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12/24 |
2005/12/23-28 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:41130 Activity:nil |
12/22 http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051223/economy.html?.v=10 median price in oct: 234800 median price in nov: 225200 "However, sales fell in all other areas, led by a 22.1 percent drop in the West, the biggest decline in this region since February 1995." \_ How is this going to affect the interest rate? \_ Finally. I've been watining for this to come for a long time. Now maybe I can afford something close to work. It's about time, damnit. -bitter home buyer, 32 years old \_ How do you figure? Rates are going up so your monthly will be the same (roughly) on the same house even if the buy price is lower. If you're a home owner now, your house will sell for less also. If you're bitter because you're a renter, then you don't even have th eold house to help offset the cost of the new. This is sum zero for you, guy. The prices and #s sold are slipping because rates are going up. I feel bad for you but this isn't going to help you at all unless you're a high cash buyer. If you had that kind of cash you'd own now. \_ Another 85% and my house will be back where I bought it. \_ And with a higher interest rate. |
2005/12/22-24 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/Others, Finance/Investment] UID:41122 Activity:low |
12/22 For my motd investment buddy. I was looking at TKF (Turkish Investment Fund) and I noticed the following: http://www.etfconnect.com/select/fundPages/global.asp?MFID=3857 Closing NAV: $18.97 Closing Share Price: $23.85 Premium/(Discount): 25.72% As a comparison, IFN (India Fund) has a premium of 5.05% And the CEE you also recommended has a discount of 3.9% Would you be worried about the 25.72% premium? \_ Yeah, it worries me. Especially since I own some TKF. I wish there was some other way to get exposure to Turkey. Do you know of any? \_ I don't know any other. Thanks for the CEE tip. I will sell half my EUROX first thing 2006, and buy CEE with the money. 2006 so I don't pay capital gains until 2007. |
2005/12/22-24 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/Taiwan, Finance/Investment] UID:41121 Activity:kinda low |
12/22 Hi guys, I'm going to be visiting Taiwan next week. What's the best way to exchange USD for Taiwan dollars? My guess is to buy AmEx travelers checks (as an AmEx cardholder) in cash at an AmEx office, and exchange the checks for NT$ at an AmEx office (for free) in Taiwan. Is changing U.S. dollars in cash at the CKS airport for NT$ that much worse? Thanks. \_ before you leave airport, use your ATM card and withdraw local currency. I do this all the time everywhere I go. \_ AAA sells travellers' checks to members without fees. \_ Yeah, I was looking at that. I even have a AAA-branded credit card I can charge it to (no cash advance fee for travellers checks). I'm just wondering what the fee is to cash them at CKS airport I guess. My friend from Taiwan also says, "People in Taiwan only know AmEx travellers checks", although the bank and airport booth people probably know know Visa checks. You buy Visa checks at AAA offices I believe. \_ Are you sure AAA sells Visa checks? I remember last time I bought traveler's check at AAA it was AmEx. This was about 2 years ago, so things may have changed. As changing money at CKS, I did it last time I was there. However, I don't remember what rate "premium/fee" was. \_ Not sure, but they only mention the Visa stuff on AAA web pages now. The AmEx web page still mentions AAA though. \_ This is true for Europe; that ATMs are usually your best deal in terms of exchange rates. I tend to stay awake from Trav Chqs or money changers. See if your ATM card has a Visa/Mastercard logo on it, and you would only be charged the standard 1% foreign transaction fee. Most ATMs in Europe and Singapore (don't know about Taiwan) do not charge cash advance fee like in the U.S., so you would only pay your home bank for doing business with other ATMs. And if you carry certain balance with your bank (Citibank comes to mind), they waive all ATM fees when you use other bank's ATMs. If you bank with BofA, for example, they have affiliate banks worldwide so that you won't get charged. Ask them for a list. \_ If you do decide to go with the ATM route, make sure the ATMs at your destination will accept your PIN. The last time I travelled internationally, I found that a lot of ATMs, particularly in airports, would only work with 4-digit PINs. It took me a while to find a bank whose ATMs would work with my longer PIN. -gm \_ Oh, also remmeber a lot of non-US ATMs do not have alphas on it, so if you're used to memorizing 4-alpha, get used to memorizing the digits instead. |
2005/12/14-16 [Finance/Investment] UID:41021 Activity:high |
12/14 "ILF up 66%, BZF up 74%, EWY up 44%, CEE up 64%. But I only hold about 10% in each. You are holding too much risk with an undiversified portfolio like that for my taste." \_ That's impressive, nice returns betting on different regions. How do you plan on investing in 2006? \_ Thanks, I only posted the best ones though. There is an EWG up 9%, and a bad bet on CPN bonds (lost 50% so far) that bring the overall return down to about 30%. I am still working on my end of year adjustments, but I will certainly hold the above, to start with. I try not to sell winners, but in CEE's case it went up so much I had to sell half of it to avoid overbalancing my portfolio. I moved the proceeds into EEM. Recent purchases include TKF and PCU, a copper miner. I am probably going to reduce my overseas allocation from 70% \_ Thanks, I only posted the best ones though. There is an EWG up 9%, and a bad bet on CPN bonds (lost 50% so far) that bring the overall return down to about 30%. I am still work- ing on my end of year adjustments, but I will certainly hold the above, to start with. I try not to sell winners, but in CEE's case it went up so much I had to sell half of it to avoid overbalancing my portfolio. I moved the proceeds into EEM. Recent purchases include TKF and PCU, a copper miner. I am probably going to reduce my overseas allocation from 70% back down to 50%, but other than that, I haven't figured it out yet. Any suggestions? \_ Funny how the motd financial gurus only post their winners and the biggest ones at that and everyone has large double digit gains in everything. It feels like 1998 all over again everyday on the motd. \_ 30% yearly gain is nothing to sneeze at. \_ This is true. My gain is 20%/year over the last 5-6 years but there were down times in there as well. I'm not picking on this person in particular, more the general batch of "I'm a guru! I got lucky on these 3 stocks! Don't look at the losses under the rug..." people posting here. \_ 20% per year is impressive, especially given that your 5-6 years included 2000 to late 2002. I have a 35% annual gain since late 2002, which was when I got out of the post internet bubble stock investment funk. I definitely lost money from 2000 till 2002. Luckily I didn't have too much money then. your 5-6 years included 2000 to late 2002. \_ Like I said, there were some down times. I bought in while the market was still dropping so I was at a loss for a while but now I'm well above. My only regret was not trusting myself and getting scared and not buying more at one key point where I had my finger on the "buy" button but chickened out. That was the low point. Oh well. I did ok. \_ I missed Korea entirely. What prompted you to pick Korea (EWY)? I have EUROX, but it was trounced by your CEE in the past year, even though it had good long term performance and has been slightly less volatile. I know little about Turkey. What's your reasons for buying it? When is it joining the EU? \_ About three years ago, I decided that China was the real growth engine of the world, but I don't want to buy Red Chinese stocks for obvious reasons. So I decided to buy stocks in the nations that I thought would benefit from China's rise, including most of its neighbors: EWH, EWS, EWY and TTF (later sold when the Thai economy went into a recession). CEE is very heavy on Russian oil and into a funk). CEE is very heavy on Russian oil and gas producers, so be careful with it. I bought Turkey mostly because The Economist keeps saying good things about the Turkish economy and chances for EU admission. They still have a bunch of hurdles to jump, but it looks like 2012 or so for Turkey. \_ I bought some EWJ (japan) and also had MJFOX \_ I have bought some EWJ (japan) and also had MJFOX (japan) since late 2003. Everyone is saying buy Japan. What do you think? The other thing I've been looking at is blue chip US companies. So far, I've bought just GE though. You don't like India? Totally missed the 20% semiconductor run up recently. Thanks for the Turkey tip. I will definitely look at that. \_ I have a bit of Japan, will probably sell some emerging market and move into it and SPX when I rebalance. The US economy has all the same problems it had three years ago, but at least the valuations are looking more reasonable. I guess I should buy some IFN, but I missed the big runup and hate buying high. Any other good ways to get into India? |
2005/12/14-16 [Finance/Investment] UID:41018 Activity:low |
12/14 anyone have ameritrade? should i store my cash in the reserve fund (money market) while i am not trading? \_ I do. I figure a percent or 2 of growth is better than nothing. I noticed on a couple occasions the money market *lost* small amounts of money but Ameritrade gave me a 'gift' to cover the loss. \_ can you buy stocks fast with it being in the money market acct? \_ Yes, it just makes you have negative cash until they transfer money out of reserve at the end of the day. \_ do they charge $35 if you take out cash before 90 days? \_ where do you specify whether to store cash in the reserve fund? I can't find it anywhere on the account website. \_it's on your home page.. enroll in reserve... righthandside \_ I think it's only available for IRA accounts. Are you using an IRA account? \_ yeah.. it's only in my ira accts. \_ I've had ameritrade for several years (ever since they bought ndb). I normally keep my cash in the reserve fund b/c it gives a decent return. |
2005/12/13-15 [Finance/Investment] UID:40992 Activity:nil |
12/13 Which is better for an individual investor, savings bonds or treasury bonds/notes? \_ Bill Gross, the king of bonds, recommended FAX, an asian bond fund with 7.30% yield. It's a closed end fund that's trading at 10% below its NAV (net asset value). I am buying it tomorrow. with 7.30% yield. It's a closed end fund that's trading at 10% below its NAV (net asset value). I am buying it tomorrow. \_ 47% in Australia. It is not really diversified. \_ neither is not good. Liquidity gets pretty bad. I would go for bond mutual funds instead. |
2005/12/13-15 [Finance/Investment] UID:40984 Activity:kinda low |
12/13 Hello self proclaimed stock gurus. It's time to prove yourselves that you are a true guru by winning the motd stock contest. Entering the contest is easy: predict the Google stock price in 6 months, 1 year, and 2 year intervals from now. To receive the title of a True Motd Stock Guru, you must sign your real name. I will start. \_ dunno about goog but made killing on EMRG (in at .36) \_ 420, 350, 300 -junior \_ Anyone who claims to be able to predict the price of a stock with as much immaturity and volatility as Google is not an investment guru. -tom \_ why do I have to agree with tom. Let's not predict price. Just choose stocks. \_ yes, choosing stocks is better, but usually, to win, one has to do a risky bet (eg. all oil stocks) and then has some luck. A more reasonable portfolio would finish above average but will not win. \_ to win what? \_ best performing portfolio of the year. \_ Investing is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash. If you treat it as a sprint, you're more likely to end up screwed or breaking even. *You* might have gotten lucky, but as an investment strategy this is fuck stupid. \_ One year is a very reasonable time frame to judge stock picking performance. Good long term investors may not beat the market each month, but they tend to beat the market year after year, with a bad year once in a while. \_ one year is not enough. Ten year is more accurate. You can evaluate trading, and position trading in one year, but not long term investing. \_ well, you need to make an evaluation or judgement call at least once a year in my opinion. But you do need to consistently make good calls for several years at least before you can be considered a good investor, so I don't disagree with you. \_ A stock can easily appreciate 20% in a few weeks, turning it from undervalued to fully valued, and hence a candidate for selling. This is called value investing. It's not trading. \_ 50% GAGEX, 50% VGPMX. Up 55% and 32% respectively and I think they will go higher, especially GAGEX. \_ PBR 79% gain since 12/27/04. \_ That's a single stock. GAGEX and VGPMX are mutual funds, in energy and precious metals. \_ Yes, but I am not sure if GAGEX is necessarily less volatile since it is highly dependent on the price of a single thing: crude. \_ ILF up 66%, BZF up 74%, EWY up 44%, CEE up 64%. But I only hold about 10% in each. You are holding too much risk with an undiversified portfolio like that for my taste. \_ why not join http://marketocracy.com \_ can you play if you're a GOOG employee? |
2005/11/30-12/3 [Finance/Investment] UID:40780 Activity:nil |
11/30 Presume you had $90,000 to play with: It seems that you could make 0.1-0.2% profit per day just exchanging shares of BRK.A and BRK.B. Since BRK.A shares are convertible to BRK.B shares, they always trade at about a 30.3:1 ratio. But since BRK.A has less liquidity that ratio swings a couple tenths of a % in the course of a day. Is this an unexploited arbitrage opportunity or am I missing something? \_ The BH website has a page on this topic. \_ It discusses A->B conversion when B goes above A/30, and the fact that the market does not let B goo too far below A/30, but it does not discuss day trading off the swings in B's range. conventional day trading has the risk that your stock might drift in the wrong direction, but with this there is a built-in limiter to how far they can drift apart. \_ People with a lot more money than you are already taking all the profit available in these kinds of arbitrage schemes. -tom |
2005/11/4-6 [Finance/Investment] UID:40447 Activity:kinda low |
11/4 What's the purpose of having codenames for projects? To me, it's just yet another piece of info per project that I need to remember. \_ To facillitate communication across departments. \_ Why not use the real name of the product? \_ Because you get version number differences, branched products, etc. Not every dev team requires codenames, but it's a common thing to do just to keep everyone on the same page. \_ Also, it depends on how you define "project". If it's a product, it will have a name, but that name may change or be unwieldy to use on a regular basis. If it's a version, the business types could change the version name at any time to support sales or marketing. If it's a set of features, it may not have a well-defined short name, and "the code that does all that new stuff" isn't terribly descriptive. -gm \_ 1) project hasn't been named yet 2) project name is long and unwieldy 3) it's just a version change and maybe saying you're working on "5.8.7" is annoying Those are just off the top of my head --dbushong \_ Project version number changes at last-minute. \_ You can't say the full name of the project without laughing \_ They're more fun \_ Just ask Butt-Head Astronomer. -tom |
2005/10/30-11/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:40341 Activity:nil |
10/30 How to solve Iran's stock market woes? Hang the investors! http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4208 \_ Threatening other countries, torturing/killing others will solve all problems -- just ask the Bush administration |
2005/10/28-31 [Finance/Investment] UID:40326 Activity:high |
10/28 Hi, does it make sense now that interest rates are rising and that the housing bubble appears to be peaking, that there will be a flux of $$$ from housing to stocks? Evidence of this would be the Dow Jones average increasing noticeably over the next 6-12 months. \_ Rising interest rates usually hurt the stock market. \_ but it will eventually end, and rates will start going down again. \_ or it will go up, and then oscillate at a higher level for a very very long time. \_ economy/stock market starts to go down, slow too much, and interest rates will start going down again. \_ if inflation remains high, which do you think the fed would pick: inflation or recession? \_ why do you think they would 'choose' either bad thing? why do you think they have that kind of power over the economy? if they had the power to 'choose' the state of the economy, they would always choose a strong/healthy/robust economy. was there a point to your question? \_ Err ... the fed does one main thing, adjust the interest rate up or down. To fight recession, they would lower the interest rate, to fight inflation, they would raise the interest rate. That's what is meant by the fed "choosing". I think most people understood that. \_ Ok then. In that case, they would still choose to attempt to get to the magical place in between those two states since either of the other states can/will kill the economy if the condition goes too far. It is much harder to pull the economy out of a tail spin than it is to keep it from doing so in the first place since both recessionary and inflationary states feed on themselves in a cycle of doom without more and more serious intervention. It is that intervention that the Fed is in a continuous state of attempting to perform. It is like asking a surgeon if he'd prefer his patient died from a heart attack or a stroke while on the operating table. \_ or it could be a surgeon deciding whether he should save a man's leg, but possibly risk the man's life, or amputate the infected leg. \_ well except that it can't be. both economic conditions are horrible if they slip beyond a reasonably small range and feed on themselves. would you rather a) destroy the economy or b) destroy the economy. \_ how would they "feed on themselves"? Do explain. \_ well sometimes inflation and recessions will happen and there is nothing you can do about it. The only choice you get is pick one. why do you believe that only good things are allowed to happen? because you said "it can't be"? bwahahahaha! have you heard of the term "stagflation"? \_ Buy gold, an AK-47 and stock up on ammunition. \_ Uhhhhh, when is this *not* a good idea? \_ When you live in CA. You CAN NOT buy anything close to an AK-47 here. Not even the semiautomatic version. Just a .22 LR rimfire superfacially similar looking one. BTW, I am the proud owner of a Bulgarian AK-47 and 75rd drums, with plenty of 7,62 x 39 mm ammo. :) \_ Rising interest rates will lead to the rising of the dead. Move away from large cities. \_ The dead will be raised -- for fuel. \_ From 9/14: "http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050914/od_nm/germany_cats_dc German invertor creates renewable fuel. A newspaper say he uses dead cats as the source but he denies it. Fucking Krauts." \_ not a good idea. best investment now could be the I bonds. almost 100% probability that it will be more than 6% when they set the rate for the next 6 months on 11/1. they set the rate for the next 6 months on 11/1 cause the variable part of the rate will be 5.7% and the "fixed" rate is 1.2% but may be lowered, but should still be more than 0.5% |
2005/10/21-24 [Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity, Finance/Investment] UID:40213 Activity:nil |
10/21 Alan Greenspan translation for the average American is here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/thornton/thornton13.html |
2005/10/19-21 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:40188 Activity:nil |
10/19 Housing boom/bust links from swami the magnificent: http://tinyurl.com/cv3mt (thestreet.com) http://www.patrick.net http://tinyurl.com/bl5rm (finance.yahoo.com on stock prices) |
2005/10/16-19 [Finance/Investment] UID:40128 Activity:nil |
10/16 dear motd financial adviser, i'm interested in learning about investing in the stock market and would like to hear recommendations about books to read on this subject. I am not looking for general advice on "what to do with your money" but specific advice on methods and strategies for picking stocks and mutual funds to invest in for someone without a lot of experience and no background in economics. \_ Wow, psb hasn't answered yet. I'm incapable of imitating psb, but he would tell you to read "A Random Walk Down Wall Street." ok tnx. \- 1. i was at the opera. 2. good advice. --OTpsb \_ I would read a Peter Lynch book. Then I would try yahoo finance and all the news on the particular stock you are interested in. WSJ is always good, and Economist helps too, but is not essential, since it doesn't need to be too complicated. The basic but important things are careful research on the company (the industry it is in, competitors, products, business model, risks, valuation, etc. etc.), patience and discipline (let good stock run, cut loss early on bad picks). Also, resist the urge to start trading instead of investing. Of course, don't forget asset allocation, but I have mixed feelings about that. I think sometimes one should go for it. If you can do the above well, you should be fine. You can learn other more fanciful, but not necessarily more useful, stuff as you go along. Before buying a stock, be able to give a 1 minute explanation on why you are getting it, and what are the possible risks and downsides for the stock. Oh, also Smartmoney magazine is pretty decent for picking stocks and funds. \_ start with Investing for Dummies or Personal Finance for Dummies. After that, let us know. \_ in addition, that Peter Lynch book, and maybe also writings by William O'Neil (How to Make Money in Stocks), and Jim Cramer (latest book). \_ http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/050803.asp |
2005/10/16-19 [Finance/Investment] UID:40124 Activity:nil |
10/16 So, what happens to shareholders in a mutual fund if the mutual fund company goes belly-up? \_ I imagine they stand in line with the other Chapter 7 bankruptcy debtors. They probably stand pretty close to the front though. \_ That sounds mighty suspicious. -op \_ The "mutual fund company" just manages the fund. Each fund is its own separate entity under the Investment Act of 1930something, and owns its assets on behalf of its shareholders, with its own board and everything. The managers and its debtors have no legal claim on the fund's assets. \_ So if the mutual fund place closes shop, do they liquidate the funds and return to shareholders, or what? \_ yes. |
2005/10/14-15 [Finance/Investment] UID:40085 Activity:nil |
10/14 http://www.thisislondon.com/films/articles/20638955 In choosing the next Bond (probably because Brosnan was too expensive): "Hugh Jackman ... was 'too fey', Colin Farrell 'too sleazy', Eric Bana 'not handsome enough' - and Ewan McGregor 'too short' at 5'10"." |
2005/10/13-14 [Finance/Investment] UID:40075 Activity:nil |
10/13 Was watching Jim Cramer on Mad Money. Guy was calling in on how likely Fed is gonna raise rates. Jim Cramer says it's simple, Fed is going to continue raising rates until the housing bubble pops. \_ Err, isn't the Fed raising rates because of inflation? \_ I wonder how directly the interest rate now ties into rising prop values. Sure, the initial huge gains were triggered by low rates. But later it has been the spectacle of previous huge gains that drive investors to keep buying and flipping to each other without much regard to interim monthly payments. |
2005/10/13-14 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:40068 Activity:high |
10/13 Why I don't think the real-estate will ever bubble. Many young people seeking for opportunities from inland move to coastal metro CA. Most asian immigrants to move to CA. The people from the border love to move to CA. Kids are born and raised in CA. People who already stay in CA like to stay in CA. The fact of the matter is, regardless of the economy the CA population is still rising and there is a shortage of land. We talk about bubble as if people will all of a sudden will lose their jobs or move to apartments or move out of the state. Wouldn't such a movement trigger an apartment rental boom, which is unlikely since many are already close to full occupancy anyways? Real-estate bubble-- wishful thinking, it'll never happen. \_ Do you have statistics to show that the Bay Area population is growing? I read an article that claimed the opposite. \_ There's an artificial shortage of land, in reality there is no shortage of land in CA. If the population does increase to a certain size we'll just expand the burbs is all. All you have to do is travel down interstates between the two large metropolitan areas of LA-OC-SD and the Bay Area and you can see the large amount of empty room still available. But real statistics show that the Bay Area has been losing population, contrary to popular belief, and that the growth has been in SoCal and Sac. \_ I think it's a matter of perspective. The housing bubble is not going to be like the stock market bubble. Houses won't end up being worthless. The problem are those people who are betting their property will continue to increase in worth by double digits and those who will get caught by the increasing high interest. The bubble will be stagnant markets, or slightly depressed prices. \_ actually considering that most people are financing their homes, likening it to stock merket would be likening it to a stock market heavy on margin traders. If someone only puts up 10% down on real eastate, it only takes a 10% drop for them to lose it all. Because of the heavy leverage, small changes in the market can produce big losses! The one saving grace is real eastate is not very liquid. It won't take a week for the market to crash ; it'll take months. \_ Sorry, but people from the border can't afford the million $ homes. As for CA kids, they will all just live with their parents. For speculators, if home prices don't rise, they will be bleeding money, and hence looking to sell. Inflation is rising and the fed is forced to keep raising rates. Add to that outsourcing, trade deficit, budget deficit, high consumer debt, and an overall ugly economy, and even though I wish to say housing would just calm down and stagnate, I have to be honest, and tell you that, more likely, it would pop and fall like 20%. - worried homeowner \_ If this real estate bubble is anything like the last one in the Bay Area, I wouldn't worry too much. Even if prices start falling, it won't do dramatically. Incomes and prices are high enough that you can sell if need be. \_ Actually, the new immigrants are able to afford quite a lot. How? They share. It's common for several families of new Mexican immigrants to share a house. In this way, I've seen even day laborers buy a $400K house. Yes, this constrains prices because at some point income is always a limiting factor. By the way, why are you worried about a 20% drop? That's nothing. So your $500K house falls to $400K. BFD. \_ if you spent $100k down on that $500k house, after the 20% drop, that $100k of equity is GONE. If you borrowed it all, you're now $100k in debt; selling the house would leave you still well in the red. \_ Uhm no. If I put $100k down on a $500k house and the sell price drops 20% I have the option of "not selling" since I live there. If I was a speculator I'd probably take a hit since a 20% drop is unlikely to recover quickly in which case I'd lose a tiny amount of the millions I'd made over the last 5-10 years. Too bad I wasn't a speculator. ;-) \_ Not selling is all fine and dandy if everyone took out 30 year fixed mortgages. Unfortunately, there are too many 1 year, 3 year ARMs, no interest, blah blah mortgages these days. I am not worried about my own home per se, but a deflating housing bubble pulling the whole economy down. IIRC, something like half of the jobs created lately are real estate related. \_ I think the real estate market in CALIFORNIA will be a good investment IN THE LONG RUN precisely because the population here is growing quickly. However, this is not true in most places. \_ Yea, in the long run, stock market goes up too, but like my old Numerical Analysis TA says, "Why are we learning this faster algorithm? Cause LIFE IS SHORT!" \_ Look, do you want to invest or are you trying to win the lottery? If you're not in it for the long-term then just go to Vegas already. Many people have long-term goals and accomplish them by staying the course. That doesn't mean to ignore short-term fluctuations, but most of us here are quite far from retirement age and have time on our side. \_ "Yea, things are overpriced, but you need to get in or you will miss the boat. Just invest for the long term." That's what they say at the height of the internet bubble too. \_ Maybe. On the other hand, I thought we were at the top 4 years ago (when I bought). I needed a place to live. I wouldn't buy an investment property right now. However, I'd buy a 'home' if I needed one and could afford it. \_ How far off is the DOW/NAS/etc now from where they were at the top of the dotocm bubble? \_ nasdaq: 5000 (top of bubble 5+ years ago), 2000 (now) \_ The End Is Nigh: http://www.golyon.com/images/sacsvs.png http://www.golyon.com/pricingtrends_f.htm |
2005/9/24-26 [Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia, Finance/Investment] UID:39851 Activity:high |
