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| 2003/10/22 [Finance/Investment] UID:10734 Activity:nil |
10/22 Niagara Jumper: Why?
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/10/22/niagara.falls.survivor.ap/index.html |
| 2003/10/19-20 [Finance/Investment] UID:10690 Activity:high |
10/18 I want to buy HK / China stocks (ADRs and region funds won't do).
Does anyone have any experience in regard to the feasibility
(procedure, costs, tax, currency conversions, etc.) of opening
a brokerage account (preferably online brokerage) in say Hong Kong
for a US resident? Any recommendations on which brokerage (HK or
otherwise) to use?
\_ http://www.etrade.com.hk or http://www.hsbc.com.hk
\_ thanks
\_ Losing money on the Nasdaq and NYSE isn't good enough for you?
See the link below about trudy the monkey.
\_ It's been a very good year for me on Nasdaq and NYSE, but
relatively speaking, US stocks are kind of expensive now,
\_ It's been a good year for me on Nasdaq and NYSE, but
and asia is where the growth is. Used to be US falls,
asia falls, because US is the market, but with booming
China, recovering Japan, big US trade and budget deficits,
I feel that this is no longer true. I like Russia with
Putin too.
\_ You like Russia? Say, why don't you just withdraw cash
from your bank account and throw it in the bay? Better yet,
give it to me.
\_ If you look at what happened when the tech bubble
burst, US is as dangerous as any where else. Yes,
burst, US is as dangerous as any where else. Yes,
I like Russia. Country was recently raised to
I like Russia. Country was rescently raised to
investment grade. Compare price and prospects of
say VIP and MBT versus Verizon and Sprint PCS with
all their debt, for example.
\_ yup, you have to be very careful but high risk =
high reward. I made a lot of money on VIP.
\_ Me too, 46% gain, and the good thing is it
still looks cheap. Hey, let's exchange
stock tips sometime.
\_ So considering high risk = high reward, what
is this difference between this and high stakes
blackjack?
\_ The fundametals of VIP is good. Compared
to US wireless service providers, it has
better valuation, it's market has more
growth potential and less competition,
and it has lower debt levels.
\_ That's nice. You didn't answer my
question. Why don't you try Vegas,
there's more pussy than there is at
Etrade, and its cheap!
\_ troll, by research one can make a
judgement that the odds of reward
meet a certain level. in vegas, it's
\_ Odds are better with stock trading.
I think it's more than 50%. As
a game it's also more fun than
blackjack, which bores me to tears.
Pai Gow poker is more fun and
slower in terms of losing money,
but it is still not as fun as
trading stocks. There are risks
no matter where you put your
money. Feel free to put it in
a money market account if you
feel that helps in earning you
a comfortable retirement. Note
relatively speaking, US stocks are kind of expensive
and asia is where the growth is. Used to be US falls,
asia falls because US is the market, but no longer.
I like Russia with Putin too.
give it to me.
say VIP and MBT versus Verizon and Sprint PCS with
all their debt, for example.
question. Why don't you try Vegas,
there's more pussy than there is at
Etrade, and its cheap!
that US$ will likely fall
another 10-15% versus yen / euro
in the coming months. |
| 2003/10/11-12 [Politics/Foreign/Europe, Finance/Investment] UID:10593 Activity:low |
10/10 Free trade can hurt developing countries:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994247
\_ All trade policies, in fact all government policies hurt someone
somewhere at someone else's expense. There is no perfect trade
policy. There is no perfect law. It's just a case of forming
policies that help this country without hurting others worse
than necessary.
\_ Boy they are really stretching data based on a mess
of assumptions. (especially the independence of obviously
not independent data). All the data really shows is that
rich countries are less corrupt than poor ones, which is
far from earth shattering. Take a look at their lame
http://www.newscientist.com/misc/popup_ns.jsp?id=ns99994247F1
Note that the "closed" economies GDP only goes up to 9.
Why did they include data on the US and UK then? (and the
rest above 9) because it gives them a much larger slope in
their "rich to poor" corruption curve. -phuqm
\_ The Economist comes to the same conclusion, though I have
not seen the data to back up their reasoning. -AMC
\_ The Economist has stated many times that the poor countries
are to benefit more from free trade than the rich countries,
that is, if the rich countries stop subsidizing and do remove
import barries on agricultural comodities, textiles, and other
goods that can be produced more cheaply in the developing
countries.
\_ yeah, so if you're in the middle class and "haven't
gotten yours," you should be concerned about globalization
\_ Everyone should be concerned with free trade. It is
to everyone's benefit and the very first thing everyone
should be concerned with is eliminating the above
mentioned barriers on agriculture that the US (and
other rich countries put up) and specifically the US
should stop giving nearly 100 Billion dollars to rich
corporate farmers like ADM. -phuqm
\_ yes, you are right. i agree. --aaron
\_ Aaron agrees with me. jeesh, i better rethink
This is a first ;) -phuqm
\_ ok, it will probably benefit the whole of
humanity, but will it benefit every individual?
\_ It will certainly benefit everyone who pays
taxes because the above-mentioned trade barriers
are raised with your taxes.
\_ The good of the many outweighs of the good of
the few.
\_ for the rest of our natural lives, the
"many" that you talk about will be people
who populate corporate boards, not the
peons in third-world countries
\_ Sucker.
\_ I don't care. -phqum
\_ Sure, but Ghana has no leverage or control over EU and
US farm policy. In the interim they have been better off
protecting nascent local industries until they can become
large enough to become export industries. This was
practiced with great success by Japan in the 60s, Hong
Kong in the 70s and Korea in the 80s. A wide open market
favors established industries to an overwhelming degree.
\_ and in the meanwhile.. the consumers will suffer. Also,
there are plenty examples where raising trade barriers
hurt the consumers (obviously) AND failed to make the
protected industries competitive.
\_ It is certainly a tricky balance to make. But those
countries that have successfuly made the jump from
developing nation to developed nation in the last
50 years all did it. Finding the right mix of
protectionism and unrestricted trade is hard or
everyone would have done it. The point is that
mindless devotion to the neoliberal model is bad
for developing countries. See Argentina, Russia
from 1991-1996 and many, many other examples.
mentioned barriers on agriculture that the US (and other
rich countries put up) and specifically the US should
stop giving nearly 100 Billion dollars to rich corporate
farmers like ADM. -phuqm
favors established industries to a great degree. |
| 2003/9/19-20 [Finance/Investment] UID:10259 Activity:high |
9/19 How old are you and what is your net worth?
\_ 30, single, around $80k
\_ http://www.humanforsale.com
\_ 26, married, $208k/2
\_ 25, single, around $80k
\_ 30, single, around $415k
\_ 28, negative - .com laid off worker.
\_ 27, 300k
\_ 25, around $100k
\_ 23, 15k
\_ 33, divorced, $9999999/2
\_ 27, married, 300k
\_ 33, married, $450k. $1600 after-tax going to our parents every
month and they don't let us claim them as dependents. I put my sis
thru Cal paying out-of-state tuition. Got laid off once.
\_ How does your wife feel about this?
\_ Where do you think the $1600/mo comes from? She's on an
Oakland corner.
\_ 33, married, $450k
thru Cal paying out-of-state tuition.
\_ 33, married, 100k
\_ 28, single forever, often unempolyed, 100k
\_ 30, married, $600k
\_ 30, married, $285k
\_ 28, single, ~ $10-30K, I pay mortage for my parents and have gf
\_ 30, married, $285k
\_ 28, single, ~ $10-30K, I pay mortage for my parents and have gf
\_ 28, single, ~ $10-30K, I pay mortage for my parents and have gf
\_ Buying a house only decreases your net worth by a few thousand
dollars due to loan points and fees.
\_ you could sell the gf for at least 100k
\_ Depends on how hot his gf is.
\_ 38, single, 200k
\_ Should I divide the net worth by two if I'm married?
\_ most of these guys will be at 0k when they have to buy a house
\_ Buying a house only decreases your net worth by a few thousand
dollars due to loan points and fees.
\_ Does money in 401(k) count?
\_ Yes. All assets, including jewelry, car, and such minus your
liabilities.
\_ Are mortgages and car loans considered liabilities
for this calculation?
\_ Yes.
\_ Yes but you can't ignore current market value or
how much has been paid off. You *own* that part.
\_ No, that's stupid. The house value is your equity +
the difference between buy price and potential current
sale price.
\_ If I read that properly, it looks the same as
market value minus mortgage.
\_ Mortgage is always a liability regardless what your
house value is.
\_ Yes but you can't ignore current market value or
how much has been paid off. You *own* that part.
\_ Is your spouse considered an asset or liability?
\_ does she put out for strangers?
\_ 33, married, 450k, two big salaries, no debts, low expenses, will
be retiring by 50.
\_ I read an article that says if your net worth is at least "annual
salary * age / 10", you're in good shape.
\_ Which article? Which magazine? Good shape for what?
\_ It was in http://quote.yahoo.com. By good shape I think it means
you're on the right track to be able to afford your current
lifestyle after you retire.
\_ How ballpark are all your figures? What's the margin of error?
\_ I'm assuming most (if not all) are including your property/options
in net worth calculation. How much does everyone actually have in
cash?
\_ 50k in checking, 20k in retirement plans, 10k in stock, the
rest is house equity (I'm the first married guy, claiming
\_ I'm assuming most (if not all) are including your property/options
lifestyle after you retire.
in net worth calculation. How much does everyone actually have in
\_ maybe not his
\_ How ballpark are all your figures? What's the margin of error?
\_ I'm assuming most (if not all) are including your property/options
in net worth calculation. How much does everyone actually have in
cash?
\_ 50k in checking, 20k in retirement plans, 10k in stock
cash?
\_ 50k in checking, 20k in retirement plans, 10k in stock, the
rest is house equity (I'm the first married guy, claiming
300k, and that's not /2
\_ Stocks count as cash?
\_ 26, $2.15 -geordan
\_ 26, $2.15 -geordan
\- do any of you over 30 have no idea [like me] --psb
\_ I had no idea, but it was pretty easy to estimate.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/networth.html
\_ Great, I'm 33, and my net worth is mostly determined by
my life insurance.
\_ Arrr!
\_ Avast!
300k, and that's not /2
\_ Stocks count as cash?
\_ If it can be sold M-F 8-4 at market rate with a button
push, yes.
\_ Unless your checking account makes above-average interest
or you have high cash-flow, that's too much in checking.
I suggest moving most of it at least to a money market
account. Probably even a CD or bond ladder. If not a
stock mutual fund.
\_ 33, married, $100k of $450k in cash, mostly in 401(k).
\_ 26, $2.15 -geordan
\_ Your organs alone are worth more than that.
\_ maybe not his
\- do any of you over 30 have no idea [like me] --psb
\_ I had no idea, but it was pretty easy to estimate.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/networth.html
\_ Great, I'm 33, and my net worth is mostly determined by
my life insurance.
\_ life insurance? I didn't bother to think about that. how
much is the typical "cash value" of that? life insurance
don't matta when you're single
\_ Unless you want to give someone a motive to want
you dead. |
| 2003/9/19 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China, Finance/Investment] UID:10252 Activity:nil |
9/18 http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2050678 The world economy is screwed. Frightening. Perhaps it's time for the Greater China (PRC, ROC, HK, SG) region to allow its currency to appreciate slightly, and to spend its trade surplus on developing its own countries and people, but the region is not big or powerful enough to solve the world's problem by itself. Also, US probably shouldn't have gone to Iraq, but saved the money, which would've helped a little too. And Japan and Germany need to get their act together. Otherwise it's Great Depression 2. \_ Its all the white imperialist protorapist fault!!! \_ Huh? I am suggesting ways that would help lessen the burden on the US. Blame goes all around. Did you bother to read the article? \_ Err... read the article please. The Economist consistantly point out that China's economy, despite media hype, is not that big of an economy (in the article about 1 month back, it said that China's economy is about the size of Italy, or 3% of Global GDP). Further, China is not competing with USA in all front. Those manufacture jobs will moved to somehwere else, Mexico, Indonesia, or some odd ex-Soviet block nation if it's not moved in China. China is not running a high trade surplus in general (it has huge trade plus with USA, but trade deficit with virtually all its neighboring country, so in effect, China is the tiny lawn-mower engine of Asia... compare with USA being the jet engine of the world). Lastly, what would you think GM, Coke Cola, Motorolla think about rising RMB while big chunk of THEIR plant is in China? These US firms are the benefisories of cheap Chinese currency. \_ I don't disagree with you. A few points though. Motorola, Coca-Cola, GM probably would not mind a slight controlled increase in the value of the Renminbi. They don't just have factories in China, an important and growing part of their market is very much there too. A pure export driven model like that of TW, SG, SK is not feasible for PRC because of its size. It needs to be driven by internal demand. Buying US dollars and debt forever is a no win game. While US uses the money to invest and improve productivity (and spend on good life), China's local companies remain short of credit. And once US dollar devalues, you essentially threw away a big chunk of your dollars. Instead, the money could be better invested in PRC, and help it innovate and move up the chain. As for China's trade deficit ex-USA, a big part of it is raw materials and commodities from SE Asia, Australia, etc. needed for China's manufactures. The trade deficit vis-a-vis Japan is more worrisome perhaps due to Japan's protectionism? As for manufacturing jobs moving to other countries, I am not too worried because I think China has a significant and growing margin (cost + productivity) versus those countries. No one wants a sudden drastic increase in the value of the Yuan, but a slight, controlled increase may be a good idea. This Econmist article pretty much sums it up: http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=2050783 \_ Just a note. The Economist also uses every opportunity to point out that Russia's GDP is "slightly larger than Belgium's". Whoever at Economist who's making those ridiculous GDP comparisons between different countries, obviously hasn't gasped the concept of the purchasing power parity adjusted GDP. They just compare the nominal \- you know the e'ist is the magazine that invented the BigMac index, right? \_ An excellent point, but I should point out that the Economist was merely the first publication to popularize the BigMac Index. It's been a standard conversation topic among expats and backpackers for much longer than it's been a stay of the Economist. \- topic of conversation != having a model and computing it and correlating to FX futures, comparing to PPP, UIP, RIP etc. GDPs as measured using US dollars using some exchange rate which is not saying much. In USA, dollar has a very low purchasing parity power compared to all poor counties and possibly most rich countries. Therefore, the non-purchasing power parity adjusted GDP does not convey much information about the size of economy. If you look at the PP adjusted GDP, then China is suddenly world's second largest economy. Of course, GDP still doesn't say much about how well off people are in a country. You'll have to look at the per capita GDP figures, and even then the per capita GDP can be a very rough measure depending on how equally on unequally the income is distributed. \_ And when you revalue the Yuan, PRC's GDP would go up immediately. |
| 2003/9/18 [Finance/Investment] UID:10243 Activity:high |
9/18 I'm a stock holder and I get the following question on the proxy
vote: "PROPOSAL FOR THE APPROVAL OF THE ADOPTION OF THE FISCAL
YEAR 2004 EXECUTIVE BONUS PLAN. Directors Recommend: FOR"
Except for the greedy ass execs, why would any stock holder in
their right mind vote for "FOR"?
\_ Everyone washing everyone else's back. Your vote doesn't matter
anyway.
\_ maybe you *haven't read* the thing and it's actually
decreasing their bonuses or something. and if not, the
answer is, invariably, some people are stupid! duh.
\_ The presumption is that by giving these bonuses the execs will
be better motivated to increase the value of your stock. Whether
or not it works is another question.
\_ The big shareholders (corporate or institutional) fear change
in leadership even more than slightly below average leadership. By
approving bonuses, they keep the current execs and avoid possible
randomness in stock price, speculation, lack of direction, etc.
\_ don't worry, the NASDAQ board is going to give themselves a
bonus for ousting Grasso
\_ what is FOR? |
| 2003/9/13 [Finance/Investment] UID:10182 Activity:nil 50%like:29537 |
9/12 http://www.cnn.com/offbeat/gallery/content2.html $200 GWBush currency |
| 2003/9/10 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:10137 Activity:very high |
9/10 http://csua.org/u/492 (news.yahoo.com) Alabama voters suckered into voting down modest tax hike. School programs in jeopardy. Only the rich and middle class would have paid for it but polls showed only mixed support among blacks and lower income voters! This is appalling! I blame the media for this travesty! \_ 19% of Americans think that they are in the top 1% of wage earners and 20% more think that they *will* be in that top 1% within their lifetime... this should help explain why so many Americans like Bush's tax policy (Source: Economist) \_ could you elaborate on where I can find this? \_ I read it in this week's print edition. \_ Wow, I've always thought this sort of thing was true but I've never seen numbers to back it up. What a sorry bunch of delusional wage slaves. \_ Damn, now that I thought about this a little further, that's just pathetic. I believe the top decile is around $80k, correct me if I'm wrong, so there are people that make under $80k that believe they're in the top 1%? \_ You were close, top 20% of households is at $83.5k: http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/h01.html Oops, I actually used real data on the motd? I hope my account doesn't get sorry'd. \_ what do they mean by household income? I make 90k and my hubby makes 80k. does that mean our household income is 170k? \_ Yes, and those numbers would put you in the top 5%, so now you can stick it to the rest of us! (Does anyone have figures for the top 4%, 3%, 2%, 1% so that we can see how, for the lack of a better word, asymptotic it gets?) \_ 90k and 80k doing what? How long does it take to get there? \_ The real question is how to break that barrier. 100k is easy. 200k is much harder. \_ I was making $85k/yr as a sysadmin 5 years out of college. This was the boom years though. \_ so what is the range of gross income for a middle class? $40k-80k? If someone who can afford a $50k car does that qualify him/her as a well off middle class or upper class? \_ http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032002/faminc/new07_000.htm The poverty line is $18k for a family of four, so the bottom of what is the middle class must be much lower, unless you think half of America is "poor." \_ The federal pvoery definition is so out of whack that most social and economics statistics reporting work around with stats like % within n multiples of poverty line. -- ulysses, whose wife writes socioeconomic studies for a living. \_ Fine then, most of America is poor by your very odd definition of it. Look at the tables. 13% of Americans live in families that make below the poverty levels. Most people who live in families with incomes of $25k think of themselves as "middle class", no matter how much self-entitled Cal students and grads would piss and moan at having to survive on it. \_ "866,623 people opposed [it] while 416,310 voted for it" ??? There are roughly 1.3 million people in Alabama? Isn't that a pretty low voter turn out? \_ voter turnout in this country is always low \_ I find this site illuminating: http://www.lcurve.org \_ retarded. or should i say... you are so obviously a fat sysadmin. \- note by the way: you should not just focus on income but wealth also. e.g. i know some modestly paid teacher in the silicon valley who have lived there since the 60 or early 70s and owned millions of dollars in real-estate. note also there are some well-defined groups for whom current income is artificially low. like some law/med/engineering graduate students. does anyone know which congressman suggested changing the exempt amount before the "death taxes" kicked in to $100m to shut up the people talking about the farmers and small business owners? |
| 2003/9/10 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:10132 Activity:high |
9/10 How many libertarians does it take to change a light bulb?
None, the invisible hand will do it.
\_ Bzzt. It's my light bulb, and I'll fix it when I goddamn want to,
not when it suits the government.
\_ ...and if you can't afford a lightbulb, it's your own damn fault
for not being an overpaid dickhead sysadmin. As long as my taxes
are low, i don't give a damn if you freeze in the dark, you
fucking plebe.
\_ p.s. - I'm gonna go eat another Top Dog. I heart Ayn Rand
\_ ...but I don't feel any compulsion to pay for her books
when I can dl them off the net for free. |
| 2003/9/5 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:10085 Activity:high |
9/5 http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2041155 America's inequality is due to its rich people doing especially well compared to other countries' rich people. It poor people is doing about the same as other countries' poor people. \_ You mean all those countries that don't even have a middle class, and where the poor have absolutely no mobility? \_ So to make this fair we should provide welfare for foreign rich people. \_ Bottom 80% of Americans only own 17% of the country's wealth. Hahaha! Poor bastards! \_ The rich are already doing so well, and we are still cutting \_ The rich are already doing so well, and they are still cutting their income tax and inheritance tax. \_ Leaving them more capital to create more jobs. \_ As Warren Buffett noted, giving more money to rich people doesn't create more jobs--because rich people don't spend as much of their money. If you give money to people who actually *need* it and will spend it, *that* will create jobs. And more fundamentally, the fact that our rich are doing better than other countries, but our poor aren't, is *exactly the problem*. -tom \_ Buffett is a moron, and apparently you are too. If rich people don't spend the money on consumer goods, they'll use the money in a different way--investing it, etc. Even putting it in a bank account allows more loans to people who \_ Leaving them more capital to create more jobs. don't have the capital to make large purchases out of pocket. \_ Nope, ultimately you need people to spend money. Now ordinary Americans have too much debt already and the interest rate is already very low. You want your average American to have even heavier debts? \_ You miss the part about loans to people who then start small businesses which are the backbone of the American economy? Quoting Warren Buffet on anything is akin to calling someone a Nazi in an online debate. It's pointless and demonstrates lack of ability to think. "He's rich so he must know lots about macro economics! Let's do whatever this rich dude days because he's one of us!" Uh huh. \_ Quoting Warren Buffet is actually poignant in this case. Even Alan Greenspan acknowledges the pure and simple fact that if you give the money back to the consumer class, that it will have more of an effect in the short term. Giving money to the investor class does nothing for the short term, only potentially for the long term. The investor class does nothing with the money but hoard it and reinvest, that does not create their income tax and inheritance tax. \_ Leaving them more capital to create more jobs. other than "it makes me feel better to hurt someone else"? jobs, that only creates wealth (which may create jobs a ways down the road). -mlee \_ Okay, by that argument if the government gave me a billion dollars, I would automatically use it to hire a bunch of Americans instead of blowing it on hookers, eightballs, and multiple NASA space-tourism jaunts. I say you give me the money, and let's see what happens. \_ Which would create more jobs for hookers, NASA workers, etc. The money wouldn't simply disappear. It gets put back into the economy. \_ Great, so pony up the cash, Daddy Warbucks. Giving me the money the rich would save in these tax cuts would benefit the economy just as much as giving it to them. \_ Although it would create jobs for hookers, there are more efficient ways of creating jobs. You are not a prime job creation engine for the economy. Maybe in another life you'll be Warren Buffet and people will blindly quote you simply because you're rich. \_ And any rich schmoe is a prime job creation engine? Horsehockey. Saying that we should give tax breaks to the rich because they'll spend the money and therefore employ people is not only naive, it's perverse. \_ There are "more efficient ways"?!?! Yes, there are, but going through gov't is guaranteed to not be more efficient. \_ Dummy, by definition "the rich" are *always* doing well. Is this so hard to comprehend? The important part is *who* is rich, how did they get there, what are they doing to stay there, and how hard is it for someone else to get there? Does raising taxes on "the rich" help the middle class or poor in any way other than "it makes me feel better to hurt someone else"? \_ The rich gain more from the promotion of a strong US military, civil order, and national infrastructure than do the poor, hence the rich should pay proportionately more in taxes. In addition, if the rich pay more in taxes, the poor and middle class need not pay as much in taxes; if this does not constitute help, I would like to know what does. \_ That's totally false. The rich actually use less gov't resources than the poor, by far. If you are rich, you can support yourself and don't require gov't intervention in things like healthcare, housing, employment, childcare, schooling, and sustenance. In contrast the poor drain gov't resources like crazy. The poor also have bigger families, and those families are gov't subsidized. \_ You're missing the point: the rich have more to lose in the case of a weak military, civil disorder, and a crumbling infrastructure (as business relies on the infrastructure to make things run smoothly and the rich depend on business). They have more at stake and therefore should pay more. \_ Yeah why should I spend all that money on the military to protect my total asset of $200 in the bank? Since the top 1% has 50% of the country's wealth, they should pay 50% of its taxes. \_ 1) they don't. 2) they already pay more than their percent income. 3) if you've got $200 to your name and minimal or no income you're a deficit, not a plus for the economy. you're taking out waaaay more in infrastructure costs than you'll ever put back in. how does water get to your tap? who paves your roads? who pays the cop that stands on the corner? puts out your fires? brings food to your local market? runs wires to your hovel? you can't even begin to pay for what you're sucking from the tax payers in this country past, present, and future. you're a net loss. \_ Where did you get the idea about "minimal or no income"? I am in the top 19% who thinks they are in the top 1%. In anycase, it's just to illustrate a point. \_ Check the tax tables: you're paying a max of 38%, and if you're that rich and can't afford a tax-deductible accountant to steer you through the loopholes, I have a bridge in New York I think you might be interested in buying. \_ Why yes, it does. Raising taxes on the rich allows more spending on things like education, child care, and health care that increase the standard of living of the middle class and increase productivity for the entire economy. Why do you think that European productivity has been growing faster than American for over a generation? If you look at stats for the middle 50%, you can see that wages in America have stagnated for the average worker, while they have gone up almost everywhere else. Americans are working longer hours and seeing less for it, while the opposite is true in the other industrialized nations. \_ Ask the typical out of work German or Frenchman how much they enjoy the 2:1 taxpayer/leech ratio in their countries. In a generation, it'll be 1:1 in several EU nations. It isn't sustainable. The EU nations have sold their future to their past. |
| 2003/8/29-2004/2/14 [Politics/Foreign, Finance/Investment] UID:12242 Activity:kinda low |
2/13 http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040213/economy_trade_1.html http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040213/economy_prices_1.html Trade Gap widens. Imports and raw material prices rising. Inflation coming. Uh oh, doomsday scenario is coming true. Dollar falling like a rock and interest rate going up. Not bad for a Friday the 13th. \_ Inflation hasn't been and stayed this low for decades. You want inflation? Go checked out the Carter years for what real inflation looks like. The rest of that stuff fluctuates over time. Why are you so thrilled with the idea that our economy might collapse? I hope you understand that something as big as the US economy is not under the control of the President, or the Federal government as a whole and cheering for a global economic collapse so your guy can get into office is simply sheer stupidity. Have you ever talked to anyone who lived through the Depression? If you had you wouldn't be so rah-rah about the economy possibly tanking for real. \_ am I supposed to be rah-rah about the economy when there is nothing to be rah-rah about it? the great depression happened precisely because people became too optimistic about the economy. are you on drugs? as for inflation, I think everyone knows it is low, what people are concern is the direction it's going to go cause that will affect interest rate which may cause problems with various bubbles. \_ you don't have to rah-rah anything. i simply told you there's no reason to claim gloom and doom. mild inflation is not an economic problem. it is quite natural. only the insane, short sellers, and hostile foreign powers rah-rah when the US economy is in trouble. i doubt you're a hostile foreign power. \_ Hey you are the same "are you on drugs" person trolling the motd below. \_ what have you been smoking? "are you on drugs" is a common phrase on the motd. \_ No, no. You got it wrong. Our prices are just low, Low, LOW! You gotta buy American! High Quality! Excellent prices! 10% off? That's not enough! 20% off? No way! 50% off? WAY! Now we're talking! And why such a deal? 'Cause Crazy George is our manager and he wants to let you know it's ALL FOR SALE! Need credit? Crazy George will lend you the cash! Buy it! It's all good! Why worry about tomorrow when you can have fun TODAY! SWEET! BUY! YEEEARRRG! |
| 2003/8/9-10 [Finance/Investment] UID:29290 Activity:nil |
8/8 Is there a good way to short tech stocks besides shorting QQQ
or shorting individual stocks? QQQ is too general and has some
non-tech stocks and is also overweighted by dell, intel and msoft
which I don't particularly want to short. Shorting individual
stocks is too much work and has high overhead. I see a whole
bunch of tech stocks that are overvalued but shorting just one
or two is too risky for me.
