kathleen Breitman used their extensive experience to develop the new blockchain solution.  

And here is another striking fact: Arthur Breitman previously worked at the high frequency trading desk at Goldman Sachs and served as an options market maker at Morgan Stanley. Meanwhile, Kathleen Breitman is a former management associate at Bridgewater. The startup is focused on "transparency, security and governance by consensus as fundamental design goals."

The Tezos tokens, Tezzies or XTZs, can be purchased with both Bitcoin and Ethereum, and as of this morning, there is no scarcity of demand: Tezos has already raised 53,575 BTC and 273,838 ETH, for a total of approximately $210 million at current prices. This already makes the Tezos ICO the largest in history (overshadowing the recent Bancor ICO, which raised $153 million). It may also explain the ongoing drop in ETH prices observed in recent days.

Another important point: unlike many recent ICOs, the Tezos ICO is uncapped, meaning there's no upper limit of funds the company can raise, what is likely to drive a widespread distribution of tokens. Initially the token sale was planned to start in the middle of May, but at the last minute was postponed to June.

The only limit is time, and with approximately 8 days and 14 hours to go, the ultimate amount Tezos will raise will likely be a lot bigger than it is now. 

As Reuters reported in May, Tezos received investment from venture capitalist Tim Draper, which attracted additional interest to the startup. Draper is also going to invest in the US-based Dynamic Ledger Solutions Inc, the developer of Tezos. The details of the investment were not disclosed. According to Coinspeaker, Draper first unveiled his desire to take part in Tezos’ token offering in May, thus becoming the first prominent VC investor to participate in an ICO. Some industry players are still concerned about the possible risks of token sales and the lack of regulatory control.

Draper believes that by investing in the startup he will set an example for other investors to embrace this new type of funding. Another well-known American entrepreneur, Mark Cuban, unveiled that he is going to participate in his first ICO.

Of course, the interest may wane in the coming days, and the ultimate amount Tezos will raise depends on the highly volatile Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrencies. As Stan Schroeder points out, the price of both BTC and ETH has fallen considerably in the last several weeks; if they were anywhere near their all-time highs (which they were around the time of the Bancor ICO), Tezos would already be sitting on more than $250 million. It is unclear if the recent drop in cryptos is linked to the giant ICO.

Another notable similarity between Tezos and Bancor is that both startups are "incredibly ambitious, with intent to change the cryptocurrency landscape forever. Some hot names are on both companies' teams; for example, venture capitalist Tim Draper has invested in both companies. And both companies have been criticized in the cryptocurrency community for letting their fundraisers collect insane amounts of money."

It's crazy how many worst practices Tezos has incorporated into its crowd sale yet people still give them money

— Evan Van Ness (@evan_van_ness) July 1, 2017

I will not be participating in the #tezos #ICO tomorrow. Most ridiculous ico I've ever seen. Think twice and do the research b4 investing

— Max Kaplan (@maxekaplan) June 30, 2017

Many have already warned about the easy and facility with which ICO can raise funds, and Tezos is no different: it is worrisome to see startups that have barely launched their first finished product raise hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Tezos (...) do have a solution that could mitigate some of the issues seen with other blockchain tokens through their governance model," Charles Hayter, CEO of CryptoCompare, told Mashable in an emailed statement. But he, like many others, warned that uncapped ICOs are problematic. 

 

"ICO's which are uncapped are dangerous as they imply and show a complete disregard for corporate discipline - and to an extent an element of disrespect for the investor. The question that needs to be asked is can the job be done with less money (...) and that throws a spotlight on the fairness & truthfulness of the proposition being offered," he said.

Yet despite growing criticisms, Tezos' ICO is proof that token crowdsales are still incredibly hot, both for traders looking to earn a quick buck by flipping new tokens and for crypto-related startups looking to get funded. Over-the-roof valuations will make it increasingly hard for these crowdfunded startups to prove their worth, and as Schroeder warns, "it feels like some sort of crash is inevitable, but it hasn't happened yet."

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Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett recently sat down with Judy Woodruff of PBS for an interview on a wide range of topics like the economy, income inequality, taxes and more.

Here's the video of part 1 of the interview:



And here's the video of part 2 of the interview:



For more on Buffett, we've also highlighted some recent buying activity from Berkshire Hathaway.

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"I was at the rink at 20 months old. My dad, he found a pair of skates small enough to fit on my feet. We went down to the rink, he laced them up and sat me down on the ice," Roy recalled.