9/24 http://tinyurl.com/atl2o A Housing Crash Will Soon Hit America -- Find out Sir John Templeton's Advice and Prepare for the Coming Catastrophe \_ When? When?! \_ John Snow is in Beijing pressing China to revalue RMB again. If Snow gets what he wanted (40% increase in RMB value), we will see how fast housing market crashes. \_ I am an economic fool. How is a 40% increase in RMB going to cause the housing market crash? \_ 40% increase in RMB value will whipe out all trade surplus China has with USA. Consider that China is running trade deficits with virtually all nations except USA, this means China won't have spare cash to buy a billions of US treasuries a month. US 30-yr bond need to raise interest rate to attract investors, and morgage rate is tied to 30 yr bond... \_ 40% is ridiculous and won't happen, but if it does, it means inflation since walmart, etc. will have their costs increase, and inflation will force the fed to keep on raising rates, supposedly. The other factor is how the asian central banks react to a currency revaluation of say 10%. I guess the reasoning is that once PRC allows revaluation, the other asian central banks won't be under as much pressure to keep buying US treasuries to keep their currencies just as cheap. This will force the US treasury to increase its rates in order to continue attracting money to service US debts. \_ This is just one big long fucking ad. Why show us this? And most people agree that the housing market's in a precarious state right now, but predicting exactly when it'll blow, or if it'll deflate with a hiss instead of a bang, no one can do, including "Sir John Templeton". --PeterM \_ I believe the income vs. mortgage ratios are still lower than the last 2 times housing got thumped and even then all that happened was a 20% drop followed by years of decreased _growth_ back *way* above where it was. When I bought 5-6 years ago, I thought it was high then but was simply tired of being a rental victim. I feel bad for all the folks who have been bitterly waiting for some giant corrective event that is simply unlikely to happen to any large degree. If housing prices dropped in half because of all the risky loans all choking at the same time, all you'd really see is those houses being bought up at auction by people who do have money and can afford to rent at a loss for years until incomes/rental prices catch up. The sky is not falling. Even a 20% drop in housing would simply put prices back 6-18 months (depending on location) which is still higher than when people started screaming bust. Going in after some not-yet-happened 20% drop would be worse than having bought in 6-18 months ago at the same price since in the meantime the angry renter would have lost all the rent money, have a higher interest rate, started owning later in life, and suffered the extra stress and bitterness to get a house further away from their ideal location. I didn't read the link and didn't see a point given the title. Anyone hyping their stuff with "...Prepare for the *C_O_M_I_N_G* *C*A*T*A*S*T*R*O*P*H*E* !!@@!!@1111" doesn't deserve a click. \_ Well, I bought a house, just not in CA. (Buying in CA would have been silly since I live in NM.) Regardless of what you said, I still think that housing is in a precarious state, and that there will be some sort of correction, but I've no clue whatsoever when/how bad, and no one has any such clue. --PeterM |
12/24 |
2005/9/22-23 [Finance/Investment] UID:39820 Activity:nil |
9/22 ETrade is offering money market for 3.65% APY for the first 3 months plus $50 credit to you. Is it possible to open up one, then close an existing one and get the credit? \_ Are you sure there is no fine print already in place against existing customers? \_ ETrade has a gay ass withdrawal fee of like $50 or something. |
2005/9/20-22 [Finance/Investment] UID:39775 Activity:kinda low |
9/20 Two people on motd actually think Alan Greenspan's doing a good job. Why do you think he's done such a great job? \_ Why do you think he hasn't? It's partly because of his amazing balancing act that the country hasn't been in a deep depression so far. Maybe it's just buying time. History will show that. However, what could anyone have done better? \_ The crazy dot com lasted for several years, well passed the recession. It could have been controlled with a steady rise of interest rates. Greenspan instead did NOTHING till the last few years in a failed attempt to catch up. Now we're seeing the same thing. The housing boom is crazy, and has been crazy for the last few years. What did Greenspan do? Nothing. Now he's trying to catch up, once more. The man is old and his reaction is slow. This man fucked up TWICE and deserves no praise. \_ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/business/26fed.html "But another key principle of the Greenspan Fed, which most experts have come to accept, is that the central bank should focus on economic fundamentals and not try to prematurely pop a market bubble in stock prices or real estate prices." Of course, you are entitled to your opinion. Unfortunately, it seems that the European Central Bank also disagrees with you. "For the ECB, the Maastricht treaty mandated that price stability would be the primary objective. The treaty also established that the ECB should support the general economic policies of the European Community, aiming at growth and employment but only insofar as price stability is not endangered." http://csua.org/u/dg6 But, again you are certainly entitled to hold your own opinion. But, again you are certainly entitled to hold your own opinion. \_ nytimes is charging for the article. Forget it \_ "While there are some negatives in the record, when the score is toted up, we think he [Greenspan] has a legitimate claim to being the greatest central banker who ever lived. His performance as chairman of the Fed has been impressive, encompassing, and overwhelmingly beneficial--to the nation, to the institution, and to the practice of monetary policy." "Understanding the Greenspan Standard", Alan Blinder and Ricardo Reis, Princeton University. link:csua.org/u/dg8 Of course, you are entitled to your own opinion and you are free to disagree. \_ I think this is one of those things that will only be correctly judged in at least a decade's time. --haven't made my mind \_ For greatest central banker who ever lived? Sure. Straight up good/bad job? I don't know of anyone serious who thinks this is controversial. Of course, MOTD knows better than most (or in this case all) professionals. I would love to read a serious claim from a credible source (say a paper published in a refereed journal) that that Greenspan has done an overall bad job. \_ green span is overrated. what's so hard about his job. read data, read news, decide whether to lower rate or raise rate, don't do anything drastic so he won't get blamed. that's about it. \_ There are 2 kinds of people who will tell you that something is trivial to do: someone who has never done it before, and someone who has done it many times. \_ it's similar to making a call on where the economy, market is going. Most investors have to make such calls many times in their investing career. in fact, an investor's job is probably harder, since he has to look forward, whereas, fed tends to make its decision based on what has already happened. it's his job important? yea. is it really hard? no. yea. is it really hard? no. kind of like an airplane pilot. \_ Like I said, there are two kinds of people. \_ He kept us from having a major recession after the dot com bubble collapsed. That was pretty impressive. |
2005/9/17-19 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:39731 Activity:nil |
9/17 Let's redistribute the wealth of rich universities to poor ones: http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleID.18722/article_detail.asp \_ I totally agree. Let's do everything at once. School, tax, etc. |
2005/9/16-17 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:39709 Activity:moderate |
9/15 Uh oh. Consumer confidence at 13 year low. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/bs_nm/economy_consumers_dc \_ And the housing boom continues. It is dawn of the NEW MARKET and housing will continue to boom forever! \_ seconded. housing is the most essential and limited asset you can buy in the US, hence the boom! Peak median price should reach 30 * median annual income, that's how long most people have mortgages anyway. \_ it's a good time to buy second homes too. since even if it doesn't appreciate, you can always rent it out. \_ where are you finding the renter to cover that mortgage? rents aren't that high so if it doesn't appreciate, you lose. \_ I believe the ppp (to whom you replied) was kidding. Were you kidding, ppp? \_ :-) \_ Because people don't need to eat and can afford to put 100% of their income into a mortgage? \_ if you watch your pennies, food can be a very small % of your income. You should see my Chinese parents! \_ All I ate the first year after I bought my first house were free company meals and instant noodle. My monthly food cost was < $10. \- did you become a puffy supergiant? \_ I ended up consuming fewer calories than I would otherwise, though those calories are of undeniably lower quality. \_ How big is people's monthly food budget generally? \_ Housing will only boom till eternity in Prop-13 places. |
2005/9/9-12 [Finance/Investment] UID:39588 Activity:nil |
9/9 Whoa. I'm saving about 50% of my take-home. What's the canonnical asset class mix for investing money to be used in 5 years? \_ I'm in a similar position, although I am certainly no investment guru. I think for short term it's usually about 20% equity, 80% bonds. This is about what I'm doing. I'm getting 5.5% on the bonds right now. \_ To be used for what? An idea of your goals would help. \_ world domination, duh. \_ 50% is a lot. Big salary, not that much expenses? What are your goals with your extra money? \_ Yes, yes. Marriage/house/kids. \_ Found this on google: http://personal.fidelity.com/planning/retirement/saving/content/strategies.shtml http://tinyurl.com/bgrtj \_ Bonds, according to SmartMoney. |
2005/9/2-5 [Finance/Investment] UID:39441 Activity:nil |
9/2 I don't like where the market is going, and want to do some shorting, but all the ETFs are shorted to death by the hedge funds and I can't find any shares. Anyone knows any good individual stocks as short candidates, or any ETF where you can still find shares to borrow? \_ Have you considered puts? \_ I haven't tried options before. Can you suggest something specific? \_ Not really as I am new to buying puts myself. I just opened a minor put on a major homebuilder. |
2005/9/1-2 [Politics/Foreign/Europe, Finance/Investment] UID:39411 Activity:nil |
9/1 Euro-denominated investments were all the rage on motd. Did anyone actually go through with the investments? How did people do? \_ I did badly. I started around April and the strong dollar kept fucking the investment up. I've lost maybe 8% from New Zeland and Euro. Euro a bit worse. That's ok. Warren Buffet lost even more. I think he lost well over 200 million over his billion dollar investment overseas. I'm not worried though. This is for the long term investment. Just as the Japanese yen took decades to decline, the US economy is looking a lot like Japan 15 years ago, so I still believe in Warren Buffet. I am sticking to my guns. Don't get me wrong, I know Buffet started it in the early 2000s and did pretty well whereas I started late, at the worst possible point. However, Buffet isn't pulling out his 31 billion investment overseas, and I'm not pulling out my mine (in the thousands) either \_ Buffet can afford to take risks and losses and wait in a way I doubt you can. \_ I've owned LOGI for a long time, +156%. Since the election I've bought SAP (+10.7%), PHG (+4.3%), and MAPTX (+6.2%). -tom \_ I have EUROX since 11/2003. +89%. But it's only half EURO, since it also invests in Russia. Like Tom, I have MAPTX (+42% since 11/2003), but that's AsiaPac, not EURO. Others - MACSX (+28% 11/03) (AsiaPac conservative) MJFOX (+28% 11/03) (Japan) TAVIX (+12% 12/04) (int'l) IFN (+81% 11/03) (india) MCHFX (+12% 11/03) (china) (I think I am dumping this soon since I bought china internet stocks (snda, ntes, ctrp)). also lots of foreign stocks: crxl, rtp, pbr, btm, rio, snda, ntes, ctrp, idbe, mbt, ... my only us holdings are: ffiv, nile, dvy, brufx, mot, desc (got lucky with desc - doubler in 3 months) brufx is a really cool 1 man fund. check it out. (I think I am dumping this soon and buy china internet stocks (those with nice profit)). \_ I posted a nice long reply, but someone stomped it. No way I am typing all this in again. The short answer is, yes. -ausman \_ Please post it again, I wanna know. Also, what are you investing in these days? |
2005/8/30-31 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:39348 Activity:low |
8/30 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050830/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/census_poverty Poverty level in the US rises to 12.7 percent. Luckily, the wealthiest people in the US are also one of the most generous in the world. I'm sure they'll start building more art museums and donating expensive softwares to enrich everyone's lives. \_ It is important that someone uses all those old copies of Office. \_ Microsoft is the leader in this regard -- donating its own software to settle the antitrust lawsuit. software to settle the antitrust lawsuit. I wonder if it doesn't even bother burning CDs and just offer free downloads which costs it next to nothing. software to settle the antitrust lawsuit. I wonder if they don't even bother to burn CDs and just offer free downloads which costs them next to nothing. \_ And yet the news of the jobless claims going down doesn't get reported. \_ Eliminate unemployment compensation entirely and the jobless claims will drop to zero! How could such such an awesome idea to fix the economy have escaped the republicans thus far? \_ I see reports of it all the time. What are you reading that you don't see it? It is in the business section, granted.... \_ Wal-Mart Stores said it would donate $1 million to the Salvation Army for relief assistance such as meals for victims and emergency and rescue personnel. See? They're generous. \_ *pshaw* Only to people that don't work for them. \_ Someone clue me in on what I'm missing: "The number of people without health insurance coverage grew from 45 million to 45.8 million last year, but the number of people with health insurance grew by 2 million." Is it that there are 2.8 million births? -mrauser \_ Dependants relying on parents'/spouses' coverage, maybe? \_ Immigrants. |
2005/8/28-29 [Finance/Investment] UID:39325 Activity:low |
8/28 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8873875 Personally, I think that Greenspan is doing a really lousy job. Everyone knows that during the crazy dot com days the rate should have been climbing and go much higher, but instead Greenspan failed to react, and finally responded in late 1999 and CRASH! Then as the housing sector started to go crazy in 2002, he failed to react again. He finally realized it in 2004 started to play a little bit of catch up. It seems as if Greenspan the old man can't keep up with the pace of modern economy. The sudden drop and gain reminds me of how old men drive. They brake and accelerate really fast, because they simply don't have the reflexes to react to the world around them \_ Personally, I think you know little of what you speak. \- IAOC, M. FRIEDMAN once analogized an active monetary policy to a fellow sitting in the back seat reaching over now and then and giving the steering wheel a yank. [this was a call-continuation of the metaphor used in "The Economic Steering Wheel" by A. LERNER]. ok tnx. \- in an odd coincidence, M. FRIEDMAN once analogized an active monetary policy to a fellow sitting in the back seat reaching over now and then and giving the steering wheel a yank. [this was in response to the metaphor used "The Economic Steering Wheel" by A. LERNER]. ok tnx. \_ I agree with you on the dot com bubble, but the housing bubble is happening during a period where the economy isn't doing that well, and he is under the constraint of not pushing it into recession. \_ "The biggest risk for his successor could turn out to be a collapse in housing prices after the frenetic run-up that has resulted in part from the Fed's policy of keeping interest rates so low [because the Fed was worried about the slim possibility of a broad deflation]. But another key principle of the Greenspan Fed, which most experts have come to accept, is that the central bank should focus on economic fundamentals and not try to prematurely pop a market bubble in stock prices or real estate prices." [I guess it's now ok to split infinitives.] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/business/26fed.html |
2005/8/27-29 [Finance/Investment] UID:39303 Activity:nil |
8/27 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050827/ap_on_bi_ge/greenspan Greenspan says housing will cool off. PREDICTION: Housing will go even higher for a year or so, simply because the market has a history of being defiant of what experts say. \_ As long as there is a "greater fool" that will pay even more, housing will keep going up. There will probably be another S&L type crisis when the bubbles start popping and that will probably mean the end to low mortgage rates for another generation or two. \_ Home prices will start to fall in Q4 of 2005 and reach a nadir on Nov 17, 2007. -Swami the Magnificent (from 03/05) \_ aus^H^H^HSwami the Magnificent, do you think there will be a secondary recession soon? What do you think about the US currency (vs. foreign currency)? And why do you hate America? Are you a gay sympathizer? Do you like sodomy? \_ No recession. Probably a further slowdown, but no actual recession. I think the dollar is overvalued, but then again so is the Euro. All my 401k money is in overseas stocks, mostly developing economies. I don't hate America, I love America. I consider myself a patriot. I do hate idiot warmongering Republicans, though. I am defintely a gay Republicans, though. I am defininetly a gay symapthizer. I love sodomizing yermom, though. \_ Stop lying! There is no bubble! Lalalalalalalala! \_ Just tell Chinese stop buying those treasure notes that is hurting America! |
2005/8/19-20 [Finance/Investment] UID:39174 Activity:nil |
8/18 San Diego, San Jose, Santa Ana and Oakland -- had a more-than 50% likelihood of price declines, according to the index. http://tinyurl.com/ap6bm (WSJ) \_ We've been hearing about this for years. |
2005/8/10 [Computer/SW/Graphics, Finance/Investment] UID:39082 Activity:insanely high |
8/10 In the http://www.yahoo.com page there is this picture in the ad for "The Skeleton Key": http://us.a1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/a/1-/java/promotions/universal/050810/w1.jpg Is that her left nipple exposed near the bottom of the picture? \_ I think it's her hand or something moving blurring by. \_ No: link:csua.org/u/czn \_ I see. Never mind. |
2005/8/8 [Finance/Investment] UID:39042 Activity:kinda low |
8/8 I was trying to short BIDU (Baidu) just now, and it says, "Currently no shares available for shorting". Anyone has experience with these things? Would it help if I call in to the broker? \_ Basically it means that not enough shares are held by other clients of your broker. When you short you're generally borrowing shares from other clients. If few shares of BIDU are held in your broker's other accounts, or those have already been shorted, you can't short it without causing an uncovered (naked) short. Your broker *may* be able to borrow shares from another broker. \_ thanks, tried a few times to short starting from $146 all the way down to $130 but no luck. calling scottrade up also didn't help. now it's $116. oh well. \_ thanks, tried a few times to short starting from $146 all the way down to $130 but no luck. calling scottrade up also didn't help. now it's $116. oh well. \_ Buy options then \_ I think options are usually not available for stocks that just had its IPO. \_ I think options are usually not available for stocks that just had its IPO. \_ "Now the shares' meteoric rise have captured the attention of short sellers, who are wondering when it will be time for them to move in. Sources said the shares aren't yet available at Wall Street lending desks, but are expected to show up by mid-week after the initial purchases of the stock are settled." Answering my own question. - op |
2005/8/2-4 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:38941 Activity:nil |
8/2 This was an interesting read about an rich vs. poor riot in China. http://csua.org/u/cvy \_ Note to self: If surrounded by an angry mob, do not smirk and wave dismissively. \_ I hate to say this, but... I'm with the people. I don't agree with the senseless destruction of precious goods like Toyota sedans, but I think they really should have beat the shit out of Wu and his two body guards who act like mafias in the 40s. \_ herein lies the answer to the question "what's social justice [or lack thereof]" below. \_ Note how the rich dude and his two bodyguards got through completely unscathed (except for rich dude's car), while the computer-guy bike rider was left needing wires for his jaw and a nose job. The only person who lost out was the supermarket owner, who actually did the people a service having lived there 20 years. \_ If you're rich in China, you can get away with beating people. If you're rich in America, you can get away with murder. If you're rich in Mexico, you can do anything you want. It is good to be rich. \_ Not in a real communist country. Check out what happened to the rich in China in the 50s. All rich guys were automatically labeled "evil" and tortured. \_ Well, most of the wealthy rich people escaped to HK Taiwan or Phillipines so that they can continue using their wealth and power to influence politics that support their agendas. |
2005/8/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:38911 Activity:nil |
8/1 Tell me if this is legal and feasible. We all know about the housing boom and possible bubble. The bubble hasn't happened yet, but if it happens, it'll burn a lot of individual investors. Since it's a risky business, how about starting a corporation that borrows money from banks and from individual investors to buy up huge amount of properties, and maybe even buy sections of big cities? They can make huge profits by renting out properties or flipping them to other individual investors? If things go sour, the corporation shares the risks so no one gets burned badly, and worst case comes they can always declare bankruptcy. Is this legal? Possible? Can corporations buy blocks of land or buy cities and make huge profits since they have no competitors? |
2005/8/1-2 [Finance/Investment] UID:38906 Activity:low |
8/1 I placed a limit order on eTrade to sell at $20.80, and later it was exercised at $20.85. That's nice. eTrade could have bought my shares at $20.80 and sold to the other party at $20.85, pocketing the $0.05. \_ Um, that's what traders do all the time. That's one of the ways they make money. \_ So eTrade decides not to make money this way? \_ how do you know they didn't exercise it at $20.95 ? \_ No I don't, but the point is that they could have satisfied my order by giving me only $20.80 in exchange of my share. \_ nah, I don't think they can do that. you can see the bids and asks right? however, etrade does (or at least used to) play games with orders made before the market opens. they say datek doesn't do it, but datek is now part of ameritrade, so I don't know if it's still true. \_ I don't know about this, but I read that some brokers do the thing where if they see large number of buy orders for a stock placed during the off hours, they would place their own buy order first, and then send in the larger number of buy orders. same for sell orders (or they would buy after first sending in all the sell orders). all the sell orders). that's why you should place your orders only during market hours, and try to avoid the first hour after market opens, and possibly also the half hour before market closes. |
2005/7/28-31 [Finance/Investment] UID:38860 Activity:nil |
7/28 I am new to windoze and have a silly problem that's driving me crazy. When I click on a window or its corresponding tab, the gui seems to decide on a whim whether to make it the front window or just change focus to it. What setting should I change? \_ Some apps choose to raise on focus. Examples I've seen include: Lotus Notes and Microsoft Visio. This _really_ sucks when you're using XMouse where mousing-over-the-window = focus. Then you happen to stray across one little corner and wham.. it takes over your screen. \_ I have the same problem with only IE or any program running. This must be some thing trivial but I can't figure it out! - op |
2005/7/20-22 [Science/GlobalWarming, Finance/Investment] UID:38743 Activity:nil |
7/21 http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=10958 Ugliest dog. \_ That thing is ALIVE? It looks like some kind of mummified rat. \_ Poor thing. yeah it's fucking ugly, but it's got all sorts of horrible diseases. old diseased, toothless, skin and bones people in their deathbed don't look too hot either. \_ Here's another picture of it: http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2005/07/another_image_o.html \_ That dog looks like Salacious Crumb. True Star Wars geeks will know who Salacious Crumb is. |
2005/7/12-14 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:38569 Activity:nil |
7/12 I ran out of money market checks from Etrade and reordered them online. I was surprised that it's free, but they only gave me 5 at a time. Anyways, the new checks do NOT come in checkbooks, but in a long piece of paper. Is that normal? \_ I got the same treatment. In fact, I didn't even realize that was the checks I ordered, so I told them I didn't receive the checks and they sent me one book worth for free. Oh well. I only need one per month, and it's easy to reorder on-line, so it's not that big of an issue. |
2005/7/12-13 [Finance/Investment, Reference/RealEstate] UID:38549 Activity:low |
7/11 http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/earners.html Saratoga has the 7th highest median income in the US, trailing behind Great Falls VA, Darient CT, New Canaan CT, Wilton CT, and others. What the heck do people do in VA and CT that make them rich? \_ Pretty shocking that these are ahead of places like Beverly Hills. Anyway, the CT people work in NYC. The VA people rip off the government. \_ The residents of places like Beverly Hills and Brentwood probably don't have high incomes but instead high net worth. \_ Brentwood is not a city. BH's median income was $91K (2000). What you say is true, but you don't buy a $2M house by making $91K. The "slums of Beverly Hills" must drive down the median. \_ Also, many SoCal places (e.g. Manhattan Beach and Laguna Beach) have had a huge run-up in the last few years. Long time residents might not have the income of people who might be buying in now. \_ I went to Maggiano's once and overheard 3 real estate agents talking about how hot the market is, and one of them said his dream house is to buy this condo in Santa Monica, 1100 sq ft, is really close to 3rd Street and overlooks the beach. It starts at 1.5 million dollars. Then he said he sold one of them last week, and the other agent said "Jesus! What kind of people buy these places?" and he replied "Oh, she works for the Judge Judy production." \_ Only for cities with population over 14000, thus eliminating the truly posh towns. \_ The amusing list is the top 10 priciest homes. http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/homes.html \_ What's so amusing about it? If you have money, anywhere is a good place to live. \_ It's amusing that 9 of 10 are in CA. \_ It'll more amusing when they go down by 20% of their value in 3 years. \_ Drat, so in 3 years I'll only be up 115% since I bought my house? \_ :-) \_ I piss in your general direction. \_ Actually, no. Some places are awful to live in, especially if you have money. |
2005/7/11-13 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:38540 Activity:moderate |