\_ Options. They are cheap to buy. --dim
\_ and easy to lose your shirt on
\_ You could short an exchange traded fund like IIH if you can find
one that trades over $5 still.
\_ Why must it be over $5? |
| 2003/8/7-8 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:29274 Activity:nil |
8/7 http://www.cafeshops.com/issa_loser.7055405?zoom=yes#zoom |
| 2003/8/7-12/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:10002 Activity:nil 66%like:10692 |
8/6/3 /vol/office is back. |
| 2003/8/1-2 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:29208 Activity:insanely high |
8/1 Regarding stimulating the economy, how about creating new
infrastructures like super highways, subways, dams, and other
things that we have not been building since the 30s and 40s?
It will create a LOT of job opportunities for the poor. I mean,
this whole tax cut thing does nothing for people who are laid off,
and the only people really benefiting from it are the people who
already have a lot of money or people who have stable jobs.
\_ why work so hard when we'll get it for free soon enuf
\_ And who's going pay for this? local gov't? According to
Davis we're broke. Anyway, the public works programs of the 30's
have been largely discredited by economists as failed social
experiments. Dams, btw, cause major ecological disasters for
people living downstream. Also, remember that there's a long
\_ and upstream
term cost to junk like subways and highways. If they're not
maintained they break down, and it only makes sense to build
this if there's a need for it.
\_ Germany dithered for years about building the Transrapid
(look it up) citing ecological damage, economic necessity,
(their train system is in chaos compared to 10 years ago),
labor problems, bla bla bla. The Chinese, meanwhile, told
Siemens to go ahead and just do it, and now have a working
super-high-speed rail corridor near Shanghai. In the 1930s,
before people knew the damage dams did, FDR went ahead and
blew wads of cash on big prestigious projects, giving the US
a massive boost in electrification, as well as a ton of jobs
that helped kick-start the economy, critics be damned. Now
for 10 points, what's the lesson here? -John
\_ Which economists? Milton Friedman maybe. Many (most?) economists
disagree with your statement.
\_ bush does not care about the poor or what's really good for
the economy. fuck the republicans. All they want is $$$ for
themselves. They don't give a fuck about people who gets laid
off or otherwise have no money. Short of a revolt, there's nothing
to be done. wait for the next election.
\_ I think you should step forward and kill him to save us all.
Afterwards I'm sure everyone will understand when they have jobs
and stuff from the policies you implement such as...?
\_ building infrustrature, pump $$$ into the economy (instead
of tax cuts, wars), there are a billion things to do.
\_ How about tax cuts for the middle class?
\_ remember how shitty the economy was when Clinton took over?
guess you are too young to remember those times. There ARE
things to be done. It's just Bush has his own agenda and is
not doing any of it. Rich people don't give a shit. Actually
rich people does not like booming economy because it makes
them less 'rich' compare to the rest of the people.
\_ Clinton inherited 2 quarters of 4% GDP growth,
lest we make up facts. The first act of his
presidency was to RETROACTIVELY raise taxes.
This depressed economic for quite some time, to
the point his 1996 reelection was in doubt.
Don't let the facts get in the way of your
beliefs.
\_ I actually think you are right. "Old money" gets annoyed
when there are too many new millionaires sniffing around.
\_ Clinton didn't actually do anything. It was all cyclical,
with some perception mixed in. -John
\_ here's an idea, instead of giving the poor people a break (e.g.
creating jobs for them), how about substantial tax raise for the
rich? I mean, 90% of US is owned by 5% of the US population
anyways. Oh wait, they also control (via lobby, SIG, etc) our
politicians. Nevermind.
\_ You are amazingly stupid. The rich who get more $$ in their cut do
what with the money? Put it in mattresses? No, moron. They invest
it, create business opportunities, etc. That creates jobs, without
corrupt Gov't middle-men (re: The Big Dig).
\_ All those Coach handbags, Cartier watches and Tiffany Diamonds
don't really do much for the economy. I am not convinced
"the rich" are any wiser investors than bad ole' gubment.
\_ Ah yes, because no one is employed manufacturing, shipping, or
selling those things, right? Enough with the class warfare.
\_ Amazing how tax cuts for the rich are called "returning the
people their money" while tax cuts for the middle class
are called "class warfare." You can tell when the other
side has no facts to back up their position. They have
no other choice but to turn to ad hominem attacks.
\_ Hello Mr. Pot. Meet Mr. Kettle. I didn't call tax cus
for the middle class class warfare. The claim that rich
people spend all their money on luxuries is class
warfare. How you can have a tax cut for the middle class
that does not benefit the rich more?
\_ Cutting payroll taxes for instance, since income
above $78k is not taxed. The claim that luxuries
do not stimulate the economy is not class warfare,
simply an observation that you do not have any
reply to except to charge "class warfare."
\_ you're a few years behind, dude. Try 87k,
and that is because Social Security pays
based on how much you put in. Hence, a max. |
| 2003/7/31 [Finance/Investment] UID:29196 Activity:nil |
7/31 Why are bond yields rising and bond prices dropping when the
Fed interest rate is so low?
\_ Bond yields are set by the market, not by governmnet fiat.
Bond investors are demanding a higher yield right now, especially
on long term bonds because of two things:
1) inflation risk
2) relative attractiveness of equities |
| 2003/7/31-8/1 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:29195 Activity:high |
7/31 How does the US government make up for its budget deficit?
Does it print the money or does it borrow money? If borrow
money, how does it do it? Is it through what they call
"treasury notes"? And how does that relate to the "Fed
interest rate" used for stimulating/cooling the economy?
Is it possible that there would not be enough interest in
the "treaury notes or whatever" due to interest rate
being too low such that the government is forced to raise
the rates to finance its budget deficit?
\_ The US government borrows money from the treasuries market, yes.
There is no direct relation between the Fed overnight rate
and the bond rate. Government demand for borrowed money
pushes up interest rates.
\_ When people buy trearuries, where does the money go?
Does the Fed just keep the money in a vault, or does
the government spend it? I guess my question is when
there is a budget deficit, where does the government
get the extra money? Do they have some kind of reserve
(federal reserve?) or need to make bond offerings
(treasuries?)?
\_ Don't confuse The Fed (a bank) with the Federal Government.
The federal government borrows money by issuing bonds. I
don't know how else to explain it. It is different than
just printing money because they promise to repay bonds.
A lot of the money used to finance US government deficit
spending comes from overseas investors.
\_ Is the Fed just like a regular bank? Say, can I open a
savings or checking account at the Fed?
\_ Thanks, things are clearer now. Are there no
connection at all between the the Fed and the Federal
Government? There is never any money transfers
between the two entities? Also, does the Fed only
lend out money? Does it ever borrow money?
Where does it get all the money? Is it in charge
of printing money? It only lends to banks and
never directly to companies or individuals, right?
\_ This is way too much to answer in the motd.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pf/pf.htm
\_ useful!
\_ Is the link like, since the fed rate is so low, I have
to put my money somewhere else, like bonds and stocks,
so that causes bond rates to drop and stock market to
go up. Is that how the fed rate is supposed to affect
the economy?
\_ That is part of it. Another part is that since The Fed
is lending money at such a cheap rate to banks, they
are encouraged to lower their rates on things like
car and home mortgages. Since the money is so cheap
for the banks, they can lower their rates and still
make a profit. They can't lower them too far though,
since they are taking on the risk that rates will go
up in the future and they will be stuck with a crappy
rate.
\- um it's not possible to address all of the issues
in here except maybe give references. but quickly:
1. the treasury doesnt do much. they write the checks
but dont manage the money. they are a instrumental
player in fiscal policy. most of the churn in treasury
instruments is turn over in debt obligations [paying
off one matruing instruments and selling to someone
[mostly likely a bank] who wants to buy one. most of
the volume is not to fianance deficit spending.
2. the fed matters. they are the govt's bank and
the czar of the overall money supply/money base.
they are the main players in monetary policy.
the main way they control the money supply are
open markey operations run by the trading desk
at the new york fed. they can also affect money
supply by banking reg changes like reserve requirements
but that is really a sledgehammer and rately done.
the treasury also keeps money with the fed [the fed
has a hell of a lot more money at the ny fed than
fort knox ... probably something very few people knew
until whatever diehard movie that mentioned this].
a lot of money is created by fiat rather than
actually creating federal reserve notes or treasury
coins.
3. as in the above case about trade balance it is best to
start with accounting identities and defns to under-
stand the fundametnals. the govt can fiance a deficit
by raising taxes, selling assets or borowing from
private sources, foreign sources, or from the fed.
[note: raiting taxes != raising tax rates ... we
survive debt and deficits in part by GDP growth]
--psb |
| 2003/7/31-8/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:29194 Activity:moderate |
7/31 Does "current account deficit" == "trade deficit"? I kind
of understand how it affects forex rates, but does it also
have an effect on bond yields and bond prices?
\_ No, trade deficit is just the difference in goods and
services, while current account deficit also includes
investment. It has an effect on bond prices because
\- hello i believe that is sort of misleading.
i have left a somewhat extended comment at:
~psb/trade-accounting.txt. ok tnx. --psb
some of the imported/exported money goes to the bond
market. In the US for example, most imported money is
used to buy treasuries. It is different in other
countries. -ausman |
| 2003/7/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:29159 Activity:moderate 75%like:29154 |
7/26 What is a good book(/other) about currency trading?
\_ "Heart of Darkness?" Why don't you find an honest way to invest,
fucker?
\_ your vitriol excites me. Are you accepting applications for
"follower"?
\_ you will paint silly slogans on your buttcheeks and run around
without pants in front of the webcam on sproul. you will
then bury your resume in gravel for 5 years, unicylcle
acreoss the bay bridge in critical mass, and report back
to the motd.
\_ honest? it's high risk. it is not in any way dishonest or
ethically different than other financial investment options.
did you get robbed? that could've happened to you in any
market. you got greedy and got burned.
\- uh it depends a lot on your fianance and math background and
your interest in the theory-practice spectrum. for general
stuff you can look at one of the JCox books. There are also
some books by DeRosa. you might read some stuff by R. Mundell
on fundamentals. i havent been keeping up on the literature for
5-6 years so these might be somewhat non-contemporary but i wouldnt
call what they cover out of date. note: a lot of the good books in
this area are really expensive. i suspect the classics will be
hard to get from the lib. might be a good "secondary market"
however. a good WEEB site is http://riskbooks.com. --psb
\_ I thought currency trading was all about finding negative cost
cycles in dags? -- ilyas
\- do you mean dir acyclic graph or is this some
finance terms i dont know? if you are referring to
fast ways to compute arbitrage stratgies, there is
more to FX than arbitrage. for home users arb is
hardly the business to get into. --psb
\_ Yup, directed acyclic graph. Probably need
lots of money to make money on arbitrage.
-- ilyas
\_ damn you guys are rich
\_ yeah, don't you need like $3million in an account before you are
covered to make these kinds of trades?
\_ if you had enough skill and money and knowledge to successfully
get into arbitrage you wouldn't be asking here about it. your
question is no different than, "i sometimes have headaches, what
is a good book on brain surgery on yourself?"
\_ isn't this the stuff that you can get a job making $400K+
immediately after finishing an an NYU PhD about?
\_ sometimes, yes. it's also easy for everything to fall to
shit in minutes while you're in the bathroom. it's *very*
high stress and most people don't last more than 3 years in
the field before they completely burn out. arbitrage is a
24x7 activity. they can never sleep. they have to have
alerts and triggers set to wake them if something ugly
happens on the market with zero response time. etc,etc,etc. |
| 12/24 |
| 2003/6/18-19 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:28761 Activity:insanely high |
6/18 three years ago it was a stock bubble. now it's a property value
bubble. the day of reckoning will come.
\_ Bubble does not mean what you think it means.
\_ Bubble Bobble rocks!
\_ But Bubble Sort sucks.
\_ It's as simple as something that nobody knows.
\_ I don't think the phrase "does not mean what you think
it means" means what you think it means.
\_ Bubble does not mean "slightly inflated." Do you think
that housing prices are going to drop 90%? You are
a moron if you do.
\_ japan... late 80's... mumble mumble...
\_ yes, that was a bubble. Tokyo land prices fell by
80-90%. Do you think that is going to happen to
land prices in the US? In California? In San
Francisco? I do not.
\_ It doesn't have to pop that much. A drop of 20%
would be pretty catastrophic.
\_ Yeah that would suck. I'd be back to only about
$20k above what I paid 3 years ago....
\_ As an economy it's disasterous. What happens
you personally is less important.
\_ To *me* there's nothing more important. the
same is true of every other individual. it
is nice that there's at least one person out
there who cares more about this ephemeral
thing known as "the economy" more than his
own situation. I'm glad to know you.
\_ I'd rather have an okay job in a good
economy than slightly better one in a
poor economy. Less chance of my job being
cut, better chance of upgrading it.
\_ Okay, I'll bite. Why would it be catastrophic?
This happened in 1991 in California and it
wasn't exactly the end of the world.
\_ It just would be. It's the motd. You expect
him to back up his statements?
\_ The state is $38B in debt. Your city is cutting
services. Another 20% drop in prop taxes, more
services get cut. More fees go up, more taxes,
jobs leave overtaxed CA, you're stuck with a
suddenly overpriced house with no job.
\_ bubble is as bubble does.
\_ keep dreaming, renter.
\_ If it pops I'll still own a house and you will still be
renting.
\_ No, you'd be paying for a house that's worth less than your
loan. Negative equity. A Bad Thing.
\_ Short term effect. God is making more people. He isn't
making more land. In the long term no one has ever lost
money on real estate. In the mean time you're paying a
land lord and owning nothing. Even if the home price drops
a few percent below the buying price it is still financially
more sound than paying rent.
\_ Is God making more high paying jobs too? If you lose
your job at the same time your house drops a few percent,
you may end up in a bad spot. That said, I'm all for
buying a house if you can afford it. Just know the risks.
As in most things in life, it is not a sure deal.
\_ Anytime you lose your job you'll be in a bad spot. Will
your landlord stop asking for rent? At least with a
house there is a chance that you'll have equity and
maybe even own the place outright.
\_ Since my mortgage money has been going into a loan and
unlike a renter I actually *own* some part of the place
I live I have the option of drawing down against the
house so I won't be on the streets when times get hard.
As a renter with no job, I've got a pillow, an old
blanket and some rent receipts to get me through the
tough times. How does being a jobless and homeless
ex-renter sound compared to jobless home owner?
\_ More money saved up and able to move someplace where
there are more jobs without worrying about selling
my house. Portability is part of the appeal. |
| 2003/6/17-18 [Finance/Investment] UID:28748 Activity:very high |
6/17 I know the .com days of ugrads trading on etrade are long dead, but
I haven't heard any economy stuff on the motd these days... so...
what are the predictions on the DOW hitting 10,000? if, and when?
also, is that a good or bad sign?
\_ As long as Bush is in office, we are f*cked.
\_ why?
\_ economic policy based upon benefiting small group of
people which is politically important (read: farm bills,
steel tariff, lift estate tax and reduce stock dividends,
you name them); lavish military spending (Afghanistan,
Iraq), and shows no fiscal discipline... for starters.
\_ and this is new to this administration? hi idiot!
\_ well it is more extreme. Bush's budget has
planned for record deficts. Almost 1.5 times
as high in 2003 dollars as the last record defict
market. look for small, midcap, low pe, low ps, some growth for
decent peg, little or no debt, no big worries like
market. I look for small, midcap, low pe, low ps, some growth
for decent peg, little or no debt, no big worries like
headache walmart giving to supermarket stocks, price at
least 25% lower than yahoo minimum 1-year target ... get
some good stuff out here.
that was created by... yup that's right, his dad.
Funny how the democrats are the party of responsible
some good stuff out here. among the stuff above, still like
spending these days.
\_ No, they just raise taxes endlessly to pay for
the votes they need to buy to stay in office and
keep the poor dependent on government.
\_ Here are stats even a neocon can understand:
market. I look for small, midcap, low pe, low ps, some
growth for decent peg, little or no debt, no big worries
like headache walmart giving to supermarket stocks, price
at least 25% lower than yahoo minimum 1-year target ... get
http://csua.org/u/3a9
Democrats have decreased the size of the
government, Pugs increased it for the last
five presidents.
\_ because no matter how well or poorly the economy does, the
"we are f*cked" person is so deeply entrenched in their
own hatred they can't believe anything else. the comment
has nothing to do with the economy but with irrationally
deep personal political philosophy.
\_ Nonetheless, we are still f*cked.
\_ *laugh* whatever.
\_ I don't know about economy, but I've been making a killing in the
some good stuff out there. among the stuff above, still like
stock market. like 80% return since last october. It's as good as
ever.
\_ how do you do that? derivatives?
[ kinney's drivel deleted]
\_ just pick the right stocks, and you don't even have to go
into those high risk stocks, just all your basic boring
value stocks like best buy, helen of troy, american eagle,
fossil, blue rhino, netbank ... ok ... a bit of tech like
nvidia, utstarcomm and gric. basic idea of last october
is find boring safe stocks that has good value and no
downside as alternative to hopelessly low rates of money
market. I look for small, midcap, low pe, low ps, some growth
for decent peg, little or no debt, no big worries like
headache walmart giving to supermarket stocks, price at
least 25% lower than yahoo minimum 1-year target ... get
some ideas from smartmoney magazine. now is a little harder
cause things are more expensive but I think there are still
some good stuff out here. among the stuff above, still like
and hold hele, rino, ntbk, tkci, fosl and utsi (I like utsi,
started by berkeley alumni, for the long term. it's a
telecom stock doing well in the worst telecom slump ever).
\_ there's no such thing as a 'no downside' stock. the
stock market always has risks. maybe martha's company
was looking real good for a while, eh?
\_ you're an idiot.
\_ thanks for adding nothing to this thread.
\_ My portfolio is up 50% over the last 6 months. Of course
it's 100% SUNW, so it's also down 80% from a couple
of years ago. It's all just numbers you can spin any
way you want.
\_ Down 80% means you lack discipline in your
investing. You won't ever see warren buffett
down 80%. |
| 2003/6/6-8 [Consumer/CellPhone, Finance/Investment] UID:28658 Activity:moderate |
6/6 You can keep your cell phone number if you switch carriers:
http://csua.org/u/35g (story.news.yahoo.com)
\_ Well, in November.
\_ This is the kind of crap you get when you let the government
meddle in the free market.
\_ There's an e-gap between the rich and poor. We need taxes on
hardware and software to fund a technofare program to train the
poor on these technologies so they won't be left behind. Free
cell phones and air time for the poor! Down with your VRWC to
oppress the poor by keeping cell phones from them!
\_ What does that have to do with cell phone number portability? |
| 2003/5/30 [Academia/GradSchool, Finance/Investment] UID:28586 Activity:high |
5/31 If you want to know how much your degree is worth, go the library
and read: "Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College:
An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables,"
Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 117, No. 4, November 2002.
\_ http://econpapers.hhs.se/article/tprqjecon/v_3A117_3Ay_3A2002_3Ai_3A4_3Ap_3A1491-1527.htm
\_ So now that you're all at Cal are you really going to read some
book and switch schools based on what it says?? A bit late, maybe?
\_ First, smarty pants, it's an article - not a book. Second,
there are many reasons to attend a selective school, not
just income. I think there a lot of great things about
Cal that go beyond your future salary. And yes, if you
want, you can change schools. It is not too late. Haven't
you ever heard of a transfer? |
| 2003/5/30 [Finance/Investment] UID:28582 Activity:very high |
5/29 From todays Wall Street Journal:
In short, the U.S. is experiencing the most protracted job-market
downturn since the Great Depression. It has left behind a remarkably
broad swath of workers -- from young to old, and from high-school
to the highly educated -- even as the economy has started growing again.
\_ The economy is just more efficient. It doesn't need all those
workers. You want to establish a union for loom workers or what?