His dad was one of his coaches early on.

"There was one rule, and it was always 'Come on, get up. You're not hurt,'" he remembered his dad saying.

As Roy got older, hockey became a big part of his life.

"I just always had this desire. How good could I be?" Roy said. "Could I play in college? Could I play in the professionals some day?"

It was a dream come true when Roy earned a scholarship to Boston University.

"At the time, they were the powerhouse in the country, in the mid '90s. They were the defending national championship team," he said.

There were six freshmen, but only four would dress in the first game.

"Coach (Jack) Parker let me know I was going to play in the first game," he said. "It was everything I could have hoped for."

'I'll never forget it'

But on October 20, 1995, Roy's life changed forever.

"It was the best day of my life and by the time it was over, it turned into the worst," he recalled. "From the time they dropped the puck until the time they blew the whistle, it was 11 seconds."

Roy skated onto the ice for the first time after his team scored. The opposing defenseman picked up the puck, and Roy went in to deliver a shoulder check.

"I lost my balance and fell head-first into the boards," he said. "It just basically drove my head into my shoulders. ... I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't move anything."

After the doctor and trainers came onto the ice, Roy asked if they could find his dad in the stands.

"It was the same as always. It was 'Come on Trav, let's go. There's a game to be played.' Then he knelt down, and I said, 'Dad, I'm in big trouble.' Then I said, 'But Dad, I made it,'" he recalled. "It was the best 11 seconds of my life to realize that dream."

Almost instantly, Roy exploded his fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae.

"I knew I was paralyzed probably before the first trainer even got there," he said.

Roy spent six months in the hospital before starting rehab at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.

"The rehab and recovery, it was tedious. It was slow," he said. "I just have a little bit of my right bicep ... but I had to make the best of what I had."

Eventually Roy went back to Boston University, and earned his degree in 2000.

"I figured I have to move on and establish this new life, new identity," he said.

From passion to purpose

When he was still in the hospital, Roy saw other families dealing with paralysis.

"It turned out I had great insurance. There was money that had been raised to fill in the blanks. Other families didn't have any of that," he said. "That was when I thought maybe we can raise money and help cover some of these expenses for other spinal cord injury survivors."

Twenty years ago, he started the

Travis Roy Foundation

. Half the money raised goes toward adaptive equipment grants and the other half goes toward research.

"I wanted to use the attention my story kept getting to help others," he said. "I wanted the hope of a cure to be real. The only way that is real is through funding."

Since then, the organization has raised more than $10 million and helped close to 1,500 individuals with spinal cord injuries.

"You give a family the right lift ... to get their husband, their wife, their daughter in and out of bed safely. It changes their life," he said.

Along with his work at the foundation, Roy travels around the country as a motivational speaker. He also wrote a book called "Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage & Triumph."

Roy, now 42, is still heartbroken over what could have been. But he describes living the first half of his life with passion and the second half with purpose.

"There are times when we choose our challenges ... and there's other times where the challenges simply choose us. And it's what we do in the face of those challenges that really defines who we are and more importantly who we can and will become."

http://ift.tt/2sqYYjs

Seemed appropriate...

Once again 'soft' data is hope-ing as 'hard' data is nope-ing...

Nasdaq outperformed (avoiding its worst losing streak since 2016) and Small Caps underperformed... Dow closed unch

Having first pointed out the spike in relative Nasdaq risk in early June,   Bloomberg's Dani Burger notes today that   Put Open Interest in QQQ (Nasdaq ETF) has since spiked to its highest level since 2007...

"Value" dipped as "growth" bounced back into the green for July..

It was a weird day for stocks and bonds...

Oil prices tumbled after Russia hinted it would not support further output cuts...

Which in turn smacked Energy stocks - biggest drop in 4 months - as banks and tech outperformed...

FANG Stocks bounced modestly but remain lower in July so far...

And Tesla Tanked..

The Dollar Index ended the day practicaly unchanged - jumping and dumping after the Fed minutes...Notice that for the 3rd day in a row, the dollar was incessantly bid from 3am to 7am ET (green arrows)...

The biggest movers in FX land were The South African rand (tumbled around 1.75% on local political worries and land confiscation concerns), while the Turkish lira fell near 1.5% as Kurdish tensions heightened.

Treasury yields fell modestly on the day (bonds rlalied into the close after an initial sell-off after the fed)...

Gold and silver ended the day lower (though rallied post FED)...