7/11 I have a confession to make. I followed Warren Buffett's footsteps and put a LOT of money in foreign money using http://everbank.com. I've lost about 10% of my assetts in the past 3 months because US dollar is going back up. Putting money in everbank was the worst decision I've ever made, ever. Now that I've told you why I'm an idiot, it's your turn. \_ You're an idiot for many reasons. hmm. this is kind of fun. \_ You're an idiot, but not because you invested in foreign money. -tom \_ Nono, I'm not asking you to reiterate what I said. What I mean is that it's your turn to tell us about your bad decision, if you've made any. I made my decision based on the fact that Mr. Buffett, my hero, invested BILLIONS into foreign money, citing Euro trend, US's huge deficit, rising oil price, war, Buffett, my hero, invested 20 billion into foreign money, citing Euro trend, US's huge deficit, rising oil price, war, instability, and huge spending and outsourcing in other countries. countries. -op http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2005/0110/036.html \_ You are stupid because you don't understand *why* you invested in foreign money, not because foreign money went down 10% in three months. If your investment horizon is 3 months, you shouldn't be following Warren Buffett. -tom \_ yea, but buffet was in foreign money since 2 years ago, so he still made money, and is going to make more money. \_ You should invest in foreign stocks or bonds, not cash. \_ Once something is hyped up a lot, it's probably a matter of time before the smart money cashes out and the suckers get left holding the bag. \_ Isn't there a website for this sort of thing??? \_ http://grouphug.us \_ I sold all my stock in my overhyped dotcom in 2000 and re-invested in.... you guessed it, other over-hyped dotcoms. Oh well, I lost like half of it, but did much better than if I had stuck with my company, like almost all my coworkers. \_ I cheated on my psycho girlfriend with a hottie 19 year while she was out of the country... who am I kidding, that was the smartest move I ever made! I lost a pyscho girlfriend and had an affair with a 19 y.o. hottie... \_ I wired $8k to a phoney escrow site to buy a diamond so I could propose to my fiance. \_ 1) When my company stock shot up from $1 to $7 in one day because of a press release saying "Amazon.com is investing in it", I wanted to sell all my shares knowing that it would drop very soon after people realizing that the investment was just a one-time buyout, but my gf argued that I should hold because it would keep going up. I made a compromise by selling only half of the shares. The next day it kept on dropping, and she let me sell the other half at $1.43 lower. So I lost $8400 in one day. Days later the price returned to its original level. 2) Years later when my company stock went up to $48 for no real or apparent reason, I wanted to sell all my shares knowing that the company has no future, but she (now my wife) argued again, and I compromised again by selling only half. Now the stock is worth pennies. I lost $30k. Mind you that I'm not into stocks and I've only make two stock predictions in my life. In both times I was right. stocks and I don't BS about stock prices every day. I've only made two stock predictions in my life, not on some random company in the market but on a company that I've worked at for years. However she didn't listen. \_ Well, on the face of it it's stupid to listen to this gf who should know less than you since you work at the company. On the other hand, if you hadn't compromised and were wrong, you'd have had to endure lots of hell from said gf... this way you have it over her and maybe that's worth it :) \_ Why would you want to "have it over her"? I see the smiley, but really. Find someone you care about who cares about you instead of competing with your SO. \_ Dude, it doesn't matter who your SO is. You could be so besotted you'd donate an organ just for her asking; she could be a living saint. Doesn't matter. The reality is you will fight; you will act like a jerk; she will be a total bitch. Might not be all the time. Might not be very often at all. But it will happen. And when it does, you will be glad you have that you-lost-me-$30k metaphoric bazooka you can pull on her. \_ You didn't look hard enough for your SO then. \_ Not all of us are interested in a Stepford wife. Indeed, I find it incredible that there is *any* long-term relationship that does not experience some amount of conflict and disagreement. \_ You're putting your words in my mouth. There is conflict and disagreement but the answer is not to find some childish "hold" over your SO. My wife doesn't pull that garbage on me and I don't do it to her. You're still talking in terms of "winning" and "scoring points". You just don't get it. I feel bad for anyone stuck with you. \_ How enlightened of you. How do you and your wife resolve disagreements? What if she wants to buy a stantion wagon and you want an SUV? \_ Since we're both reasonably intelligent people who care more about each other than random 'stuff' like that, we discuss what would be best for our needs and do that. Is this some big shock? Why the sarcasm? Have you really never met anyone in a good relationship? You probably have and just mocked them for not abusing each other for some bizarre concept of one-upping their mate. \_ I like intelligent Stepford Wives 2.0 who is better than you at chess, driving, poetry, music, literature, AND is good in bed. Modern liberal women are bitches who don't cook and take care of the kids and run off to some other random guy to fuck when she's bored with you. \_ Conservative war-brides! -- ilyas |
2005/6/28-30 [Finance/Investment] UID:38341 Activity:moderate |
6/29 http://yahoo.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2005/nf20050628_2860_db006.htm "Well, I'm glad you're not shorting Google. If you're buying puts, you've got a limit on how much you can lose. I think it might be a good bet, because frankly Google is a classic case of how silly the debates are about company valuation. I mean, Google is like a mirror. People talk about whether it's overvalued or undervalued, but are really telling you more about themselves than Google. If they think it's undervalued, they're saying they're major bulls, but if they're saying it's grossly overvalued, they're saying they have a very traditional view of investing -- they don't want to overpay for what future earnings flow may be. One thing I'm fairly confident in about Google is that ultimately it can't keep growing at the rate it has been growing, at which point the stock will take a hit, just as eBay's (EBAY ) did. So it will reach a limit, but I can't tell you where that is. I would consider that put a rational bet, but on the other hand I wouldn't be able to tell you if it'll work or not." \_ ^Google^real estate I know a couple who just spent $930K on a place in San Jose, but not everyone has sufficient stock options to pay $530K down. \_ And they will live as peons, paying ever-increasing tithes to the landed gentry. \_ Actually the landed gentry are usually busy having grill parties in their tiny backyards because they're too bushed from cleaning up the leak in their basement or fixing the roof to do anything else while we go out and have fun. -John \_ The non-retard landed gentry got the FUCK out of the bay are where they can own plenty of land and a solid house for the money that would get them a dirty little hut in the middle of a shooting gallery back in the Bay. \_ And in 20 years they'll have no rent and a massive wad of cash while you'll be complaining that your upstairs of cash while you are complaining that your upstairs neighbor's stereo is too loud. \_ And then they'll die. \_ I stand to inherit about 3 houses. In the meantime I prefer the ability to pack up and piss off abroad when I choose. In 20 years I will earn enough to not give a shit about loud stereos because there WONT'T BE ANY ABOVE ME (not that there ever have been) while the landed gentry will have a plugged septic tank and neighbors' backyard grill smells wafting into their living room. -John \_ So, in other words, someone else was smart enough to make good decisions for you. We can't all be so lucky. Some of us don't stand to inherit shit. \_ And some of us came from the 'land of the Common Good.' -- ilyas |
2005/6/23-25 [Finance/Investment, Computer/Companies/Ebay] UID:38270 Activity:nil |
6/23 Lunch with Warren Buffet to be auctioned off on Ebay starting today: http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2005/06/15/0615autofacescan02.html |
2005/6/23-25 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:38264 Activity:nil |
6/23 Even Warren Buffet is talking housing bubble these days: http://csua.org/u/cho \_ Assuming the housing bubble is a form of momentum investing, how much talk of a potential bubble burst do you think it will take to trigger the burst? \_ I don't know, but I do know quite a few people in Livermore trying to get out of the market and finding it harder to sell... \_ "...certainly at the high end, people who buy houses today may have some periods when they regret it." That is extremely mild for a comment from Buffett. -tom |
2005/6/21-22 [Finance/Investment] UID:38228 Activity:moderate |
6/21 How aggressive are you in your stock portfolio? \_ so aggressive that i quit jobs just so i can put all my 401k into Iras so I can buy individual stocks \_ very aggressive with my own money. more conservative managing my mom and my girlfriend's money. while their holdings are beating \_ My company's 401k has an option to buy individual stocks myself instead of mutual funds. But I chose a mutual fund anyway. \_ very aggressive with my own money. more conservative managing mom and my girlfriend. while their holdings are beating the market, mine have been hitting home runs since oct 2002, when I regrouped after the bubble. \_ So what are your 'home run' picks past and present? \_ gains or losses > 30% homeruns: crxl 8/03 ~ 540% nvda 10/02 11/02 66% bby 11/02 12/02 31% hele 11/02 10/03 123% hele 11/02 11/03 123% utsi 3/03 9/03 91% gric 3/03 5/03 75% fosl 5/03 6/04 111% vip 8/03 10/03 46% tlk 8/03 10/03 40% cyd 7/03 11/03 277% ivan 9/03 10/03 95% arlc 10/03 2/04 132% ach 10/03 1/04 55% bhp 11/03 5/05 47% mbt 11/03 4/04 75% rio 7/04 ~ 84% pbr 12/04 ~ 31% crxl 8/03 ~ 540% ifn 11/03 ~ 47% eurox 11/03 ~ 55% maptx 11/03 ~ 35% strikeouts ysp.ca 11/03 12/03 -44% cyd 11/03 11/04 -48% utsi 12/03 11/04 -53% nxg 2/04 6/04 -30% asx 2/04 11/04 -35% spil 2/04 6/04 -33% current holdings - held for some time: held for some time: crxl, rio, pbr, tsm, mbt, rtp, ifn, mchfx, epp macsc, eurox, mjfox, maptx, tavix, dvy, bjbix macsx, eurox, mjfox, maptx, tavix, dvy, bjbix current holdings - bought in the last 2 months: recent buys (few days to 2 months) desc, nile, sgtl, atyt, mot, snda, tm, fdx, vz |
2005/6/21-25 [Finance/Investment] UID:38226 Activity:nil |
6/21 I can understand why GM's stock is in the dumps, but why is Toyota's (symbol TM) stock so cheap, with trailing PE of 11? \_ Yeah, HMC is even cheaper, which is why I loaded up on a bunch back in 2003. Japanese stocks in general are very cheap, mostly for good economic reasons, but these two have solid growth prospects. |
2005/6/1-2 [Finance/Investment] UID:37919 Activity:high |
6/1 I've often heard you should keep 3-6 months of current expenses on hand fo an emergency or if laid off. I could of course keep it in checking but that earns under inflation. My broker's money market pays shit too. What would the MOTD finance gurus suggest? \_ Some cash is a good idea. I keep a few months' worth around--I know I lose interest money on it, but I'm paying for the convenience of having easily accessible money. -John \_ I think having them in stocks and mutual funds is fine since these can be easily converted into cash. of course don't have all your money in one volatile stock. A diversified bunch of stocks and funds should be good enough. I keep the money in my checking and money market savings accounts to a minimum. \_ Stocks and mutual funds are not fine for emergency expenses, as the last thing you want is to be in an emergency situation (just lost your job/had major medical expense) and have to sell your assets at a significant loss (which can happen no matter how diversified you are). -tom \_ What's wrong with selling at a loss? I would be more concerned with prematurely selling a stock that has significant gains and thus taking a tax hit. Sure, if you sold at the bottom of a cycle, you would miss the run up, but if your asset is in cash, you would've missed the run up (or several of them) anyway. I stand by my recommendation. The important thing is not cash per se, but more liquid assets that can be converted to cash within a short time. I would much rather have 60K in stocks and mutual funds and minimal cash than have 30K in cash. Unemployment insurance and severance, if your company has it, would provide even more room for maneuvre, so you don't really need to sell everything at one go, just what you need for the expenses of the coming month. \_ Sorry, I didn't get any further than "what's wrong with selling at a loss?" -tom \_ it's okay, it's more for others than for you. you obviously need more investing-fu to follow. \_ ooh yeah, I haven't figured out the brilliant strategy of selling stocks at a loss to cover living expenses. -tom \_ all other things being equal, it's better than selling stocks with gains, but I guess that's beyond you. \_ Nice job deleting the discussion when you were proven to be a moron. -tom \_ huh? imagining things again? \_ Yes, stupidity is beyond me. -tom \_ feel free to let your money rot in the bank, or just hide it under your bed. \_ Gee, my money's doing a lot better than the stock market over the past 5 years. And the point isn't that you should put all your money in cash; it's that you should have some reserve aside, in cash, in case of emergencies. If you had all your emergency cash in stocks in March 2000, and you had an emergency later that year (like, say, you lost a job and couldn't get one due to a flooded job market...gee, that kind of thing never coincides with a stock market downturn, right?) you would have taken a bath. -tom \_ Not true. \_ <raising my hand> --scotsman to my credit, the wash i took was because of an idiotic and possibly fraudulent accountant against whom I probably would have had a case if 1) I had had money to pay a lawyer, and 2) had any chance of getting anything out of him. \_ nobody said you should put all all your money in tech stocks. Even heard of bond funds and value funds? Sorry to know you took a bath on tech stocks since Mar 2000. Do you even know what diversification means? \_ My portfolio is worth more than it was in March 2000. Moron. -tom \_ heh, you have pretty low standards. \_ you do know you only pay taxes on the gain portion not the entire thing, gains are always better than losses \_ yea, but sometimes you get lucky and holds a stock with a 400% gain, with good prospects for further gains. In such cases, you want to hold and hold, instead of being forced to sell. \_ just sell it, use the money for the emergency and just invest the gains back into the same stock since that is supposedly extra money \_ And this happened to you...when? and more than once? You're really dumb in this area. Talk to a professional. \_ actually, if you are an above average stock investor, it's not hard to get one or two 5 baggers, and a bunch of doublers every few years. as for "professionals", most earn their keep by taking your money. spend some time to learn to invest, don't be a lazy arse. \_ ING isn't bad. Pays about 3% and it's pretty quick to get your money out. (about 3 days). Of course, I'm no finance guru. \_ Netbank is 2.7%, and can be accessed by check or bank card, no fee for 6 or fewer withdrawls per month. \_ ING is very stable but keep in mind that even with a 3% payback your money is still depreciating faster than ever due to the weakening dollar and the rise of relative cost of living in the United States. So far I've put 1/2 of my savings into ING and 1/2 into foreign money. Of the foreign money, 2/3 are in New Zeland 3 month CD (+5% interest) and 1/3 are in Euro. They're doing a lot better than ING. There's a reason why many people are moving money out of US. Warren Buffet already moved +100 billion dollars out of US. \_ I heard that 3-6 months is for during okay economy. In a bad economy it should be 12 months if you have a mortgage. \_ I keep 1/3 in a money market account and 2/3 split between two 6-month CDs with maturity dates offset by 3 months. That is, every three months one of the two CDs matures. I like the balance of some money available right away and the rest available soon yet earning some interest. |
2005/5/27-31 [Finance/Investment] UID:37855 Activity:nil |
5/27 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/opinion/27krugman.html?hp "That's why it's so ominous to see signs that America's housing market, like the stock market at the end of the last decade, is approaching the final, feverish stages of a speculative bubble." \_ Ever read any of Krugmans' other OP-ED pieces? The guy has issues \_ Sour grape? |
2005/5/18-19 [Finance/Investment] UID:37742 Activity:nil |
5/18 I find this amusing, after all the housing bubble talk on the motd: http://biz.yahoo.com/edu/qc?n=5486 \_ Well if 70% of the people think the market will go up, then they will make it true (by re-investing in it). \_ That's not "70% of people in the market". That's 70% of people. As it continues to grow faster than wages or inflation, fewer people can enter the market, so the positive reinforcement of this belief is ... limited. \_ In addition, interest rates are already rising and will continue to do so. A two point increase is big when you've leveraged $600,000 over 30 years. Rates have been as high as what, 12-15% in the past. There is nothing that says rates will not rise to that in the future. With record number of people utilizing AMR and doing a 100% mortgage with options to pay interest only it's a wonder if people will ever actually ever own the home they bought... \_ bubble investing! It feels like late 1999's stock market! Where's Greenspan's new "Irrational Exuberance" quota? \_ according to today's wsj, a recent survey shows that 17% of new mortgages these days are interest-only, and 60+% are ARMs. |
2005/5/6-7 [Finance/Investment] UID:37560 Activity:high |
5/6 Damn this economy! Only 274K jobs added in April, and unemployment is at 5.2%. \_ the question is, how many of those jobs are relevant to YOU (are they mostly blue collar jobs?) Yes, they are. The economy is good for the Red States. \_ http://csua.org/u/bz4 Hourly wages are up, average workweek is longer. Your knee-jerk is showing. \_ Hourly wages have been alternatively just keeping pace w/ inflation or falling behind, according to the report in question. http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm -- ulysses \_ Real wages are down, you know the inflation adjusted kind. And down even more if you subtract for the rising cost of health care. So this news is great if you are an investor, pretty cruddy if you are an employee. \_ I'm thinking you missed the sarcasm. \_ So, you know computer nerds who are having trouble finding a job? \_ Yes, "nerds" being the key word. -John \_ I haven't checked for this recent report, but the last time I saw numbers like this, the average salary was quite good--40-50K IIRC. \_ Average hourly pay is $16/hr. That is alot of overtime to get 40k. You recall incorrectly, I think. \_ I meant the average of the new jobs, not all jobs. \_ http://www.uswa.org/uswa/program/content/1663.php New jobs pay an average of $9/hr. \_ Yeah, it's all Bush's fault! Damn him! |
2005/5/2-3 [Finance/Investment] UID:37443 Activity:nil |
5/1 The Oracle of money speaks. Also, Buffett bets 21 billion dollars against US dollars. I don't like Buffett but I share his view on the strength of US dollars (go everbank!!!): http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/30/news/fortune500/buffett_currency.reut http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/01/news/fortune500/buffett_talks \_ Heh, these guys don't hold anything back, do they? \_ Buffett: "We're like an incredibly rich family that owns so much land they can't travel to the ends of their domain. And they sit on the front porch and consume a little bit of everything that comes in, all the riches of the land, and they consume roughly 6 percent more than they produce. And they pay for it by selling off land at the edge of the landholdings that can't see. They trade away a little piece every day or take out a mortgage on a piece.That scenario couldn't end well. And we, also, keep consuming more than we produce. It can't go on a long time. The world has demonstrated a diminishing enthusiasm for dollars in the last few years as they get flooded with them every day there's $2 billion more going out than in. I have a hard time thinking of any outcome from this that involves an appreciating dollar." YEAH FUCK US DOLLAR. -Bush and US Hater |
2005/4/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:37407 Activity:nil |
4/28 On my Etrade Investment Account statement, I see something called E TRADE FUNDS GOVERNMENT MONEY MKT FD, $-144.79. What the hell is that? \_ A money market is like a mutual fund that generally invests only in highly liquid short term low-risks interest-bearing investments, in this case government bonds. My broker put all my spare cash into a money-market which charges high fees and barely makes money at the moment. It's slightly better than plain old cash, but I think it's mainly so the broker can make more money on the plain cash its clients keep on hand. |
2005/4/28 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:37406 Activity:nil |
4/28 I have a lot of stocks and I get to vote for amendments. I see the following A LOT: "Approval of amendment and extension of the executive officer incentive plan" or "Amendment of bonuses and options to officers." I always vote no, yet, I always see them getting approved. What the fuck? \_ Unless you own or control 51% it doesn't matter what you vote for. \_ You don't have a lot of stock. get 100,000 shares and then you still don't have a lot of stock in terms of moving those votes. \_ You know how you always read shit like "And the board of directors awarded the C*O with 14,000,000 shares of stock" -- That's money AND more votes for themselves. |
2005/4/26-27 [Computer/SW/Unix, Finance/Investment] UID:37366 Activity:low |
4/26 So I have a problem with vmware. It is unable to shrink my / drive and says it is an Unsupported partition. When I do the following, I see: tommy ~]# df -k Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 81892056 4140772 73591388 6% / I don't remember mounting it as /dev/mapper. What does this mean and how do I change it as a supported partition? Thanks. \_ /dev/mapper is RHEL 4. That's an LVM volume. I've heard you can't resize / with LVM, and I wasn't able to do it in RHEL 3. Sorry, don't know vmware... -ax http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2004-March/msg02016.html claims it's possible under fedora, might work under RHEL. -ax |
2005/4/22-23 [Finance/Investment] UID:37326 Activity:high |
4/22 Why does cygwin have a hippo as their icon now and why is there NO discussion of the change that I can find. Paranoid people like me FEAR CHANGE. Anyone know what's up wid dis? \_ Maybe they got hacked. \_ Dat's WHAT I'M AFRAID OF! (i doubt it though). |
2005/4/14-15 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:37194 Activity:high |
4/14 So it seems like TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities) are the safest bonds to buy. It doesn't seem like they're at all affected by market conditions (bad or good), and they have a guaranteed rate of return after inflation (CPI adjustments). So what's the catch? Is the only downside of this tiny risk investment a tiny post-inflation yield of ~ 1.8%? Anyone with experience? I think I can buy these direct from the government, too. Thanks! \_ AFAIK the low yield is the drawback. \_ well, yes, the catch is you can get better rates elsewhere. for example, top cd rates today are rather higher than the comparable TIPS rate. if inflation were to go crazy, TIPS could be a better deal. but otherwise... \_ Over the last few years interest rates have dropped below that of inflation. While inflation rates weren't "crazy," lots of fixed income households were hurt. TIPS is supposed to solve this. \_ If you can count on the government to report inflation accurately. I don't think you can, personally. \_ So if Dubya's people say CPI is overstating inflation and manage to drop the CPI calculations by 1 or 2 points, I get screwed right? \_ Hey, maybe one of those Bush guys took Econ 100b! "The CPI overstates rates of price increase by 1/2 to 1.5 percent per year (and the GDP deflator has similar biases)." http://csua.org/u/bpg \_ Which leads us back to Social Security which uses the CPI to determine how much to increase payouts. Messing with the CPI means messing with SS. Neat stuff, huh? \_ You know, when it shows up in Econ 100b, it's probably not a controversial issue whether the CPI overstates or not. So, the question is would you prefer to run Social Security based on a CPI you know is faulty, or would you prefer to run it based on something that economists can agree is more realistic. \_ It showed up in Jan 1996 lecture notes. I believe CPI calculations have already been adjusted downwards since then. The question is, well, how accurate is it now? \_ Well, apparently Greenspan is still pushing for using a chained CPI, which was recommended by the Boskin Commission back in 1996. \_ Makes sense. You need a big gun opposite Greenspan to challenge him. Otherwise, he's probably right on that point. \_ There have been a lot of arguments that the CPI _under_estimates inflation. I think overall it is probably a decent number if people argue both ways. \_ The catch is, as far as I can tell, that you have to pay taxes on the increased value of the bond when it adjusts, which sucks. From http://www.kiplinger.com/basics/archives/2002/11/story14.html "Another caveat: If you buy TIPS directly from the Bureau of Public Debt you're liable for federal taxes on the inflation adjustment, even though it's not a cash payout. That's in addition to the tax you must pay on the interest income. (You don't pay state or local income tax on Treasuries.) For that reason, it's best to hold TIPS in a tax-deferred or nontaxable account, such as an IRA." |
2005/4/14-15 [Finance/Investment] UID:37193 Activity:moderate |
3/14 Related to the below (same poster): If I open an ING Direct account for 3% yield, and people are figuring inflation is 3.2% per year, I'm actually losing money (post-inflation), right, until inflation drops below the nominal yield? \_ Yes. \_ TIPS was created to appeal to people whose rely on interest rates as income. \_ Until inflation drops below the nominal yield minux tax. \_ Foreign currency, higher interest rate AND stronger currency. I invested in Euro 2 years ago and never looked back. US dollar is FUCKED regardless of inflation and interest rate. \_ I think the Euro has appreciated about all it is going to against the dollar. They will be back nearer to each other soon enough. |
2005/4/14-15 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:37189 Activity:moderate |
4/14 Any ideas on why Apple stock has dropped 15% in two days? \_ People are realizing the prospects for the company don't merit the current valuation. -tom \_ why does that make sense right after they announce numbers that soundly beat everyone's expectations? i think the poster below's point is valid. also, i think ppl wanted earnings to be 20x year over year, not a measly 6x. \_ Because even with the numbers that soundly beat everyone's expectations, and even if they're able to keep that level of revenue coming in, the company's still not worth 45 times earnings. Prospects for growth from this Q's revenues are pretty small in the near term. -tom \_ yes, i understand that. but why wasn't there a selloff two weeks or two months ago when the ratios were even worse (higher stock and lower numbers)? \_ The stock market is not efficient. -tom \_ Buy on rumors, sell on news. |
2005/4/10-5/25 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Finance/Investment] UID:37137 Activity:nil |
4/10 Thank you to everyone who cleaned up their stuff in /csua/tmp. This is just to remind people, going forward, that this volume is not intended as long-term storage and we reserve the right to delete files at-will and without warning. We're reasonable people and care about you, our dear users, but this is just a "heads up". =) |
2005/4/9-10 [Politics/Foreign, Politics/Foreign/Europe, Finance/Investment] UID:37129 Activity:nil |
4/8 Free Trade killed the Neanderthals: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7221 |
2005/4/8-9 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Finance/Investment] UID:37121 Activity:nil |
4/8 Dear motd guy who pointed the census graph, I imported data to Excel and it's clear to me that the top 5% are gaining yearly income at a rate much faster rate than the poorest. The exaggerated data point is 1992 when the top 5% richest got 24.3% increase in income and the poorest got a measly 1.57%. I mean, we can stop arguing whether income gap is increasing or not because clearly it is. I mean, what is your stance on this now? Do we start arguing whether income gap is a good thing or not? FYI: http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/f03.html I think that our argument is becoming more and more similar to M$ lawsuits. First M$ lawyers argue that they don't have a monopoly, and when they failed to convince people otherwise they argue that monopoly is GOOD for the industry (by unifying standards, etc). \_ I thought the argument was about whose fault it was (Clinton's). \_ How so? The chart showed the gap growing steadily over the last twenty five years. Note that I am not discounting this line of reasoning, as the hollowness of the Clinton boom shows up in other sources. This source did not lead me to that conclusion, though. -- ulysses \_ Perhaps, but it's easier to say there's a growing disparity in wealth (like, no, really?) than to assign blame for it to Clinton. \_ Because one is true, and the other is trollish. \_ What this may be missing is that the top 5% richest people are not always the same people. People's income (and wealth, which is not the same) goes up and down over time. What if I said that the gap was increasing, but that 10 years from now the people in the bottom 5% would be in the top 5%? (Not true, but illustrating the point.) Would the gap matter so much? To me, what matters most is turnover. How hard is it to get into the top x% and how hard is it to stay there? Historically, wealthy people lose their wealth within 3 generations. There is pretty good wealth turnover in this country unlike in, say, Europe. \_ If you lose your wealth after only 3 generations, then it means that you're either not Jews or Asian. In another word, just another regular Joe white trash. \- Check out this book (Perfectly Legal): http://csua.org/u/bmb It is a bit tendentious, but much of the stuff is really disturbing and some of the statistics are so over the top [like in wealth distribution] it's not a matter of marginal interpretation. BTW, reading this during tax season can lead to depression. --psb \_ "Perfectly Legal, The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else". Partha, you already know this is happening, and so does everyone else. Why should I spend $16 on Amazon (who by the way donates 1/2 mil to Republicans) to read about something I already know is happening? \- then dont buy/read it. or get it from the lib. --psb \_ Is this an anti-Republican, pro-Democrat book in disguise? \_ Oddly enough, it's an old Chinese proverb that wealth doesn't last pass 3 generations. \_ Look jackass, I pointed out that graph to prove to you that your contention that the poor got poorer during the Clinton Administration was demonstratably false. I never said anything about the rich getting richer. That is your trip. I even agreed with you. Keep ranting on about it if it makes you feel better. |
2005/4/1-2 [Finance/Investment] UID:37016 Activity:moderate |