\_ I don't know where you learn your economics... are you saying
that Saudi Arabia, which has unemployment rate of mid teens (and
remember, women can't work there, thus, excluded from
unemployment figures) has a much more "efficient" economy?
-kngharv
\_ That's an incredible lame example. Saudi Arabia doesn't have
a real/modern economy. They're a one product exporter. When
the oil runs dry or the world switches to another energy
source, they'll have 100% unemployment. Care to try again?
\_ they don't have "REAL" economy? who has "real" economy?
then? Germany's unemployement is also running at low
teens (~12%), so they are twice as efficient as ours?
\_ an economy with more than a single export and some sort
of real industry. Yes, Germany. No, Saudi Arabia. The
Saudis don't even run their own oil industry.
\_ The German economy is tanking because they're a bunch
of socialist ninnies and also because the rest of the
world (their trading partners) are also hurting. If
they weren't socialist ninnies they'd be doing better
but still not great. No country is doing great now. |
| 2003/5/28 [Reference/BayArea, Finance/Investment] UID:28566 Activity:very high |
5/27 i need a job! if anyone knows of any sort of clerical/administrative
(or really anything else non-programmer, non-sysadmin, non-sales/mktg)
jobs in the east bay or sf, please let me know... -lila
\_ There's an opening at the local Wendy's, want me to inquire?
\_ Why are you asking for a nontechnical job on Soda? Do we look
like a bunch of nontechnical people? When did Soda become
cool?
\_ technical people work at companies that also employ other people
\_ Yeah, riight, when was the last time you went over to the
secretary pool and asked them how they were doing in terms
of staffing? Geeks hang out with geeks, sales with sales, etc.
That's why there are depts.
\_ depends on size of company ... when I was at a small
company, I mixed with and dated hot sales and
accounting girls. now i am at 100k company, and
things are bad.
\_ Sales&mktg... aaah... how I miss those days....
\_ Are you deliberately trying to under-employ yourself? A BA
degress from berkeley doing clerical work?
\_ my degree doesn't actually qualify me for anything... i don't
know what i really want to do yet, but i do need an income.
\_ Perhaps you missed the point of your Berkeley degree. Very
few Cal degrees qualify the student for any particular
trade. This isn't a trade school. You've (hopefully) been
taught to think and how to learn so you can do almost anything
that comes your way. Meta skills are superior to specific
trade skills over the course of your life. Now stop pissing
away your Cal degree on shitty retail and clerical work and
diminishing the value of everyone else's degrees. Go figure
it out and get a real job.
\_ sometimes, a job is just a job.
\_ need I mention the Physics PHD's formerly from JDSU that I work
with in airport security? -ERic
\_ you work in airport security?
\_ unfortunately, yes. |
| 2003/5/13-14 [Computer/Domains, Finance/Investment] UID:28420 Activity:kinda low |
5/12 Does Speakeasy allow to change the reverse DNS resolution for home
DSL accounts? If not, is there some other affordable ISP that lets
you change the reverse DNS resolution?
\_ Curious. What do you need reverse lookup for? I've yet to work
at a company that's done anything with it.
\_ The PARANOID setting in tcpwrappers denies connections from
IPs whose forward and reverse lookups don't match.
\_ then there'll be a huge chunk of the net unable to connect.
"paranoia" is not considered a positive trait. it's a mental
illness.
\_ lotsa companies have mail servers setup this way already
where if you dont have reverse or your reverse doesnt
match the domain they reject.
\_ Beacause it's cool. |
| 2003/5/2 [Finance/Investment] UID:28296 Activity:high |
5/1 for the curious, "sic" means "thus" in latin.
\_ And is used to mark text when you mean "This is wrong, but I'm
leaving as it was in the original." [text like this] is altered or
inserted to change verb tense or replace pronouns with the
antecedent so you can read a short quote with context.
\_ poor dans
\_ Dans isn't poor. He is an idiot. It's always healthy to point
their nature out to idiots. They may eventually change. |
| 2003/4/8-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:28031 Activity:high |
4/7 What's a good pointer to sell your time-share? ok thx
\_ There are time-shares that aren't scams? First I've heard of it.
As far as i can tell time shares are always sold at the same kinds
of seminars where "breakthrough marketing opportunities on the
internet" are sold.
\_ There was an article in Smartmoney Magazine (WSJ affliated)
that tried to make a case that time shares do not totally
deserve all the bad publicity. It did mention that it is
best to buy it second hand rather than directly from one of
those slippery snake oil salesperson.
\_ No one buys a timeshare as an investment.
\_ I would have thought the same, but I know a couple people who
claim to love having their timeshare. They swap with other
timeshares in various places. I suppose this is cheaper than
just booking hotels or whatever in these places.
\_ Trading credits for other destinations has a fee attached
as high as $500/week, or as much as I spend in many places.
TSs work if you like a place a lot, and keeping coming
back. I prefer to change it up myself.
\_ are they really timeshares, or did they just go in
with a bunch of friends or aquaintances to buy a
shared vacation home? I've known several people who've
been happy with the later, but only suckers who've fallen
for the former.
\_ There is always eBay. If the site is fairly desirable, you can
also try the rental method. I hear okay things about that.
\_ Timeshares are like the market in the late 90's. It's a game of
selling to the greater fool, except in timeshares, most people are
smart enough to not buy one in the first place so everyone except
the original builder loses money. A good pointer? Get good fire
insurance and burn the fucker. |
| 2003/3/3 [Finance/Banking, Politics/Domestic, Finance/Investment] UID:27585 Activity:kinda low |
3/2 Anybody here buy/sell US treasury bills, notes, etc? I'm wondering
whether I should buy the auctions from etrade or directly through
the US treasury. Treasury direct has a website and online management.
Any positive/negative experiences with either etrade or treasury
direct? Thanks.
\_ What's the advantage of buying treasury bills as opposed to just
savings bonds?
\_ Treasury bills are federal saving bonds, actually. The advantage
is that T-bills have a much larger market (international,
especially places like Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong). So the
prices are almost impossible to manipulate. Thus you don't have
to pay state tax.
\_ the biggest difference between bills, notes, and bonds vs
savings bonds is that it's marketable. You can easily buy/sell
them before maturity in an open market. Can't do that with
savings bonds. |
| 2003/2/20-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:27471 Activity:high |
12/20 Anyone on this board working at http://prophetFinance.com? \_ This _board_? \_ prophetFinance looks pretty lame, from the website. Are you trying to get a job there? |
| 2003/1/20-21 [Finance/Shopping, Finance/Investment] UID:27157 Activity:high |
1/20 I've seen on a PBS program (forgot which) which talks about the
netherlands being a "post-consumerism" society. Are there other
examples of such countries? New Zealand? Thanks.
\_ i don't think whole nations are "post-consumer" but there are
sub-groups in some of them.
http://uk.geocities.com/balihar_sanghera/Globaltersoc.html
\_ What exactly does "post consumerism" mean? They don't eat or have
any needs any more? Have they invented the star trek food maker
thingy and didn't tell the rest of us? What?
\_ It means living to satisfy our needs, and not our wants.
You don't NEED a SUV, DVD player, Sony playstation, or a new
computer every 18 months. So why do you buy it? Deriving
satisfaction in life based how much crap you can buy with money
is meaningless and not sustainable. In one word: Simplicity.
\_ So you mean to tell us that people in the netherlands are at
one with the land and don't own stuff? Okey dokey. Whatever.
As someone who owns almost no consumer junk myself, I think
you're a wack. There's nothing wrong with all those things if
you can afford it. Let's just shut down the whole fucking
economy and eat only after a creature or plant has died a
simple natural death. While we're at it let's have 80%
unemployment when there's nothing for most to do and no
incentive for the other 20%. This sounds just great! Where's
Walden Pond when you need it?
\_ You need a cactus up your ass.
\_ Sounds like a communist society.
\_ actually, sounds more like poor. but that's not so
different from communism, i guess. |
| 2002/12/11-12 [Finance/Investment] UID:26785 Activity:high |
12/10 How come mortgage interest rates didn't drop sharply during the past
month given that the 0.5% Fed intereste rate drop on 11/6 was a
surprise one rather than an anticipated one?
\_ Long-term (expected) budget deficits keep bond prices low.
Interest rates move in the opposite direction of bond prices.
\_ to add to this, mortgage rates do indeed follow the yield on
the 30 year treasury. Like the stock market, expectation
moves the rate rather than the actual news. That's why you
see the market go up in anticipation of a news and actually
drop after the news is confirmed. Mortage rates are the same
deal. The threat of Iraq and imminent war will drive the
mortgage rate down. When when the bombs actually start
dropping and we're kicking ass, you'll see it come back up
again.
\_ 5.825%/15 year baby! Love this economy!
\_ I just refi'ed last week and got 5.375%/15 conforming.
\_ Let the mortgage dick waving commence!
\_ It's not worth it for the companies to drop their rates. They've
got enough business via refi's and new home buyers, dropping their
rate overloads their business for low profit.
\_ Home mortgages have to compete for cash, just like everything
else. The other big competitor for the low-risk, long-term
yield is 30 treasury bonds, so mortgages can't move too far
from them. But there are other bonds, like AAA rated corporates,
that are similar. So just the fact that the Fed is lending money
at a lower rate to banks, doesn't neccessarily lower rates to
to the consumer. Above posters said this, but in a less clear
fashion, imo.
\_ So, since the Fed lowering the rate doesn't mean consumer can get
lower rates, how is the Fed lowering the rate going to stimulate
the economy? It still costs investors the same to borrow money
to invest, so they won't be any more willing than before to
invest and create jobs.
\_ same way as tax cuts for the rich: trickle down economics!
\_ I knew we were getting trickled on! |
| 2002/9/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:26030 Activity:moderate |
9/27 dow suffers biggest drop ever!
\_ Which, precisely, is the brand of crack you're smoking?
\_ this person probably wants to get a high from you responding
to him (or her).
\_ it's cmlee. |
| 2002/9/23-24 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:25978 Activity:low |
9/23 Can someone explain this? GMGC filed for Chapter 7 last Wednesday, yet
its stock is still being traded and it even went up 67% today.
\_ The bankruptcy filing means that the assets are going to be
liquidated soon, instead of sitting around indefinitely. The
stock probably went up in anticipation of possible recoveries
from the asset liquidation proceeds. "67%" is a little
misleading -- it went from 3 cents to 5 cents.
\_ But the mere fact that it went up at all puzzled me.
\_ 2cents. background noise. |
| 2002/9/19 [Finance/Investment] UID:25937 Activity:insanely high |
9/18 Why don't we ever talk about a regime change in USSR back in the
80s or a regime change in China/Paki/India? Do we talk about regime
\- why would the us have been
interested in a regime change
in India? A better example is
why was the "if you are not with
us you are against us" thinking
applied to say FRANCE when they
refused to allow the USA planes
to fly over french airspace on
the way to bombing Libya.
ok merci. --psb
\_ French Embassy in Tripoli.
Multimillion dollar super
hi-tech laser guided smart
bombs. "Accidental" bomb
hits. -John
\_ Known as "whoops, sorry!"
change only when we are able to kick the shit out of them militarily?
\_ We tried. We actually tried to stop the
communist revolution in USSR in the 1920's. We tried to stop
the communist in China in the 1940's. We tried to stop the
communist in Vietnam in the 1970's. We did managed to change
regime in Iran, Guatamola, Zaire, and Afghanstan. Unfortunately,
all the regime we installed were extremely brutal in terms of
human right abuses (Iran's Sha, Zaire's Sese Seko). Communist
of course, is absolute evil which we had to crush, even if that
this pithy statement.Please enlighten us about
means the alternative are European Imperial Colonist or Islam
Fundamentalist.
\_ He read it in the Daily Cal.
\_ Just lesser evils. One old and dying, the other new and soon to
be crushed.
\_ That's obvious. Why would you ever say something about someone
who could kick your ass?
\_ Wow, how clueless and naive. Welcome to the motd!
\_ AFAIK we did talk about regime change in the 80's with the
Soviet Union. It was this little thing called the 'Cold War'.
\_ There weren't any talks about regime changes through a
preemptive action.
\_ LOL, you win the most uninformed comment of the week
award. On what historical basis do you make
this pithy statement. Please enlighten us about
Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Isreal, Angola, Mozambique, Chile
Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Poland, Germany... Thanks. |
| 2002/9/13-14 [Finance/Shopping, Finance/Investment] UID:25879 Activity:nil |
9/13 http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1325469 sobering thoughts. prepare thyself accordingly. \_ They don't go nearly far enough into the alarming consequences of deflation. Basically deflation kills most demand. Everyone wants to hold onto his cash so he can get what he wants for less. |
| 2002/9/3-4 [Finance/Investment] UID:25759 Activity:high |
9/2 it's the end of capitalism as we know it. who wants to come alone
for some beers?
\_ Freudian slip? Take your meds bud.
\_ I already came
\_ Freud aside, wtf are you babbling about?
\_ stock market tanked again?
\_ Oh. Well, that's hardly the end of capitalism. Quite
the opposite. Captiolism isn't about every two bit shit
eating poorly managed company making big bucks. It's
about the fit thriving and the weak dying. You're now
seeing the results of years, maybe decades of bad
management wracking the economy. Good companies will
survive and thrive. Bad ones will die. This is a good
thing. The value of the DOW on any random day has about
as much to do with the economy as that day's level of
cheese production on the moon.
\_ yeah, i wish it worked that way, too. "bad ones
will die?" right. take a look at the airline
industry. they'll just go crying to the government
for another bailout while providing the same
shity service forever. if the government showed
more respect for the free market, perhaps the shit
companies would die, but most of them are part
of some kind of government sponsored protection
racket or another. in another year or towo the moron
investors who set prices will decide to be optomists
instead of pesimists and overvalue the shit
companies they're undervalueing now. |
| 2002/8/17 [Finance/Investment] UID:25593 Activity:high |
8/16 My previous company's stock just got delisted from Nasdaq and
I still have tons of shares. It's now trading on OTCBB. Just
when can I claim worthless stock on my tax return...
\_ If they're still trading, they're not worthless. But you treat the
capital loss the same whether you claim them as worthless or sell
on the BB at a huge loss. Sell them if you're fed up, and learn
about capital loss carryovers. I got six figures worth.
\_ holy cow... guess i'm not the only one on soda who's lost
that much... |
| 2002/8/1-2 [Finance/Investment] UID:25469 Activity:kinda low |
8/1 If persons A and B, customers at two different brokerage firms, try to
sell 100 shares of a certain stock at an asking price P, then later
someone at a third brokerage firm tries to buy 100 shares at a bidding
price P, who gets priority to sell first? Thanks.
\_ Not meaningful. Odds are the buyer is the brokerage firm anyway.
\_ So when you look at stock quotes on Yahoo or ETrade web sites,
are the bid and ask prices the ones by the brokers or the ones by
the actual clients? |
| 2002/7/18-19 [Finance/Investment] UID:25383 Activity:high 50%like:23624 |
7/19 Whats the difference between APY and interest rate?
\_ APY is annual percentage yield. It's the total amount of money you
gain if you get paid interest, and then get paid interest on the
interest, and so on and so forth, for 1 year.
\_ yes. remember, the daily interest rate will compound to
equate to the APY (Annual Percentage Yield). The APY
involves a compounding interest rate.
\_ Hmm, the difference seems pretty small. Say the rate is 10%.
When compounded daily, the APY is just (1 + 10% / 365) ^ 365
- 1 = 10.52%, which is not much bigger than 10%.
\_ Which is still a difference....
\_ Heh heh, in fact the APY for compounding 10% interest
in infinitely small intervals is e ^ 10% - 1 = 10.5171%.
For daily, it's 10.5156%. -- math-major-wannabe CS alum
\_ half a percent is a huge difference. I'd kill to drop my
mortgage half a percent or raise my savings rate (or any
other income rate) by the same. |
| 2002/7/14-15 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China, Finance/Investment] UID:25354 Activity:moderate |
7/13 Be glad you're not today's children...
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/no_think.htm
\_ guys like this exist at all points on the political spectrum:
they spout off about how bad everything is while doing nothing
to help and posing no possible solutions. this country has
many dire problems, but it has *no* problems that will
every be solved by blowhard pundits(except for providing income
for said pundits.)
\_ it should have been Mao saying we'd sell them the rope to hang us
with. |
| 2002/6/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:25238 Activity:nil |
6/27 The 1920s is refered to the Roaring Twenties... flappers, broadway,
etc and people seemed to have a good time. Why did the stock market
crash in 1929?
\_ Yermom's prices changed drastically.
\_ Greenspan didn't lower interest rates fast enough.
\_ Too much bought on margin. Lots and lots of people were 90%+ on
margin. As soon as anything started dropping and margin calls
came in, those people had to sell other stocks which further pushed
all stocks down which caused other people to get margin calls, etc
spiraling down into doom. To keep that from happening again there's
now a limit (which I don't recall, 20%?) on how much you can have
on margin. Sometimes Yermom is not the right answer, even on the
motd. |
| 2002/6/18 [Finance/Investment] UID:25137 Activity:very high |
6/17 Anyone have any opinions about E-trade bank? They have the highest
dividends of any bank.
\_ didnt learn enough after the dotcom thing?
\_ what are you talking about?
\_ guess not....
\_ rate is good, but service is not so good. I have requested
a check book from them since last year, and they have only
sent sheets of check. They had pretty good CD rates before too.
\_ For CDs, check out http://patelco.org. It's a bay area credit union.
Their CD rates are higher than etrade across the board. Their
checking account rate isn't as good as etrade, but their
savings rate is tiered, so you'd get higher than etrade if you
have more than 20k in savings. In May, they were doing a
special MM rate of 4.25% until end of the year. I got in on it,
but they don't allow any more new accounts or deposits at that
rate anymore. Many will qualify just by living/working in
Oak/SF. Thanks for bringing up etrade, though. I may switch
my checking account...
\_ Replying to my own post: Looks like etrade requires min of
5k for interest on checking. Looks like patelco is still
the right place for my checking. |
| 2002/6/14 [Transportation/Car, Finance/Investment] UID:25097 Activity:nil |
6/14 If one buys a car with financing (say 5 years and some interest
rate) how does one sell the car before the 5 years is up? Is there
a way?
\_ No. you're utterly fucked. |
| 2002/5/14-15 [Finance/Investment] UID:24826 Activity:high |
5/14 What's a war bond, how does it work, and how come there is no more?
\_ it was a treasury(?) bond sold during wartime. i'm sure you can
find old terms on google. it is no more because there is no war.
there is only unilateral executive action.
\_ On a related note, you can buy I and EE bonds online using your
cash rebate credit cards.
\_ Don't think so. If they are, it might be considered a "cash
advance." You'll get dinged for that.
\_ FAQ for I bond says this is not the case. In fact,
unless you want to go purchase the bonds at auction,
or pay a broker a commission, you must purchase with
a credit card.I have done this and not had a problem.
-- jules |
| 2002/5/6 [Politics, Finance/Investment] UID:24720 Activity:moderate |
5/6 There will be change because all the military have are guns
\_ don't you mean "our" ? And no they don't. At least not my arsenal.
\_ ruling junta vs. nobel laureate
\_ Perhaps you could be more specific? Which military? What change?
Are you 420 friendly? Wanna chill with me at 111 Mina? Don't you
think the bartender is cute? |
| 2002/4/20 [Finance/Investment] UID:24498 Activity:nil |
4/19 http://www.thecarolinachannel.com/gs/news/andersonnewsroom/stories/andersonnewsroom-140886820020419-160457.html The dangers of entering a Subway(c) bathroom.... |
| 2002/4/17-18 [Finance/Investment] UID:24462 Activity:high |
4/16 Did that biweekly trader's cheap broker question have any useful
answers? I gotta switch out of TD Waterhouse before they start
charging me for not bending over often enough.
\_ I think the clear consensus was to use fortnightly instead
of biweekly. It sounds more sophisticated, anyhow.
\_ There's a clear difference between sounding sophisticated and
sounding like you just got yourself a word-a-day toilet paper.
\_ FYI, E*TRADE now charges $15 per quarter for not enough trading.
\_ It's $25 and only if you have less that $5k in account.
\_ That's why I'm trying to get away from TDWaterhouse. They're
doing the similar thing, except they charge more. Anyone know
if Datek does that?
\_ Yes, it does. It might have started it all.
\_ Damn, and Thanks. So anyone know of a cheap place that
doesn't charge you for not trading enough? I only buy
once a month or so.
\_ as long as you maintain $10K asset, TD Waterhouse won't charge
you.
\_ Okay, can you spare me $8K? I'm only starting out. |
| 2002/4/15-16 [Finance/Investment] UID:24445 Activity:moderate |
4/14 What's a good service for occassional stock trading. (say bi-weekly)
\_ Do you mean twice per week, or once every two weeks?
\_ /csua/bin/webster says the latter.
\_ It seems to say both.
soda [~] % webster biweekly
Main Entry: 1bi·week·ly
Pronunciation: (")bI-'wE-klE
Function: adjective
Date: 1832
1 : occurring twice a week
2 : occurring every two weeks : FORTNIGHTLY
\_ Use dict. webster blows. biweekly means "Every two weeks",
and given the original poster's query of "occasional trading"
I'd guess this is what she meant.
\_ i love motd responses like this: lengthy, detailed, accurate,
useless.
\_ OTOH,
% webster bi-weekly
No matches for "bi-weekly" at http://www.m-w.com
Hypertext Webster Gateway: "bi-weekly"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Biweekly \Bi"week`ly\, a. [Pref. bi- + weekly.] Occurring or
appearing once every two weeks; fortnightly. -- n. A
publication issued every two weeks. -- {Bi"week"ly}, adv.
From WordNet (r) 1.6 (wn)
biweekly adj : occurring every two weeks [syn: {fortnightly}]
adv : every two weeks; "he visited his cousins fortnightly"
[syn: {fortnightly}]
\_ Not to mention contentious
\_ The general rule appears to be "bi-X" means every 2 X, and
"semi-X" means twice every X. |
| 2002/3/23 [Finance/Investment, Reference/Tax] UID:24204 Activity:nil |
3/22 I got this advice from a friend - is he on crack? I always thought
roth iras were Always A Good Thing To Do (tm):
\_ My understanding is that the gains on Roth IRA is all yours
while those on the Traditional IRA will be taxed. Is that true?
Of course for traditional, you start up with a higher base,
since you will have the additional money you would have paid
out as taxes if you go the Roth route. This "additional" money
would unfortunately be outside of any IRAs. Of course you can
put them in your 401k unless you maxed that one out also.
In short, if you maxed out everything, Roth essentially let
you tax shelter a little more money since $3000 in Roth is
worth more than $3000 in Traditional.
\_ Isn't there a limit on how much you can be making and still put
$3000 in a ROTH?
\_ WSJ's Smartmoney magazine advice on where to put your money for
most people:
1. Max out 401k portion with company match.
2. Max out Roth IRA.
3. Max out unmatched portion of 401k
4. Other stuff. |
| 2002/3/23-24 [Finance/Investment] UID:24203 Activity:moderate |
3/22 Any advice on where to open a Roth IRA? Does it matter whether I
do it through my bank, broker, 401(k) provider, etrade, etc.?
\_ i was told Vanguard is the standard. - pst
\_ We use TD Waterhouse. No fees!
\_ any bank or brokerage will do this for you. for a no-brainer
investment, indexed equity funds are always good.