4/1 Are you living in a bubble area? Now you know from our good 'ol reliable http://cnn.com: http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/home_valuations \_ I wonder if the author has taken into account the immigrants. In the Bay Area, many of them buy houses with all cash. \_ The local Chico paper investigated our ranking and the study has some serious flaws. For one, it considered the "fair price" based on historical trends and population density--but they used the population density for all of Butte County to come up with the population for Chico (and Chico has by far the highest population density in the county). I don't know how much stock I'd put in it. -emarkp \_ I agree. I noticed this for Portland. Essentially, the study concludes that expensive = bad value and inexpensive = good value, which is useless. This is similar to the studies that calculate 'affordability' based on the average salary. True information, but useless. \_ I don't think you understood the study. \_ I think you have a point, but I think the study is more useful than you think. Let's take an example so everyone understands: E.g., let's say my West Los Angeles home was worth $250K in 1999. Let's say my salary back then was $62.5K/year. Let's say today the house is worth $800K. Let's say today the house is worth $640K. Let's say my salary today is $80K/year. The multiple in 1999 was 4x. The multiple in 2005 is 10x. The multiple in 2005 is 8x. This means buying a new home in the area is a bad value. (ignoring the obvious case of a buyer who thinks the multiple will rise to 10x in a couple years and turn a tidy profit) |
2005/3/30-31 [Finance/Investment] UID:36980 Activity:moderate |
3/30 What's a good source to get historical data of VOLUME and price of home sales? Something like Etrade data for real estate. \_ Look. Here's the deal. The real estate market in CA is nearing a top. If historical patterns hold, prices will decrease somewhere about 30% over the course of a couple of years and then stay flat for another 5 years or so. After about 7 years they will be back to where they are now and eventually they will surpass current prices. If you are buying a house as a short-term investment then don't. If you need a place to live and are renting then do it if you find a place you can comfortably afford to keep for 7-10 years. Will saving 15-30% on your house price be worth it to you to wait and see what happens? I guess that depends on your situation. \_ Yeah, but if housing prices go up again 20% this year, your advice would be terrible. \_ nah, that just means a harder landing in the future. \_ No, it's not terrible in that case. The advice is to buy a place if you can comfortably afford it. If you can't now then you won't then either. However, it seems obvious to everyone that the 20% annual appreciation is going to take a breather. I don't think anyone is on that boat. |
2005/3/28-30 [Finance/Investment, Reference/Tax] UID:36925 Activity:moderate |
3/28 tom, can you please tell me how to invest overseas? -anon coward \_ Give all your money to John. -tom \_ come on, I'm being serious. \_ So is Tom. -John \_ Mutual funds/bond funds, of course. \_ Vanguard Pacific Stock Index Fund, Vanguard European Stock Index Fund, Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund (Disclosure (Recommendation?):) I have holdings in all of the above funds. I particularly like the Emerging Markets fund because it has been aggressively growing the percentage of the fund that is invested in China and Taiwan over the last few years. -dans \_ Thanks dans. I checked all 3 and they're available from ETrade. Is that what you're using? Also, how come I can't see any historical data? Also, what is the monthly fee I have to pay (I plan to just buy and hold for a while), and what is the tax implication on EFT? Thanks.-ok thx \_ If you're planning to buy and hold (especially for retirement), put the first $nk (I think n is currently 4 and will be 5 next year, but double check) in as your yearly IRA contribution. Unless you're planning to retire in less than a decade, you should get a ROTH IRA (pay tax now, don't pay taxes when you withdraw) as opposed to Traditional IRA (pay no taxes now, pay taxes when you withdraw). If you're investing in anything you should get a prospectus, this will include historical data. You can order a prospectus (free of charge) via Vanguard's website, and I believe you can also download a prospectus in PDF form. I don't know all the tax implications since all of the mutual funds I hold at present are retirement savings in ROTH IRA's so the tax implications are nil in my case. Otherwise, I believe that it's your standard investment taxation rules for capital gains. My holdings are directly with Vanguard. Their fees are very low compared to other long-term investment oriented firms (Charles Schwab is comparable, many supposedly premier fund firms, e.g. Oppenheimer are much higher). -dans \_ The miniscule tax advantages of a Roth IRA are not enough for me to keep numerous accounts like that. So I just max out my 401k at work. \_ So there's really not much effort involved with keeping IRA's/ROTH IRA's. From a tax standpoint, the 401k and Traditional IRA are identical. You pay no taxes now, but you pay when you withdraw your funds. The nice thing about 401k vs. IRA is that the yearly cap for 401k contributions (I think 25% of gross income) is much higher than that for IRA ($4-$5K). That said, the tax advantages of a ROTH IRA vs. Traditional IRA/401K are *huge* if you're not going to be retiring for at least a decade. ROTH IRA, you pay no taxes when you withdraw your funds which has been compounding exponentially for 30+ years. One useful trick is that after changing employers, you can rollover your 401k to a Traditional IRA, and then convert the Traditional IRA to a ROTH IRA. This allows you to have a ROTH IRA where you contributed more than the yearly IRA cap. -dans \_ $3k/yr is not much money, even over 30 years. Even if the tax difference was 25%, I don't think I would find it worthwhile to deal with the extra hassle. Unless tax rates go way up, in which case I will wish I had done what you are doing. \_ Ahem interest compounding *exponentially*. Run the numbers, what you have at the end is not chump change. And a 25% cut of $100K is 25K, which is not the kind of money I can throw around with reckless abandon. YMMV, I guess. -dans |
2005/3/28 [Finance/Investment] UID:36911 Activity:moderate |
3/28 Warrent Buffett isn't investing, why should you? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151542,00.html \_ No man, stocks will always go up, and housing is NOT overvalued, and things will always be more expensive in the future so you have to buy now! There is no bubble, believe me! \_ Warren Buffett is investing; unlike average investors, he is able to buy companies instead of stocks. -tom [BRKb holder] \_ yea, but he also put $20 billion in foreign short term bonds, meaning he thinks dollar will fall? also, the article said he couldn't find any good companies to buy. \_ I happen to agree that there aren't a lot of bargains out there in the US stock market, and I've also put some money in overseas investments. But that's just my style (and Buffett's); there are plenty of reputable money managers who think otherwise. -tom \_ $20B is chump change for WB. He is just hedging. \_ entire berk's market cap is only like $130B. $20B ain't no "chump change". \_ 15% of his holdings. I have way more than that in overseas stocks. |
2005/3/26-28 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:36896 Activity:nil |
3/26 Interesting thoughts on the future direction of interest rates, inflation, the murkiness of macroeconomonic policy, etc. http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20050325-fri.html#anchor0 \_ Dense reading, difficult to understand for those who didn't major in world economics or business (I'm just a dumb EECS major, I know a lot about circuits but nothing else). Can you PLEASE summarize? \_ Inflation is going up, interest rates are going up. This is happening in Europe too. Japan is still having a deflation problem, but it might start to go away. |
2005/3/25 [Finance/Investment] UID:36875 Activity:low |
3/25 Is there any disadvantage to placing a limit order when the market is closed vs. waiting for it to open? \_ The only disadvantage is that news which occurs before the market opens could hurt you; if the stock gaps up or down on the open you could wind up missing a transaction, or getting the transaction filled at a less than optimal price. -tom |
2005/3/24 [Finance/Investment] UID:36845 Activity:nil |
3/23 A guy blathers about bubbles. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58600-2005Mar22_2.html \_ They used to just call this inflation. \_ Your brain == small |
2005/3/20-22 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:36783 Activity:high |
3/20 I'm an ignorant engineer and I never took an econ/business/political class. Having that said, if both US and Europe have big deficits who loans the money and who's gaining? Switzerland? Japan? In another word, who's the big banker? \_ Mostly Asian countries, in particuar Japan and China. As I understand it, China's overall share is growing rapidly. Check out \- As I understand it, there is a bit of a difference between what is going on in Japan and China. You can accumulate dollars because you are selling a lot of stuff to americans who are paying you in dollars and that is a different matter from taking "your own money which is not in dollars" and turning it into dollars. China is both selling a lot of stuff to america and gas a pretty narrow exchange rate snake against the USD, so they need to hold fx reserve to defend rates, sterilize flows etc. And in china, i suppose the private/public distinction is a little more gray ... like where do the dollar profits of wholly/partially state owned businesses wind up. india recently cut the USD %age of its FX reserve by something like 25%, if memory serves. \_ For a bunch of commies, China seems to have a pretty good understanding of economics. \_ China isn't really communist any more. It's behavior borders on aggressively capitalist. The catch is that there's a pretty constant back and forth between the more modern factions in the government who talk like communists but make policy like capitalists and the hardliners who manage to crack down on the capitalist advances every couple of years. If this is of interest to you and you're still a student, I'd highly recommend taking a class taught by Carolyn Wakeman, a professor in the Journalism school who focuses on Media Studies and China. I forget the title of the class I took from her (China and the Media?), but it was really interesting, I learned a great deal, and it significantly altered my perception and understanding of modern China. -dans \_ dict irony Paul Krugman's editorial column in the New York Times, he talks about this frequently. -dans \_ URL please? \_ http://csua.org/u/bgj \_ The largest debtholder is Japan. Next is China. Third is Great Britain. I think that Britain is being largely ignored, but their economy is doing great and they have shunned the Euro. I'd almost rather buy Pounds Sterling than Euros as a hedge. \-If you really want a framework to think about this stuff, first you should learn a little about the domestic case [closed economy] and then a toy version of the open economy [incorporating more nuanced theories of international finance and trade gets pretty complicated since there are a lot of not agreed up assumptions and causal relations and equillib conditions] ... if you are an engineer, you should be able to follow say the first 5 chapters of something like dornbusch& fischer. It really is important to have this framework rather than a random assortment of factoids. An important identity in the domain of your question is: Private Sector Public Sector Saving - Investment = [(GovtSpend + Xfers) - Taxes] - NetExports This tells us Net Domestic Private Sector Savings is equal to the Budget Deficit + Trade Surplus. So this tells us a few things: 1. budget deficits complete with the private investment sector for savings dollars. 2. you should not look at bilateral deficits but aggregate flows. The Aggregate Demand for dollars, which in turn defines the exchange rate (an exchange rate is a price ... and as we know price is a function of supply and demand), has a number of components and is beyond the motd. of components and is beyond the motd. 3. the us public and private debt competes with others to suck up international saving ... i believe the us's demand on world saving is around $4T now. finally, the motivation for the asian banks [i am not sure about GB vs SKorean and Taiwan] to keep buying us dollars is partly self-serving ... to keep the dollar from weakening more and from interest rate going up and choking off some consumer borrowing ... but yeah, this cant go on forever. "who is gaining" is a toughie ... if you work for ibm and you hold 100 shares of ibm, you arent going to be laughing at a "chump" with 10,000shares of ibm if the stock tanks. --psb \- if you want a very detailed breakdown of these various categories, google("federal reserve", "flow of funds") for the "Z.1" document. --psb \_ The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has been lending the US Treasury $100s of B of dollars over the last few years. I know the official reasoning is that they are doing this to keep the Yen down, but since Japan already runs huge budget deficits, there is more going on here than meets the eye. \_ Er, You dont understand what is going on. \_ Please enlighten me. \_ I am pretty cool Bevis, but that is beyond my power. \_ In other words, you have no idea what you are talking about. Why not just say that? \_ I have no idea what I'm talking about. \_ Too bad, I had hoped that you knew the answer to something that has been puzzling The Economist for a long time. |
2005/3/20-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:36778 Activity:very high |
3/20 After not really investing seriously in the past, I'm ready to get serious about saving both for retirement and buying a house. I have a pretty good idea what I want to invest in, but no idea how to go about doing it. Since I mostly want to do exchange-traded funds (ETFs) I don't care too much about the specific fund offerings of a broker. I'm looking for a reputable broker with a full-service website, low fees, and the ability to invest in both domestic and foreign mutual funds and stocks. What would you guys reccomend or warn me away from? \_ what's wrong with Etrade? \_ For retirement, just dump the money into an IRA. Get something like ING if you want safety. For the rest, I guess you could just go and buy QQQ for nasdaq and a Vanguard index fund for the S&P. If you want international there's index funds for various stuff also. That's bascially all you really need to know about investing your money. You don't need to really buy any other mutual fund. You can also buy bonds if you want real safety. Also, it's somewhat doubtful that you will be able to invest in a mutual fund that beats an index fund over the long run. Most of them will lose out on the S&P. Don't buy individual stock, don't buy precious metals, don't buy commodities. \_ what's wrong with precious metal? Gold's beating US dollar like hell. In fact everything's beating US dollar. Iraq+war+deficit+Bush=fucked US dollar. \_ More like Bush->(Spending+Tax Cut+War)->Deficit->F*CKED Dollar \_ Because buying gold is stupid. You need to take a look at a historic graph. If you are going to invest seriously for your retirement, you don't need to invest in knee-jerk shit like gold or silver. If you are old enough, you'll remember the silver run-up of the early 80s, or the gold run up some time after. Precious metals just do not appreciate at the rate of a good CD over time. Also, if you really believe that the U.S. economy is going to be fucked long term, you're better off putting the money into foreign currency. Again, historically this is very risky. \_ I think you're off-base talking about "history" and comparing gold to a CD. Economic realities change, and CDs are a fairly new instrument, without very much history behind them. Gold has thousands of years of history, and it's been a good investment for nearly all of that time. -tom \-I doubt that is true. Talking about 100s of years ago is silly ... you cant compare today's world to a world without real property rights, "money" etc. If central banks holding gold continue to sell [since gold holdings dont pay interest], that cant be good for the price of gold. Also while today you can hold gold "on paper", historically there would also probably have been a cost associated with storing gold cheaply. There are many other reasons comparing 1600 and today doesnt work. \_ Ah, so "history" starts in 1975. Right. -tom \- Where did that come from? Gold may have been a resonable "store of value" but that is different from an investment. \_ Bwahahahahaha! Okay, tom, you can go ahead and live in the medieval ages if you want. In a modern fiat based economy gold isn't a good investment. What are you gonna do, propose we invest in railroads or PG&E? Gimme a break. Oh, here's a link that will tell you why you shouldn't invest in gold as a long term investment: http://www.fool.com/Fribble/1996/Fribble960305.htm Apparently even the experts believe that buy and holding gold is not a way to make money. You have to essentially buy/sell gold to make money. This is as bad as buying any other commodity. \_ I'm not saying you should invest in gold, but I am sure that history says nothing about the value of CDs vs. gold. Look at the doofus above; he's claiming on the one hand that "CDs historically perform better than gold", and then says you have to discount virtually all of the history because the world has changed. Here's a hint: The world can change more. -tom \_ Gold is a hedge, not an investment itself. \- maybe you should "invest" in guns as a hedge against uncertain change. \_ don't use "long term" too much. try making money today. \_ If you don't care about fancy stuff, try scottrade. It's cheap, and customer service is good, and there are local branches where you can go in and talk to someone. I used E*trade, Scottrade and Datek/Ameritrade before. I didn't like E*trade because it's more expensive, and service is poor. Scottrade and Ameritrade each have their strong points. Ameritrade is stronger at mutual fund offerings and after hours trading, etc., but scottrade has local branches and is also cheaper. \_ Your simplest, and arguably best, bet is to invest in a set of funds that covers as broad a portion of markets/commodities as possible. Don't forget to invest internationally, and consider checking out Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) as a way to invest in Real Estate without losing your shirt. I'd highly recommend reading Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" to understand why this strategy is worthwhile: http://csua.org/u/bfx As a previous poster indicated, an ING savings account is a safe place to keep your short-term liquid cash flow, but will give you poor returns overall if it is your only investment vehicle. Personally, I'm a fan of Vanguard for mutual funds. They don't fuck over small investors (i.e. they were not indicted in some of the recent stock/mutual fund accounting scandals that a number of more institutional oriented firms weere), they have solid educational resources, and low fees. I've heard good things about Schwab as well, but can't speak from experience in that regard. Be sure to max out your IRA every year, I believe the maximum contribution for 2005 is $4000. Also, since you're young, you should put your money into a ROTH IRA (as opposed to a Traditional IRA). With a ROTH IRA, you pay tax on the money you put in now, but get to withdraw your earnings when you retire tax free (if the benefit is not immediately obvious, here's a hint: compound interest grows on an exponential curve, which end of the curve do you want the gub'mint to take its bite out of?). Finally, try to put together a down payment and purchase a house sooner than later. The interest on your mortgage is tax deductible, which can be really helpful if you're in a typical nerd tax bracket. Also, even if you move and sell the place, you should get the money you paid in plus appreciation back out as equity. Compare to rent which just makes a scary sucking sound as it takes a nasty bite out of your paycheck each month. -dans -dans \_ I'm a starving grad student barely making $15,000 a year and almost all of it goes to rent and living expenses. What is your recommendation for me? \- what makes sense for you depends on your expectation of future income prospects. if you are an EE or ChemE from Berkeley, "deficit spending" or running no surplus may make more sense than if you are in a 10yr phd program in latin grammar with no future prospect of reasonable income. Just avoid credit card debt and dont go hog wild when you start making real $. --psb \_ I agree with psb on this. Though, personally, I'm somewhat risk averse with respect to any debt, but that's a personal decision. -dans \_ 15k??? That SUCKS! What type of program are you in? --not-so-starving grad student \_ Well, in theory, as a grad student you're making a (reasonable, unless you're in the humanities :) bet that your advanced degree will result in enough of an increase in earning power to offset the cost of tuition and, more importantly, the opportunity cost of additional years spent outside of the work force. I've heard that someone did a study and found that if you want to optimize your lifetime earning potential via education then you should get a Masters, and then start working. I'd like to see the actual study, but the result seems plausible since a PhD candidate usually spends at least 4 years longer in school than someone who leaves with his/her Masters. That said, you could just keep doing the subsistence thing and count on the extra earnings your advanced degree will generate, and you'll probably do okay for yourself. If you *can* find a way to save some money now (even something little, like $100 a month), it's really worth it. As I said above, compound interest grows exponentially, so even a small sum invested now can pay off nicely in the future. As for where to put it, that's a no-brainer: ROTH IRA invested in a broad-based no-load (this is just broker speak for low fees) index fund. If you're just investing in a single fund, I'd suggest Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index Fund. If you already have an account at some other brokerage firm, e.g. Schwab, they should have something equivalent. Just be wary of high fees as they can really put a dent in your investments over time. Both Schwab and Vanguard's fees are quite reasonable. One caveat to that fund is that it only covers the US market, but you can expand into foreign markets in the future when you have more income. What's important is to develop good saving/investment habits. I've seen a lot of investment advice that suggests putting aside 10% of your gross income, for you, that's $1500 which is just a touch above the $100 a month I suggested above. If you can, set up a mutual fund account that will automatically deduct $100 from your bank account at the beginning of each month. It's an easy way to enforce savings discipline and it lets you take advantage of something called dollar-cost averaging: http://csua.org/u/bfy -dans \_ if you're a first time home buyer, buying sooner rather than later is probably not too smart, considering we're probably in sort of a real estate bubble at the moment. \_ That's a nice idea, and I agree that we're in a real estate bubble, but that's been the case for a long time. True, it has to pop sooner or later, but that could be later, as in five or ten years from now, and holding one's breath and preying it pops seems like a bad strategy to me. I've seen advice that suggests you should buy a residence if you are going to be living in the same area for at least two years. I think that's better advice than speculating on a bubble that we're `probably in sort of'. Just by way of comparison, New York city is, like San Francisco, in a real estate bubble. Problem is that a) prices just keep climbing, b) nobody who owns his/her place in New York is about to leave the city (unless forced to at gunpoint), so demand outstrips supply and will continue to do so, perhaps till doomsday. Ten years ago, you could still buy something cheap in Harlem because it was perceived to be a slum. Then Bill Clinton sets up office there, and lots of people flock there, buying burnt out buildings and either renovating them or tearing them down to put new ones up. Today you can easily drop $1M on a place in Harlem, and young white folks think of it as a nice place to raise their kids. When that kind of gentrification is fueling your bubble, what will it take to pop it? -dans \_ uh oh, someone started a circular, never-ending debate \_ Depending how much time you want to spend. If you want to spend minimal time, buy broad based index funds and aim for an 8% return. If you want a higher average annual return, you need to spend more time (which has cost), and you may be able to push your return to 15-20% or higher. \_ FLPSX has a 60+% return since I switched my 401(k) to it from FDGFX two years ago. That's 30+%/yr. \_ You would have gotten a similar performance if you switched to DVY. Interesting that DVY's chart is so similar to FLPSX's even though you would think it should look more like FDGFX's since both are dividend funds. 2003 is an especially good year though, and 2004 is not bad too, but I am talking about the long term, so 15-20% is more realistic. I had like a 75% return in 2003, but I started the year with some risky non-diversified bets on individual stocks (BBY, NVDA, HELE, etc.) so it should not be used as a gauge. I have been switching gradually to mutual funds, index funds and close end funds since end of 2003 cause I don't have time to follow individual stocks now. end funds since end of 2003 cause I no longer have time to follow individual stocks. \_ Wow. Thanks for all the advice on investing strageties and all but I'm really asking about brokers. I already know about mutual funds REITs, ETFs, Roths vs. IRAs, risk/reward tradeoffs, hedging, and all that. Since I'm young I'm putting most retirement money in high risk/growth funds and some in foreign emerging markets funds. The money for a house in a few years is going into a mix of large-cap funds and some in non-treasury bonds. -op \_ Vanguard. 'nuff said. -dans \_ Is their website full-featured, or will I have to get them on the phone to trade? \_ I am going to go against the crowd here and recommend that you put your future down payment in a low or no risk instrument like a T Bill or Bond or CD. Your retirement money belongs in a Roth IRA with the most risk you can stand. -ausman \_ What broker do you like and why? |
2005/3/17-18 [Finance/Investment, Recreation/Dating] UID:36732 Activity:moderate |
3/17 How much would you tip for a 14 dollar haircut, assuming they did a good job? \_ $2 or $3. \_ 3-5 dollars depending on how much of a mess it was beforehand. \_ I refuse to pay $14 for a haircut. \_ Do you go with the popular 'bowl' or buzzcut styles? \_ I went with buzz cuts for many years. Now that I'm married my wife does a decent rendition of the Barber shop standard men's haircut. \_ Where can you get a haircut for less $14?! \_ Naval base barber. \_ Get coupons. \_ Chinatown. \_ Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown. \_ My local chinese barber does it for $10. I usually tip her $2-$5, depending on how depressed she is re her family that day. \_ Damn, no wonder so many sodans look so bad. $40 is minimum for something that actually looks good. \_ Planning to post a picture of yourself any time soon? Didn't think so. \_ That kind of investment requires: A) Knowledge what looks good, and B) the desire to keep it looking good daily. I have niether of these. \_ And C) where to get such a haircut. \_ Damn, no wonder so many sodans are virgins. Looking and smelling good is the minimum for getting laid. \_ 10-20 haircuts, 10 dollar pants, 20 dollar shoes, and I get laid! (Though I do shower and stuff.) Not being a total twat goes so much farther than throwing money at the problem. \_ I don't know, dans doesn't have either and he seems to do ok. \_ Yay for anonymous slander! \_ How much would you tip for a $25 haircut? That pretty much looks like a $14 haircut? \_ -$11 \_ http://tipping.org/tips/TipsPageBarberShop.html. 15%. -tom |
2005/3/16-17 [Finance/Investment] UID:36712 Activity:kinda low |
3/15 Yes, people should look into BHP and RTP. These Australian, British global commodity giants capture all 3 of these trends: (1) Falling dollar - Being foreign, they are a dollar hedge (2) Inflation and rising interest rates - Commodity (3) China growth - strong demand for all kinds of commodities Either hope for a pull back or buy for the longer term. I have BHP (pe 17) for some time and I think I am going to add some RTP (pe 12). The other choice is RIO (CVRD) which is cheaper but also less diversified (strong concentration in iron ore). \_ Thanks. How do I do this, via ETrade or some sort? I'm asking because you have to deal with tax implications, whereas if you just open up an account outside of US, it might be a different story \_ All 3 are available as ADRs which are traded like stocks on US exchanges, so yes, you can just buy it on Etrade like any other stock. any other stock. If you are thinking about buying overseas so you can not pay uncle sam taxes, I am not sure how. I guess these are listed in their respective country's stock exchanges at the very least. \_ Once everybody knows something like this, it is probably too late to make any real money doing it. \_ Those had stellar growth in the last year... but there's no reason to think they'll maintain that. The price probably already has those factors built in. \_ I don't disagree with you guys that it would be better if you entered last year (or even before), but I think these still have room to go. A lot of money is very short-termed, but these trends are mid to long term. Also, just because but these trends are mid to long term. Just because everyone thinks the dollar will fall doesn't mean it will fall immediately. It hasn't fallen much against asian currencies for instance. And there are people who think currencies for instance. It hasn't fallen much because, as investors, the asian central banks are "stupid" and kept buying US treasuries. Also, there are people who think commodities will come back down once production can be revved up, which I disagree, at least not anytime soon. With China and India joining the global economy in full force, labor, including skilled ones, is limitless, so where is the future bottleneck? Commodities. That's where inflation will be seen. |
2005/3/15-16 [Finance/Investment] UID:36704 Activity:moderate |