\_ Which makes Vanguard's Index 500 the standard. -not guy above |
| 2002/3/21-22 [Finance/Investment] UID:24181 Activity:very high |
3/21 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/international/21GLOB.html Globalization Proves Disappointing "The trend of globalization is that surplus capital is moving from the periphery countries to the center, which is the United States," said George Soros, the financier and philanthropist who has become a leading critic of globalization. \_ I don't find this at all disappointing. --American \_ Guess what, globalization was not a new thing. First wave of globalization happened 200 years ago. The nations which benefited from the globalizations today happend to be nations benefited from globalization 200 years ago. Was that a pure coincidence? or there is a correlation which we don't want to admit? Mind you that even Opium War was declared in name of free trade and remove "illegal trade barrier" set up by then Chinese government. What make *YOU* think globalization in the 21th century is being pushed with heavenly intention this time around? \_ Perhaps you should consider E190. \_ OK. I know this a blatant troll, but do you know who Soros is and how he made, and continues to make, his fortune? Soros the global social reformer is just about the most blatant hypocrisy you could find. (Though the Bushies admonishing other countries on election fraud comes close). Some argue (though I'm not one of them) that Indonesia has a great deal of its woes from a couple of years ago to blame on Soros' currency speculation. \_ Wow talk about trolling. Bush = election fraud? Not even your beloved leftist media could make that claim after the zillionth time they counted everything. Let it go, move on, try prozac. kept selling Thai baht to the Thai government until \_ That just makes Soros someone who truly understands the dangers of globalization. Given the pathetic financial conditions of the banana republics of SE Asia, if Soros didn't do it, someone else would. Any evidence of the "continues to make" part? \_ Some articles in the Nation and such no more recent than 1999 so you have me on the present day. Does it really matter though? \_ I am not as ready to judge Soros as a buy guy. It's arguable that what he did was no worse than say shorting keep selling Thai baht to the Thai government until a stock. He is just the guy who gave the final kick to a rotten house. The main thing that he did was to figure out that Thailand's currency peg to the dollar would not hold since the Thai baht should not be as valuable as the official rate, so essentially he just kept selling Thai baht to the Thai government until the Thai government depleted its US dollar reserve. \_ Yeah, except he shorted a whole country. \- in related news [see tobin's tax] james tobin is recently dead. --psb \_ Thanks! I didn't know about tobin and his tax before. Sounds like a good idea. \_ Once that happened there was a fast and furious devaluation of the baht, but Thailand's companies' debt were all in dollars. How did Soros profit from it? He borrowed Thai baht to sell to Thai government in exchange for dollars. While the Thai government was still able to defend its dollar peg, Soros is paying the spread and losing money, but once the Thai government ran out of dollars, and the baht quickly devalued, Soros used a small portion of the dollars he just got from the Thai government to repay all his baht debt on the cheap. The remaining dollars were his handsome profits - lovely! Did he bother to say "Thank you!" to the wonderful people of Thailand? It's not that much anyway, just a few billion dollars. I am sure the Thai girls in Chiang Mai and Pattaya can earn it all back in a few years. Sorry if this sounds harsh but that's globalization for you. \_ I love the 15 yr old Thai girls.- keithyw |
| 2002/3/5 [Finance/Investment] UID:24024 Activity:very high |
3/4 the economy is on its way to a robust recovery! hail bush!!
\_ the economy is recovering. as much as I despise the previous
president, he did nothing to kill the economy, he did nothing to
make it great, he did nothing either way. neither did bush. the
feds don't fully understand how the economy even works and the
president, whomever it might be at any moment, has near zero
influence on it in the short term.
\_ Bush's effect on the economy was to make a strong stand against
terrorism and have success in the military operations, which
improved consumer confidence.
\_ Consumers were already spending like mad even through the
worst of it. --voted for Bush but won't make up stuff
\_ so who has the most effect on the economy? -clueless
\_ yer mom. the market crash was caused when she raised her
rates
\_ greed, when enuf fools will keep the rally going more fools
will jump in, if enuf fools want to crash the market to
lower stock prices, more fools will short to crash the
market
\_ Alan Greenspan probably has the most influence (in terms
of individuals). Other than Greenspan, its probably the
big banks/investment firms (JP Morgan, Chase, Citicorp,
Morgan Stanley, etc.)
\_ Unfortunately, Greenspan loses out to world events,
wars, political strife, terrorists, and act of God.
\_ Can anyone help me with my enron stock? --God
\_ I don't think so. Swap your enron for my wbvn?
\_ Or Be.
\_ The nerds did. They created the tech boom, and also the
internet boom and bust.
\_ i met a guy on greenspan's staff. trust me: those
guys are nerds too.
\_ nerds didn't make the boom and bust. Stanfurd farmers
did. I met exactly one other Cal person working for
tech companies in the last 7 years. I suspect everyone
from Cal (except me) is either going on to post-BA/BS
or is now farming pot in bulk somewhere in the outback.
\_ 7 years and only one other Cal grad? Where have
you been working? I've worked 7 yrs and I've
worked with 6 Cal grads.
\_ I graduated in 97 and I've worked with dozens of cal
grads at cisco and sun. |
| 2002/2/17 [Finance/Investment] UID:23895 Activity:low |
2/16 Is it a wash sale to exchange one large cap mutual fund to another?
Or a small cap mutual fund to another? (switch right away)
\_ No. It's a common technique when you've got a fund that's down
to take the paper loss for tax purposes, while still maintaining
your portfolio's diversification strategy. Usually people do this
at the end of the year, though.
\_ thanks. will clean this up soon. |
| 2002/1/31 [Finance/Investment] UID:23742 Activity:nil |
1/31 WSJ Reporter Kidnapped:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64685-2002Jan30.html
\_ This has been on CNN's front page for two days.
\_ This is old news. |
| 2002/1/24 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:23656 Activity:high |
1/24 What's the typical annual return for bonds these days? I just noticed
that the annual return for my money market fund fell from 4.41% in
last April to 1.57% in last December. Thanks.
\_ http://www.bankrate.com
\_ I can't find bonds on that site, only money markets, CDs,
savings, etc.
\_ No such thing as "typical" bond return. There are so many
different type of bonds. You can check the Lehman Brothers
Aggregate Bond's index for return on ALL bonds.
\_ Also, bond funds go up and down like stocks right?
\_ A bond fund isn't very much like a bond.
\_ Isn't it kind of cumbersome for individual investors
to buy bonds directly (except for those EE, I
government savings bonds? When most people talk
about buying bonds, they are talking about bond
funds right?
\_ bond. james bond.
\_ shaken, not stirred. |
| 2002/1/18 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:23594 Activity:high |
1/18 PPRO: it's a $1 stock with a 52 week high of 31.34 and a low of .37.
The P/E is negative, EPS is negative. Sorry but this dog don't run.
\_ why do we care?
\_ because someone is running a script every 20 seconds to get
15 minute old data on this POS and it's your machine too.
\_ At least it still hasn't gone belly up.
\_ And this is different from every other stock because...? |
| 2002/1/14-15 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:23560 Activity:very high |
1/14 Is it too late to contribute to Roth IRA for 2001? How much
can one contribute for 2001? 2002?
\_ No. $2000. $3000. !an accountant
\_it's more complicated... CA Tax Franchise Board
still goes by the old rules... so.. if you want
to be safe, then it is $2000
\_ The last day to contribute to a Roth IRA for 2001 is 4/15/2002.
With the new tax law signed by President Bush on 6/7/01:
year max contribution (age < 50) (age >= 50)
2001 $2000 $2000
2002 $3000 $3500
2003 $3000 $3500
2004 $3000 $3500
2005 $4000 $4500
2006 $4000 $5000
2007 $4000 $5000
2008 $5000 $6000
2009+ Annually adjusted for inflation in increments
of $500. Those who are 50 years old or older
can contribute $1000 more (called catch-up
contributions).
If one makes less than the max contribution amount, one can
only contribute the compenstaion made during the year.
Also, the phase out income for singles is still 95K-110K (AGI) and
150-160K (couples). - yakurar
150-160K (couples). - yakura
\_ Thanks for all the answers! You guys are great! These 401k match,
tax deferment, SPPs, Roth IRA are all great, but do any of you find
it difficult to squeeze out so much money for retirement? I mean,
I still want to buy some toys.
\_ Budget. Plus with 401k, the money never gets into your bank
account to spend. Monthly auto-deductions work too.
\_ I manage to max out my 401k even though I still have to send
$1k/mo non-tax-deductible to my parents. And I don't make top
salary.
\_ Oh yeah? How'd your 401k do in the last 18 months?
\_ I do it by having roommates. You can save a lot on rent that way.
And not driving a car. Add up how much a car costs you and
you will see that taking a cab 10 times a month is cheaper.
\_ Having an apartment mate is a good idea, except that my parents
like to visit for around 3 months every summer, so I can only
find short term apartment mates.
\_ Biking is also cheaper than driving a car and having a gym
membership. (But keep a cheap one around for trips)
\_ Stop buying meat for cooking at home. You'll save a few hundred for
the year and you can eat with impudence at a restaurant. (Health
and money-wise) |
| 2002/1/9 [Finance/Investment] UID:23503 Activity:high |
1/8 Can you change the angel of your ski boot mount? I'd like to vary
the angle by a bit as my feet are not exactly parallel to the skiis.
\_ i wanted to change the angel on mine, but i couldn't figure out
how many angels they'd put in the binding to begin with.
\_ you mean how many could dance on the binding...
\_ Along which axis? |
| 2001/12/5 [Finance/Investment] UID:23154 Activity:high |
12/5 Dow above 10000 (at 10114), NASDAQ above 2000 (at 2046)!
\_ shut the fuck up, cmlee
\_ Uh huh, this means the economy is all better now, right?
\_ "Better" yes, "all better" not yet. |
| 2001/11/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:23130 Activity:nil |
11/28 top dow 10,000, now!!1!
\_ go away, cmlee |
| 2001/11/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:22895 Activity:nil |
11/1 machines that make useful change from loads of spare change. where? |
| 2001/10/29-30 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java, Finance/Investment] UID:22860 Activity:high |
10/29 I have one elective next semester (my last at cal) and I'd like to
take a class that will help with investment/money management in the
future. I have no background in business or economics though, so it
can't be too advanced. Any recommendations?
\_ take an introductory accounting class
\_ E120
\_ Try E120. Its an easy A and teaches you the basics. The prof.
who taught my class also covered stuff like options (iso vs.
non-qual) and 401K.
\_ Take Econ 1. Accounting doesn't do jack for knowing what to invest
in and is highly boring. You're better off getting a good under-
standing of how the economic world works rather than learn how to
balance a corporate checkbook.
\_ if you want to balance your checkbook, find a Cantonese wife.
They are like accountants.
\_ ditto for Indian wife. Every penny accounted for (even the
one's she is not supposed to know you spent). |
| 2001/10/25 [Computer/SW/Mail, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Finance/Investment] UID:22829 Activity:nil |
10/25 How do I do anonymous NNTP posting via tin from csua? I can
change my from email address, but tin still inserts a Sender line
which includes my full email and name. Thx. |
| 2001/9/24 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:22612 Activity:kinda low |
9/24 as far as "financial institutions" rank, how does MBNA rate?
anyone have any opinions of citicorp/b of a? I'm looking to open a
roth IRA and do some bonds investment.
\ BofA ? you mean bunch of fucking assholes?
\_ that's good. i like that one. Sorry, i've not heard that one
before, but i guess it's really obvious at this point.
They are dicks tho. I unfortunately have an account with them
can you suggest an alternative? (altho i'd rather have the
response to the original post).
\_ I used to be a GW customer and got shafted after the WM
merger. I switched to BofA and haven't had any problems
yet. What sort of problems have you had with BofA?
\_ I have both checking and MasterCard accounts with BofA for 12
years. Never had any problem. |
| 2001/9/20 [Finance/Investment] UID:22554 Activity:insanely high |
9/20 poll: how much money have you lost in the stock market over the past
year? I'm asking cold hard cash that you lost, not paper gains on
stock options that you never exercised.
$0 - $10000: .....
$10000 - $50000: ......
$50000 - $100000:.
$100,000+ : ..
$200,000+ : .
Paper gain losses here (i.e. "If I sold on X, I would have had $Y"):
$0 - $10000:
$10000 - $50000: ...
$50000 - $100000:
$100k-250k :
$250k-500k : ..
$500k-$1,000,000: .
$1,000,000+ : |
| 2001/9/17 [Finance/Investment] UID:36313 Activity:nil |
9/17 What are some good stocks to buy during war time?
\_ Defense, oil.
\_ Defense, oil. Maybe gold.
\_ in REAL war time, energy will be regulated by government.
Your best bet is the government T-bill. (I assume you mean
investment in the US). For now, stock is not the place to
be in. Best shelter is the federal bonds or CDs. You
can always come back to the market.
\_ Maybe Amtrack and Greyhound if you're talking about this particular
war (although an Amtrack train collided a few days ago).
war. (Although an Amtrack train collided a few days ago.)
\_ High tech: communications (optical, wireless). Video Teleconferencing
stocks are already going up.
stocks are already going up. Also UPS, FedEx, ...
\_ Medical stocks.
\_ You got it backwards. Think of stocks to short instead. |
| 2001/9/10 [Finance/Investment] UID:22368 Activity:very high |
9/10 panel of economist say recovery by year's end.. time to put money
back into the market.
\_ sign your name, cmlee, so we know when the anti-analyst is speaking
\_ And the economic growth is supposed to be fueled by.....
stock trading?
\_ no but if you are holding off investing because fear of recession,
this should be good news |
| 2001/8/31 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:22308 Activity:moderate |
8/31 please buy some stock today.
\_ Why?
\_ because they are oversold - someone else |
| 2001/8/29 [Finance/Investment] UID:22288 Activity:nil |
8/29 dow below 10,000 by week end.
\_ yay! now what about the nasdaq?
\_ It's already below 10,000
\_ Oh no!
\_ So short it. --dim |
| 2001/8/15-16 [Finance/Investment] UID:22128 Activity:kinda low |
8/15 Is the Dow or the S&P500 a better indication of the state of the stock
market? S&P500 has far more components than the Dow, but it seems like
everybody is talking about the Dow instead.
\_ the S&P is weighted for market cap, so it's not really more
representative than the Dow
\_ Use the Wilshire Index (one of them). The Total Stock Market
Index. If its among S&P 500 and Dow, choose S&P instead. |
| 2001/8/7 [Science/Physics, Finance/Investment] UID:22029 Activity:insanely high |
8/6 Are there any bioE majors on soda? My friend's advisor (Bryan Jones,
for those of you who are familiar) told her she had to take 8 tech
courses her sophomore year. I'm of the opinion that this is only going
to screw her and her gpa over. Thoughts?
\_ screw her?
\_ [ the joke got old months ago. deleted ]
\_ I have a degree in Biophysics and tried to take 7 tech courses my
junior year (including OChem and QM at the same time). Yes, it
screwed up my gpa and probably kept me out of med school. -ausman
\_ I took Physics 137A, Physics 105, Physics 112, Math 104, Math
110, Math 113, and Economics 101AB my junior year. I didn't do
so hot. Then again, the alternative is to stay in school forever
while you take the hard classes one at a time. If she doesn't
take the 8 classes then what are her options? --dim
\_ Yes, it's possible, and sometimes even the right thing to do. I've
had semesters when I've taken 4 techs, and without regrets. In most
cases, for most people, it's probably NOT the right thing to do,
given risk to GPA/academic standing, stress level, lack of free
time, etc. The best thing you can tell your friend is probably to
get a second opinion of some other faculty in the department, and/or
from other undergrads who have taken the particular techs she's
being pushed into, and then think for herself. -alexf
\_ Tech courses were fun while I was at Berkeley. Four at a time
is even better. If she fears them, maybe it's not for her.
For example, I feared four upper division CS courses. That was
not for me, but if she's got a knack --
\_ Math power pack: 104, 113, 110, 128A. Delicious, nutritious,
and educationally stimulating.
\_ in my experience, Bryan Jones is nearly always wrong. She should
plot out her academic future with help from sympathetic profs or
better yet upperclassmen friends. Best of luck and let us know
if she actually ends up needing to take 8 tech courses.
\_ At last something I really can help with. BioE is in the eng. science
cluster of majors. They are very much catch as catch can for advisors
and the advising I received was poor verging on criminal. I made
numerous mistakes in class choices, some of which I am still dealing
with as a result. By all means, get a second opinion. Unless your
friend is a whiz kid who is comfortable with the load, find a way
to balance out the 8 classes over time. It's better to just be in
school longer. Really. It is. Feel free to email me if you want to
talk about it more.
-- ulysses (BioE for first year, then grad. in Env Eng Sci, 1995)
\_ My brother is doing BioE and he seemed to be able to handle that
load just fine while keeping his GPA above 3.
When I was an undergrad I took 6 technicals 2nd year and 8 techs
junior year and it wasn't too bad. I even graduated above 3.
\_ I don't know what the case is outside of BioE and my own major, but
we needed a 3.5 or better to be seriously considered for graduate
school - and it is assumed you are going to grad school if you
are in an eng. sci. major. Also, don't forget that for BioE two
of those classes are the biochem sequence where you are head to
head with bloodthirsty pre-meds, many of whom are taking only that
one course or maybe one other. -- ulysses
\_ Are all ucb students this wimpy now, or is it just the bioE majors?
I was eecs, and I've never taken less than 15 units of technical
classes a semester.
\_ When I was a student, we walked uphill, both ways, in the rain.
\_ Pansy. We walked through blinding snow, and we didn't
have schools. We had treebark! We would sit down on
treebark and take notes on treebark, and we liked it! We
loved it. |
| 2001/8/6 [Finance/Investment] UID:22018 Activity:high 61%like:22017 |
8/6 "Defense contractor General Dynamics said on Monday it plans to
Systems Group for $825 million to strengthen its position in
Goes back to my statements about Dyncorp, EDS, IBM.... Dyncorp
that tranaction seemed to get no press at all. Its like people
these are the companies which are going to be able to correctly
change and all the damn consultants need to change there pitch
outsourcing bandwagon
BTW notice keyword "communications" this should read "network"
\_ Is this Kinney?
\_ lack of coherence: check
lack of content: check
lack of use: check
Yeah, that's kinney. |
| 2001/7/20 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:21889 Activity:nil |
7/20 Recent headline O'Neill Predicts Strong U.S. Surpluses
The article put such a good spin on the notion or paying down the
debt.
Well there is a huge huge huge huge devastatingly huge potential
problem which has been written about in the heavy econ papers
Our entire economy is based what is called the "riskless asset."
All prices of investments, be it stock, bonds, capital spending,
buying houses etc. all rely on what is called the CAP-M ( capital
asset pricing model ). This states basically that the more risk
an asset has the high its expected rate of return must be. The
expected return in the "interest rate." The problem arises in
that the CAP-M ( my nomencalture - standard is CAPM no "dash")
uses as a requirement in its calculation the rate of return of
the riskless asset. The foundation which people previously used
in this model was the 30yr US Bond.
So where is problem? The government started buying back 30yr
bonds thus reducing demand and causing a demand shock which
altered the normal curve and skewing its price. Everyone realized
this and quickly renormalized all asset prices to the 10yr bond
as it was still in high supply. However as the govenment
continues to run high surpluses the demand will continue to
shrink for the 10yr and it will no longer be effective as a basis
for the pricing assets.
Repurcussions to this are obvious. Without a standard government
based riskless asset pricing, financial institutions will no
longer be able to commonly price assets. This will cause an
increase in the volatility of equities.
Solutions- Right now that is of a big debate in the economic
field- right now the biggest option looks like fannie ma. Ya
those are the guys who own all the home loans. That is turning
into the biggest source of bonds and thus providing a basis for
stable pricing- Whenever you have bigger supply- the stability of
a price goes up. That is why when the government had 3Trillion in
bonds out the prices were fairly stable. Only recently has
volatility started to be seen. But the problem with using home
loans is obvious as well- equity bubble.
Net result. The Government is going to NEED to step up spending
to maintain a budget deficit. Maybe not now but the seeds are
being planted. Look at the signs, Cal government going into debt
over energy. This is chump change but just a sign that
governments are taking up the slack of the consumer.
Required Actions: Align yourself with an industry which will
benefit from governemt spending. Boeing, LM, EDS, Dyncorp, HAL.
Look for massive US bases setup in foreign countries. Look for
massive emigration to foreign bases. Look for a reimergance of
colonialism. The plans are in the works - and coming this fall I
am hoping I can get involved with them - as I am starting to
believe this is coming sooner rather than later.
Just commentary and by no means correct- and may not even reflect
my true views
\_ Hi kinney! |
| 2001/7/20 [Finance/Investment] UID:21876 Activity:nil |
6/18 Here are some FACTS about Level 3 and what a leverage buyout is
Level 3 issued 12B in BONDS ( ie they sold 12B in BONDS and got
12 B in CASH ). The bonds were issued at face value - ie a
100,000 bond was priced at well 100,000. But now the bonds are
trading at $45,000. Thus Level 3 can in effect BUY the bonds back
and realize a profit OF OVER $6 BILLION. But no one has the
balls to do it. Level 3 has a market cap of about 2.3 B right
now- yet anyone who would buy Level 3 would realize a profit of
6B right away.. I can't believe this.... This is how Milkin made
bank. You know his SALARY one year was 650M we are not talking
options or stock or any of that crap we are talking cold hard
cash salary. The reason is exactly this- He got commision for
find takover candidates ripe for the picking where right after
you buy them your firm gets like a 1B in profit. He takes his 10%
cut right off the top and moves on----
He is the only guy on earth who wrote a check to the SEC for 1B
in CASH. WHERE IS HE NOW... BANNED FOR LIFE FROM THE SECURITIES
MARKET..
There are no gods.... and business schools have only been pushing
out phonies.
My bets on George Soros and JP Morgan. Soros is the only guy who
can pull this shit off- and trust me he will do something - kinney |
| 2001/7/11 [Transportation/Car, Finance/Investment] UID:21765 Activity:nil |
7/10 Does anybody have anything to say about the new parking permit
regulations (max 3 14-day permits, can't buy more than 1 at a
time, etc.)? Why was this change made?
\_ it's part of the windows xp rollout
\_ It's designed to screw students. End of story.
\_ according to the "Customer Care Servicers" it is there because
of the balck market that was created with sales of said parking
passes. Clearly they didn't take any sort of economics. |
| 2001/6/14-7/20 [Computer/SW/Database, Finance/Investment] UID:21513 Activity:nil |
6/13 I am now assuming all you .commers/tech gods have more money than I-
Thus I can finally be a financial consultant.
1. ENRON they have gotten a lot of bad press recently and the
stock is in the tank- but fundamentally they are still sound with
a very good management group. They are right now basically
pulling out of low margin old school projects to instead focus
the entire company onto trading and management of utilities.....
This is a wise business decision and will pay of sooner or later-
2. GE 80% of their product is sold out for the next 5 years. nuf
said Half their profit comes from GE Capital ( low interest rate
helps them a lot ). Ie they already have huge lease agreements
providing airplanes. They just refinance their loan but the
lease contract is already existing and has a lifetime of 10
years.. a no brainer 10% easy
3. Level 3/ MFN This is a competitive hedge position- long level3
short mfn- given the recent tank of MFN this would not be a good
entry point for this position but the position is still valid and
good for at least 15% of you portfolio
4. Sybase Oracle is fucking up big time- sybase has very strong
financials and a depressed valuation- you could look at SEBL but
they are way to overvalued. You could turn this position into a
competive hedge against SEBL 15% easy maybe more
5. Verizon I don't like what the FCC is doing to hamped Verizon
but it doesn't change the fundamentals- they control the end user
- nuf said 15%
6. ATT I love the cable assets of att. They are pursuing a nice
road to greatly reduce debt load and shoveling off useless
assets. 15%
7. CAT There is a current worldwide boom in heavy construction-
CAT is the only supplier of major heavy equip. Add to this their
generator business and they are golden 10%
This would form a very nice portfolio assuming you have around
40K to invest- it is really tough to build a real portfolio with
less you can shovel off a few lines but make sure that each
investment is at least 5K.