3/15 http://CNN.com now has bar charts linked in from the front page with before and after annual benefits comparing (1) the current system and (2) a new system with 4% of wages contributed to private accounts and indexing of minimum benefits to prices rather than wages. For a person born in 2005, the guaranteed benefit of a low-income individual would be $3,000/year, compared to $15,500/year under the old system! (Yes, this assumes that Mr. Loser invests all of his private account into "approved mutual fund gone broke". Guess who will be supporting Mr. Loser and his failed private account? I guess his kids or some private charity. Yay!) Granted, the $15,500/year figure assumes we don't change the system at all, which doesn't make sense if there isn't enough money to cover all payments starting in 2042. Any bar charts should really be comparing (1) The Democratic Proposal vs. (2), so people should really start providing graphs for (1). What is the Democratic Proposal? Raising the retirement age by a year from 67 to 68, or increasing the income bracket taxed for SS. Hmm, actually, that would make the graph look like (1) the current system, wouldn't it? \_ Does the system actually go broke in 2042 or does it simply pay less benefits? \_ Depends on how you look at it, but I guess "less benefits" is better. \_ I think in the classic bankruptcy definition there's a big difference. \_ the wording has been updated -op |
2005/3/11 [Finance/Investment] UID:36654 Activity:high |
3/11 Housing Bubble About To Pop: http://csua.org/u/bc9 \_ My favorite troll! You just made my day. \_ Housing prices will increase until population growth stops. \_ Hey, how long ago did you first posit that the housing bubble was about to pop? -tom \_ About a year ago. I also told everyone that tech stocks were overvalued in 1998. Turns out I was right about that one, too. \_ Good job, Karnak. No one could have forseen the business- plan-less tech bubble bursting. \_ The funny thing about financial markets is that they naturally tend to ebb and flow; sometimes quite radically. A funny think about know-it-all engineers is that in their desire to prove their worth and be right, they ignore the fact that if you say the say thing consistently for a long enough span of time, you'll eventually be right. \_ Gee, you're brilliant; so you told people they should have sold a year before their houses went up 20% in value, and they should have gotten out of NASDAQ before their investments more than doubled in value in just 2 years. Maybe you should run a mutual fund. -tom \_ If you got out in 1998 and put your money in savings, you would be better off than if you held on to today. Sure, I missed the bubble, but I missed the crash, too. \_ wrong; the money I had in the market in 1998 earned a lot more than a savings account would have. (And it paid for my house in 1999, which has since also doubled in value). I'm sure you're doing just great with your 2.5% annual return. Have fun. -tom \_ Nasdaq in 1998 = 2000. Nasdaq today = 2000. I got a nice CD in 1999 that paid me 6% for five years. I will probably put that money back in the market now. \_ You are not only a moron, you are completely full of shit. The average price of the Nasdaq in 1998 was less than 1800, and its low was below 1600. If you bought indexes at 1600 and sold at 2000, that's a 25% increase; even if you were completely asleep for the past 7 years and didn't take any of your profit when you were up over 100%. And CDs were not paying 6% then or now. Here's a real-world scenario; put $20K into Qwest at 34, sell at 91 in less than 2 months, use that money as down payment on a house, and see that leveraged investment rise to a value over 10 times the initial outlay. How's that fictional 6% CD looking now? Incidentally, even if you don't include this transaction, my portfolio is worth more now than it was at the market peak in 2000, and at least 3 times what it was worth in 1998. -tom \_ http://www.moneycafe.com/library/compare.htm I got 5 yr 6% CD from my credit union in 1998. Too bad you can't accept that fact. I am glad you got lucky speculating in the bubble market, but most people got burned. If you took $20k to Vegas and bet it all on black and won, that would be about the same thing. If you \_ Uhm, no -- only if you have the financial savvy of a kumquat. The primary category of people that got burned were non-financially savvy engineers with stars in their eyes. Your comparison highlights your wishful thinking wrt your own choices. Get over it, son. have really tripled your investment in 7 years without adding any new money, it is you who should be opening a mutual fund. Nasdaq on 12/31/1998 - 2100+ http://csua.org/u/bcc \_ How are those grapes? Probably a little sour, right? -tom \_ No, I actually feel very lucky to have escape the crash that devastated the finances of so many around me. \_ hey cmlee, if that's you could you sign your name, so we know we're dealing with the true anti-analyst? -tom \_ Q trades at $3 today, much much less than what you bought it at, by the way. Was it overvalued in 1998 or undervalued today? \_ I think it was a reasonable purchase at $34. Not all reasonable purchases work out. -tom \_ I think housing is way overvalued but it's because people with money have dumped it into real estate and it's feeding on itself. How would it pop though? Are there large numbers owners waiting to flip their property for cash? They keep dumping it back into the market. Maybe if we get some major economic Thing happen. Inflation? Don't homeowners do well in inflation? \_ inflation -> interest rates rise -> recession -> pop! \_ I agree that prices will come off the peaks, but the question is how much. If my house loses 50% of its current value I am still even or perhaps even better if one considers the deductions I've made. |
2005/3/7-8 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Finance/Investment] UID:36553 Activity:moderate |
3/7 ING Direct U.S. pays 2.6% interest rate now. I looked up and ING in Canada pays 2.4%, ING in Australia pays over 5%, and ING in Spain pays 6%. That got me curious. I'm pretty sure this is all irrelevant unless I know what the inflation rate is, and how each currency exchanges relative to US dollar. Is there a site somewhere that can give me historical data on inflation and historical exchange rates all in one chart or one site? Thanks. \- Hello, For a bt of theoretical perspective, you may wish to look up "Covered/Uncovered Interest Rate Parity", "Real Interest Parity", "Purachsing Power Parity". There are lots of studies over how well these hold and deviate in the short and long runs. You can also look at the BigMac and Latte Indexes for the cases of involving the price of good [as opposed to interest rates, the price of money]. \_ What happened to the oky,thx? \_ http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory This is telling me that US dollar to Australian exchange rate was 1.6 in 2003 to 1.3 in 2005. That, and the fact that they get a much better interest rate than us, makes me wonder why I'm keeping any money in US bank. I guess you can argue FDIC or some excuse. \- Hello, For a bt of theoretical perspective, you may wish to look up "Covered/Uncovered Interest Rate Parity", "Real Interest Parity", "Purachsing Power Parity". There are lots of studies over how well these hold and deviate in the short and long runs. You can also look at the BigMac and Latte Indexes for the cases of involving the price of good [as opposed to interest rates, the price of money]. \_ What happened to the oky,thx? \_ Hello, BTW, you cant blindly look at these kinds of historical graphs or cross country comparisons. For example, there may be some sudden discontinuitites due to external events like say Regulation Q changes. Especialyl for countries with more controlled mkts you may need more info about that country, e.g. for certain kinds of accounts, senior citizens in India are given slightly higher interest rates. \- BTW, people interested in cross-border issues may want to read about the "Tobin Tax" debate as well. ok tnx. \_ I thought ING's interest rate has more to do with how the central banks of the various countries are setting their interest rates. Inflation rate would influence the central banks' decisions but it's likely just one of many factors. I don't know about other countries, but Australia's economy is just plain hot, mainly due to the China led commodities boom, so you get cool exchange rate appreciation plus nice interest yield. But yes, historical charts on inflation and exchange rates would be nice. \_ I think the summary is that US economy is fucked and will continue to be fucked for a while and that keeping your money in US currency is just dumb dumb dumb. Yes I hate America. \_ No no no. We **know** you hate America. We asked you why. \_ Why is the Afghan to US exchange rate completely flat? Ditto with the Iraq Dinar to US dollar. What does this say, that Iraq/Afghan dollar are exactly the same as US dollar? http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=USD&to=AFA http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=USD&to=IQD \_ You mean like how the Chinese Yuan is pegged to the dollar along with the Argentine peso? Egads, it's a conspiracy! \_ Many currencies are pegged to the dollar. -tom \_ Afghanistan and Iraq are like the 51st and 52nd States in the U.S., of course the exchange rate is the same. DUHHHH. http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushiraqidinar2.htm -/ |
2005/3/1-3 [Recreation/Humor, Finance/Investment] UID:36474 Activity:high |
3/1 Why do people say 'rate of speed?' -- ilyas \_ Speed is d(distance)/dt. Rate of speed is a specific, determinant value. It's legalese. It has to be that accurate. \_ Ok, 'rate' is used to mean 'measure,' rather than 'rate of change.' That makes sense. That's unfortunately ambiguous though, and it always sounded jarring to me. -- ilyas \_ it's funny and redundant because speed already means rate of change of position to you. distiniguish it from rate of inflation, rate of decline, etc. and realize some yokels said rate of speed instead of rate of movement. not any more silly than "ATM machine" etc. \_ What's wrong with the term "rate of speed"? Ever heard of dv/dt? \_ It has more syllables. If you want a serious answer, that's probably\ the real reason. Same with "nukular"--some people just like to add \_ People don't use it to mean dv/dt. -- ilyas \_ People don't use it to mean dv/dt. Also, you know, I don't mean your regular people off the street. I mean 'professional news people.' Kind of depressing, really. -- ilyas \_ "It made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs" \_ If it's dv/dt, it would be "rate of change of speed". \_ It has more syllables. If you want a serious answer, that's probably the real reason. Same with "nukular"--some people just like to add syllables. \_ That's horrible. They should really utilize a shorter word. \_ +1 funny. \_ the same reason that people believe in organized religion: because they don't use their brains. \_ hey, lookey, a dictionary uses the exact phrase! http://www.bartleby.com/61/13/R0051300.html \_ amazing \_ People who nitpick on minute things like typo, grammar, and what not have above average IQ, but not much higher. \_ You don't get out very much, do you? Perhaps you should, like, give your everquest a break and like, meet some real people. \_ I believe the word you're looking for is "prig." \_ But this is neither a typo nor a grammar problem. \_ Because most people are kind of confused about the difference between movement, speed and accelaration. \_ hey I got a great idea, how about sharing an MP3 of your voice. Let's see if we can improve your loud, annoying non-native accent. That and maybe proper grooming will definitely help you get more chicks. \_ Because language works and evolves in ways that my not be completely "logical". Think about expressions like "cheap at half the price", or words like "orthogonal", which gets used metaphorically, or "finite" which some people use to mean greater than zero. For that matter, think about things like the negation in Russian "ja nikogda ne...". However, amazingly enough, we still manager to seem to be able to understand each other. \_ But "rate of speed" is logical. It's legalese. One could argue that their speed was the distance traveled over the time it took. If they were going 100 mph, then got caught in bumper-to-bumper, they could say they weren't "speeding" because they averaged 40mph. Rate of speed pins it down. |
2005/2/26-28 [Recreation/Music, Finance/Investment] UID:36439 Activity:moderate |
2/26 Looking for the loudest, most obnoxious heavy bass music that can penetrate walls so that I can blast back at my neighber. And yes I hate renting and living in the apartment but I have no choice because I'm a poor student, so please spare me the "renting is dumb" shit. Thx. \_ I recommend Indian music. \_ My aunt used to live in the ghetto where she was surrounded by ultra-powerful stereos blasting rap all the time. Her retaliation was opera. She had volume, but it's really the choice of music that makes it retaliation more than the volume. \_ There can be no winners in a war of the stereos. Have you tried talking to them? \_ I don't know about that. I once played bagpipe music at full volume in my dorm room and then left the room. |
2005/2/22-23 [Finance/Investment] UID:36365 Activity:nil |
2/22 Has anyone used freetrade? It's run by ameritrade but looks pretty sketchy. This seems to explain some of the sketchiness -- but it's an old article: http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/05/18/ameritrade/index.html \_ It's basic no-frills trading. Don't expect anything other than free trades. \_ I looked into it a few weeks ago - researched it pretty thoroughly on the http://fool.com discussion boards, and it seems legit and used by quite a few people, for what it's worth - no complaints that I saw except some really old posts that worried about their business model. |
2005/2/16-17 [Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan, Finance/Investment] UID:36204 Activity:kinda low |
2/16 Is Alan Greenspan a Democrat or a Republican? Who/When appoints such a man and how long does he get to say when to raise/lower interest rate? \_ Alan Greenspan used to be best buddies with Ayn Rand in a previous life. I am unclear on his current political status. Possibly 'sold out.' -- ilyas 'too old and sold out to care.' -- ilyas \_ isn't Bill Gates a big fan of Ayn? What is it about rich people and their idol Ayn? \_ Ayn's philosophy is that rich people are rich because they earned it (even if they inherited it), and they deserve to keep it. Of course rich people like her. \_ No, the philosophy, as I recall, was that if you earn money, you deserve it (note "earn" in the the meritocratic sense.) And are not wealthy, and don't work for money, you do not deserve it. -John \_ what does Ayn think about Monarchy? Does she like it when the rich aristocrats keep what they have and work to keep it that way? \_ who knows? she died. - danh \_ ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts. (From the Devil's Dictionary) -- ilyas \_ Greenspan was appointed to the board of the Federal Reserve by Reagan in '87. The President designates which member of the board is the Chairman and all presidents since and including Reagan have designated Greenspan as the Chairman. An appointment to the board last 14 yrs, I believe that the Chairman holds the position for 4 yrs, but I'm not sure. Greenspan was (and probably still is) a Republican. For more info see: http://www.federalreserve.gov/bios/greenspan.htm BTW, you could have figured out all this for yourself by typing 'Alan Greenspan' into Google. |
2005/2/3-4 [Finance/Investment] UID:36049 Activity:insanely high |
2/3 Do you put money in savings accounts, money markets or CDs? \_ 99% checking, 1% cash. \_ All of the above? \_ how do you divide your money? \_ stocks, mutual funds \_ don't you have an emergency cash reserve? \_ yes, it's called the wife \_ But she has to compete with yermom on the streets \_ For savings accounts, I really like ING. You won't find better interest rates. Then I put some in CDs, and the rest in the market. About a third evenly all around. \_ i-bonds! http://csua.org/u/ay9 (treasury.gov) \_ There is no point to CDs right now with rates so low. A savings account and a money market are roughly the same in most aspects, but the MM returns more. I only bother with a MM and put very little in a savings tied to my checking. Most goes into mutual funds of varying sorts (including MM-like types). \_ Bleh, mutual funds are near worthless. Might as well just buy QQQ on your own or just get the stock index fund. \_ QQQ is an exchange traded mutual fund. Same idea as the mutual fund with expense ratios and all. \_ Thanks for the advice, Peter Lynch! If you really want to know, I have an international fund, an index fund, a bond fund, and a government bond fund and I am very happy with them. You can feel free to put all of your savings into GOOG. \_ I don't really give a shit about what funds you personally have. The point was that mutual funds in general are worthless and the only funds you should invest in are index funds such as QQQ. Just an FYI to people who might be reading this and deciding on what they should invest in. The bottom line is: If you have the time buy bluechip stocks and hold them. If you don't have the time buy an index fund. All other funds are worthless because they consistently UNDERPERFORM the broad range bluechip market. In other words, you're paying someone to do worse than simply buying the index. Frequent trading is worthless. Owning stock in one single company may be worth something, but you might also lose your shirt. \_ Your point is idiotic. How will you get exposure to the bond market without a bond fund? Buying the NAQDAQ, Russell, Wilshire, or whatever index is smart. That's why I bought it. It's also: 1. A mutual fund, 2. Only part of a portfolio. Your statement that mutual funds in general are worthless is retarded, especially when you advocate buying an index fund. \_ Try actually reading the statements, moron. Mutual funds ARE worthless, because the ONLY funds that consistently perform as well as the market are INDEX funds, duhhhh! If that's the case all you have to do is just buy the index, that means buying and holding the bluechip stock individually. It's not hard, it doesn't take a fucking Math PhD to do this, and with Ameritrade it's cheap. All you need is either a paper with stock prices in it (i.e. Wall Street Journal people!) or look it up on the web (again, not fucking hard to do people!) If you know absolutely NOTHING about buying stock for $5 a trade and are afraid to manage your portfolio or are too fucking lazy and want to pay someone to do BASICALLY 20 HOURS OF WORK A YEAR that's fine, go buy QQQ or Magellan or whatever index fund you want. Capiche? Capiche, now stfu and go comment on something you know about. \_ You are a fucking retard!!! How will you get exposure to the international market or to bonds or to government-backed securities without a mutual fund?! Your statement is narrowly applied to the universe of US equities. You use a lot of foul language, but it doesn't conceal your stupidity. Mutual funds are an easy way to get broad exposure to different markets and as such are very useful. You *can* buy T-bills and individual stocks and perhaps even ADRs for every region in the world, but mutuals make it cheap and easy. \_ I'm too ignorant about finance to tell which of you two knows more about the subject, but you're both very entertaining. Thank you. \_ I would just like to point out that if you had invested any money in QQQ from 2000- 2003 or so you got burned! Not that mutual funds performed that much better ... \_ You are an idiot. \_ Bought QQQ at $100, eh? \_ Sure. I DCA into the NASDAQ and have since the early-mid 1990s. I don't worry about a 3-4-10 year period and neither should you. \_ to both of you: please make a distinction between actively traded mutual funds, and index funds. Also, there are index funds which track different indices such as bonds or international or sectors. Foul language is also not necessary. There are those who support the idea of using index funds only. \_ Often an index fund is a good buy. Many actively managed funds do not beat their benchmarks. There is no debate about that. The problem is when you are trying to track 'microcap companies in a particular nation' or similar. Indices do not exist for all situations. A mutual fund can identify those companies which are excluded from the index (or which make up a miniscule % of the index) and purchase shares. Sometimes individual investors cannot even do that because of foreign regulations. If you decide to weight heavily in small sectors like that then mutual funds are great. Whether this is wise or not depends on tolerance for risk, but one can certainly see where individual equities or bonds might not be a fit and no index (or only a poor approximation) exists. \_ I don't keep a reserve. It is all in stocks and bonds. My wife keeps a 2 month reserve though and she puts it a savings account. I think she is being overly conservative. \_ Are you nuts? I've got an 8-month cash reserve. \_ This is all moot w/o knowing how much you make and how much you spend. It's easy to save 8 months of burger flipper salary. It's more difficult to save 8 months of MD salary. Expenses come into play, too. \_ 8 months of my current lifestyle EXPENSES. \_ Of course, but saving 8 months of burger flipper expenses is pretty easy. For most people, as income rises so do expenses. If you live with a roommate in a studio apartment and ride bike to work then you can have 8 months worth of expenses saved easily. If you have a mortgage and a car and such it is much more difficult. Thus this x month penis size comparison is lame. \_ It's said that liars tend to assume other people are lying. I guess burger flippers make a similar mistake. \_ I think the point here is that if your expenses are $120,000 per year (say) then keeping 8 months as a reserve is $80,000. That's a lot of money to invest in low risk investments "in case of emergency." One can do something better with that money than a cash reserve. If it comes to $8,000 it's quite different. \_ $8,000 to someone earning $12,000 a year is a lot more than $80,000 to someone earning $120,000 a year. -tom \_ Expenses, not earnings. \_ "saving 8 months of burger flipper expenses is pretty easy." That may be true for a fat sysadmin, but it's not true for a burger flipper. -tom \_ I think you missed the point. Saving 8 months of burger flipper *expenses* is easy on a fat sysadmin *salary*. Most people here are in the latter salary category, but expenses are a choice. \_ 8 months of expenses as single (no SO) vs single (w/SO) vs married vs married (w/children) are very different. \_ Perhaps I am nuts, I don't know. My job feels pretty secure, we could live on either one of our's salary and I have enough in stocks and bonds equal to about 3 years salary, so even if the market takes a dive, I can live for a long time on that. I prefer more risk than you. on that. Maybe I prefer more risk than you. \_ I second that. Besides, if I get laid off, company gives like 10.5 weeks of salary. That's good enough for 5 months of expenses. Add to that unemployment insurance, and I can last 6-7 months. Also, if you are invested in a diversified portfolio, with ETFs, mutual funds, long, short bond funds, etc., it's not that volatile, so there's always something one can sell without too much of a bad effect. Then there's always family, if worse come to worse. I don't buy the 8 months emergency cash advice, unless you are rich and it represents just a small portion of your liquid assets. But in that case why worry? I think the idea is to have an emergency reserve of liquid assets as opposed to an emergency reserve of plain cash, and to not have any credit card debt, or be living month to month due to too expensive a lifestyle. \_ Just because many mutual fund managers suck doesn't mean there aren't good ones. I believe active management still makes a difference if the fund manager is good. And like one of the above posters have pointed out, if you are interested in certain markets (eg. eastern europe / russia / china / emerging asia, bonds, or even Japan), you often have to buy a mutual fund. |
2005/2/1-2 [Finance/Investment] UID:36017 Activity:high 66%like:36367 |
2/1 What do you think of your job/career? \_ http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=531 \_ Pretty cool, I like it a lot. I just wish it was located someplace where I could afford a home nearby. -jrleek \_ what do you do? What company? \_ If you live with roommates for a decade and put aside 10% of your salary, you will eventually be able to afford a house. To get a single family home, you will probably need a wife/SO to join you. I know this is a big hurdle, but if you really want it, you can do this. \_ It was fun for a while, but kind of boring now. I get paid so much, it is going to be hard to change careers now. \_ Sad as it is, we need to be laid off once in a while to come back to 'normal' productivity, haha. \_ Awesome. I think I'm going places, and doing indy consulting lets me do cool new projects pretty frequently. I try to maintain a good network of people whom I genuinely like, so I can primarily work with guys I get along with. The occasional insecurity and downtime can be pretty nerve-wracking though. Career-wise, I have an idea where I want to be in ~5-10 years, but I'm mainly waiting to see how things develop. -John \_ I go through periods of liking it at various levels. The main problem is that fundamentally I don't want to be cooped up in an office every day. I'd rather be travelling the world writing stuff with a laptop or whatever like the fucking yuppies in cafes. Well actually I'd only want to do that for a year or two. So basically I second the notion that affordability of a nice home is a major dent in my happiness. \_ Or a nice woman to fuck when you go home, haha. \_ Well that's a related subject. The job vs. personal life conflict. Most tech jobs have a lot of time pressures. And now job security is becoming an issue in tech, which means more competition and therefore more time pressure. And more competition means if you don't shine enough (or own your own business) you won't get to work on the interesting problems. I want more daily free time and 6 weeks of vacation every year which doesn't fit the standard tech grunt profile. \_ Hey, you just described my job. For subtle reasons that would take too long to detail on the motd I could kind of do with a traditional office environment for a bit. Maybe we should trade. Email me to discuss details. -dans \_ As a homeowner, I can say that I am satisfied but that it presents a whole new class of problems. A panacea it is not. \_ I'm a coder. I really like coding, but what I don't like is all the politics you have to start dealing w/ as you move up in the ranks. Also I've started to become a little wary of the fact that there is almost no job security in coding, which is why I'm going to law school right now. \_ what was your GPA/LSAT and where do you attend? \_ I would send this to my wife (who IS in her 7th year as a PhD candidate, ABD) but I think she might poison me if I did. \_ Read through the archives. There's a lot about the thesis-writing spouse. I'm 5th year, and that comic is part of what keeps me (almost) sane. |
2005/1/29-30 [Recreation/Activities, Finance/Investment, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:35972 Activity:high |
1/29 I see people with all kindsa crazy prompts and colors in their terminal that change when they log into different systems and such. Is there some easy primer to get a running start on those sorts of things? \_ http://www.google.com/search?q=zsh+prompt \_ Use PS1="$ " ; export PS1 as god and Steve intended. |
2005/1/27-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:35931 Activity:high |
1/22 Is the movement of the market a random walk? I planned to read the book that says yes, but googled a more recent book that says no. So which one is right and which/where I should start reading? \_ What is random? -- ilyas \_ What, are you playing jeopardy or something? \_ Are you op? \_ The answer was: The type of men that Yermom would pick off the street. \_ Yes. You're probably talking about A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel. If that's not the book you were planning to read, it should be. What it really describes is something called The Efficient Markets Theory which can be summed up as the current price of a stock or security incorporates all presently available information. Consequently, you cannot reliable predict prices and beat the market by somehow properly timing when you buy and sell. -dans \- Still a classic: Boredcast Message from 'peterm': Wed Jan 8 17:37:16 1997 You also recommended "A random walk down wall street" ... \_ what calendar are you using? 1/22? \_ Holy shit. 8 years ago! --PeterM \_ Yeah I was referring to that book, but I also googled a more recent book titled A not so random walk down wall street, from PUP. I wonder if that means the old theory has been debunked -op \_ The Efficient Markets Theory is undercut by all the recent insider trading scandals. |
2005/1/25-26 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:35892 Activity:very high |