\_ Please sign your name so we can have you arrested for giving
financial advice without a license.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=9451818940+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve |
| 2001/6/8-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:21460 Activity:nil |
6/8 NYSE trading stopped for one hour due to software glitch. Who
provided the software?
\_ I did. -phil
322432.3 Hey nobody told me where i can get an mp3 if the kirk-spock
ritual battle music! What kind of geeks are you!?
\_ Just buy a Star Trek soundtrack album... What's the problem? |
| 2001/5/5 [Science/GlobalWarming, Finance/Investment] UID:21172 Activity:nil |
5/4 http://www.unfccc.de/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html for the full text of the Kyoto protocol. This is the full, real text. As far as I can tell it matches various versions from other places around the net. \ who cares about enviromentalism? It's a joke. If you are TRUE enviromentalist, you'd bury yourself in the ground right this minute so the earth can recycle your body. Because more than likely you are going to have kids, they are going to have kids, and all your offspring are going to waste so much "precious resources" in their upbringing that all the protest, conservation, and etc. is not going to do squat. So PLEASE, get real, kill yourself now. \_ One word... vasectomy \_ so the idea is, consume and pollute now as much as possible? shouldn't we be dumping lots of mercury in the oceans then? based on your premise do you support zero population growth? \_ Nah, it's more effective and efficient eliminating pigs like you instead of environmental lovers like the above. \_ Who are you referring to as the "environmental lover"? \_ People who love the environment .. duh! \_ There was a specific reference to "the above". "duh!" I wanted to know which of "the above" was being refered to. "duh!" \_ i would agree except that it's not about wasting resources, it's about protecting air and water quality which we depend on for our health right here and now, and also about protecting natural environments because they are valuable to the people for recreation, because we can learn things from them, and because they are basically irreplaceable. pollution harms these things at the expense of society and not at the short term expense of those who are polluting. this is why governments need to intervene. i don't believe in limiting resource consumption as a goal in itself. \_ Oh, so Mother Nature needs a favor! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival and now she wants to quit because she's losing? Well, I say 'Hard cheese! \_ You need to add a second quote, and a period. \_ Boohoo! Mommy Nature spanked me again! |
| 2001/4/24-25 [Finance/Investment] UID:21085 Activity:nil |
4/24 nweaver-- does it bother you that EECS is predominantly Asian, and
by chance they happen to enjoy watching the stock ticker? |
| 2001/4/23-24 [Finance/Investment] UID:21067 Activity:nil |
4/22 nweaver-- I'm sure you've seen a lot of undergrads in Soda looking
at the stock ticker. Does that bother you?
\_ And I should care WHY? -nweaver
\_ C'mon, leave poor Nick alone. Enough is enough. There's only
so much poking you can do and then it isn't funny anymore.
\_ Yes, they should instead be using the computing facilities at Haas
to do their Business Investment 101 homework.
\_ What is Nick's response to people who say he should be the last
person talking about who should/shouldn't be in industry because
he himself has never left academia? |
| 2001/4/23-24 [Computer/SW/Apps, Finance/Investment] UID:21062 Activity:moderate |
4/22 I need something to keep track of my stock purchases, sales,
gains, loss, splits, dividends, etc. Should I just use Excel?
\_ Quicken would probably be better than Excel.
\_ not to mention quicker
\_ Not to mention you can then transfer your data to TurboTax.
\_ not to mention excel is a general use tool not designed for
this.
\_ On a related note, anyone know of a service where you can
track foreign currenies and various other non-US financial
instruments? My Yahoo! lets you get quoted prices for most
of the ones I'm interested in but it doesn't do anything more.
There are no histories, graphs, news items, etc...
\_ You want to go into arbitrage like the guy in 9 & 1/2 weeks?
BTW, the original story didn't end with her 'empowerment'.
That was the Hollywood PC feel-good-about-being-a-woman-all
-men-suck version.
\_ forget arbitrage. Do Options now.
\_ agreed. Quicken is better. But I believe if you want to
customize your own analysis of your portfolio, Excel may be
more flexible.
\_ ObLinux: has anyone used GnuCash? 1.5 series looking good?
\_ BOOT TO THE HEAD!!!
\_ And he RIDES BIKE!
\_ For those of you using Quicken for stocks, do you use
their transaction download (from broker) feature. I
tried it with E*trade and it was full of mistakes.
\_ You should be using Excel.
\_ Is there somewhere where I can get a Excel worksheet
already customized for stock tracking purposes?
\_ http://www.google.com |
| 2001/4/16-17 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:20998 Activity:insanely high |
4/16 http://www.latimes.com/business/wallstcal/20010413/t000031428.html Is this an accurate portrayal of how (incentive) stock options can get you screwed. I.e., (0) Your stock options are about to expire. (1) Your exercise price is 10 cents. (2) You exercise when the stock is worth $100 per share. (2a)You don't sell your stock, in hopes the price will shoot higher or you want to hold it a year for long-term cap gains (3) The stock falls to $1 per share. (4) Your tax liability is $99.90 * (# shares), regardless of the fact that the stock is now worth $1 per share. \_ The whole problem with this model is that it assumes that your failed to pay your taxes at the time of exercise. Now only a retard would do that. If you ask the broker to withhold 40% for Fed, 10% for State and the min for ther other stuff, you will not get nailed on Apr 15. \_ Yeah right, take this advice from the motd. \_ I presume you "pay your taxes at the time of exercise" by selling enough shares at the time of exercise? \_ Why not sell your shares at the time you exercise your options? If you're not going to sell them then why exercise unless they are about to expire? You can always buy some back. --dim \_ Okay, I've amended the list. \_ Some people also want to utilize the lower federal tax rate of 20% for long-term capital gain. \_ Okay, I've amended the list. \_ In what situation should the government EVER be able to tax a paper gain. If I haven't made INCOME, how the HELL can this event be taxed with an INCOME TAX? be taxed with an INCOME TAX? --scotsman \_ Simple. The options themselves were income. The company gave them to you. The value of the options is the spread at the time of exercise; underwater options are worthless. When you exercise, you're getting stock worth a certain value for less than that value, that's income. if they drop to 1% of that value that's a capital loss. There's no magic here people. If you buy stock that drops 99% you're fucked, welcome to the real world. \_ Simple. This is unconstitutional. \_ It's taxed as Alternative Minimal Tax, not as Income Tax. \_ Damn, you made a killing by buying a $100 share for 10 cents and you are so greedy you want it taxed as long-term capital gains. You deserve what you get. I suppose if it went up to to $200 during the next year, you'd want all $200 taxed as long-term too. \_ Er.. No.. I want it treated as you would treat any income. Paper gains are not income. If you bought a $100 share for 10 cents, you didn't "make a killing." You didn't "make" anything. You wouldn't make anything until you sold it, at which point your income would be value less base cost, which in this case would be the stock's worth - 10 cents. Get a fucking clue before you try to argue. --scotsman \_ After a peek at form 6251, I'm truly amazed. Stock Options exercised is the only item on that list that is not actual income, interest, or depreciation. That's gotta be illegal. --scotsman |
| 2001/4/15 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:20982 Activity:moderate |
4/13 So if I tossed about $1500 bucks as a pure gamble into a $1.5 stock
in October and today it's about 12 cents and they announced on Friday
that the CEO is resigning and this is just before they release their
earning report does Motd Wisdom consider this a buying opportunity
when it drops to 3 cents on Monday? -loves runons
\_ No.
\_ Whether it's a buying opportunity depends on the prospects of
the company. Inexpensive is not the same as cheap. -tom
\_ Sounds like a buying opportunity to me! Buy more shares, lose
more $! -oj
\_ % more $!
Missing filename ("less --help" for help)
\_ Read http://www.fuckedcompany.com/archives/search.cfm?search=webvan
before buying more of WBVN. They are up to their head in debt,
and will go bankrupt making your stock completely worthless.
\_ 12 cents? How many shares do you have to buy to equal the
commission you'd have to pay?
\_ there are special rules in the tax code regarding worthless
stocks. This is a good chance for helping your taxes!
\_ A carton of milk purchased from WebVan or 100 shares of WebVan:
which will be worth more money in 2 weeks? |
| 2001/3/20 [Finance/Investment] UID:20863 Activity:nil |
3/20 How come when I use NT Netscape4.76 on <DEAD>csua/skey<DEAD> I can't copy the one-time password to the clipboard? Can someone please either change it so that I can copy it, or change the font to be bigger or use a serif font so that I can distinguish the alphabets easier? Thanks a lot. \_ Ctrl-C doesn't copy it? |
| 2001/3/14 [Finance/Investment] UID:20783 Activity:nil |
3/13 Is it about time to start nibbling on stocks again?
\_ When it hits 1,575, you can nibble. That might take 2 months,
though.
\_ Gosh! Thanks Motd Stock Guru!
\_ You're welcome! |
| 2001/2/14-15 [Finance/Shopping, Finance/Investment] UID:20596 Activity:insanely high |
2/14 Got no date? Want something more than another valentines day
staring at source code? Come see: "Hungry for Profit"
Wednesday, February 14th @ 7pm 210 Wheeler
come and learn how
* U$ agricultural interests abroad destroy 3rd world nat'l economies
* Agribusiness perpetuates environmental degredation
* Imperialism keeps millions of people on the brink of starvation to
benefit the First World
\_ Going vegan can help solve the problem.
http://www.vegan.org/about_vegan_environment.html (especially the
last section)
\_ Uh, how? Vegans eat vegitables that require farming which
contributes to environmental collapse. You should switch
to starvation and dieting like super models.
\_ Raising cattle or poultry also requires farming and
environmental collapse. For every calorie of meat
you produce requires you to put in 1000 calories to
feed and raise that animal.
\_ Glad I'm a vegitarian and not contributing to the
\_ Commie alert
collapse of the "environment". Not that I give a
shit about it.
\_ It doesn't solve the problem completely but it helps solve
the problem by slowing down collapse.
\_ All this collapse is bullshit. You sound like Al Bore
or Jimmy Carter. Americans should not be limited to small
dreams. BTW, I'm vegitarian by choice, and not because
I'm concerned with the "planet" and the "future".
\_ Typical sodan thinking. Well, you just keep that
to yourself. Most people do care about the "future".
By the way, if you're really concerned about your
health (and you probably aren't because you're
not concerned about other things as well) you
would add a little meat in your diet since meat
contains certain protiens you can't find in other
protien alternatives.
\_ My people have been vegitarian for thousands
of years and they have been living just fine.
The average lifespan in my family is ~ 90
yrs all disease free. I have the same diet
they do, I'm not going to change because some
idiot motd poster things that meat is good
for you. If you read modern medical science
you will find that any animal fat is bad for
your health. The lower on the food chain you
go for your nurishment, the better.
And all this "future" bs, we've got to save
the planet for the "future", we've got to
cut back on modern civilization so that the
"future generations" can enjoy the "planet"
is total crap. You basically want to restrict
technological progress because you can't
keep up and you want to condemn future
generations to live in an undeveloped
society.
\_ there are 9 amino acids humans can't produce.
all of them are found in the plant world.
\_ Maybe you'll learn to spell protein sometime soon.
\_ PLUZ! A world economy reduces the chance of world wars, as people
are too busy trying to exploit each other. I'd rather have that
than the holocaust, combat casualties, biological weapons and etc.
\_ Typical Left-Wing Mythology. Let's all become communists like
in CCCP and Cuba and live in dirty little hovels shivering in
the cold without the benefit of modern civilization. Idiot.
\_ not to argue pro-communism, but imperialist policies do extract
an unequal exchange of values from third-world countries, via
their technological and political leverage, thus keeping them
much poorer than they would otherwise be. a Buick regal should
not equal 10,000,000 bananas but it often does.
\_ This is incorrect. Foreign investment NEVER hurts a country.
\_ Commie alert - I dont think Marx could have said it
better himself.
\_ why would anyone that poor want to buy a buick regal?
\_ why would anyone want to buy a buick regal?
\_ Do you have one? It is not too expensive and
is a reasonably reliable car.
\_ the real reason 3rd world countries are poor is because they
breed too much. they're already poor, then have 10 kids who
end up with 1/10 of what their parents had, except for the
few who make it to the very top. you cannot build wealth across
generations if you're having that many kids, it's quite simple.
growth of gdp has to exceed population growth for net per capita
gain. but instead we have whole nations in africa where unicef
aid is the primary economic force and they no longer even know
how to provide for themselves, yet still have 10 kids. it's like
feeding raccoons in your backyard, soon there are twice as many
and they completely depend on you.
\_ This is the problem that they have in India. The birth
rate of the poorest people is about 5-10 per family.
A good way to help these people has yet to be devised,
as they reject education (its free) or better living
conditions.
When the government clean up the slums and build good
housing for slum dwellers, they ended up selling the
free housing and returning to the slums. When the gov.
offered free education for the poorest children, few
showed up, prefering to engage in menial labor.
First world consumption has nothing to do with the
poverty these people face. Thier misery is thier own
doing.
\_ I believe in Rush!
\_ That's why we should support commie China's birth control
policies.
\_ No. I don't think that it should be forced. But
people ought to understand that a high birth rate
is unsustainable and voluntarily stop.
It is the part about making people understand that
is difficult.
\_ even if they understand, they won't voluntarily
stop. it's like traffic congestion. we all
understand that if most of us employed alternative
transportation the roads would be clearer, so what.
why should i do it if you don't.
\_ alternative transportation? you mean RIDE
BIKE?!? I live +30 miles from work. I can't
possibly RIDE BIKE! Yeah I could take a bus,
but I just have to change 5 times and it only
takes 5 hours. What about the train you say?
Well for $6.50 a day, its cheaper and faster
to drive.
If well planned alternative transport was
available I would take it. I have in the past.
I took BART from Fremont every day for the
four years I was at Cal.
\_ yes but that's my point; using other transport
is a disadvantage to you so you won't do it
unless you have to, or unless it's only
slightly less convenient than cars. thus
the analogy to people stopping having kids.
which deprives them of their instinctive
reproduction need and...oh forget it. besides
no one forced you to live +30 mi from work.
\_ I can't afford to pay $1800-$2400 in rent
every month after the IRS gets its unfair
share.
The BART was farily less convenient than
driving, but I still did it because it
was reasonably priced and moderately well
planned and managed. The trains and buses
are no where near that well run. If they
were I would take them.
\_ Driving costs ~$0.32 per mile on average when
maintenance, depreciation, etc. are taken
into account. That's how much you can deduct
on the tax form for driving your own car for
business purpose.
\_ I don't think the IRS will take too kindly
to my deducting $0.32 for each mile driven.
Anyway, I've tried public transport to work,
it just doesn't work for me and I believe
that it doesn't for most people, that's
why buses and trains go empty.
Planning is key to public transport and
that is sorely lacking in CA.
\_ yeah, maybe we can come up with a darwinist birth policy.
we say a kid is worth like $200k. for each kid you want,
you have to pay the gov't that amount. problem solved.
\_ Uhhh.. pay the government!? Why? Why not just stop
(in this country) providing monetary incentives for
poor families to have more children? Why not instead
provide no monies at all to support the kids, and
if they have them and can't care for them, offer them
to the families who can afford them that want kids.
\_ hey, this is the motd, we already know all that stuff!
\_ come anyway. it's a decent film.
\_ and these people are the same ones who voted for
Clinton & Gore - gimme a break
\_ yeah right, russia had their whole nation starve with communisism
and their food lines.
\_ Don't argue... If it were up to me I would send the whole
american communist lot to China or Russia for an educational
two-week tour of the likely results of the hegemony of the
proletariat. -- born in russia
\_ Just because you extremist dumb fucks screwed things up,
doesn't mean others will.
\_ You don't understand. Property redistribution is wrong.
The more you go with it, the worse off you will be.
Don't give me your misguided relativism. Communism is
a bad idea. Always was, always will be. It's a good thing
many people can actually learn from Russia's tragic
mistakes, even if overfed dumb fucks like you can't.
\_ Sorry. Liberals != Communists. I know it may be
hard for little russian ex-commies to understand
that. The main reason soviet union failed is
due to having a command economy rather than a
market economy. Nobody is suggesting that
we turn the economy into a command economy.
\_ You don't want to be lecturing a 'little russian
ex-commie' on why CCCP failed. The reason CCCP
failed is because 'property redistribution' ==
invitation to loot the wealthy (i.e. productive)
members of society. No society succeeds with such
an economic plan. A command economy was an after-
thought, a temporary way to keep a dead body in
motion for a few more years.
\_ Like I said, you don't have to
push things to extremes. A little
"redistribution of wealth" like the
progressive tax and intelligent use of
welfare to help people with difficulties
get back up is actually good for the
economy. Of course you do not want to
constantly redistributing wealth such that
there no longer is any incentive to work.
\_ taxation is a violation of my freedom.
The founding fathers knew this and it
was banned until early this century.
Progressive taxation which takes money
from someone who rightfully owns it
and gives it to someone who doesn't
is a crime. It should be outlawed.
Its my damn money and you've no right
to it. If I choose to help poor people
that is my right. If I don't that is
my right too. You should not take it
from me because you think that it is
right.
\_ Some people here in the west are just too dumb
to understand how bad the living conditions are
in a communist society. They think that the
everyone is equal because everyone is a poor
peon is a good thing.
\_ Is it free? I don't want to have to pay to get brainwashed, lied
to, mislead, and only told one side of a very complex story. Also,
what are my odds of picking up a real hottie commie chick and
getting some action after the flick? If I show the proper signs of
being brainwashed do my chances go up? Are there any hottie commie
chicks or are they all hairy armpit club wielding Berkeley leftists?
\_ hottie commie chicks is an oxymoron. There was a saying in
communist russian: What do you call a pretty girl in Russia?
A tourist.
\_ Nah. I remember this very pretty russian gymnast who,
after coming to the US, became fat and ugly.
\_ maybe if your idea of pretty is "prepubescent anorexic." |
| 2001/2/13-14 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:20584 Activity:high |
2/13 Is it theoretically possible at all to achieve zero inflation and zero
unemployment at the same time in a non-communist economy?
\_ why don't you go stand in that circle in sproul with a friend and
you can start a company together trading goods back and forth
using a curency that you set that never changes. you are both
employed, and there is no inflation. don't be communist
and you're all set. moron.
\_ You call that an economy, moron? I'm just asking a question on
theory of economics stemmed from fading memory from ECON 100B.
I'm not trying to promote communism or anything.
\_ why not? I was trying to make the point that dealing with
totally hypothetical and abstract ideas in economics is
pointless. I realize lot's of shucksters and math grad
school dropouts make a living off of this, but its still
a fucking waste of time.
\_ Uh no. Unemployment reflects some of those who are of working
age who do not want to or are not capable of working. It will
never be 0 unless you force all the housewifes, househusbands,
and cripples to work.
\_ Nah, unemployment only includes those who want to find work,
but is so far unable to find one which he or she is willing
to take.
\_ who wants zero unemployment? isn't the goal zero forced employment?
most of us have to work, but don't want to. there are also non-
competitive currency models to consider. read http://transaction.net.
\_ uhh, you do know that generally unemployment numbers do not count
people who are not interested in working. They are supposed to
reflect the percentage of people who are looking for jobs but
don't have one. Otherwise the numbers would be a hell of a lot i
higher.
\_ really? I did not know that. So in most european countries
~ 10 - 12% of the people who want to find work can't?
Damn. It must suck to live there.
\_ yeah but they get generous welfare so they probably don't
\_ not in human economy. but probably true in the animal world.
\_ nice try, but I would say that > 99.9% of animals (humans
excluded) are unemployed.
look that hard.
\_ Unemployment is calculated differently in
some european countries -- they consider part-time
workers as un-employed.
\_ agreed; unemployment numbers count only those interested
in working. but the motivation behind the question is that
most people are interested in working. this isn't true;
most people don't want to do the work they're doing.
\_ The statistics that I don't understand is "personal savings
rate". It is defined as the percentage of "disposable income"
saved, but what exactly is "disposable income"? Does that
include 401k, etc.? I was wondering because the country has
been having a negative personal savings rate recently.
\_ disposable income = income minus primary needs (food,
shelter) |
| 2001/2/12-13 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:20567 Activity:high |
2/12 I am broke. I am looking for an ass-kicking spreadsheet to start
keeping track my expenses.
\_ Quicken and Microsoft Money are better at this than any spreadsheet.
\_ Its called a ledger. You can make using a $0.10 notebook from
longs or payless. You have one column where you write in the date
of a transaction, another where you write in a description and
a last one where you record if it was + (deposit) or - (expense).
Add it up at the bottom of a page and transfer to the next.
\_ I just use a plain text file to do this.
\_ If you are broke, a text file costs too much money.
\_ Perl!
\_ $0.10 notebook? What decade are you living in?
\_ Hey, I thought we went throught this! Use automatically deposit
to put a portion of your paycheck into a savings account and DO NOT
ever withdraw from that account. I'm able to saving 20K a year
that way. And I'm not making 6 figures. -frugal guy
\_ Only 20K. How much do you make? ~ 45K? I'm saving ~ 40K a
year by direct deposit into my money market account and
I'm making not making 6 figures either.
to my parents (non-tax-deductible) and contributing 11% to my
401(k), and I'm not making 6 figures either. Although it's
sad that we need to compete on how little we spend instead of
how much we make.
\_ I'm making $2600 mortgage payment a month and sending $1K/mo
to my parents (non-tax-deductible since they're not listed as
my dependents) and contributing 11% to my 401(k), and I'm not
making 6 figures either. Although it's sad that we need to
compete on how little we spend instead of how much we make.
\_ I'm 15% to 401(k), 10% to ESPP, the rest directly
into my money market accoount. I live at home with
my parents, so I cut back on costs there. The only
recurring costs I have are DSL ($69/mo) and my car
($50 gas/mo, $50 insurance/mo, $20 maintenance/mo).
Occasionally I buy clothes or computer equipment,
but my yearly expenditure is covered by dividends
earn more via investments and such)
on a single mutal fund I own, all the other dividends
are reinvested. - soon to be member of the idle
rich.
(BTW, I don't consider non-salary income toward
that 6 figure thing. My salary is less, but I
earn much more via investments and such)
\_ what good is being idle and rich if you live at
home with your parents? The values of sodans need
some serious whacking. -tom
\_ With the money I am saving, I can easily
move into my own house in Saratoga or
Woodside. I can do whatever I want
whenever I want. I don't have to go to
work do what my boss or some stupid
customer wants. I can just sit around
and make money and enjoy myself.
That's what idle rich means.
And what's wrong with living with your
parents? My parents are extremely nice.
I'd have to be pretty damn stupid to
move out and spend money.
\_ I envy you having nice parents. My mom is
a dictator comparing to other moms (she
even forced me to dump my gf,
successfully, who was "just a little dis-
respectful occasionally. Just a little,
really. Other than that she's a very nice
girl."), yet she has the gut to tell
people that she's one of the most liberal
parents in the world. Geez.
\_ let's see...you don't have a girlfriend,
or any activities you spend money on.
exactly what are you going to do to
"enjoy yourself" when you have "enough"
money? Get a life; money is a means, not
a goal. -tom
\_ Spoken like a true poor peon.
You don't really understand
what it means to be rich do
you? Too bad.
\_ Sigh... not only is the sky falling
but there must be solar flares too.
Rich is nice but if being rich means
this guy spends the rest of his
life in his parents basement
waiting for the magic day that he
has "enough" money then the guy is
totally lost. I'd rather be middle
class and have a life than rich in
my parent's basement. "Mikey!
Dinner is ready! And don't forget
to clean your room before your
little friends come over!"
\_ I absolutely understand what it
means to be rich, and it has
practically nothing to do with
numbers on pieces of paper. -tom
\_ The sky is falling! This must be the
Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. I find
myself in total agreement with tom!
\_ for a "ride bike, save the whales" guy,
you're pretty short-sighted. be
realistic. sometimes you need to
accumulate wealth to do what you want.