1/25 Let me ask a stupid question, how will the deficit be paid? How will the huge deficit really impact our lives in the future? Where is the money coming from currently? Are we borrowing from foreign governments? Are we printing money like crazy? How does it work? \_ um.. *deficits* dont get paid. *debt* does. deficit is the rate at which you accumulate debt. Petty semantics. \_ http://news.ft.com/cms/s/bd52ee06-6dad-11d9-ae0d-00000e2511c8.html In 2003, the most recent year with full international statistics, central banks financed 83 per cent of the US current account deficit, with Asian central banks accounting for 86 per cent of flows. \_ The dollar right now is a lot like .com stocks in 1999 ... As long as there is a consensus that the dollar holds true value, it will remain more or less propped up. If enough central banks decide to get out of the dollar, it will collapse, taking the world economy with it. The universal desire to not have that happen is colliding with our desire to borrow indefinitely. \_ Son, that's been the case since we left the gold standard. \_ This is true for any floating currency. However, in the past there were structural reasons for the value of the dollar ... Now it's mainly our military keeping it afloat. \_ let me ask another stupid question, from which countries do we borrow money from? \_ Mostly Japan, Europe, China & Middle East (Saudi Arabia) That's one reason why freepers are funny ... They preach "fuck the rest of the world" yet don't realize how their lifestyles are being subsidies by the entire planet. lifestyles are being subsidized by the entire planet. \_ haha silly liberal you are. freepers believe that by bombing the rest of the world into oblivion all debts will be gone. \_ I read that most of it is held by Americans, but the largest amount of debt held by foreigners is held by England. Maybe we'll become a colony again. \_ I just checked and most of it is owned by Japan and China. England is third. Japan owns FAR more of it than anyone else. -pp \_ Um, I thought the debt was financed by treasury bonds. That is, people buy the bonds and collect interest--we don't go out and borrow from other countries. \_ Foreign entities also buy those securities. Roughly half of the $7 trillion debt is owned by the Fed and federal trust funds. Of the other half that is privately held, foreigners own about half of that. More disconcerting is that almost all of the recent debt was purchased by foreigners and so the ratio is getting worse. \_ But we buy the products from foreign countries and give them dollars for it. Since there is a $60 billion a month trade deficit and dollars are basically IOUs, how is that not borrowing from foreign countries? \_ The day is coming when we will be called and at that point this country will be in a world of hurt. If we manage to survive this, the result will be spectacular. The nature and scope of central gov in this country will be severely curtailed for decades and we will finally get Jefferson's "wise and frugal gov" that would provide a common judiciary and military but little else. \_ What's the easiest way to diversify one's cash savings denomination? \_ Buy gold. Dig hole. Insert gold. Cover up. \_ Buy metal detector. Buy shovel. Head over to your house. \_ Buy metal detector. Buy shovel. Head over to your house. \_ The "don't tell anyone you've buried gold at spot X" was implied. \_ 2nd the motion... check out "GLD" gold ETF this will protect against a deep drop in the dollar.. \_ http://everbank.com \_ Oh, and one possible answer to "how will the deficit be paid" might be "the conservative Christians running the country believe the Rapture will arrive before that day comes". \_ Up until now, we have been able to roll it over each year, but soon it will start to become a drag on our economy. If the Bush deficits continue at 4-6% of GDP for another 4 years, the cost of financing the deficit will put a drag of -1%/yr to GDP growth. At some point, we go the way of England. Check out The Economist article at /tmp/ausman/dollar \_ That was a good article, thx. |
2004/12/23 [Finance/Investment] UID:35413 Activity:nil |
12/23 Not too late to join the herd out of the dollar: http://csua.org/u/ahm (LA Times) |
2004/12/12-13 [Finance/Investment, Reference/RealEstate] UID:35255 Activity:nil |
12/12 Oh so sorry bubble boy. You will not get the house of your dreams for next to nothing after the bubble pops: http://csua.org/u/aan \_ You're missing the point dickhead. I and pretty much all bitter renters from the bay area who post to the motd can afford a *nice* home outside the bay area now, 10 years ago, and ten years from now. Maybe the bay area kool aid will never wear off, and housing in the Bay Area will always be totally disjointed from reality. But think on this: when you talk to homeowners *outside* the Bay Area about the benefits of homeownership, they don't get all defensive and assume you're starting a fight. Why do you think you people are different? Could it be because you know deep down that regardless of what your koolaid bretheren who control the *local* housing market say, that you got screwed? \_ Wow thank you! I've been looking for a commentator who tells me I _should_ buy in this market! Now I have one! \_ Did you actually read the article? |
2004/12/6 [Finance/Investment] UID:35183 Activity:moderate |
12/6 From the "They'll never learn" department. Dow 36,000 returns! http://www.techcentralstation.com/120504A.html \_ I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you saying that over a 17 year period stock value won't increase? \_ Hmm, at 8% a year for 15 years it would be about 33,000. So, what's the problem? \_ The problem is that this dude thinks the fair value for the Dow right now is 36,000. |
2004/11/29 [Politics/Domestic/911, Finance/Investment] UID:35107 Activity:nil |
11/29 Hello petro-euro, goodbye petro-dollar: http://www.csua.org/u/a4w \_ who wrote that article, a publicist for Dreamworks? i'm sorry I can't take someone who writes about the burning girders of the wtc and the dollar seriously. \_ Aside from a hit to American prestige, I dont' see how this changes anything. Exchange and interest rates are determined by the flow of goods and money, not the currencies they are denominated in. \_ Less reasons for other countries to prop up the dollar \_ If they were propping up the dollar to keep oil cheaper, they were making oil more expensive when priced in their native currency. I don't buy it. |
2004/11/26 [Finance/Investment] UID:35081 Activity:nil |
11/26 http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=55356 Bushinomics in action. |
2004/11/23 [Finance/Investment] UID:35029 Activity:nil |
11/22 Germany, Japan or the US Stock market? http://csua.org/u/a2x |
2004/11/22-23 [Recreation/Celebrity, Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Finance/Investment] UID:35026 Activity:high |
11/22 I posted this last week but no one responded (thinking it was a HW problem) so I'll ask again: given a group of several values, is there a way to evaluate or determine if the variability between those numbers are significant or not? And if so, what statistical test should be used? Thanks. \_ Where did the numbers come from? Is there an underlying stochastic (or otherwise) process you can describe? -- ilyas \_ No it's not stochastic. Does it matter, though? Can't you just take the numbers at face value? \_ I don't know what 'variability' means. If it's a normal distribution from which the numbers come, you can estimate the variance, and that's one notion of 'variability.' If the process is not stochastic, and has no stochastic interpretation, why are you interested in 'variability'? -- ilyas \_ OK, so I have a series of about 10 numbers. I want to know if they really are the "same" or not. Let's say I had 3.0, 2.9, and 3.1, I want to determine whether they are actually centering around one central value (in this contrived example, 3). Is it enough to calculate the percent change from one number to the next and note that it's low, or is there a more objective statistical test I can use? \_ If you want to quantify how much variation there is in your numbers, there are lots of ways: some common ones are range, sample standard deviation, population standard deviation, and average deviation. You have to pick an appropriate measure and an appropriate cutoff point for "the same" based on what the numbers mean. Just looking at your numbers above in isolation, you can't say they're the same at all -- say you were measuring the speed of light in different media, in units of 10^8 m/s. If you got 3.0 for some and 2.9 for others it would conclusively show that the media were different, and if you got 3.1 it would be earth-shattering. --mconst \_ Well the series of values were taken from a biological source, where there actually is some baseline value (in theory). \_ It's called an average... \_ You can't make something from nothing. You need to make assumptions about the numbers (if you don't know how you got them), or think about how the numbers are created. -- ilyas \_ I think the problem is that you're looking for a one size fits all solution to a humongous class of problems for which none exists. Why don't you just put the data in /csua/tmp and let us mess around with it? \_ Any series of numbers can be the "same" for some arbitrary distribution. \_ GIVE US THE GODDAMN DATA! And tell us the context. The whole context. Saying "it's a bunch of numbers" does not constitute giving the context, and saying you want to "determine the variablility" doesn't really tell us what you want to know. \_ You need a statistics education. The motd cannot help. |
2004/11/22 [Computer/SW/Languages/Web, Finance/Investment] UID:35006 Activity:low |
11/21 Has anyone tried opening a bank account in say, Canada or Switzerland? How's the interest rate there and how accessible are they online? The second question is, is there a FREE site that is like <DEAD>etrade.com<DEAD> where they show you the exchange rate chart, trend, etc for the past few years? Thanks. \_ Do not open a European bank account for the interest rate. I recommend the Liechtensteinische Landesbank (<DEAD>www.llb.li)--they're<DEAD> pretty nice and professional. Just dump your cash into some long- term bonds there if you care about interest (I assume that's not your primary worry, or you wouldn't be asking this question.) As for exchange rates, check http://oanda.com. -John |
2004/11/15 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq, Finance/Investment] UID:34900 Activity:nil |
11/15 The administration continues it war on poor people: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/12/epa.pesticidestudy.ap/index.html \_ Huh? \_ Can't get a job? Need to pay the rent? Just poison your kids and get a thousand bucks and a camera to document your child's suffering! \_ Did you read the article? That's why they're delaying the study. |
2004/11/10-11 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:34809 Activity:moderate |
11/10 Here is a problem for you google employees to solve: Yahoo Finance is a big big part of yahoo's revenues. It's missing something that so far nobody has found a way to solve. Keeping track of options pricing and displaying historical charts on options pricing. The reason is that each stock has hundreds of calls/puts. Nobody has yet figure out a way to store all that data and display it even after expiration. I'd like to see such a feature on google finance. It's a complex data archiving problem. Anybody want to guess the storage required to store the daily option prices for all stocks for the latest 10 years? And have it available for quick retrieval? \_ do your own job \_ I'll guess: a few dozen gigs at most. Make dupes across a bunch of different systems for fast retrieval. And: YOU'RE FIRED! \_ I could see it coming to several hundred megs a day, which would be maybe 100GB/year, but that's still chump change. \_ several hundred megs a day? to store a bunch of easily compressed numbers? c'mon.... I felt I was being rather conservative saying the whole thing would take ~40 gigs. but yes whatever the real total would be in disk space, the total cost is effectively zero for anyone with a real use for the data. \_ not only has this problem been solved, it has been solved by just about every large financial house. maybe you should come up with another theory to explain why it's not on your favorite free consumer portal. have you thought about the relative population sizes of option-savvy traders vs the population of equity traders? --aaron \_ not only has this problem been solved, it has been solved by just about every large financial house. maybe you should come up with another theory to explain why it's not on your favorite free consumer portal. have you thought about the relative population sizes of option-savvy traders vs the population of equity traders? --aaron \_ For next question, we'll ask why GOOG doesn't have a free level 2 NASDAQ feed... \_ they haven't gotten past the level 1 boss yet. |
2004/11/6-7 [Finance/Investment] UID:34717 Activity:very high |
11/5 Whoa! Google had a high of 201.60. It's now at 169.35 and down 1.05 from there in afterhours trading. Did one of the founders rape an underage nun on national TV? What's going on? \_ Immature companies' stock price is subject to significant fluctuation. -tom \_ You have an amazing grasp of the obvious. \_ Ask a stupid question... -!tom |
2004/11/4-5 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:34685 Activity:very high |
11/04 Holy Jeebus. The CDN dollar hit $0.83 today. \_ where's a good site to see exchange rates plotted as a function of time? \_ http://finance.yahoo.com/currency?u \_ Move your assets into something non-US dollar denominated. I did so two years ago and have doubled the S&P gain each year. The dollar is in for a mighty drop soon. \_ What has it been doing other than dropping?! Soon, indeed. \_ You ain't seen nothing yet. \_ What is the timeframe for an Argentina-style currency crisis? Would it take 5 to 10 years or could it happen more quickly? \_ Why do you think it will drop more? It's dropped a lot already in the last three months. -ignoramus \_ Short answer: The Economist says so. Long answer: huge and unsustainable budget deficit, ditto with the trade deficit, an administration that refuses to admit that this is a problem and in fact intends to borrow even more, a Japan and China growing weary of financing it, a real competing currency (The Euro) for the world to put its capital into. \_ How did the dollar do when confronted with Reaganomics? The dollar is falling because the US wants it to fall. It makes it easier to pay back the $$$ we borrowed. We'll prop it up when we're ready. \_ nah, it's the chinese and japanese who've been propping it up, and they are the only ones who can continue to prop it up. Dollar falling ain't bad, makes our products more competitive. US dollar once went down to 1.4 Singapore dollar, then bounce back up to 1.84 Singapore dollar during the gogo internet years, now it is at 1.67. I think it will fall back to 1.4 or lower in the next year or two. \_ Products more competitive? Hello, McFly. We're running a HUGE trade deficit, which the dollar's fall has done nothing to help. Currency crisis here we come, although I happen to think it won't really hit hard until W is out of office. \_ Don't forget the international dollar glut and Russia moving to Euros for intl. oil payments. -John \_ One way to bet that the dollar will fall is to buy an international short term bond fund like BEGBX (some international bond fund are hedged to eliminate exchange rate changes vs the dollar, but not this fund). |
2004/10/27-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:34389 Activity:moderate |
10/27 Russia mulling switch to Euros for oil: http://www.rense.com/general58/opil.htm Just in case people still believe world opinion doesn't matter and we can do whatever we want, this could torpedo the US economy ... \_ Russia? Please post figures for how big the Russian economy is vs. the US, the EU, Japan, and Zambia. Their economy is itty bitty. I'd be more upset if, say, Australia converted to the Euro. They have a real economy, a real legal system, they're not as risk for revolution or coup every day of the week, and a very major trading partner. \_ So since the German Mark, the British Pound, the Russia Ruble, and the Italian Lira aren't used for oil figures, their economies must be torpedoed? \_ Boy, thanks for that fascinating analysis. Do you actually understand that the Euro and Dollar are much different from these other currencies? \_ The Lira and the Mark are not even in use anymore. \_ Yen. Whatever. Point remains. \_ No, it really doesn't matter one whit. The currency trade is in the order of a trillion dollars a day. Dollars and Euro are both so liquid, this will have no effect, unless there is a psychological one. a psychological one. \- your brain has been classified as: small. \_ Um, yes it does. Oil is a hugely important commodity, if the major oil producers start trading that in Euros, and the dollar continues to suck while the Euro holds strong, the dollar could stop being the world's default currency. Once *that* happens our free ride in terms of borrowing money forever is over. \_ isn't that a good thing? wouldn't that force us to start balancing budgets and stop having a huge portion of our taxes go to paying interest? \_ In the long-term it's a good thing, but in the short term it's a world of pain. \-The motd is to small for a an(other) econ lecture \-The motd is too small for a an(other) econ lecture but if you want to learn about the advantage of controlling the "key currency", you should read about "seignorage". The amount of "literal eurodollars" [actual dollar bills] held are sort of a free loan [as in we dont have to pay interest to the person holding the dollar] to the US. I think this is like half a trillion dollars. Based on your belief about interest rates you can calculate what the value of not having to pay interest on that is. In smaller terms, it is also much more convenient when you travel to be able to directly convert from from dollar ... somebody going from thailand to columbia has to convert through the dollar. Upshot: in terms of the US economy of 10trillion, this isnt a huge deal, but to say there is no effect is just a priori wrong ... it's going to have an effect in the 10tens of billions of dollars at least. There are some other [possibly positive] effects based on tighter control of the money supply and less need to sterilize currency flows, but that and effect on exchange rates are too complicated to get into [you have to agree on a theory of demand for the dollar and some beliefs on equillibrum ten- dencies for your exchange rate regime] ... and i'm not even sure what to say about this off the top of my head. --psb \_ That is why "unless there is a psychological one." The actual amount of Russian Dollar/Euro trade is infinitesimal, but if everyone in the world followed Russias lead, then there would be an effect. Even if they did, the effect would be small, unless it happened suddenly. |
2004/10/22 [Finance/Investment] UID:34285 Activity:high |
10/22 So who was talking about shorting Google stock? Hahahaha. \_ Idiotic momentum buying and tulips. There's no "there" there. This is not the "new economy". Most people had re-learned the lesson of the "greater fool theory" by 2001. \_ nweaver, we're really sorry you decided to stay poor. -tom \_ What's your net worth, tom? \_ Well, a stock's always going to be worth what people think it's worth, new economy or not. -John \_ Yes, if enough people think that. Until they decide to take their profit. First one out is the least of fools. It's all downhill from there. \_ After the first one gets out, the price drops exactly because people think it's worth less than before. So the above statement still holds. above statement still holds. (Well, if you want to look more closely, you'll have to distinguish between the bid/ask/last-executed prices, where the "stock price" is only the last-executed price.) \_ Last time I was thinking PMCS was worth $20 but other people think it's worth like $9. Crap! |
2004/10/14-16 [Transportation/Car, Finance/Investment] UID:34130 Activity:moderate |
10/14 I'm having bad experiences with this dealer that has been servicing my car lately (poor labor quality, lousy parts, etc) What are some ways I can get the word out that this isn't a good dealer to bring one's car to? \_ Why do you care? The market will figure it out. File with the BBB if you really care. \_ Because they're very incompetent, and when it comes to big dealers like that, the market does NOT figure it out. People see the big name and are drawn to it. And I've already filed with the BBB. \_ So write the automaker, tell them this dealer is a threat to their good brand name. \_ The market does not figure it out. BMW San Francisco sells shitloads of cars, but I know people that work in their maintainence department. Bad shit going on there, especially involving falsification of repair records. Apparently it has been going on for years, and no consequences have ever come of it. \_ What make of car? \_ Can you tell us the dealer name? If I have the same make, I'll know not to take my car there... \_ the Long Beach Jeep dealer. \_ Consumer Reports? \_ Unless it's a national chain it might be below their radar. \_ Write the corporate offices and complain. Post on Yahoo stock message boards. These kind of things get attention. \_ I base all my investment decisions on advice from Yahoo stock message boards, and now I'm rich, rich I tell you! \_ Does anyone remember a TV commercial about someone seeing an advice on some message board telling him to buy VBNM stock, which turns out it's just a fat person sitting on those keys while laughing at the desk? \_ Laugh all you want chowderhead, but I posted a complaint I had with a car repair job from Midas on the stock bulletin board and had an offer to fix it for free. Corporate investor relations do monitor these things. Don't believe me? Here is the URL: http://csua.org/u/9i1 |
2004/10/7-8 [Finance/Investment] UID:33973 Activity:moderate |
10/7 Dear Russians, is Soros a common Russian last name? Is it shortened from Soroski or Sorogorodov? Sorokova? \_ It doesn't sound Russian, and BTW, George Soros was originally from Hungary. \_ Soros is a typical Hungarian name. Compare: Erdos. -- ilyas \_ Soros is one of those International Jewish Banker names. \_ Uh oh. Does Bush have the Infinity Trident? \_ http://csua.org/u/9dn No, but the Germans do. \_ Those fools! They'll wake the Kraken! \_ Isn't it just like the Scientists to think that you can use the Infinity Trident to anaesthetize? \_ http://www.reason.com/links/links120803.shtml \_ It sounds Greek to me, as does George. Many -os names are Greek. \_ It's also a palindrome. |
2004/10/1-2 [Finance/Investment] UID:33884 Activity:nil |
10/1 Why does the stock market react the way it does to changes in interest rates? \_ When interest rates go up, it makes interest-bearing investments more attractive, which takes money our of stocks. Plus, it makes it more expensive for comsumers to borrow, which reduces spending, and it makes it more expensive for companies to borrow, which reduces *their* spending on expansion, among other things. \_ Plus it makes paying off your variable-rate mortgage or credit card bills more attractive than investing in stocks. |
2004/9/28-29 [Computer/HW, Finance/Investment] UID:33813 Activity:moderate |
9/28 I remember last week or so someone was talking about how IT gets no respect. I was too busy working at the time to get involved in the discussion, but I wanted to chime in now with the observation\ that it really depends on where you work. If you work at the NYSE, yeah you get loads of money, but no respect. If you work at Amazon, you are regarded pretty highly. I think it is obvious why. Desktop support never gets respect, but let the mail server go down and see the sparks fly! And the animosity goes both ways. Where do you think the phrase "bean counter" and PSB come from? \_ PSB? I only know PHB ... \_ I know both tom and psb... \_ what's PSB? \_ !psb \_ Ooops, I meant PHB. \_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHB \_ FYI that wasn't a typo, some monkey came along and changed it |
2004/9/27 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:33770 Activity:kinda low |
9/27 Gates has been an extremely generous philanthropist, giving away $28.3 billion over the years. http://www.forbes.com/forbes400/2004/09/27/cx_mn_rl04_0927toptenintro.html?partner=yahoo&referrer= So does that include all the free MS OS he donated? Can he claim to have donated $100 for each free XP given to schools? \_ that's an impressive figure. Even more so when you realize that he can lose 30% of his fortune and not even notice. In my mind though, the better man is the poorer man who gives away money he could actually use. \_ Are you trying to get biblical on our asses? \- i think bill gates is a pigdog for most things, but i think he has spent some of his charitable $ in a good way [like finding work on vaccines for which there is no mkt incentive, like malaria]. it's also sort of cool that he has said "fuck you" to the philan- thopy racket run by women with expensive hairdos out of coctail parties. apparently they took a fair amount of criticism because they didnt hire a "professional" to run it but instead turned it over to big bill [parent of evil bill]. --psb \_ The article failed to realize that had he not given away $28b, he wouldn't be worth $28b more, because he would have to pay tax on it. \_ No, he'd be the full $28B richer, just not liquid. Do you think his current net worth reflects the massive tax hit he'd take if he sold all his MSFT? No, it's calculated by addingu p the value of all his shares. Otherwise to calculate rich people's net worth you'd have to track all the purchase prices of their assets and estimate the tax liability if liquidated. \_ Oh, I see. |
2004/9/18-19 [Finance/Investment] UID:33619 Activity:nil |
9/18 Feeling tired? Can't get along w/ you co-workers? If you lived in Sweden you could take a sick day: http://tinyurl.com/6q965 (forbes.com) \_ I live in the US and I call in sick when I am feeling cranky or hungover. At least two or three times a year. It is probably better than coming in and snarling at my co-workers. |
2004/9/14 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:33517 Activity:very high |
9/14 For people working for UC: Is the 457(b) a complete no brainer investment like the 401k/403b, i.e. everybody should max it out, or is it more nuanced? [I am a Bay Area renter without a mortgage or any debt, so this would not cause a cash flow problem ... and I would like to reduce my tax liability.] \_ My financial advisor told me to max out both 403b and 457b. So if you have the cash, do it. \_ Max out? That's $26,000 a year! \_ It's not a complete no-brainer; there is a $45/year fee, and you can't get at the money while you still work for UC (though that's less restrictive than the 403b). If you're going to use it, it probably makes sense to put a significant amount of money into it, just to reduce the fee on a percentage basis. -tom \_ Plus, at least for 2004, you can only go into the uc-managed funds, which definitely have limitations. Yes, you immediately profit (from the taxes you don't have to pay now), but to get into the fidelity funds you need to wait until at least July 2005. \_ If your salary is over $100k, the tax savings more than offsets the management fee, right? Only being able to choose from UC managed funds does not seem like a significant limitation to me. Especially siince your comparable 403b can be moved. I dont understand the "Max out?" comment. -op |
2004/9/3 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Finance/Investment] UID:33326 Activity:high |
9/3 U.S. economy added 144,000 jobs in August. June and July job numbers revised modestly upwards. http://csua.org/u/8wr \_ interest rate hike coming soon??? \_ In the hopes of crashing the housing market? \_ "While the new jobless rate was the lowest since October 2001, the drop in the unemployment rate in August came as people left the work force for any number of reasons." So the jobless rate is low because some people got jobs and some people stopped reporting that they were looking for jobs? \_ Yeah, but hasn't it always been how these numbers are calculated? \_ Demographics. A lot of women in a large demographic are of common marriage age. They're not reporting because they're not looking and never will. \_ I love that. They just left the work force. They're now eating rocks and sleeping in parks--and they're not looking for jobs. \_ Married women don't eat rocks and sleep in parks. Maybe your wife would be forced to, but not most others. Nice way to ignore previous posts while making a non-point. \_ Its a good thing they reported that huge poverty number back in August, in a backwater office somewhere with no reporters around. \_ Which is why everyone knows about it and Kerry used it in a speech. Riiiiiight. You know that pverty number includes all people, not just citizens. So ever fresh over the border illegal who isn't qualified to be your maid counts as being in poverty. \_ ...and note we are 1.7 million jobs short of where we were projected to be last February...besides, this number will most likely be revised significantly downward just as all the other job reports have been. \_ Odd to say this when the job report just revised June and July numbers upward. URL that says job numbers tend to revise more down than up? \_ BASTARD! Stop bringing facts to the motd! NO FREE SPEECH FOR FASCISTS! \_ The economy needs 150,000 new jobs a month just to keep even, so this is actually pretty bad news. Don't look for the press to spin it that way, though. \_ Yeah, the BushCo controller media is at it again. Once we take control of the press, we'll be able to show the people the true way and the people will rise up and crush their overlords and the country shall be a socialist utopia and we shall all be equals, comrade! We shall appoint Chris Mathews as the Minister of Truth and Propaganda. \_ Nice attempt to change the topic. It just makes you look foolish and frankly, a bit nutso. \_ It's exactly on topic, sorry. The above brought in a bit about the press. I responded to that. Tough shit. |
2004/9/1-2 [Finance/Investment] UID:33279 Activity:high |
9/1 Finance question: How do 'after-hours' trades work? Is someone running a secondary market? Is that legal? Why not leave the market open 24/7 since computers actually execute the trades? \_ People who know how markets work don't read motd. \_ I bought 5,000 shares of Pepsi last year on advice from the wall. That's where it's at, baby! |
2004/8/24-25 [Transportation/Car, Finance/Investment] UID:33110 Activity:high |
8/24 Springboarding off the quarters thread below. Where do you get rolls of quarters quick and easy? Lines are too long at my bank and all the supermarkets have gone to the auto-change-dispenser things. Right now I go through the BART ticket machines, but lugging back that many loose quarters is a pain. \_ Go to a casino, by the slot machines. They'll give you all the quarters you want. \_ If you ask supermarket customer service, they will usually sell a roll to you. \_ Sorry, I forgot to mention, this usually comes up later in the evening, after the customer service counters close. \_ Plan ahead: buy two rolls of quarters the next time you're at the supermarket during the day and store them in a safe place. Then, when you need to do laundry, or play quarters, or put the rolls in a sock so's you can bean someone, you'll have them handy. \_ If I were ever able to go grocery shopping before 11pm... \_ Who are you, Nicolas Cage in _Leaving Las Vegas_? Hell, even vampires can get to a supermarket before 11pm. \_ You apparently have no idea how entertaining supermarkets can be in the off hours. High st Super K-mart in Alameda was choice around 3am - all the kids making late night baking soda runs. \_ Or donut shops after midnight. \_ What does one due with baking soda at 3 am? \_ If you don't know, you probably shouldn't know. \_ You can use it to convert cocaine into a smokeable form. I'm assuming that's what the pp is refering to. \_ So let's see... you want quarters, and the poster below wants to get rid of quarters? ... \_ a reliable source of quarters is the issue. for me, my wife's bank is reliable, and short lines (BofA). Also, in a pinch, a car wash (go to 24hr one, when no lines) and use their change machine. \_ ps: go on sat mornings. always short lines. \_ Every day I put my change in a change bowl at the end of the day. When I need change, I take some out. This has worked pretty well for me. \_ I've been doing that for years and now I have 3 large buckets full of random change. |
2004/8/23 [Finance/Investment] UID:33084 Activity:nil |
8/23 http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc040823.htm Google valued at $24. \_ Dow 36,000! Dow 1,000! Get a realistic caption. -tom \_ The caption is realistic. Hussman thinks it is worth $24 according to his valuation strategy. |
2004/8/20-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:33052 Activity:insanely high |
8/20 Hahaha ... Soros, "willing to put [his] money where [his] mouth is" http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/2/1/132047.shtml I feel like I'm becoming a freeper! -liberal \_ What's wrong with Soros destroying the US economy? As long as it gets Dubya out of office, I'm all for it. \_ ...on John Kerry's wang? \_ It's funny how Soros was widely praised in the media by both liberals and conservatives after he crushed SE asian financial systems, ruining and most probably shortening millions of lives. \-praised? i thought he was attacked when he and other currency traders took advantage of public claims of the bank of england and some other central banks to defend a given exchange rate [in europe]? \_ The idea that $7B could destabalize the American currency markets \_ The idea that $7B could destabilize the American currency markets is laughable. Daily movement on the currency markets is upwards of $1T. \_ Money used at the right time in the right way can make things happen. It isn't about the daily movement. It is about the movement at one particular moment in time to create a bandwagon effect for the rest of the traders who are forced to follow. If it gets Bush out of office, I'm all for it. Destroying the US economy is a small price to pay. \_ Sorry righty troll, not a good enough impersonation of a Bush hater. Try again. |
2004/8/16 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq, Finance/Investment] UID:32934 Activity:nil |
8/16 Yermom: discuss \_ Yo mama so dumb she thinks posting the same troll every day for weeks on end will actually change someones vote. \_ Yo mama smells so bad, Saddam tried to drop her on the Kurds! |
2004/8/9 [Finance/Investment] UID:32777 Activity:moderate |
8/9 My goofle fu is weak. What is the stock ticker symbol for the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell theatre in SF? Yes, they had one. \_ you mean google, and they didn't. but you might be thinking of Boy's Toys. |
2004/8/3-4 [Finance/Investment] UID:32671 Activity:very high |
8/3 Ok. I've got $60K to invest for a year. What do the motd stock gurus recommend? The last set of picks actually did well! \_ No guru, but I was thinking of putting about 10K into QQQ, perhaps during the end of Aug or even as late as mid Oct. QQQ is down to 32.50 during intraday, and traditionally markets go up after the Nov. election. The 52 low is 29.50, and it's coming off of a high of 39. What do you guys think? \_ Addendum: That number could actually grow to a few hundred K depending on how things work out. Doubling my investment gets me a new Porsche! Thanks motd! \_ G00G D00D! Seriously though, you should spread out your investments over a few mutual funds and maybe one or two stock and an index fund (or something similar like QQQ). \_ real or fake money? \_ wait until after November in case terrorists blow something up \_ ICGE earnings just coming out, should double \_ WTF are all of you thinking? This man's ill gotten gains must be returned to all of us, where it belongs. If he has more money left over in a single year to just play with or buy a porsche(!!!) then he has too much money. He should donate it to a worthy cause like buying tickets for the poor to see F9/11 or just send it back to the government so they can more efficiently spend it. \_ I always wondered: do people who post this stuff think they're clever/funny or what? Is it troll bait? I don't see the point in this sort of post. \_ Milltek Cat+ assembly, Bailey DV-30 diverter valve, a good air filter, a new ECU, a Forge intercooler, and some nice new 18" rims & SP-9000s. I guarantee satisfaction and a great return on your investment. (I'll give you a ride.) -John \_ No! He should pay NO TAXES!!! He needs to buy LOTS OF GUNS to protect his STUFF from the MEN WITH GUNS!! \_ Depending on your risk level, maybe ultra short term bonds. QQQ is too high variance for one year. \_ WAG. \_ NGEN after it calms down. \_ SCOX all the way! There's nowhere to go but up! \_ sCOX all the way! There's nowhere to go but up! \_ if you've got a strong stomach, taiwan. tsm, asx, spil, auo. but don't blame me if there's a war. i also like india, eastern europe, japan, malaysia and nxg (gold / copper). a relatively conservative choice is dvy - it's an etf consisting of a bunch of high dividend paying blue chip companies. I would buy dvy rather than short term bonds. |
2004/7/29 [Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton, Finance/Investment] UID:32565 Activity:very high |
7/29 Jobless claims up, consumer spending down. Wages drop 9.2% from 2000 to 2002. First time since 1953 that wages have dropped. \_ What does "wages" mean? Average? Cumulative? \_ Sorry, wrong word. overall income: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/business/29tax.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1091124617-0REdJYzdft5vWcq6Zdx2PQ \_ It appears income rose for all people making under $200k and fell \_ Where do you get this? \_ Click on the chart to the right on that page (and my bad, $1-$25k went down 1.4%); actually the right column there is a better metric, which says income per taxpayer went down for $100K and up but not for $0-100K. for people with larger incomes, which makes total sense given the large stock gains in 2000. \_ No, actually the opposite has happened, at least with take home pay. \_ The bubble created in the Clinton era had bursted before he left office in 2001. \_ don't forget the Twin Towers also bursted. \_ and we know that's dubya's fault because he sent the jews there to blow them up so he could invade iraq to get the free oil for halliburton. \_ You make Michael Moore look like an intellectual. \_ That's what they want you to think. The whole "attack" took place in a soundstage in Japan, where they used to make the Godzilla films. \_ It's 2004 now, son. \_ but perhaps they only have data up to tax year 2002, daddy? \_ probably but so what? why are old numbers from the worst part of the recession being hashed around now in the middle of an election? suspicious. \_ It must be the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. \_ It's true, the IRS is run by liberals who hate America. |
2004/7/21 [Finance/Investment, Industry/Startup] UID:32395 Activity:very high |
7/20 M$ pay $$$$ special divident http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/technology/21gates.html?hp Can someone explain why this makes financial sense to M$? Why don't they buy back some stocks with that money? Isn't this like cash down the drain, not that they are short on cash. \_ Why does any company pay a dividend? Why does any company go public? \_ Well, a company goes public to raise cash. When it had more than enough, it should purchase the stock back. It's not that they have never paid any divident. They are not a dot com after all. \_ in the end, the value of a stock is the dividend or promise of future dividends. sometimes, profit making companies don't pay dividends because the company feels that the cash is better invested for growth (and the hope of a bigger dividend payout in the future). microsoft has too much cash, more than it knows how to use, so it just pay it out to shareholders. makes sense to me. it knows how to use, so it just pays it out to shareholders. makes sense to me. a stock that will never pay any dividend is like a bond that will never pay any interest; it's value would be zero and nobody will want to buy it. \_ I disagree. It could still be worth something on the basis that eventually they will get bought our or will liquidate their operations. Both are essentially a single large delayed dividend. Now if you say the company will never pay a dividend and is planning on going bankrupt... \_ It could still be worth something, but the idea is that the profits get returned to the investors. Somewhere along the line people forgot this fundamental of incorporating a business. \_ Well all that really matters is that you can find someone to pay more for your shares. In a growing company with no dividend, that's not a problem. \_ This is the key for "growth" stocks. M$ has kept this attitude for a long time. Now that it has "stablized" it either starts paying dividends or it starts losing value as an investment (as noted above, a zero interest bond). \_ Not really. Say you incorporate your business and it is doing very well. You're making lots of money, but not paying it out to the stockholders. Would you sell for merely $1 more than the value of the stock (assets) if you're generating a massive cash flow? The bottom price for a stock is the assets of a company, but *profit* is what you really want. A huge company and no money for the investor (you) does you no good. \_ well, like you said, they are like a "single large delayed dividend". in other words, you don't disagree. \_ The cash reserves are causing M$ problems. Internal protests when M$ tried to cut benefits, investors upset by "no dividends" stance, and antitrust supporters all point to the huge cash reserves as evidence of M$ stinginess and power. For business, money in the bank is not being used on investment or R&D. Buybacks and dividends are programs to keep stock prices stable and reward investors. M$ is implementing both. It's a different mindset than the paranoid one that M$ has been selling where any moment now, they might collapse and need that money to defend themselves. |
2004/7/13 [Finance/Investment, Computer/SW] UID:32245 Activity:low |
7/12 dear csua finance expert, can I buy foreign securities without ADR? Most local brokerage firm here(HK) disallow US persons to open account, is it bec. they don't want to file to IRS themselves? |
2004/7/8-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:32191 Activity:insanely high |
7/8 Kind of hard to find good places to invest money these days. Where do y'all put your money? \_ I like the California Golden State Tobacco backed bonds, paying about 7.5% tax free. I still think Japan has a ways to go, so I have about 10% of my portfolio in EWJ. Calpine is overleveraged, hence the CCC bond rating, but I have a bit in 2008 8.5% Calpine bonds, trading at 67c/dollar so paying 21%/yr total if they don't go bankrupt and probably about even if they do. The rest is sitting in WFC and ETFs that are up so I don't want to sell and pay taxes and I am mostly happy with them. \_ 1. build moneybin 2. buy gold 3. swim in the gold 4. profit! http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5621189 \_ Under my matress and some more under my pillow because you don't want to invest everything in the same place. Diversify your portfolio like me and you can't go wrong! \_ this joke would have been much more effective if about half as long \_ Timing, son. Sheesh. The first reply was 4 times longer but there's only so much to be said about a pillow. Next time, I'll just throw a pie and say, "NYARK! NYARK!" 3 stooges style for you. \_ FOAD. -!pp \_ NYARK! NYARK! *slaps pie in your face* Wow! You're right! Your idea of funny is uhm.... yeah! \_ WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! WOOP! \_ Exactly. Thanks. \_ $200k equity in a $400k house, $100k equity in a $460k house, $200k in 401(k), $30k in one pharmacy stock. $30k in money market and checking acct. This is my wife and I combined. \_ Awful lot in the one stock. I'd suggest diversifing. But you seem to be doing fine, so what do I know. \_ Yeah, I know it's too much in one stock. But I'm just too lazy to "re-balance" or "re-distribute" or whatever the pros call it. \_ Just call your broker and say "Move $X-thousand from DrugCo into an S&P500 index fund." \_ What is your 401k money in? |
2004/6/29-30 [Finance/Investment] UID:31055 Activity:nil |
6/28 "Change Your Organization Diary" http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ChangeYourOrganizationDiary |
2004/6/25-26 [Finance/Investment] UID:31011 Activity:high |
6/25 What is a commmon ratio between wholesale and normal retail prices? I assume it exists as economic forces would equilize widely unequal margins. \_ totally depends on the type of goods and their cost \_ Margin - cost ratio should be relatively uniform or people all flock to trade the ones with higher profit. \_ uh, no. -tom \_ You poor idealistic fool. \_ You say what I learned in Econ 1 is wrong? \_ No, I say you don't understand what they were telling you in Econ 1. Wholesale vs. retail price is only one of many factors in determining profit margin. -tom \_ I think >5% for new cars, 1-2% for groceries. \_ I think you are thinking of net not gross. \_ If you don't move a lot of volume, you ned a higher markup to cover \_ If you don't move a lot of volume, you need a higher markup to cover your overhead (think jewelery). If you move a lot of product (milk in grocery stores) or your product is very expensive (cars) than you can cover overhead with a smaller margin. \_ Is there a place to look up actual stat. for different classes of product? \_ My mom is in retail (women's clothing) and she normally doubles the wholesale cost. She gives her employees 30% off, which is what she considers her break-even point. \- hello since i am stuck in my office for 45 min ... the econ1 is view roughly "in competitive markets rents or surplus profits cannot be extracted". this means the return on capital is about the same. in other words, what a company selling plums or highend stereos makes on a $1m of investment isnt going to be too different [as well as the returns at different stages of the pipeline ... assuming each stage is competitive]. how ever costs != wholesale cost. obviously in the case of safeway, s significant portion of the safeway price of a tomato is going to be what they are paying their supplier. in the case of diamond, there is the advertising, in the case of highend stereos, you have to invest more in salesmen than you do if you are selling tomatos. naturally this is wildly simplified and it's not immediately obvious when a mkt is competitive. in fact you may go backwards and look to see if excess profits appear to be present somewhere as a sign of mkt power ... although i dont know too much about econometrics in terms of what can be observed cheeply/accurately and with fair preceision. so it may be reasonable to ask what the w'sale/retail markup is in some domain [although what that domain is isnt clear ... mcdonald probably has larger margins on coke and fries than 99cent double cheeseburgers] but that is not a "globallly conserved property" ... also it is unclear over what large domain you would expect equillibriation ... states, nations, world, local markets etc. microecon is the basics for this question but then you can do into econometrics or IO. IO is pretty interesting. |
2004/6/17-18 [Finance/CC, Finance/Investment] UID:30875 Activity:very high |
6/17 What's the catch with balance transfer offers? I got one that sounds really good, 1.99% for the life of the balance with no transfer fee. Is there any reason not to do this? \_ Ok, no, all this stuff below is wrong. I checked and the way most of these work is they require you to a) take out more money that card every month (some minimum which will vary), and b) any money you pay off goes towards the lower interest rate money first, the higher rate you're paying on money from (a) is going to be at 22% or something like that. So, over time you are quickly moving your money from 1.9% to 22% and paying on a larger 22% base every month until eventually you have nothing at the lower rate and everything at the 22% rate. READ and UNDERSTAND the contract before you do anything. I've yet to see one where you can win. If you want to do the math, you can get ahead for a short period of time and then pay off the whole thing when the scales tip against you but you'll have to get the math right and be really anal about dealing with this account. \_ Look, you are just wrong. I am doing this right now with my AmEx Blue Card and have been doing it for almost a year. I am pretty sure that the only "good" offers are made to current customers with good credit ratings, though. -bb \_ Ok, so what are the terms of your deal? They don't require a minimum transaction per time period and they let you pay off the higher rate first? \_ I just have to pay off the "minimum balance" every month. I guess that is not defined, so they could bump that up if they get sick of me having cheap money. There is no requirement to use the card, so I don't. \_ They're usually coupled with a clause where the low rate goes away if you ever miss or are late with a payment. And of course they still get to ream you on fees if you ever are late too. \_ Yes. However, if you are never late then this is not an issue. Go ahead and do it. Your current agreement has the same clauses, anyway. \_ Also, if you make any new charges, I imagine payments will be credited toward the transferred balance first; so you get nailed for the full 10-22% APR on new charges until you pay off the transfer. \_ No catch, really. I am doing this on a $10k balance. I actually got six months interest free to start out. Just make sure you don't miss any payments or use the card for anything else. [ non-compliant motd entry deleted ] |_ why do you hate america? \_ Why do you hate tabs? \_ They are depending on the laziness and stupidity of the masses. If you're smart and anal about it, you won't get screwed. READ and UNDERSTAND the fine print. \_ if people were smart, they wouldn't have credit card debt in the first place. \_ this is not a failure of intelligence. --psb \_ right. if you're smart (and have luck in the market) you can make money using cash advances from credit cards. the above low rate balance xfers make this possible. \_ what i meant by "this is not a failure of intelligence" is not that you should use the money smartly but that everyone knows paying cc interest rates is insane ... but some people are undisciplined. it's like saying "smoking is dumb". --psb \_ I knew a guy who did that during the boom. He got completely wiped out. I guess he wasn't smart enough. I know another guy from many years earlier when every knucklehead was investing in gold and silver. He bought silver at around $28 or so. It has never been that high since. He didn't do it on his credit cards. I met another guy last year who came in to do vendor tech support. He was once at a company that went public and his options were worth about $5m. Someone at the company told him he wasn't allowed to sell them unless the company wanted them. He didn't check with anyone else outside the company and lost his entire $5m of options (which is why he was doing onsite tech support). I've never done any of those things but there sure are a lot of stupid people out there.... \_Yes, Virginia, there really are stupid people... \_ Borrow $10k at guaranteed lifetime 1.9%. Invest in 10 yr (or 5 yr) government bonds paying 4.7%. Make $280/yr on the arbitrage. Why is this stupid? -bb \_ That won't work. The bonds don't pay out on a monthly basis, and your CC company will want monthly payments. \_ Sure it works, you think of it as buying a $10k 10 yr bond with $100/mo payments. But the interest from the bond makes a couple of payments a year for you. You have to have the spare cash lying around to be able to make the montly payment until the interest from the bond pays, admittedly. -bondboy \_ Put $10,000 into bonds of $100. Every 6 months cash out 1 bond and use that money to pay the interest for the next 6 months. Bonds only accrue interest every 6 months which is why you want a bond-size that covers 6 months of your interest. \_ Wow, you are even crazier than me! Did you actually buy 100 bonds, or is this just theoretical? -bondboy \_ Theoretical, but what's wrong with 100 bonds? \_ Transaction costs and just the sheer hassle of buying and keeping track of 100 bonds. If there was enough money involved, it would be worth it, but not for $100 bonds, imnsho. -bondboy \_ Bonds are all written down at the same time and placed in a safe-deposit box. Every 6 months you go to your bank to get and cash out a bond. Every month you write a check to the CC company. \- you know when you figure out how much you are making per hour of work, you have to take off the tax on the extra income. --psb There are no taxes on gov't bonds. Well no, Fed _/ taxes, at least. I see the appeal of not having to "float" the credit card payment, though. If I get bored enough at work today, I will try to work out the difference. I guess if you buy the bonds directly from the Treasury, this might work. It still ends up being a lot of work. Just doing it all online, buying the bonds via E*Trade, etc, is pretty simple. -bb \_ how can i learn to be a finance nerd like you guys? -moron with all assets in checking account \_ Is this a serious question? My g/f thinks I should go back and get a CPA, since I obviously enjoy this stuff more than my job as a sysadmin. -bb \_ yes, it's a serious question. \_ Read The Economist, Smartmoney and The WSJ. Smartmoney U (from their front door) is a great way to get started on learning things like what bond curves mean. -bb Start here: http://www.smartmoney.com/thebasics/?nav=DropTabs \_ Bonds are the safe option, but there are better investments to make. Anyway, it is easy to carry a CC balance and a 1.x% is makes sense to do so. Buy a car with it instead of an auto loan. Do home repairs instead of an equity loan. You may wonder why anyone would carry a CC balance, but the reality is that most people will never be debt-free. The key is cash flow. I'd gladly put millions of $$$ on my CC if I had that kind of limit and start a business, buy real estate, or whatever. The "debt is bad" mantra is for foolish Midwestern housewives who read Motley Fool and who spend 12 hours clipping coupons to save $5. Take whatever the bank will give you, because most of us will not save that kind of money (hundreds of thousands of $$$) easily and it can lead to opportunity. Obviously using the CC money for vacations and stereo equipment is stupid, but having a balance in itself is not. I know lots of people who started businesses on their CC. Think bigger than *bonds* Jesus! Those Midwestern wives would be excited about $280/year, though. \_ Yeah, maybe someday I will be in a position to start my own business or do something like that. But in the meantime, I am having fun and making money, while learning how to make this stuff work. -bb \_ At least you realized that assets - liabilities is more important than being debt-free. I don't care if I have $10 billion in debt if I have $100 billion in assets. Debt-free is just as idiotic as debt-laden. |
2004/6/6-7 [Finance/Shopping, Finance/Investment] UID:30638 Activity:insanely high |
6/5 70% tax unfair? My landlord inherited 21 tall rise buildings from his dad in Westwood. He does nothing except collecting $ and hiring other managers to take care of shit for him. There are plenty of apartments in Westwood but they're all overpriced because of the few elites who decide to artificially inflate the price. 70% tax unfair for the superwealthy people? My ass. The rich is getting richer and the poor is getting poorer, and that is a fact from having unrestrained capitalism. \_ Uhm, excuse me, sorry to interrupt your frothing, what what business is it of yours that he is the ceo and owner of his own little real estate empire? What the hell have *you* done to deserve a lower rent or free access to this guy's or anyone else's wealth? The rich are no richer than they ever were. The poor are better off now in this country than they ever were in any country at any point in history. If you don't want to make this guy even richer, then go invest in owning something, stop paying rent which was always a loser's game and take care of your own shit. How many apartments have you or some other trashy renter destroyed because 'hey, it's only a rental, fuck the landlord anyway, eh'? I'll bet you've left at least one apartment in much worse shape than you got it and then you bitched over every penny they took from your deposit to cover the damages. Hey, I know, let's have super strict rent control. It has worked soooo well in SF and Berkeley to make housing affordable and available to the little people. Not. \_ That's quite the rant. Are you saying that markets are perfect and that they never need adjustment? That we should allow the establishment of family fortunes that perpetuate a con- centration of economic power into the hands of an ever- wealthier elite? \_ The Founders of this nation were in favor of *not* allowing family fortunes to be broken up. They believed that passing family wealth to a single child was better than splitting it among them and destroying through division. Modern families have been ignoring their advice and splitting their wealth, thus in a few short generations destroying it so I'm not at all concerned about your Communism 120B Professor's propaganda about "the establishment of family fortunes taht perpetuate a concentration of economic power in the hands of an ever- wealthier elite" because reality shows this to be opposite to what you believe. Nice way to ignore just about everything I said, btw. If you're just here to be the new commie-troll, then congrats on your one success. If you actually believe this crap, then you can respond with more than phrases from the Little Red book and one line, no content blowoffs that the people responding to you are just ranting. I was talking about rent control and the land lord/renter relationship and all I got back was mindless off-topic propaganda. The least you could do is provide on-topic mindless propaganda if you want your troll to survive more than the next hour this time or 30 seconds next time. \_ IMHO(I'm not the guy above) the rental problem is partly the fault of assholes who do not participate in the market and so destroy it for everyone else. By this I mean perspective tenants with too much money and too little brains who don't bother to respond to price at all and break the rationality of the market. Just because someone can afford 2500/mo rent doesn't mean an apartment is really *worth* that, and they should keep shopping and spend the money they save on something else. I do not propose any governement based solution to this, but I believe that smashing the Real Estate cartel would go a long way towards fixing the problem. Again, I'm not proposing a government solution, just proposing that individuals refuse to use realtors' services when there is *any* alternative, and that people use the Internet as much as possible to replace them. This is already happening. I guess the one government based solution I might propose would be adding a course in the public schools that teaches about home ownership and home buying. It's fine to learn that stuff from your parents if they happen to be responsible and own a home but for the rest of us, learning in the real world is a pain. \_ advice #1, take your anti-depressant pill. advice #2, get your facts straight: http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/agcomm/writing/newsrls/3-31-04a.htm http://money.cnn.com/2003/06/26/pf/taxes/wealth http://www3.sympatico.ca/truegrowth/richgetricher.html \_ *LAUGH* Read your own links. I stopped at the first after it agreed with me about half way down page 1. And here's the key phrase from *your* link, "Why such relatively fast income gains for the rich? In a word: education, one of the biggest income determinants. Workers with more education simply earn more." Which tells us that the only thing holding people back is their own unwillingness to get a better education. Education in this country is free or nearly so for the poor. There's \_ Only if you're smart. Dumbasses like Bush have family money, so they can go to increasingly expensive schools. However, bright, but not genius, poor kids are getting priced out. And there are a lot of other disadvantages to being born poor, such as crappy public schools which neither prepare you for nor steer you toward good 4-year degree programs. no excuse to not have at least a 4 year degree, yet if you keep digging deeper, you'll find (no big shock) that the bulk of the poorest of the poor didn't graduate highschool. Is that the fault of the rich? I'm sure you'll make some argument to that effect. \_ So... you just want his money, because he has more than you? Got it. \_ Actually, what this guy is saying, is that since this rich guy already has all these assets, he has an advantage in sqeezing more money out of the