\_ uh, to save toward the future for when they
eventually move out? what good is being idle
and poor if you're living by yourself in an
an apartment? I mean, come on, it's not like
most Sodans need the privacy for a love-life or
anything.
\_ A love-life costs $s. And if you get
married, in CA she gets 1/2 of your
stuff. No woman is worth 1/2 of my
portfolio. Better to be single, rich
and free.
\_ Happy Valentines Day, tool
\_ My mortgage is higher, my parents are multi-multi-multi-
millionaires, I'm making comfortable 6 figures, putting
in 10% and I still have time to edit the motd. Oh yeah,
redecorating the house next month, too. The maid will
like the new arrangement as it leaves her less to clean.
\_ In other words, yer mom is kicking your lazy, fat,
arrogant ass out of the house because your life is as
pointless and contrived as your motd posts.
\_ No. Why is it so hard to comprehend that others on
the motd live the good life? I *know* there are
others here who have and continue to do even better
than me. I don't get grumpy about it. I applaud
and cheer their success.
\_ sign yer posts so i can track your ass down.
\_ YWTFMITA?
\_ Yeah and then what? You wanted to meet the maid?
She's kinda cute.
\_ Any pics?
\_ No, but I could setup a webcam if you were
dying to see her.
\_ That'd be great. Thanks. URL?
\_ Well, my parents aren't that poor either. They eat out,
pay hundreds of dollars per month on international phone
calls, renovate their home, trade stocks, had an apt.
unit to collect rent, own a car in a country where a
parking space costs $400/mo and public transportation
can take you to places faster than driving. Recently
they even almost bought a brandnew Mercedes even though
sales tax on cars is 100%. But they still want me to
send them $1K/mo even thought I can't even afford
eating out. Sucks.
\_ Get new parents.
\_ Could it be Tokyo?
\_ Isn't sales tax on cars much lower than 100%
in Japan?
\_ the place ur parents live, could it be HK?
\_ Good guess. Yes it is HK.
\_ then ur parents' reason for collecting
money from you would be helping u save
money for marriage...
\_ My parents demand tribute as well, but
at least it's not as fucked up as that.
My parents are upper middle class Chinese. |
| 2001/2/10-12 [Finance/Investment] UID:20560 Activity:high |
2/10 My online broker (suretrade) just merged with another broker.
From what I've seen, Datek seems like a nice one to switch
over too (I'm a small time trader and Datek's cheap). Which
online broker have people had good experiences with?
\_ Avoid E-Trade, American Express. I have Schwab out of
laziness/inertia. At least you can go hassle someone in person
when they screw up. --oj
laziness/inertia. At least you can go hassle someone in
person when they screw up. --oj [reformatted]
\_ I have Morgan Stanley (ex-Discover, Lombard) for the
same reason. Had them for years w/o any probs.
\_ I second avoiding E-Trade.
\_ What's bad about E*TRADE? I have both Schwab and E*TRADE but
I don't touch my accounts that often. I think E*TRADE charges
less than Schwab for trading stocks. (I also have PaineWebber,
but last I checked it's not on-line.)
\_ I've used Datek for years and have no complaints
\_ I started with Datek, but then switched over to SmithBarney.
They have a nice option that gives you free trades for the whole
year, in return for like .5% of portfolio value. I think the
listed % is around 1.2%, but if you talk to an individual broker,
they will discount it to around .5%. Oh, and you can do partial
buys into mutual funds, which is nice, if you want to get in on
some of the hotter ones which have minimum buy-in amounts. oh,
also you can talk to your broker about getting in on the more
limited mutual funds which just open for initial investment for
a couple days or so, before the fund fills up.
\_ I have SmithBarney because of Options and ESPP. They are
okay, but I wouldn't use them unless you have 200K+ in
assets. Its a hassle for small investors.
\_ I've been using National Discount Brokers (ndb.com) for
almost 5 years without any problems. ----ranga
\_ Gotta love the duck quack option on their 1-800 number, too.
\_ Yeah. I've been told its quite funny. This has never
affected my service or my opinion of NDB. They are
reasonably priced, friendly and efficient. ----ranga
\_ I stuff all my money under the matress. Never had a problem
*and* I didn't lose my ass in 2000.
\_ where do you live? what room is your mattress in?
\_ It's the house with the guns in it. You're welcome by
anytime, friend.
\_ You too? WOW I though I was the only one. Did you stock
up on ammo and rice also? I did. 7.65mm and .45s along
with 100 kgs of rice. I'm ready to weather the storm.
\_ Money market account would have been fine, you know.
\_ You trust the government to insure your life savings???
\_ That's treasury bonds, not money markets.
\_ If you're investing and not "trading" (i.e. you aren't trying to
hit specific price targets, but rather trying to build up
positions in good stocks), consider a dollar-value investing
company like Buy&Hold (my fave), Sharebuilder, or FolioFn. Trades
are dirt cheap, but infrequent. For example, Sharebuilder charges
$2.00/trade, and does the trades in agregate on Tuesdays. Buy&Hold
charges $2.99/trade and does them twice a day. -brian |
| 2001/2/1-2 [Finance/Investment] UID:20492 Activity:nil |
2/1 If I have x dollars in a Charles Schwab (or E*TRADE or Paine Webber or
alike) account investing in stocks / mutual funds / money market,
and the brokerage firm goes bankrupt, am I guaranteed by SIPC to get
my money back at its current value?
\_ I don't think SIPC guarantees money back. Only banks are back-up
by the Fed $10k per account. |
| 2001/1/26-27 [Finance/Investment] UID:20445 Activity:high |
1/25 "People prefer beautiful, rich, smart people. If you pick a good
stock you want to tell people about it. And what you're really
telling them is that you're smart and that you're rich."
\_ "You can never be too thin or too rich."
\_ Duh.
\_ "I'd rather be rich than stupid."
\_ 49.5% of voting Americans don't seem to think so.
\_ Which 49.5% was that and how many of those were stuffed
into Chicago and NY ballot boxes? |
| 2001/1/22 [Finance/Investment] UID:20396 Activity:low |
1/21 Vinnie Jones, of Snatch and Lock Stock etc. fame, was formerly a
british soccer player infamous for a picture of him grabbing an
opponent by the nuts. 3 mad props to whomever can produce a link.
\_ http://www.gelatinous.com/danh/vinny_lg.gif
\_ Props available in /csua/tmp/vinnie
\_ http://www.all-man.com/celebrities/images/celebrities/sports1/vinnejones.jpg
\_ Fuck off.
\_ Sometimes nothing more need be said. |
| 2001/1/17-19 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/Others, Finance/Investment] UID:20355 Activity:moderate |
1/17 Next dot com demise-- WebVan. News at 11.
\_ tell us more... or tell http://fuckedcompany.com
\_ WebVan still has over $100 million in the bank, it's not
near doom yet. There are questions about its viability in
the mid-term. -tom
\_ Put your money down. Sell short.
\_ peon investors can't short stocks trading below $5. -tom
\_ peeon investors can't short stocks trading below $5. -tom
\_ well, not entirely true. between $1 and $5, you just
have lowered margin requirements. below $1, your
statement is true. (so it's still true for WBVN) |
| 2000/12/6-8 [Computer/SW/Editors/Emacs, Finance/Investment] UID:20024 Activity:nil |
12/6 How do you change the vertical separate in Emacs? Horizontal is done
with click and drag but not the vertical one.
\_ I can click and drag. With keyboard, C-x } or {. |
| 2000/11/30 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Finance/Investment] UID:19958 Activity:nil |
11/30 How the fuck can the stock market go any lower? All my holdings
have P/E ratios of 10. Fuck.
\_ That's because our economy is dictated by idiot investors,
brokers, what not... why graduated from a business majors
and base things on arbitrary rules. The economy doesn't work
logically. It works based on whay idiots tell us to think.
\_ What are they. I wanna buy some.
\_ At last prices consistent with reasonable ideas of valuation.
\_ shut up, nweaver.
\_ Thank Mr. Gore.
\_ it's absurd to blame the market problems on the election.
The market is down because dozens of major players have
missed expectations and warned of difficult conditions
ahead. -tom
\_ Hey Tom. What are you gonna say when the market will
bounce once this bullshit is over?
\_ tom will say that the market will bounce once Bush
is sent packing back to texas. No bias there.
\_ I actually don't think the market's gyrations are
affected much one way or the other by who the
president is or isn't. It will bounce back when
companies start reporting good earnings again. -tom
\_ Several companies have good earnings, yet they
are down, way down. Why? Major Investors are
spooked by ALGOR's reluctance to adhere to the
rule of law.
\_ Uh, Cisco, Sun are down because they missed expectations?
No. They are down because investors are worried that ALGOR
will somehow succeeed in stealing the election and become
Pres. Gore is bad for the country and major investors know
it, that's why they are pulling out. If Bush becomes Pres.
(the office which is rightfully his under the constitution)
the market will go back up as major investors will begin to
reinvest.
\_ Is that why all those tech CEO's pledged $$ to Al Gore?
\_ major investors (institutional) != tech CEO's.
major investors == mutual funds, brokerages, banks
And not all tech CEO's were nimrod ALGOR supporters,
Chambers, McNeely, Dell, made the right choice and
backed Bush.
\_ You ain't seen nothin' yet. - Al
\_ I'm sorry. You must be a Gore imposter. Everyone knows he
would instead say "You... have... not... seen... anything...
... ... yet."
\_ Al is not only the inventor of the internet, but also
an 3113T H@XOR. He's probably posting from his R00T SH311! |
| 2000/10/30 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:19600 Activity:nil |
10/30? was there a time change today or something. ? i only have one
clock and it's anaolog and i dont wind it all the time, and it
said thtat the time was over an hour from what it really was, but
i really thougnt i wound it last night. did that happen to anyone
else? is it daylight savings or somthieng.?
\_ moron
\_ If you forgot to wind the clock, it would be behind, not ahead of,
correct time. Next time think of something more realistic when
you write a troll. |
| 2000/10/18-19 [Finance/Investment, Academia/GradSchool] UID:19512 Activity:very high |
10/17 I'm a non-CS major and want to go to grad school in CS. Do grad
schools care what your major is? What kind of chances do I have (with
good grades etc.)?
\_ Yes and depends on school.
\_ I agree.
\_ I disagree.
\_ Are you serious?
\_ Expect to take a lot of undergraduate CS classes. In fact, you
might want to start already at some other (local? less
expensive?) school before applying.
\_ Talk to the graduate adminisistration folks and some profs at the
schools you'd like to attend. In many cases, attending classes
elsewhere first as suggested above can hurt you.
\_ Might not hurt your wallet. Depends on the situation.
Usually schools will want you to take remedial work with
them, but one has to question their motives at times. Taking
classes may not help but will *never* hurt in spite of the
scare tactics that Top Ten programs use.
\_ happens frequently, mostly w/ people who already have Math or
Physics degree. My former roomate, a former astro-physics Phd
candidate, dropped out of his Phd program got into a CS Phd
program back in 96. I'm not saying that anyone should give it
a try. It is for the selected few. If you don't have a good math
or technical background or don't have good grades, don't even
waste your time.
\_ Ok, so I am hoping for a really good program like Berkeley or MIT
or maybe CMU. Can anyone say if it is common here? (I'd be a
math major, so I think I'd have the background needed.)
--original poster
\_ Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, and CMU are the top 4 schools.
Washington, UCLA, Princeton, etc are second tier. Whether
or not you can get in depends on what you want to study
and how much effort you plan to invest. If you just want
a masters degree to boost your salary, then you don't need
one of the top tier schools. A master in systems from
Washington will do just as well. If you're serious about
getting a PhD, then you should first figure out what you
want to study, and it had better be something you already
know something about. Then you should figure out which
professors you want to work with at each school, and read
up on their current research. Then go talk to his/her
grad students to get the inside scoop and get a feel for
your chances at being accepted. This is just generic
advice about grad school. If you want to describe your
situation in more detail, I can expend with more free
advice.
\_ You need to do something really cool, or show solid time
investment and do something somewhat cool.
\_ oh by the way, anyone can get into a 3rd tier graduate school
like Santa Clara. So if prestige is not a big deal (e.g. if
you're not aiming for Berkeley or MIT) then go for it.
\_ what is considered 2nd tier?
\_ Santa Clerkeley
\_ UCLA, Princeton, Duke, for instance. Schools with a
developing program that's showing signs of hope but isn't
saturated enough with prestigious faculty.
\_ I would think 2nd tier are those ranked around
11-20. 3rd are those around 21-40. 4th, are places
like Santa Clara.
\_ don't go to santa clara. it's just a shit
school for rich assholes anyhow.
\_ it really shouldn't even be deemed a grad
school. just a masters degree purchase program
\_ What's wrong with being rich? Why does being
wealthy automagically make someone an asshole?
Is this one of those "too much time with bh"
communist things?
\_ Yea, I think it should be "rich dumbasses"
instead of "rich assholes".
\_ They got rich by being stupid? I'm
still waiting to hear the problem
with being rich and why the wealthy
are somehow flawed compared to the
poor.
\_ Santa Clara -> rich and stupid
because if you are poor, you
can't afford it and if you are
smart, you go to a better school.
As for why they are rich in the
first place: it's their dad
who is rich. As for why their
who is rich. As for why the
dad is rich and yet the kid is
stupid, there are two possbili-
ties: (1) genes work in funny
ways, (2) The dad got rich not
by being smart, but by being
an asshole (i.e. He is a rich
smart and an asshole (i.e.
asshole). If you are both
smart and an asshole (i.e. a
smart asshole), you get to be
really rich. eg. Billy Gates.
Got it now?
\_ I see. So this is all Santa
Clara specific? Glad you
have this all worked out.
\_ Huh? Wasn't Santa Clara
what it was about all
along?
\_ No.
\_ What about USCS, SJSU?
\_ What about UCSC, SJSU?
\_ UCSC's CS program seems to be showing signs of
hope -- at the very least, some of their faculty
aren't totally anonymous. Still doesn't qualify
as "2nd tier" to me, but it may get there soon
if they work on it. (This pertinent to grad
school only)
\_ uh, shit schools for poorer folks.
there's this one asshole at my company
from san jose state, he's a dumbass,
and my cousins went to sjsu. mind
you, they are not that dumb, just
strapped for cash. the school
you go to doesn't necessarily
determine how intelligent you are
when you leave...i mean, i left
cal, which is supposed to be a "good"
school, but i have all kinds of
pricks asking me "didn't you
already learn this in school" type
of questions at work, from place
to place. the best determiner
is mainly how much you push yourself.
\_ From your English and the questions those
'pricks' ask you, it doesn't sound like
you pushed yourself very hard, you lazy
fuck. I hope you get fired. You got
quite an attitude for someone who is
obviously dead weight. |
| 2000/9/27-28 [Computer/SW/Security, Finance/Investment] UID:19337 Activity:nil |
9/26 E*Trade security problem:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/09/26/BU22755.DTL |
| 2000/8/31 [Finance/Investment] UID:19136 Activity:kinda low |
8/31 Anybody have any experience opening a swiss bank account? With the
internet, moving money offshore has become easier than ever. I'm
looking for suggestions on swiss banks? Online access and NASDAQ
stock trading is a must. Thanks.
\_ planning to do a repeat of the Emulex Hoax?
\_ Those of us who are 3117 $$$ h4x0rs do not wish to disclose
this information on the motd. St00pid. |
| 2000/8/27-28 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:19103 Activity:high |
8/26 So what's the best vehicle to keep my money in
that I am not ready to invest for the long term?
money market? brokerage account? CD? savings account?
thanks!
\_ http://www.fool.com
To spare you the trouble of reading, put it into an
index fund (one based on the S&P 500). But I would
read it in its entirety if I were you.
\_ you are kidding right? S&P 500 index fund is a stock fund
and is not appropriate for short term investing.
\_ i keep it in the glove compartment of my ford tempo.
\_ the one that offers the best liquidity for the amount of
C. Brokerage money account -- pretty good option. The Rates
return you desire with the level of risk you can stomach.
\_ I agree. Other choices:
A. CD, can have better return than money market. However,
this is not liquid. If you need the money in a month,
and you can get a one year Cd, you are in trouble.
Rates are fixed for the term.
B. Savings accounts -- no way. They are FDIC insured,
but the yield is way too low.
C. Brokerage money market acct -- pretty good option. The Rates
are around 5.5%-6.5% these days. They are not
FDIC insured, but some may be insured by the SIPC and other
independent companies. Some have limits too, like $100,000
protection. Read your prospectus carefully.
Rates fluctuate.
D. Bonds and Treasury's -- good option. Better than CD's
because you can sell them before maturity. However, this
requires more knowledge than CD's, and if you don't
have a lot of money, this can be a problem. Watch
commission costs in buying bonds through a broker, too.
If held through maturity, you can are guaranteed (Treasury)
getting back what you put in. For corporate bonds,
you may not get back what you put in if it defaults.
Bonds are not recommended for beginners.
E. Bond mutual funds -- like bonds but you don't get your full
money back at the end of the term. (there is no term
for a bond mutual fund). Offers diversification of
bonds, so called expert management, and you can have lower
initial investment. Some have no fee and no load.
They do have a yearly expense fee hidden in the return
of the bond fund. Like bonds (if not held to maturity),
you can lose some money due to normal market conditions.
\_ leave it to the motd to give wishy washy answers. Here's where
you should put your money: the Strong Advantage bond fund.
about 1-year maturity, slightly lower quality than your typical
ultra-short term bond fund, but yielding 7.3%. BEAT THAT!!
\_ Look at REIT's; slightly riskier, but fairly safe as
stocks go. ENN, for example, is yielding over 15%.
There are lots of REIT's with various dividend levels
and risk levels (directly proportional). -tom
\_ I made $50 in Vegas last weekend _after_ paying all my
costs! BEAT THAT!!
\_ done with ultra high risk.
\_ both of those have much more share price volatility than
Strong Advantage (check out its chart, the price volatility
has been virtually nil), though it does have pretty high
yield volatility, but most bond funds do.
\_ http://virtualbank.com offers rates up to 6.5% APY for FDIC insured,
fully liquid accounts. Their website doesn't look good
in Netscape under Unix, though. |
| 2000/8/11 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:18969 Activity:nil |
8/11 I am a contractor and my client wants me to take some stock instead
of cash as payment. This is for 3-4 months required to finish the
project that went into overtime. How do I calculate the number of
shares that (given some risk factor) would match the decrease in
my hourly rate? Looking for a URL with an explanation and a formula,
if one exists. These will probably be non-qualifying stock options.
\_ Don't do it. They'll stiff you.
\_ More or less yes and that's why I want to make an
informed decision |
| 2000/8/7-8 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:18909 Activity:high |
8/7 A variation on the salary increase question from last week. Which
person is considered wealthier according to your standards. I'll
take stock options out of the picture, since both persons can have
stock while making different salaries.
Person A -- making 120K a year. Spending nearly all the money on
expensive restaurants, clothes, a BMW, fancy apartment,
etc. Nearly 0 in savings.
Person B -- making 70K a year. Drives an old toyota, rents a house
with 3 other people, brings his own lunch. Saves nearly
30K a year.
\_ This question is flawed.
\_ I agree. The question is deeply flawed. At best you could
calculate total worth at the end of each quarter/year and
say that B probably owns more than A and is therefore
wealthier but quality of life has unmeasurable value.
\_ both are idiots.
\_ Both are wealither than me. I make $90K a year and I don't spend
money on expensive restaurants (or hardly any restaurants), clothes,
computers, AV equipments, trips or fancy car, and I only pay
$2100K/mo on mortgage. But I still save $0 because I have to give
$1K/mo and all the money I made from stock options to my parents
and they still wonder why I'm not saving any money!
\_ Why do you give them money? What's wrong with them?
\_ Must be asian parents.
\_ Not all asian parents are like that. My parents
(indian) helped my buy my options. jj's parents
(chinese) let him freeload too.
\_ Person A gets more pussy. Person B is more certain to have money
when he's old, but he'll regret his boring life.
\_ What about Person C:
Person C -- making 80K a year. Drives pre-owned luxury car,
lives with parents, brings lunch that mom makes.
Has fast DSL/Cable line as only recurring expense.
Saves ~ 40K a year.
\_ Forgot, also has several has several hundred K
in options since he has the cash to buy them,
unlike A and B.
\_ Wow, sounds like me.
\_ And me. Its an economical lifestyle. I'll eventually become
a millionare.
\_ Person D -- wealthy in spirit and rich in life.
\_ This is a trollish lifestyle question, not a salary increase
question. My lifestyle has improved from 70k --> 120k but not
the way you have it. I don't throw all my money away but I spend
more now than I did to improve my quality of life. I also save.
\_ The question is "who is wealthier". Not who has better lifestyle
Lifestyle is highly subjective. Does bill gates have a better
lifestyle than Mother Theresa? More money != better lifestyle.
Wealth, however, is an absolute measure of money. Just because
you make money doesn't mean that you have more. I'd have to
say that person B is wealthier for the simple reason that he
has more money in the bank than person A at the end of every
year.
\_ Person C gets no pussy, does he. Infact, person C probably turned
to computers as "his olnly friend" when the big bad bullies of
jr high took his lunchmoney. This was infuriated later when he
tried to ask a girl out in high school and she laughed in his face
awww, poor nerd boy. poor poor nerd boy.
\_ The "poor nerd boy" is laughing all the way to the bank.
\_ Thousands ain't gonna make you rich. You are lapping at the scraps
that business folks are throwing at you. Only relax when you
can measure your net worth, and holdings and have to use floats
- paolo
a career.
\_ No but options are. By living at home you can afford to max
out your 401K and your ESPP and buy all your vested options
which will put you into the big leagues over the course of
a career. Yes you have no woman, but you $'s. $'s are forever.
You can use $'s to get women at any age. 40 yr old multi-
millionare nerd boys can get more play than 24 year old
BMW boy.
\_ cunt
\_ i measure my net worth in octal, i must be poor. you moron.
\_ no, you're just a smart ass geek.
\_ decimals: 0.00002
\_ person A and B are cunts. In fact so is person C. That's what C
stands for.
\_ I claim that paolo authored this entire motd entry, in a fit
of jealous rage against kinney. |
| 2000/7/31-8/1 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:18834 Activity:high |
7/31 Why would stock split affect the stock price? Wouldn't the total
valuation of the company stay the same? Afterall, it is the
percentage gain/loss, not the actual dollar amount, that matters.
\_ Why do I have to eat? I get hungry sometimes, and I eat,
but then my shoes are too big.
\_ why are you a such a moron/freak?
\_ because people are irrational. (don't tell me this is the first bit
of evidence you have noticed). -crebbs
\_ stock split really shouldn't affect price. But at Crebbs says,
people are irrational. Plus, a stock split often means that
the management is very confident in their performance. Plus,
people like to buy in 100 lot shares. The lower the price,
the easier it is to buy 100 lot shares.
\_ trend analysis shows that average stock performance after a
split is actually lower than before. but it's not very
significant either way. You used to have to buy in lots of
100 shares or else pay a lot extra, but that's no longer true.
-tom
\_ some people actually do trading not on the actual split
date, but on the split announcement. Some people
buy on the rumour, and sell on the news (the split).
\_ but in answer to the initial query, viewed with
reasonable time scales in mind, splits are noop's.
-tom
\_ yermom is all but noop
\_ whoa... I need to go back to bed... I find
myself agreeing with tom.... Must be a bad
dream... see you in a few hours. zzzzzzz... |
| 2000/7/20-21 [Recreation/Dating, Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:18734 Activity:kinda low |
7/20 SDLI $500+ by the end of the month! It's unstoppable man!
-MSFT millionaire and now fiber optics millionaire
\_ Good for you. But you're still a luser. Go away.
\_ Can you say JDSU?
\_ motd poll. What's more exciting? Sex or watching your favorite
stock go up $68 (20%) in a day?
sex 0
stock 1
sex while watching your favorite stock go up 1 |
| 2000/7/11-12 [Finance/Investment] UID:18639 Activity:high |
7/11 I currently get paid 93K in SV. I got an offer in NYC doing
financial app for $130K. Is it a better deal considering a higher
living standard there?
\_ 93k? That's it? Doing what?
\- cost of living != living standard. this is going to turn on
what life style you want to some extent and not "can i live the same
lifestyle for 35% more money". if you want more $, change jobs in the
area. --psb
\_ Also, have you ever lived in New York or spent an extended period
of time there before? People tend to be bipolar regarding the
city-- either they fall in love with it or they hate it. Who
cares about the potential raise if you end up hating the city.
-dans
\_ Yep. You might end up to be a John Rocker.
\_ who?
\_ I agree with dans. New York is a nice place to visit, but
I would much rather live in SV than NY. You should
definetly spend some time in NY before you accept the job. -emin
\_ thus demonstrating dans' argument. i'd rather die than live
in silly valley, but i'd kill to live in ny. with a proper
salary that is. if you're poor its the worst place in the
universe. -lye
\_ I live in California because I hate NY. -ex NYer
\_ Seems like a good deal. Parts of Bay Area are already outgunning
Manhattan rent-wise. Hate NYC myself though, nasty place. -muchandr |
| 2000/6/5-6 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:18417 Activity:high |
6/5 Poll: Stock market will do the following in the next 2 weeks
rise 1
fall 0
.com bubble will burst and housing will again be affordable 1
stay in the same range as now, little up/down 1
\_ summary: the bay area sucks. leave after graduation, and you
can spend your smaller salary on a superior lifestyle.
\_ The .com bubble bursting won't make housing affordable. All the
.com people in the bay area won't suddenly vanish over night. This
is the theory/prayer of the poor (under $125k total income). Forget
it. Since the spring down turn, housing prices have continued to
_rise_. Housing prices are based on supply/demand more than on .com
cash which is another semi-myth.
\_ You're not gonna buy a decent HOUSE earning only $125K!
You need some one-off stock options.
\_ Under $125k?? ouch. How expensive of a house can you get for
that income anyway?
\_ How far do you want to push it? Get a really expensive
loan and pay some high rates and you can go to $650. If
you're not insane, you can do $400k without losing sleep.
\_ There will continue to be *need* for housing if there's
a stock market crash. In economic terms, "demand" is
the combination of "need" and "willingness/ability to pay".
So while a stock market crash won't necessarily reduce the
need for housing, it will reduce the demand.
I think it's unlikely prices will significantly drop,
however. The first thing that will happen is a reduction
in over-bids, and then houses will start to stay on the
market at lot longer at current listing prices. There's
a lot of slop there to take out before anyone will start
cutting prices on houses. -tom
\_ Going from 1 day on-market-to-sale to 7 days on-market-
to-sale is still way out there especially compared to the
rest of the country where 6+ months isn't unusual and the
bid is almost always under asking, not over, and usually
includes non-cash incentives from the _seller_.
\_ so under what condition will housing again be affordable?
\_ How about a nice game of Global Thermonuclear War.
\_ At which point housing goes to those with the most
functional weaponry.
\_ None really. There are always more people but God isn't
making more land. Historically speaking, housing prices
_always_ rise. Yes, there are periods of ups and downs
but overall, especially in the bay area, housing will
continue on the upward slide to infinity. The cheaper
housing just moves further out and there's a very limited
amount of 'core' housing (ie: close to SV and/or SF).
Think of this, a new home in East Palo Alto, the recent
murder capitol of the country (or was it world?) will run
$400k to $450k _and_ you have to *compete* to get it. In
short, don't hold your breath.
\_ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/hotnews/stories/01/Bhomes.dtl
Housing prices have already stopped rising. |
| 2000/5/10 [Industry/Jobs, Finance/Investment] UID:18224 Activity:nil |
5/10 If anyone is interested in working in Tokyo, there are several
positions available at Nikko Salomon Smith Barney as follows.
* DBA
* Web Based System Developer
* System / Marketing Support - Bond Portfolio Analysis
* Tokyo Fixed Income Application Support
* Asst. Project Manager for Multi-Currency Project
* Control / Data Security Program Controller
* Systems Analyst/Programmer Financial Systems - Treasury
* Programmer / Analyst - Trade Support
* General Accounting Developer
Details are in http://www.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU/~yumin/nssb
\_ Heh.
HARDWARE/SOFTWARE PLATFORMS
* Soralis, AIX, NT, C, JAVA, Perl, etc... |
| 2000/5/8-9 [Finance/Investment, Finance/CC] UID:18201 Activity:high |
05/08 Costco no longer accepts Discover Card (only AmEx) is there any
reason to keep the card now?
\_ what's the deal with Amex Blue and their special "internet"
chip, or something like that? How does it work?
\_ It's an advanced new technology known as marketing. AmEx uses
it to pitch cards with so-called "smart-chips" as the next big
thing. smart-chips are just small embedded processors in the
card. They don't do anything special. They've been used in
Europe for decades, but they never caught on here. Grab a
Streetspace card if you want to see one up close. Otherwise,
Blue is just a more traditional credit card issued by AmEx
(pay over time instead of every month), with some decent anti-
fraud measures in the legalese. -dans
\_ I feel sorry for you if you ever have to depend on AmEx's
anti-fraud measures because you're going to be raked over
the coals; I especially like how they send replacemet cards
to people impersonating you at different addresses since
they have to claim to be so convenient for travelers
\_ Is that smart-chip thing the same as what's called SIM card
in Europe, like the ones used in cell phones? -- yuen
\_ Same idea, but different card and chip. The main
advantage with smart chips is that you can store much more
data on the chip than you can on a magnetic stripe. Of
course, there are also clever uses for the chip's
processing capagilities as well, but nothing THAT clever,
processing capabilities as well, but nothing THAT clever,
which is part of the reason they never really caught on.
-dans
\_ Dan is almost right. Smart cards != regular
chip cards. Smart card = microprocessor +
storage with external power source, chip card
is usually just storage (cash cards, etc.) Smart
cards are generally used to store small
applications or authentication algorithms, and
they're in quite frequent use over here. The
problem is that no single US credit card outfit
has seen fit to sponsor C-SET or a similar
chip-based security mechanism due to costs, over
the current SET (secure electronic exchange)
transaction "security". Cf. French credit cards
which would be far more secure, except that
they use antiquated, crackable chip tech. -John
\_ *And* they're _French_. And we all know what
_that_ means!
\_ I think Discover Card offers cash rebate. (I don't have one.)
-- yuen
\_ Costco accepts AmEx now, right?
\_ Yes, and ATM |
| 2000/4/14-15 [Finance/Investment, Reference/Tax] UID:18011 Activity:nil |
4/14 When I purchase company stocks with 15% discount through Employee
Stock Purchase Plan, is the 15% difference considered capital gain
subject to short/long term capital gain tax when I sell the stocks?
Thanks.
\_ of course it is. Your capital gain is the price you sold minus
the price you paid.
\_ I thought the 15% is considered regular income? No?
\_ I read in the San Jose Mercury News that Congress is trying to pass
a law to try to tax that 15% percent. This was 6 months ago.
\_ The laws are complicated for this stuff. There is some effort in
Congress to simplify the law (read: tax you more), but this is the
basic idea:
1) If you sell the stock too quickly, it is a disqualifying
disposition, and you have to pay taxes as ordinary income. (For me,
that's within two years of the grant date of the stocks, and I assume
it's two years for you, but don't know.)
2) After that, it gets more complicated. Our literature says: "you
will recognize as ordinary income an amount equal to the lesser of:
a) The excess of the amount you realize upon the sale of the stock
(Sale Price) over the price (Purchase Price) you paid for the stock;
or b) 15% of the Grant Date Value." Yeah, it's complicated. Your
company should be able to give you specifics. -emarkp
\_ I sold a bunch of ESPP stocks last year for a down payment of
a new car. I'm going to be paying bazillions in taxes this year
due to the fact that (yes, Virginia) capital gain is calculated
according to your purchase price (i.e. incl the 15% discount) and
your sale price. If you buy ESPP stocks every month (assuming you
do) through automatic deduction, you need to keep track of how
much you buy and when. Luckily, your latest ESPP statement should
have all that. If you use TurboTax, it will ask you to enter
EVERY single one of purchase transaction. Just punch in the
numbers and it'll calculate it for you. OH, and one more thing,
in addition to the 20% cap gain tax (if you didn't sell until
after a year of purchase) you will get hit by CA state tax since
proceed of your sale is treated as ordinary income. Sucks huh?? |
| 2000/4/14-15 [Reference/History, Finance/Investment, Recreation/Humor] UID:18010 Activity:moderate |
4/15 Cool! my stocks have split a few times in the past month!!!!!!
\_ ... or did the price suddenly drop by 1/2?
\_ It was a joke.
\_ ... so was the reply.
\_ no, the reply was some moron like tpc saying "hey I got
the joke! Ha ha!" -tom
\_ I'm up 2 today. Thanks. |
| 2000/4/11-12 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Finance/Investment] UID:17970 Activity:moderate |
4/10 Do any of you know any way (even 133+ registry h4kz) to get
Win98 Second Edition to alphabetize the fucking folders in the
start menu? I can see how to change the order of the individual
sub-menus, but not the overall one. --sowings
\_ Do you mean the first menu that opens after pressing the Start
button, or the Programs menu?
\_ I don't think you can change the first menu (the one with Shutdown
and Run...), but all menus after that are alphabetizable like all
other submenus.
\_ No, they don't, and that's the problem. Note that I said
Second Edition; it behaves differently. --sowings
\_ My OEM 98 SE copy works correctly. You're right-clicking and
dragging right?
\_ I have 98SE. Right clicking and selecting "Sort By Name"
does the trick. Yes, this is on the first menu from Programs. |
| 2000/4/6-7 [Finance/Investment] UID:17943 Activity:nil |
4/6 What exactly does it mean when Dow/NASD is up/down by X points?
Is there an actual equation (e.g. sum(all shares*value)/companies
multiplied by a constant) or it is a measurement of something else,
like volume+share???
\_ See http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=@^dji for DJIA components. The
DJIA is the weighted sum of these components, scaled to a reference
point of 100 some time in the 1920's. I don't know the weights of
the individual component. The NASDAQ Composite Index is similar.
the individual components. The NASDAQ Composite Index is similar. |
| 2000/3/27-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:17870 Activity:high |
3/27 Is it easy to manage half shares and fractional shares in E*Trade?
(stocks)
\_ Go buy a full block like everyone else you pennyless wimp.
\_ too many assumptions: What if the company gets bought
out and gets exchanged for a fractional amount of shares
in another company? (which happens to be the case).
Or a DRIP system? |
| 2000/3/16-17 [Finance/Investment] UID:17774 Activity:nil |
3/14 Do some of you still invest in "old economy" stocks?
\_ I do. WAG. Dropped 25% over the past year. :-(
\_ I do. ANN (Ann Taylor). Not too shabby if bought it
2, 3 weeks ago. Had a loser too: TYC.
\_ do people still believe in Warren Buffett? (brkb, brka)
\_ You mean the stock that's ~$70k per share last year?
\_ yes, Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares.
\_ You mean the one that dropped 40% in the last year?
\_ I do. ALK. Finally popped today and is up 15%. SRE (utility)
which has done nothing, but that is what I expected of it.
Some bank stock which is down 10% even with todays jump.
Diversity is good, which the last few days have shown.
I probably don't see the huge gains you pure tech investors
see though.
\_ I think a balanced tech and non-tech portfolio is best
these days.
\_ Geeze, just go get an index fund or buy bonds.
What's the point otherwise if you're barely making
more than a BofA savings account?
\_ didn't mean balanced = 60% stocks, 40%
bonds. I meant around 50% high
tech stocks, 50% non-high tech stocks |
| 2000/2/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:17648 Activity:very high |
2/27 DATES, PEOPLE, DATES! FUCKING ANIMALS!
\_ TABS, PEOPLE, TABS! FUCKING ANIMALS!
\_ Corrected for grammar and punctuation.
\_ Update: corrected for proper tabbing.
god damnit i hate hearing ppl who know nothing about cars rant about cars
\_ I suppose you think current designs are good enough? A change as
simple as converting to diesel would easily give 60-70mpg with no
compromises (other than using the more smelly diesel)
\_ Is diesel harder on the environment in any way? -ignorant
\_ Currently, higher NO2 emissions, due to high sulfur content
in diesel mixtures. However, that's just a matter of
developing a better mixture. Synthetic diesels are much
better. Also, diesel requires less refining than gasoline,
so (should be) much cheaper when economies of scale kick in.
\_ so shuddap yerself
\_ This is because they don't RIDE BIKE! enough. This is my theory and I am
sticking to it.
\_ This makes no sense what-so-ever. If they RIDE BIKE! more, then
they would know more about cars, or they would rant less about
cars? Either way, it makes no sense. Please go to your academic
advisor and withdraw from school immediately. You're dragging
down the curve.
\_ If I want to give someone some stocks as a surprise gift, how do I go
about it? Do I need to ask my broker (online broker) to issue me
stock certificates in the gift recipient's name, and then send those
to them? Can they just then send the stock certificates to their
broker, and have it deposited in their account? Thanks.
\_ gee, what an exciting gift. i would be so overjoyed to get stocks
as a gift. wow.
\_ Obungratefulprick
\_ You may not like it, but I know my aunt and uncle would. It's
not like I don't send them flowers and other stuff. But really
it's none of your business if you have nothing to offer.
\_ i don't know. things like that are just NG. i mean, you wouldn't
ever give that to your girlfriend on valentine's day or her b-day,
so why here? it's about as fun as getting underwear or boxes of
polident on christmas.......well, do whatever.
\_ Thanks for your concern. No, I won't give my girlfriend
stocks on Valentine's day. My uncle and aunt however enjoys
playing the stock market, and we exchange stock tips. As for
any social convention of not giving monetary-type gifts, I
am close enough to my aunt and uncle that it does not matter.
My uncle and aunt also have rather particular taste so it's
not easy to buy gifts for them (they would appreciate it,
but if they don't use it, it's wasteful for everyone).
Sometimes I get good ideas, but not all the time. This time
the good idea happens to be stocks, even though you disapprove.
\_ Yes. you'll probably have to pay a small charge to the broker tho.
\_ E-mail or call your online broker. They'll probably have a form
for you to fill out. I know with <DEAD>suretrade.com<DEAD> they don't charge you to
have certificates issued to you or anyone else.
\_ Thanks! I already requested a form online. My online broker
E*trade charges $5 (one more reason to switch)
killroy was here. emacs user nuked.
emacs user was down here too |
| 2000/2/22-23 [Finance/Investment] UID:17584 Activity:high |
2/21 Can commissions charged by stock brokers be claimed as investment
expenses?
\_ your commission is part of your cost basis. -tom
\_ so what you're saying is
Capital gains = selling price - buy price - (comissionx2)
\_ No times 2. The cost basis is what you actually paid total.
\_ exactly, pipsqueak. 1xbuy, 1xsell
\_ 1xbuy + 1xsell = commisionx2 only if you pay the
same commission both times. In many cases (not
discount brokerages) you won't. The correct formula
is:
gains = (sales price - cost to sell)
- (buy price + cost to buy)
\_ Not if you make more than 1 buy transactions. |
| 2000/2/13-15 [Computer/SW/Unix, Finance/Investment] UID:17501 Activity:high |
2/13 Brokerage gave me several times more money than I deposited. While
I'm telling them about it, what can the brokerage do if I neglect
to tell them (not checking account status for a year for example,
and not realizing it.)
\_ try it and see
\_ Use it to buy some hot stocks and pocket the earnings.
\_ even if you didn't tell them about it, someone out there would
be missing that money that they tried to put into their account
so this mistake wouldn't go unnoticed for too long
\_ Generally what has happened in the past is they figure it out and
pull the money from your account. If the money is gone, you owe
them the money and they will pursue you for it. They have the law
on their side on this one. I suggest leaving it there for now
unless it was so much money it would be worth cashing out and
fleeing the country.
\_ I wonder what they'll do if the money is invested
in a hot stock, it goes up a decent amount.
Will they take out only what was put in? Or will
\_ Cool!! Which brokerage was it?
\_ Call 60 Minutes re: your situation
they take any gains which were achieved by using
that money?
\_ Just the money put in minus the interest, not the
value you increased it by. This is an interesting
hypothetical but I wouldn't do it.
\_ My account had $4000 too much in it once. I left it in there
and about two weeks later they fixed the error and sent me a
letter explaining that they were withdrawing money and why. --dim
\_ A similar thing happened to me. I didnt realize it until 3
months later, since I never check my statements (as long as
its close, i dont care). I still have the money. Closed the
account with them 6 years after. I purchased a used Lexus
with it about 8 years ago while still in college.
\_ Man, I feel for you. Fuck off.
\_ You should not tell them about it, just let them discover it
themselves. The last time I told payroll about double income
deposited, they deducted twice the amount. Till this day
I could not recover my 401k portion - lost in some bureaucratic
maze.
\_ That's what the ping of death is for! Are we there yet?
Are we there yet? Are we there yet?Are we there yet?
emacs user was here
\_ not this again...
cat user was here
sed user was here
yermom was here
angband user was here |
| 2000/2/7-8 [Finance/Investment] UID:17452 Activity:high |
2/8 I'm looking at various online brokerages. Which ones are all of you
using and why? Any I should avoid? I'm mostly doing stock trades
but not hyper active minute by minute day trading. Thanks!
\_ http://www.gomez.com They give ratings to them.
Personally, E*trade seems the most balanced.
\_ ask tom and aaron how much they love etrade --oj
\_ Or ask me. They've got incompetent customer service.
E-Trade sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls. -mogul
\_ etrade sucks..."money goes in but it don't come out" -tom
\_ it's called "re-investment," twink.
\_ No, it's called "2 months+ to transfer out" --oj
\_ Etrade has current deal with Microcenter: open Etrade and get a
$300 coupon @ Microcenter. See
http://dealnews.com/phews/artclick.php3?id=11326&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdealmac.com%2Farticles%2F20000127%2F28%2F11228.html
\_ How does ETrade afford that? There are long lines in the
Santa Clara store every weekend since November. (The rebate
used to be $400.) -- yuen
\_ Volume? :) Yes, the rebate lowered at start of Feb.
\_ I use schwab. Okay I know, some ppl think it sucks and
very expensive but I was getting some Delta Airlines miles
back then (the offer has expired). But their website seems
to be pretty good. TD Waterhouse is also equally good.
\_ I had schwab while I was at Cal, but after graduating
I switched to National Discount Brokers (http://www.ndb.com
They are pretty good and their prices are cheaper than
schwab. They also have check writing for your money market
account, wire transfer with your bank's checking account,
and the largest selection of no-load mutual funds.
\_ Has anyone traded with Datek? Advice, suggestions, experience,
etc.? Thanks -dans
\_ Motley Fools run a website that has a Review of various online
discount brokerages. They also maintain a message board
specifically for this purpose, where you will learn that:
a) Suretrade SUCKS b) E-Trade can SUCK too sometimes, etc.
Check out http://www.fool.com - jthoms |
| 2000/2/3-4 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking, Finance/Shopping] UID:17416 Activity:high |
2/2 According to McCain, he's for Social Security and "paying down
the debt." When we pay down the debt, who benefits the most?
IN other words, who holds certificates to our nation's debt?
\_ The CHILDREN. Won't somebody *please* think of the CHILDREN!
\- er, i think you are misunderstanding what this means. the
alternative to paying down the debt isnt defaulting. paying down the
debt really means you will slow down the rate of issuing new debt.
you have to finance deficit spending either by borrowing [in which
case the govt competes with private industry for savings, raising the
cost of money, i.e. the itnerest rate] or the govt can print money, an
option not open to a private individual/firm, but not totally free
for the govt either, since paying back with inflated dollars is kind
of a partial defualt. quite a bit of US treasure instruments are
held by foreigners, btw. --psb
\_ I think you are misunderstanding the question. The person asked
who will benefit by the paying off of the National debt, not
what effect it would have upon any (hypothetical) future deficit
spending.
\_ #1 holder of US Treasury products is Americans. Japanese #2.
I think Chinese have recently started buying huge
amounts.
\_ Why do you think that the Gov't's lenders want to be paid
back instead of continuing to be paid interest? And remember,
this is money they already gave the Gov't. Right now I think
$200G goes to paying iterest on our debt. How much does our
military cost? --PeterM
\_ My point (admittedly unclear) about the military
is that the interest on our debt could go a long
way to paying the military budget. --PeterM
\- if you look at debt/GDP for the us, the number isnt too bad.
the problem here isnt high debt, but extrmemely low private
savings rate. --psb
\_ You want to dump the military? Which foreign language
would you prefer to learn to talk to your new leaders?
\_ Japanese! :-)
\_ right. in japan, you'd be lucky to find people to
openly express themselves in public conversation like
this.
\_ thats why I like it. And no more stupid
"gay marriages" either.
\_ If you want to live in a cultural clam shell, go
there. No reason to destroy this country when
Japan is only a plane flight away. To each his
own.
\_ No tipping! Schoolgirl panties in vending
machines! It's a utopia!
\_ And blue dots on all the pr0n.
\_ Blue Dots are Artistic, or something. --oj
\_ Pubic hair is banned. Rape is ok.
with nukes at our disposal? The age of true tactical warfare
on a large, sustained scale are long gone. Red Storm Rising
will never occur in an age of easy and cheap nuclear armament.
\_Screw the military, we have nukes, who's gonna invade us
with nukes at our disposal? The age of true tactical
warfare on a large, sustained scale are long gone. Red
Storm Rising will never occur in an age of easy and cheap
nuclear armament.
\_ You're neither funny, nor clever, nor a good troll.
\_ You're an idiot. Or this is a weak troll. Or both.
Either way, there's no point in providing a serious
reply. No military = pick your new foreign leadership.
\_ We should take all the welfare cases, issue them with
little mind control helmets, and give them all backpack
nukes. That would rewl. Also, we should get rid of all
our tanks and buy a few hundred thousand Daihatsu Grand
Moves (the really narrow minibuses that always tip over)
and put Davy Crockett XM-28 recoilless atomic cannon on
the top of them and fill them with TNT and have these
massive swarms of little stupid-looking minibuses
with bigfoot tires chewing up the countryside lobbing
rapid-fire atomic munitions at the enemy before ramming
them in a blaze of glory. We'll get rid of INS and
customs/border patrol too, and replace them with massive
300-deep belts of of B-54 SADM nuclear land mines. We
will take care of our strategic interests by building
a titanic post-hole digger and dropping massive amounts
of nuke silos in the entire midwest, side-by-side.
Problems with Iraq? Send 'em a few Minutemen IIs for
fun. China acting up? Santa's bringing a bag full
of Titans with 20MT warheads to Peking. All US-flagged
vessels will be replaced with TridentIII subs (let the
cruise-line geezers swim) and all US air carriers will
be required to replace their planes with B-70s, for
extra impressive value. Slim Pickens for president!
Nukular Fucking Weapons! We'll be invincible! -John
\_ You're an idiot. Or this is a weak troll. Or both.
Either way, there's no point in providing a serious
reply. No military = pick your new foreign leadership.
\_ John, you my hero.
\_ Oh My God John I just creamed my shorts. I wish
I wrote that. -brain
\_ Funny how I knew this was John by line 2. I got
as far as "mind control helmets".
\_ I would totally LOVE to keep and save all the money that the
social security system is taking away from me to squander
on the retirees of today.
\_ You get your turn when you're retired to screw the
children and grand children of the people who are
screwing you now.
\_ Unfortunately, I am of post-babyboom and
pre-echoboom, meaning that I get screwed
and when I try to screw, they have the
numbers to share the burden. Maybe that
means I will have a comfortable retirement
even if I spend all my money today.
\_ Me too and no we won't because the 'echo
boomers' are going to make sure there's lots
of SS money in place before they get there.
They'll outnumber the old geezers. We'll be
fine. SS isn't the kind of program that can
be changed over night and it isn't going
away any time soon.
\_ Pay down the debt = interest rates go down, bonds are less
attractive (capital is cheaper), money is distributed to more
efficient uses (ie. capital) ... Virtually every credible
economist, including Greenspan, supports paying down the
debt before taxes. The benefits of paying down the debt
assumption of 1.5% average annual growth rate, which is way conservative.
The average for the century (with Great Depression and all) is something
like twice that, not to mention current growth rates...
outway lower taxes.
\_ Too bad we do neither to any great degree.
\_ Ah, the sound of young impressionable minds soaking up libertarian
propaganda. Government debt is not like yours or mine. Most of the
lack of a name in an inherintly anonymous forum. I
government debt is owned directly or inderectly (eq via pension funds)
private individuals. So, we have a bunch of ordinary Americans repaying
another bunch of ordinary Americans. Who exacly is getting a better deal
- the lenders or the borrowers is, as usual, far from clear.
The very popular study of Social Security going broke is based on the
assumption of 1.5% average annual growth rate, which is way
conservative. The average for the century (with Great Depression and
\_ Oops, sorry I wrote that. -- ilyas
all) is something like twice that, not to mention current growth
rates...
Does the above poster imply that "Greenspan supports lower interest
rates"? (simple transitivity) The way I understand Federal Reserve's
current approach is that they see issuing government paper as primarily
an instrument of monetary policy, not fiscal policy. -muchandr
\_ Hey Muchkin, I never had a chance to ask what your political views
were. -- ilyas
\_ Then don't. Not on the motd.
\_ Hey, the man isn't stupid, he can write me.
And sign your name.
-- ilyas
\_ What's up with the obsession with signing one's name? If
they wanted to they would have in the first place, duh.
\_ Coward. -- ilyas
\_ G-duh! You're such an idiot. "Anyone who doesn't
post everything with their real name like me is a
coward!!!! -ilyas". Sheesh, you and Tom. At least
Tom is mature enough now to stop drooling over the
anon posters and dismissing them entirely merely for
lack of a name in an inherently anonymous forum. I
suspect it'll take you even longer to grow up since
you're clearly less intelligent than Tom.
\_ It's 'inherently.' And the motd isn't inherently
anything. You can choose to sign your name and
stand by your words like me, or Tom, or psb or
you could just be an anonymous bombardier whose
words don't carry any weight. -- ilyas
\_ Anonymity does not make the words any less true.
And signing one's name doesn't make the words
any more true. You're a perfect example of
the latter. You sign everything yet your words
signify nothing. Numerous anonymous people
here have provided a lot of useful and accurate
information. Anonymity has nothing to do with
the quality or value of the contribution. And
yes the motd is inherently anonymous as there
is no signing requirement or method to enforce
such a thing. The default is anonymity. If
you choose otherwise, that's nice, but not at
all relevent to anything.
\_ If they signify nothing then replying is
a waste of time. At any rate, I am of the
opinion that truly tasteful flaming has to
have a name behind it. God knows there are
lots of people I don't like, and I never
had a problem telling them this to their
face. -- ilyas
\_ I'm glad you're happy being a loutish
boor. The rest of us try to get along
and mostly shut the fuck up when we don't
like someone because telling them so won't
improve matters and often makes it worse.
And what does tasteful flaming have to
do with anything? Feeling like a topic
change?
\_ Since low private savings rate is considered a problem, what are
are some approaches to increasing the incentive for private
savings. |
| 2000/1/24 [Finance/Investment] UID:17313 Activity:moderate |
1/25 stock tips? anyone?
\_ Since you live in a world which is one day ahead of ours, could
you please send us tomorrow's copy of wall street journal so that
we could make smarter moves on the stock market today? thanks.
\_ Or maybe 2 years in advance so I don't have to pay taxes on the
short term gains and daily transaction fees. Looking forward to
it, thanks. |
| 2000/1/20 [Finance/Investment] UID:17282 Activity:nil 70%like:17281 |
1/20 So do people onsphider it okay to alter motd pot? That is, not delete
them butt change the text of some else's pot?
\_ depends on the entertainment value.
\_ people do yermom, but I don't think its right |
| 2000/1/20 [Finance/Investment] UID:17281 Activity:nil 70%like:17282 |
1/20 So do people consider it okay to alter motd posts? That is, not delete
them but change the text of some else's post?
\_ depends on the entertainment value.
\_ people do it, but I don't think its right |
| 2000/1/18-19 [Computer/SW/Security, Finance/Investment] UID:17263 Activity:high |
1/18 Is E*TRADE FDIC insured? Thx.
\_ They are a brokerage not a bank. They have SIPC and backup private
insurance. Read their web site. (BTW do you really want an account
with E*TRADE? I haven't had an account there but heard their
customer service is impossible. You might find this useful:
http://www.gomez.com.)
\_ Very useful site. Thanks.
\_ I have an account with them. I've only had to ask one question
but got a response within 24hrs. But that's just once, so take
it as you will.
\_I have had nothing but trouble w/ Etrade. It is hard to
connect with them during the day, it takes days for them to
respond to emails, and you have to wait >>>1h to talk to a
customer service rep when you call. I prefer Datek, even
though they offer fewer services.
\_ E*TRADE is completely incompetent. They are awful. --aaron
\_ How about http://www.schwab.com
\_ schwab has pretty good service. Problem is their
commission costs for trades are pricey
\_ Why do people use/need customer support that much? I would
think that once you get things setup, you don't need
that much customer support
\_ try doing a brokerage transfer. -tom |
| 2000/1/4-5 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:17159 Activity:high |
1/4 I want to do business with a financial services firm that's pretty
new. Is there a way to check if they're legit and won't take my
money and run? The company is not publically traded, it's a small
LLC (limited liability company). Anyway to check on such a firm?
Thanks a lot.
\_ Is it FDIC insured?
\_ It's not FDIC insured. I'm dealing with a hedge fund, and
I'm not sure if the SEC is involved.
\_ If they deal with securities, i.e. stocks and bonds, and they
are not regulated by the SEC, then its NOT LEGIT
\_ How do you come to know them? If you cant easily find
information about them, i'd be very wary.
Are they in Money or Fortune magazine?
Are you investing in the hedge fund or something else?
If the former, do they offer you such a big
"guaranteed" return that a more conventional (known)
firm cant help you?
Dont they give you a prospectus? brochure at least?
\_ Check on the people who run it. Their history, background,
experience. Even check the BBB or the equivalent.
Who licenses these firms? SEC?
\_ Do a Dun and Bradstreet lookup. |
| 1999/12/29 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:17117 Activity:nil |
12/29 Just curious: any VA Linux stock owners who bought at market (290)?
Down to ~176. |
| 1999/11/24-26 [Finance/Investment] UID:16951 Activity:moderate |
11/24 Can anyone recommend a good online stock trading site? I heard
about datek, is it any good?
\_ I suggest you invest in futures. You can lose more that way
\_ Pork bellies are my favorite.
\_ PPOOOOOORRRRKKKK!!!!! --oj |
| 1999/11/22-24 [Finance/Investment] UID:16938 Activity:low |
11/22 Does anyone know of a proxy-capable X11 stock ticker-type thing
(such as Medved Quote Tracker?) wmstock won't cut it... -John
\_mach5.net. In Java.
\mach5.net is an ISP.
\_ Looked around a bit and found something called gstalker,
which looks pretty nice. -John |
| 1999/11/14-16 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Finance/Investment] UID:16881 Activity:kinda low |
11/14 My boss asked our team to implement a 1-3 line
quote of the day on our corporate frontpage, like they do
at http://Forbes.com. Looking it over, a new quote seems to be generated
on browser reload. Where do I go to get started?
We are running stronghold on linux rh 6.1 - party like it's 1999
\_ It can be done in javascript also but you'd have to send
all the quotes (in an array, maybe) and pick one at
random. This is the cheap and stupid way to do it but
it does put the cpu burden on the client side and any
moron web designer can change the quotes easily without
a triple-pay sys/webadmin to edit some html/javascript.
\_ Sounds like it would put the load on the pipe.
Sending the whole quote file each time you load the
page wouldn't work very well.
\_ Depends on how many quotes, but yes, the load is
on the pipe. I was thinking along the lines of
maybe 1 or 2k of quotes, max, not some 500k+ file.
1k is pretty much a blip even on a 28k modem.
\_ Is there a way to find out how Forbes
does their quote?
\_ View source will tell you if it's
javascript or something else
client side.
\_ follow the cracking route --oj
\_ eye hax0red f0rbz fruntd0re. eye
d1d vews0rs 0n dem!!11 |
| 1999/8/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:16416 Activity:nil |
8/26 Should the change amount of a stock equal to the difference between
the closing price of a trading day and the closing price of the
previous trading day? I'm looking at
http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=rad&d=t where today's closing price is
higher than yesterday's but the change is negative. Did I miss
something?
\_ Very good catch - Yahoo has incorrect data for Wednesday's close.
Rite Aid actually closed at 22 7/8 on Wednesday, so the change
was, in fact, 1 1/2 from Wed. to Thurs. |
| 1999/8/26-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:16404 Activity:nil |
8/26 Anybody ever gotten a paper stock certificate from a broker? I'm
thinking of giving some stock away as a gift, but I don't want to
deal with all the transfering stuff, I'd rather give a piece of
paper. Does the stock certificate have your name on it? Do I need
to fill out extra paperwork to give it to someone as a gift? Thanks.
\_ On the back of the stock certificate, there should be a space
for you to endorse the certificate to another person/party. By
default certificates appear in the account holder's name, but
you should be able to request that the broker issue the
certificate in the name of the recipient. |
| 1999/8/2 [Finance/Investment] UID:16226 Activity:moderate |
8/2 After hearing from my friends on how well they are doing at the
stock market and watching some realy cool E-Trade commercials,
I've decided to take charge of my own finance. Which broker is
good and reliable? E-Trade? Datek? AmeriTrade? Also, does anyone
know the actual statistic for people getting rich via on-line
trading? 50%? 70%? I've researched on http://quote.yahoo.com and it seems
that the stock market has no where to go but up up up!
\_ I think it's more like 95-98&; at least that's what I heard
in one of the chat rooms.
\_ stock trading is legalized gambling. Assume, assume that
no more than 50% of people currently trading actively
(vs people putting money in mutual funds) "get rich".
Now consider that those people tend to deal in "volatile stocks",
and 9 out of 10 new businesses fail. |
| 1999/7/31 [Finance/Investment] UID:16215 Activity:moderate |
7/30 ETrade and datek seems to glorify average individuals taking
charge of their finances. We always hear about people getting rich
through on-line brokerage and day trades. But what is the actual
statistic for people getting wealthy within a year or two?
50%? 40%? What about the percentage of people who lose money?
\_ patience, young grasshopper. Buy MSFT and wait 10 years. You
too will be a millionaire. --MSFT millionaire
\_ Ah, yes. MSFT -- the world's biggest pyramid scheme.
\_ but if you feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats
you get the catskins for free!
\_ This last spring, I read an interview with a SV accountant who said
35 of his 36 day trading clients lost money overall for the year.
YMMV of course.
\_ A friend had $19M of churn last year and made $50k.
\-just out of curiousity, how much was the original stake and
how many hours did he spend on this per week? |
| 1999/6/9-12 [Finance/Investment, Recreation/Computer/Games] UID:15933 Activity:nil 55%like:15925 |
6/9 Looking to trade Starsiege: Tribes for a more strategic game.
Preferably Starcraft/Broodwar. I won tribes in an online
give-away, but I don't play networked games much. -seidl
\_ Are you willing to trade a "backup" copy?
\_ maybe. since I'm not using the game at all now. I would
like documentation though. mail me and we'll talk.
\_ WAREZ!
\_ Yeah.. sure.. I'll trade you StarCraft, which requires the CD in
the drive and the exclusive use of a license key for Tribes, which
doesn't require the CD after installation and has no license key..
suuuuuuuuuuure
\_ Starcraft runs with license key 1234567890123..whatever,
except that you can't play <DEAD>battle.net<DEAD> with it. And assuming
you don't have an ethical problem with warez hosing, there
are plenty of key generators on the net. -John
\_ If you don't trust the person you're trading with, don't
trade with them. I have no interest in networked games right
now (in fact, my PC currently has no way of connecting to the net
except through floppy-net) -seidl |
| 1999/5/24-25 [Finance/Investment] UID:15868 Activity:high |
5/24 Anybody know of a site that offers non-split adjusted stock charts?
It's almost impossible to see the historical prices for a stock like
DELL or AOL because of the number of splits. BigCharts doesn't do that
BTW. Thanks.
\_ this is a tough stat to nail down. You're probably better off
computing market capitalization divided by number of shares, er
or some other number
\_ http://chart.yahoo.com/m?s=AOL -- yuen
\_ I knew that yahoo has table version of all the numbers. But
I am looking for a graph of all the numbers. Please don't
say something like d/l the numbers and run it through gnuplot.
I don't have time to do that for all the stocks I track.
\_ Write a script and put it in cron and have it email you
the results or put them on a private web page. Or don't
use cron if you only need it once. |
| 1999/3/17-18 [Uncategorized/Profanity, Finance/Investment, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Troll] UID:15601 Activity:low |
3/17 Or, as babelfish translates the motd.official:
The soda is not for warezhosen or mailspammen. Is easy
pissenoffen the rooten and overloaden barrier all with those fuck
youen and those yer momen. Is not for trades with the
majorfuckentwinken. Diskhoggen pornseeren keepen that bandwit
trousers hands in pockets must. Relaxen and watchen that barrier
Flemings. --dbushong
\_ geek
\_ No, geek is Eugene Kim |
| 1999/3/16-17 [Finance/Investment] UID:15598 Activity:high |
3/16 Anyone with experience with online trading? Is it reliable? Good?
Bad? Is etrade all that?
\_ if you hang out on the stocks newsgroups you'll find that etrade
has by far the most complaints. I trade with DATEK and it's ok
for light trading, but if you're into daytrading you definitely
don't want to trade online, EVERY service has failed badly at one
point or another. -nolram
\_ etrade sucks. waterhouse seems OK.
\_ Waterhouse is good. Only problem is you can't purchase
IPO stocks online. I guess it's a safety feature to prevent
users from buying volatile stocks.
\_ Etrade does NOT suck. How often do you trade? If you're a
long term buy and hold type of investor that likes a lot of
research and information and powerful features, then etrade is
a good choice. It's not the cheapest, but then again, do you
want the cheapest? You get what you pay for, you know.
want the cheapest? You get what you pay for, you know. They
have good connections in the industry so you have access to
IPOs. Take a look at http://www.gomez.com to see independent rating
on online brokers and banks.
disclaimer: I am an account holder AND an investor in etrade.
\_ Etrade sucks if you ever attempt to call customer service.
I've also not found anything in the research which isn't
available and better organized at http://yahoo.com. I am
cancelling my e-trade account after they failed to send
me a brokerage transfer form after asking at least three
separate times and being told "it's in the mail". -tom
\_ Etrade crashes a lot |
| 1999/3/8-9 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:15563 Activity:very high |
3/8 Soda stock tip of the week: CMGI. It's red hot baby! Up 47 1/2
today. Get in because this is the next EBAY!
\_ get in now and your sure to lose your shirt, todays Internet stock
rally was good news for the whole sector, but these specific
stocks have seen their high for the immediate future. Beware the hype!
\_ Yes. Get in now that it's up 30%. Makes sense.
\_ Yet, another overvalued stock.
\_ Makes me think that this guy has tons of options waiting to sell.
\_ Makes me think that this guy has tons of CMGI options waiting to
sell.
\_ CMGI closed at 199, EBAY closed at 171, why would you go out on a limb
and speculate that CMGI will be the next EBAY when it's already
worth more? |
| 1999/1/11-12 [Computer/SW/Mail, Finance/Investment] UID:15210 Activity:high |
1/11 I have a problem in telling elm to save outgoing messages. It
does not do it no matter how I change the relevant option field.
\_ change your ~/.elm/.elmrc file
\_ I did, it does not have any effect!
\_ You lack fu. |
| 1998/11/6-8 [Finance, Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:14919 Activity:nil |
11/5 So my friend works @ LinkExchange. Does that mean he's rich now that
M$ bought them for $250M?
\_ If he's the owner of LinkExhange then he's rich
if he's just a worker, unless his boss's willing to give him a raise
he won't be rich. He may even lose his job if M$ decide not to use
the old employees...
\_ If he's the VP there, then he might be rich. If he's a janitor
there, probably not.
\_ my boss (who's the Presid. of that other banner exchange co.)
tells me LE was venture capital funded, so owners will probably
get ~ 40% of that $. It was the venture capitalists who were
probably pushing hard for the sale. Remember... the target is
30 times your initial investment in 5 years if you're a venture
capitalist. -jctwu |
| 1998/10/26 [Finance/Investment] UID:14833 Activity:high |
10/26 Anybody know if there are online magazines that accept essays,
articles, commentaries, etc from anyone? Particularly business
articles. I have written some commentaries op-ed pieces on the stock
market and I'd like to see if they are good enough to be published
online. Thanks.
\_ Is this flame bait? |
| 1998/10/2 [Finance/Investment] UID:14720 Activity:high |
10/1 So let's hope that Alan Greenspan doesn't bail any of John
Merriweather's cronies out while he tries to undo the damage.
I'm real tired of bad financial decisions and their consequences
being separated.
\-wow, how many of you know who john merriweather is. --psb
\_ My dad. I mean my dad is John Merriweather. |
| 1998/9/25-26 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:14672 Activity:high |
9/25 salaried vs. contracting, which is better?
\_ monthly wage vs. hourly wage. lots of benefits vs. minimal
benefits. Same scene vs. constant change of scene. Of course,
many other factors.
\_ how about if i want to maximize cash income?
\_ Salary, with up to 20% into 401k (if you're talking
about maximizing over long-haul)
\_ depends on the contracting company and how much they skim off
(50-70% at Taos for instance) vs how many benefits they give
(Taos is generous there by comparison to some)
\_ 'give' is the wrong word for taos -- they 'offer' and you have
to remember to go and take it. Otherwise you get nothing...
\_ I get 90K on salary or 150K on contract. Which is better?
\_ Salary. They're paying health, various taxes, etc that
you're sposed to pay both halves of on contract.
\_ Nope. Taxes are identical if you are W-2.
\_ Contract is less stable. If the company or economy is not
doing well, contractors are the first ones out.
\_ Not always. Schwab laid off 60 IS employees in '95, 0
contractors lost their jobs.
\_ that's cause the HR people at Schwab are absolute
MORONS. Them, and whaterver IS bigwig is linked to them.
(I've had a good look at the inside of Schwab. Not
a happy place)
\_ Salary, there's potential to be rich with stock options
(if company is good).
\_ Name one person you know personally who has hit it
rich with stock.
\_ *@inktomi.com
\_ Most of my co-workers made hundreds of thousand in stock
options from the 1995-1996 stock waves.
\_ Real cash or just theory money? |
| 1998/8/27 [Finance/Investment] UID:14521 Activity:nil |
8/26 Anyone know about online stock trading companies' Mean Time
Between Failure? Is there any information on downtimes NOT based
on word-of-mouth? - seano |
| 1998/8/17-18 [Finance/Investment] UID:14464 Activity:very high |
8/17 Dear Mr. Motd, I keep hearing about internet stocks..
Are they a good investment?
\_ Mr Motd, are you related to Mr Mott the barber on STTNG?
\_ They're almost as good an investment as your local state lottery.
\_ Wrong. With lottery, you have at least the chance to get rich.
\_ 6 months ago.
\_ Mr Motd, are you related to Mr Mott the barber on STTNG?
\_ They're almost as good an investment as your local state lottery.
\_ Wrong. With lottery, you have at least the chance to get rich.
\_ Au contraire. if you had bought, say, search engine stocks
about a year ago, you would have made a crapload of
moolah. Similar results with ISP stocks. As with any
stock, buy low, sell high.
\_ how about "buy overpriced, sell way-overpriced"? |
| 1998/5/21 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:14125 Activity:very high |
5/21 I don't really know the first thing about money, but say you're a new
grad getting 50k... after taxes and stuff, how much are you really
earning?
\_ Here we go again....
\_ not enough
\_ less than everyone else on soda (except the UCB employees and the
people who are still students)
\_ After petty 401K and stock purchase plan and outrageous housing
rates, I get about $15K year saving. And yes, I make 55K/year.
^^^^^^^^^
\_ Does that include your 401K plan savings? How much do you
put in it in any case?
\_ Put as much as your employer allows. At the minimum, you
should put in enough to for the employer's match. -trustme
\_ if you think you actually deserve more than $15K/yr savings
by pressing buttons (i.e.: coding), you're high. |
| 1998/5/21-6/12 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Finance/Investment] UID:14122 Activity:nil 75%like:14095 |
05/13 Congratulations to the new Politburo for Summer and Fall semesters:
The President: Devin Jones (jones), Vice President: Brian Gaeke (brg)
The Treasurer: Jon Kuroda (jon), The Secretary: Mike Howard (mikeh)
The Librarian: David Bushong (dbushong) |
| 1998/5/16-21 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Finance/Investment] UID:14095 Activity:nil 75%like:14122 |
05/13 Congratulations to the new Politburo, for Summer and Fall semesters 1998:
The President, Devin Jones (jones) The Vice President, Brian Gaeke (brg)
The Treasurer, Jon Kuroda (jon) The Secretary, Mike Howard (mikeh)
The Librarian, David Bushong (dbushong) |
| 1998/2/17-18 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:13687 Activity:high |
02/17 I've lost a lot of $ in the stock market, and someone told me that I
could claim "capital loss" for tax purposes. However, when I look at
my W form, I don't see any loss figures. So how do I claim it?
\_ Hire a CPA.
\_ you need to fill out a schedule D. It has nothing to do with
your W form. And you can only claim 3000/year (but can carry
over larger amounts to subsequent years.) And try not to
trade so much in the future, you high roller, you.
\_ I lost 4000... so how much do I get back? Also, where do I get
\_ Depends on your income - and you're not "getting it back"
The government isn't covering your losses, just cutting
you a small break on your taxes.
this schedule D? (btw I'm NEVER trading again)
\_ Ask the IRS for a schedule D. Also, your 4000 loss must
be subtracted from any long term gain you may have seen
from your "trading" (and mutual fund distributions, if you
have any). BTW, this isn'r really the right forum for this
-- but it'll get you started. It's good that you are not
\_ what's wrong with trading? i've made a shit load of money
trading this year. you just gotta know what you are doing.
\_ unless you are actively trading millions of dollars,
commissions and taxes will take a large part of your
big-shot gains. That's all I meant. And im sure you
just make so much money "trading" hot shot.
\_ i don't see how trading millions of dollars at a
time reduces the tax burden. but yeah, for most
people, investing is a much better idea.
\_ It doesn't. You pay taxes at the end of the year
not on a per-transaction basis. Also, if you're
trading that much your broker is probably giving
you a break, but you're definitely in the top tax
bracket.
\_ FUCK CONRAD
\_ Who's Conrad? Is he sexy?
going to trade anymore. Try _investing_ instead.
\_ well, if they're short-term losses, they're
subtracted from short-term gains. |
| 1998/1/25 [Finance/Investment] UID:13561 Activity:nil |
1/24 http://www.calvert.com/sfdt/fan-shows/12-17-97/hot_stuff.html |
| 12/24 |