rest of us. It's like M$, market dominance leads to the ability to force people to pay what you want them to pay. Taxation seems like a reasonable way to me to keep wealth from turning into hereditary aristocracies dominating all wealth in the US. \_ bingo. there's clearly a point at which wealth goes beyond wealth. Billionaire empires would grow faster than the general economy and more and more power gets concentrated into the hands of a few. There's no injustice in putting huge taxes on inheritances and incomes that are beyond the pale. These are huge sums at just the tiniest top fraction of people. \_ So, I ask again, at what point do you put that 100% tax rate? How much is too much? How much are we 'allowed' to own in your little communist utopia? \_ What 100%? I merely defend the principle of progressive income tax, inheritance taxes, etc. Call it whatever you want, I don't give a shit. \_ We already have all that. Now what? It obviously isn't having the desired effect for you. When the tax rates were even higher the rich were still, you know, rich. The only way to make the highly driven and educated *not* be rich is a 100% tax. All that will do is drive them to another country with a realistic tax rate that allows them to be rewarded for being smarter than the rest of us. \_ So it's either black or white with you? Either we're free market capitalists or we're pinko commies? Way to use your noodle, dude. \_ I answer this above. When the tax rates were higher than now the rich were still rich. If you want them to not be rich the only way is to have a 100% rate. So, yes, I'm not only 'using my noodle' but I have correctly applied it to the communist point and spent the 2 seconds thought required to figure out the necessary tax rate to achieve the desired effect. \_ well, no, but I really think I could have better use of money than him. For example I could have bought 3 hybrid cars instead of his stupid Hummer. \_ Not true; the tax credit for rich Hummer owners is far more lucrative than anything you'll get in your battery rocket. \_ I really don't understand how this tax shelter still survives. \_ I really think I could have better use of money than you. Gimme all your money! \_ I'll be glad to! Just forward your bank account information to my business partner in Nigeria and I'll hook you up. \_ They are priced fairly. If they were not, then they would go unrented. \_ ah, and if by raising the Bay Bridge toll to $10 and you still get just as many bridge payers, then it is still priced fairly? Some things are called inelastic supply and and demand, my little cricket. \_ Yes because there are other options to cross the bridge. There is bart, car pooling, going around, or getting a job that doesn't require bridge crossing. If the bridge toll went to $10 and the same number of people continued to cross it then yes it is still priced fairly. If bridge use declines, as expected, but only slightly while BART use goes up then yes it is still priced fairly. \_ Housing isn't one of them. Move from Westwood and rents will be cheaper. My gf lived in Westwood because she liked it better than Mar Vista or Palms. She paid more for the privilege. She could've lived somewhere else cheaper. \_ There is inelastic supply and elastic supply. Over the long term, traffic patterns will definately change. I already cringe the few times I have to cross the GGB. I'd never go across it if they raised it to $10. -rollee \_ You would cross it at $50 if there was something worth more than $50 to you at the other end. \_ Also if one or a few landlords own most of the land in an area, monopoly or oligopoly effects prevent fair prices. \_ This is not true in Westwood. If you think it is overpriced then move to Santa Monica, Bel Air, Brentwood, WeHo, Inglewood, or wherever you think rents are fair. \_ Santa Monica is very very very expensive. Bel Air is mostly houses owned by the rich, and they hate students. Brentwood rarely rents out to students. Marina Del Ray rent is like NYC rent. Actually, Westwood is pretty cheap compared to these places I mentioned. Now, Inglewood, that's a much more affordable place. \_ Brentwood's not expensive if you know where to look. Same with Santa Monica. -- ilyas \_ Isn't Santa Monica still under rent control? --rollee \_ Don't know. Santa Monica is like "Berkeley South" in most respects. -- ilyas Do you have a car? Have you driven to Santa Monica, say, -/ near the beach? Have you shopped around? Rent there is $100-$200 more than Westwood for studios and 1 bdrms. If SM were indeed cheaper, there would be more students living there, but the fact of the matter is that SM residents are mostly young fresh grad, 20-30 something. A better parallel is that SM is more like Emeryville. \_ So what you're saying is the Westwood rents are still quite fair since they're cheaper than anything else around. Thanks for clarifying. \_ As an aside, one good argument I've heard for high taxes is that money corrupts the democratic process. So keeping people from amassing large amounts of wealth is important to provide each person an equal voice. You may argue that the solution to the problem of money in government could be solved by anti-corruption laws, but history seems to show otherwise. For example, look at all the corporations contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to throw parties for politicians at the convention in Boston. I think Kennedey has a party with a price tag > $100K paid for by companies with bills pending before his committee. \_ There will always be enough money around to corrupt politics. You can't fight human nature with tax laws. Having a super high tax for the purpose of avoid political corruption by sucking the life out of people seems silly to me. It's as if you're saying most rich people do nothing with their wealth but buy politicians which oh nevermind, it's just silly. \_ I respectfully disagree. The few elites know how to allocate wealth better than the poor. I'd rather have the rich people control money so that they can contribute to the Ghetty Museum, Metropolitan Opera, Gates Hall, Rockefeller Funding, Carneghie Scholarships, and things. If you had allocated the same amount of money to the poor, they'd squander it on alcohol, plasma TV and football fields. \_ yeah, but who'd build the plasma TV's, the football fields, and the distillerys? \_ You're all a bunch of fucking communists. Go find a time machine and move to the Soviet Union. \_ Haven't you guys followed the stock market and financial news? Haven't you seen news about Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, LTCM bailout, Stern's market timing, etc.? You don't think those are just the tip of the iceberg? Wake up! They are raping your arse, and you are saying "thank you! it's lovely! do it again!" And the idiots above are saying, "Hey! don't worry, some day you can get rich too and join us in screwing little people." \_ It's the great American hesitation: wait, if I make it hard for rich people to screw the little guy, then how will I screw the little guy when I win the lottery? Keep them hoping, and they'll do their best to stay out of trouble and maintain the status quo. |
2004/6/4 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:30604 Activity:very high |
6/4 I'm not sure I can handle 4 more years of this sort of mishandling of the economy: http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=71000001&refer=home&sid=a_I6S1CQ9YE8 http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/44113|top|06-04-2004::08:45|reuters.html \_ Does anyone know if they succeeded in recategorizing burger flipping jobs as manufacturing? \_ Do you have anything that says these aren't real jobs? No, you don't. You're just a hater and wish the whole country would take a huge dive solely for the purpose of getting your guy in office. You put your party above the country and you suck. \_ Wow. Would you compare a $5.50/hr job at McDs favorably with a $35k/yr+benefits manufacturing job? If you can honestly say yes, you're an idiot. Also, reread what I asked. This was an actual proposal from BLS. I asked if it had gone through. Cut it with the knee-jerking. \_ Do you have a single thing that says the new jobs are $5.5/hr jobs? The rest is a red herring. \_ Did I say I did? I asked a question which was directly related, and you proceeded to spew. One of the main points in the report were that manufacturing gains were strong. If that proposal became policy, this could have a direct impact to the discussion, but as you don't have an answer to my question, stick a cork in it. \_ More McJobs! Greater rich-poor gap! Quick, pretend Iraq didn't happen! \_ McJobs? You have something that says these aren't real jobs or you're just mouthing off like the partisan hack that you are? \_ Yeah, let's get those jobs based on nothing that we had 5 years ago. \_ We need a strong president who will keep the economy and job market from changing! \_ More stable unjobs! \_ Economic policies take years to have any effect. The economy for the past few years has been fueled by debt, especially with mortgage refinancing being a major factor in freeing up money. I personally don't blame Bush for the crummy economy and I think it's disingenous to do so. But I think it's naive to assume it was his handling that helped or that his current policy won't be destabilizing in the future. Also note that the government has expanded since 9/11 and government expansion tends to help the economy. --jeffwong \_ Economic policies take years to have any effect. The economy for the past few years has been fueled by debt, especially with mortgage refinancing being a major factor in freeing up money. I personally don't blame Bush for the crummy economy and I think it's disingenous to do so. But I think it's naive to assume it was his handling that helped or that his current policy won't be destabilizing in the future. Also note that the government has expanded since 9/11 and government expansion tends to help the economy. --jeffwong [formatd] \_ Oh, come on! Don't bring reality into this. We all know that President have little to do with the economic ups and downs of their term in office but we need this so we can say how Clinton was great and Bush sucks. |
2004/5/4 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Finance/Investment] UID:30001 Activity:high 88%like:29992 |
5/4 Economy up, Kerry doomed: http://tinyurl.com/2jloj (sfgate.com) \_ Yeah, but Bush is a corrupt asshole. I'd vote for an inanimate carbon rod over Bush. \_ Did you actually get to SEE the rod? \_ In rod we trust. \_ Is that why Bush's numbers keep dropping? \_ No, that's the effect of the Communist Media. \_ http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2004/05/04/rtr1358052.html \_ Wow, the economy is picking up after hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus and 2 wars. But we're turning into a nation of burger flippers/Walmart employees and rich CEOs with no one in between. |
2004/4/30-5/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:13500 Activity:high |
4/30 Other than making the current shareholders rich, why is Google making an IPO? What will they do with the money so raised to make money? \_ The "other" is a bigdeal. The original investors want liquidity, as do many of the employees. \_ Money allows them to take more risks (inovation) than they can now. It also, if they use it correctly, minimializes the impact of a bad economy or a business downturn against their core company. \_ I haven't really been reading up on this since I'm too poor to buy any stocks, but how are they going to go public and take more risks? \_ They have to do public reporting now so they might as well get the benefits of being public. |
2004/4/30-5/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:13493 Activity:high |
4/30 Is Google stock for sale yet? What's the ticker symbol? \_ Try reading one of the bazillion articles on the Net. SJ Merc has at least four in the paper today. \_ You have no business investing in anything risky. Go buy a CD. \_ No. |
2004/4/13 [Finance/Investment] UID:13167 Activity:high |
4/13 You know things are bad when Mr. Greenspan start acting like a mortgage saleman asking americans to go for ARM intead of FIXED. \_ Care to elaborate for us non-economists? \_ This guy's referring to an article that was motd'd recently. In that article, they point out that Greenspan knows that the whole recovery is being fueled by consumer debt spending, which is fueled by consumers taking equity out of their house. But most everyone's refinanced already to fixed--and so the recovery is jeapordized. If Greenspan can get the consumer to refinance again--to an ARM, they'll have more money to spend. And they will--Americans being the dumb "must have what I want NOW" fools that we are. \_ So if you switched to an ARM, you'd have lower mortgage payments in the short term, so more spending money, but then you get screwed in a year or two when interest rates go back up. Is that it? \_ Yes. \_ The main thing is why greenspan feels the need to get involve with this, which is really weird. shows that he is not confident in the recovery at all. \_ Fed Chairman's job is not to feel confident about anything or to project his own confidence to the country. His job is to try to keep the economy in a good shape. \_ yea, but encouraging people to go for another refinance from fixed to arm makes him look desperate, and make things look dire. Is the economy really that bad? |
2004/4/11-12 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:13135 Activity:nil |
4/11 Housing Bubble about to burst? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0404.wallace-wells.html \_ I can hardly see how it wouldn't burst, sometime. I had the same kind a quesy feeling in the 2 years preceeding the dor-crash. Everyone says that housing prices never crash, they just stagnate, but... what, are they gonna stagnate for the next 30 years? That's just a protracted crash. \_ The market crashed about 15 years ago. It didn't stay down very long. If it falls then I am going to buy a second home. Don't let Chicken Little keep you from your goals. I know people who have bought high and low both - and in all cases they came out way, way ahead in the long term. In a place like CA this will always be the case. \_ Crash? No. It's called an economic cycle but overall in the mid and long term no one has ever lost money on real estate. |
2004/3/18-19 [Finance/Investment] UID:12747 Activity:moderate |
3/18 I flipped open my WSJ today and there are two articles on the front page, one saying that commodity prices are shooting through the roof, the other saying that asian countries may be slowly diverting their trade surplus investment from US treasuries to their own economies. Does that mean inflation is coming and interest rates will be rising? \_ I dunno. If you do, you could be the next Soros. But I think it is a pretty safe bet that interest rates will be rising sooner or later. \_ It's not enought just to know that inflation is coming. You also need to know how to make money off that. \_ If you think bond interest rates will rise, you could short bonds. If you're wrong, you're screwed, of course. If you think there will be inflation, buy some stable commodity's futures on margin. \_ Soros is a scumbag. \_ Mmmm.. unsolicited insult. Go motd. \_ unsolicited? since when are insults ever solicited? you are a fucking idiot. you managed to solicit an insult with your incredible stupidity. \_ I will explain. You tossed a pointless statement into a discussion with nothing to tie it in. Do you like being ineffective? Or do you just like to rant? Maybe Tourette's? \_ fuck you! -motd \_ Done. -yermom \_ just because he tossed millions to http://moveon.org to create negative ads about President Bush... \_ no because he made billions destroying economies. \_ what soros did to se asia economies was fantastic. force those economies to become more transparent and less corrupt. - se asian \_ hahaha yes how ethical of him to grab a few billion along the way. im sure he did it for the children. \_ nothing unethical about it. if it's un- ethical, then all traders and the whole free market system is unethical. \_ someone is going to do it \_ the biggest US treasury bond holders are Japan and China. If they stop buying US assets, the US will run out of money. The only way to seduce (for lack of better word) investment back in US would be to raise the interest rate, but this would come at the cost of the domestic economy, and everyone who has to pay off their loan either in mortgage or credit card. It really comes down to whether foreigners continue to "lend" to us. (Of course, this excludes the political and military chips we have which no one else in this world has). \_ raising interest rates will have *zero* effect on current mortgage holders or most CC holders who have locked in rates. so you think japan is going to do what? invest in their own zero rate bonds? go to the EU? China is going to do the same? very nutty.... i love the motd. some of the most pompus are the least informed but don't let that stop you. the least informed but don't let that stop you. \_ Most CC holders have locked in rates??? \_ yea but I have noticed that in the past, people have been getting 30 or 15 year fixed but these few years, it seems that everyone I asked has been getting 5-year ARM so they may very well get hit if interest rate goes up. As for Japan and China, they may use the money to bail out their debt-laden banks, which is one way to invest in their local economies. \_ anyone who gets an ARM when fixed interest rates are \_ the problem is if things turn bad, it's going to hurt the whole economy. below 6% is a fucking moron who gets what he deserves. \_ do you understand that an ARM doesn't instantly go up? a 5 year arm is rate locked for (guess what?) 5 years. after that the rate is allowed to rise a small amount every year until it hits a maximum amount which is not allowed to be too far above current rates. people getting 5 year arms are either selling in the next 5-7 years, are putting the money saved back into the loan which will dramatically reduce the total cost over term or are blazingly stupid. As for J/C, their banks should *not* be saved. Especially in Japan, there is a direct link between their multiple attempts to waste money trying to save their inefficient and poorly run banks and their current dismal economy which has been in the dumps for more than 10 years. \_ there are many ways to "save" the banks. even if you do it the right way (like in the US S&L bailout), it requires money, money potentially diverted from US treasuries purchases. As for 5 year ARMS, many people are already a few years into it, and the interest rate can go up by like 2.5% at the 5 year juncture which is a 50% jump if the rate is originally 5%. Many people are stretching thin on mortages, buying bigger houses than they should, thinking that housing price will increase and they can just sell and make a profit after 5 years. We saw plenty of "blazingly stupid" behavior during the internet bubble, so I am not surprised at all. \_ if they're a few years into an ARM, they can get \_ ARMs were not very popular, but are getting more popular. http://www.dqnews.com a fixed-rate mortgage at probably the same rate they're already paying, so they should refinance. Do you have any documentation of the idea that there's a huge glut of stupid ARM holders? -tom \_ ARMs were not very popular, but are getting more popular. http://www.dqnews.com |
2004/3/12 [Finance/Investment] UID:29867 Activity:nil 75%like:12636 |
3/12 What's the best/cheapest online breakfast these days? \_ freetrade offers 20 free tacos per month. \_ I use scottrade, which is cost effective if you don't trade often. But if you trade more than twice and less than seven times a month, I have a co-worker who started using sharebuilder for a flat monthly fee. \_ OByermom \_ I've been using Ameritrade for some time. I don't know if they are the cheapest but I've never had problems with them and they provide an acct exec for people with more that $50k so that you have someone to talk to if there are any issues with your acct. \_ I use both scottrade and ameritrade (datek was bought out). advantages of scottrade: * lower commission for market trades * low key branch offices where you can deal with real people if the need arises (mine have 3 persons there), and you can call them instead of some anonymous call center. advantages of ameritrade: * lower commission for limit trades * shorting works (shorting at scottrade always results in a message saying "please call your branch office", and sometimes they can't get the shares I want even when I call them. * extended hours trading |
2004/3/12-13 [Finance/Investment] UID:12644 Activity:nil |
3/12 Ugh! Why is the online broker thread deleted?! Stop being a selfish self-important asshole! Recommendation on online brokers - \_ I use both scottrade and ameritrade (datek was bought out). advantages of scottrade: * lower commission for market trades * low key branch offices where you can deal with real people if the need arises (mine have 3 persons there), and you can call them instead of some anonymous call center. advantages of ameritrade: * lower commission for limit trades * shorting works (shorting at scottrade always results in a message saying "please call your branch office", and sometimes they can't get the shares I want even when I call them. * extended hours trading |
2004/3/12 [Finance/Investment] UID:12636 Activity:nil 75%like:29867 |
3/12 What's the best/cheapest online brokerage these days? \_ freetrade offers 20 free trades per month. \_ I use scottrade, which is cost effective if you don't trade often. But if you trade more than twice and less than seven times a month, I have a co-worker who started using sharebuilder for a flat monthly fee. \_ OByermom \_ I've been using Ameritrade for some time. I don't know if they are the cheapest but I've never had problems with them and they provide an acct exec for people with more that $50k so that you have someone to talk to if there are any issues with your acct. |
2004/2/26 [Finance/Investment] UID:29833 Activity:very high |
2/26 motd stock tip of the day: AUO taiwan LCD panel maker \_ Great. The motd is now the new vehicle for anonymous pump-and- dump. \_ I am still holding onto my EMRG and hoping that it goes back \_ Its on the NASDAQ. Go post there if you care. to where I bought it. I was just kidding about mortgaging the house though. I only bought 100 shares. |
2004/2/26 [Finance/Investment] UID:12417 Activity:high |
02/26 Just curious: How many people on the motd day trade? If so, what tools, brokers, etc do you use? \_ ameritrade, level2 quotes and streamer \_ I get all my tips from the shoeshine boy on the corner. We're beating the market by 15%!! \_ Sounds like you should run for Senate instead. \_ The shoeshine boy is supporting my run. We have a true gressroots moving starting for the next election cycle. I'm going to run against Feinstein when her current term ends. \_ hey, it's Not Even Remotely Funny Anonymous MOTD Comic! \_ If my average stock hold time is about 3 months, am I an investor or a trader? \_ That's speculation, unless you're just really indecicive. \_ it's more like I find a stock that's cheap and is ready to wait a year for it to go up, but it goes up fast really soon, and becomes fully valued, so I dump it. \_ Bingo. You just described speculation. \_ really? cool, now I know I am a speculator. but even for an investor, why would you want to hold when a stock that was cheap has become expensive, and is likely to fall back or stay flat for a long while? to save some taxes? \_ The idea is that it will still do well over the long term and/or pays a good dividend. Long-term investors don't buy stocks withoug good long-term prospects. It sounds like you're looking for good short-term growth without looking at long-term. \_ Depends, I would say. If you just run tight stops, then you aren't really a "speculator" you are just an investor with a low risk tolerance. If your average holding time is 3 months, but half the stocks in your portfolio have have been there 2+ yrs, I would call that an investor. But I guess you might not. Certainly not a "day trader," I hope we can both agree. with a low risk tolerance. You just might churn through a lot of stocks until you find the ones with a low enough beta for you. |
2004/2/19 [Finance/Banking, Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:29825 Activity:kinda low |
2/19 So I invested my life savings and took out a second mortgage on my house to buy EMRG, just like the motd told me to. Now my broker says he is doing something called a "margin call" and my wife wants a divorce. What should I do? \_ When there's something strange In your neighborhood Who ya gunna call? \_ that post for EMRG was when it was at $1.60, now it's at $2.80? learn to take profits.. or never get in after the runs \_ You, sir, are an asshat. |
2004/2/18-24 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Shopping] UID:12295 Activity:nil |
2/18 Immediate position open for Sr. Systems Engineer (sysadmin) at http://Walmart.com. If you meet the criteria, please e-mail me. We've been getting weak resumes from our less-than-technical recruiter. /csua/pub/jobs/walmart.com -- Marco \_ Walmart? I'd rather be a janitor at MSFT. \_ MSFT is far more evil than Walmart. \_ awww...all that sysadmin talk's gone??? \_ maybe people should start a new thread when they think of some cool entertaining flame war related to a job post. That will be less likely to be censored and won't provide a disincentive for alums to post jobs. \_ jealousy. \_ all that salary talk probably made it harder to find a schmuc^H^H^H^H^H^Hqualified candidate. \_ Do you know the general pay range for this? 60-80, 80-100, 100+? \_ Our rates are very competitive. Conservatively, I expect a qualified candidate would easily clear $80K. -- Marco \_ How about employee discounts at Wal-Mart stores? \_ More importantly, how about stock options? \_ Is this really considered competitive for a senior person? It looks average, or even a bit below, to me. \_ It's quite low. Senior Sysadmins should clear 100k at any company. Mid level people make into the 90s. 80k is certainly not competitive. A few weeks ago I turned down 110k and another company I'm currently talking with will be offering me 110k plus other benefits that will make it worth it to give up my current 120k. At 80k I wouldn't even consider applying or telling my friends about it if they were senior level. Then again, so few sysadmins survive more than 3-5 years that anyone who hits the 5 year mark is considered senior even though they're only just becoming useful at that point. It's a strange world we live in. I've always wondered what happened to the ones who didn't survive. I suppose they become developers? --15+ years SA \_ These numbers are too high for anywhere outside of Silicon Valley. Also, 15+ yrs. is a huge amount of experience and would increase your salary over most. http://sageweb.sage.org/jobs/salary_survey \_ If you need five years to become a good sysadmin then you must be pretty dumb. Sysadmin is a support function, if you design your netopology correctly your day-to-day is basically just monitoring and replacing defects. Once a month or so you'll need to add in more storage or add in a couple more machines. Again, if you designed your netop correctly this is a piece of cake. Backups are relatively easy nowadays with the right RAID. I mean seriously, I sysadmin EDA software, which is a bitch, and it didn't take me five years to "become useful." \_ Sorry, you are just wrong. There are some things you can only learn by working on a wide variety of systems. Also, all the senior level jobs include at least some management. require at least some management. -SA with 10 yrs exp \_ I sense a dick-waving contest coming on... \_ "They've got bigger dicks? BOMB THEM!" --GC \_ Someone has to fix the cash registers. \_ He said "conservatively" and "easily" \_ Marco, thank you for posting this. No one should ever be attacked for posting a job on the motd. I never understood the suicidal "I'm too good for your stinking job!" attitude so many motd idiots have towards alums posting jobs. This is part of what is called "networking", you clods. It's *the* best way to find a new or better job. \_ I'm talking about a very well paying job doing real systems work at one of the world's largest ecommerce operations. If all of the stuff below disturbs you, by all means, do not send me your resume. If you want a good job; please let me know. -- Marco \_ Some people have ethical problems with Walmart. Some are just fucking with you, and some might want the job. \_ That's because sysadmins charge more than $6.80/hr. \_ in the grand scheme of things when you consider which companies stand to totally destroy the lower middle class and lower class income brackets, Walmart is completely satanic and threatens to lower the quality of life of millions Americans directly and indirectly. You can say that that's just the effect of the free market, and I would happen to agree with you, but it does not make it suck less. This brings up the question of if I were completely down on my luck and I was offered a job with something that I consider Evil(tm), such as Walmart/Microsoft/Halliburton/ Archer Daniels Richland or whatever that ethanol leech behomoth corporation is named, if I would take it. I'm not sure. \_ If you are talking about Walmart squeezing out smaller companies and offering the newly unemployed low-wage, non-unionized jobs with few/no health benefits -- you have a point, but please be more specific next time. \_ Not that we don't appreciate the job posting, but which is more evil Walmart or Microsoft? \_ Is that a joke? I'd say that Microsoft is Evil, they way I might say an American politician is evil, even though even the worst American politician is better than Kim Jung Il, and even the worst software company is better than Walmart. \_ They're evil for different reasons. Plus as a sysadmin you'd be more directly helping MS be evil. \_ There are people who will argue whether the flames are blue or green, when the point is that their arse is on fire. \_ Walmart isn't Evil. They can't be evil. They sell Linux and Linux isn't Evil is it? \_ They sell Windows too. \_ Walmart significantly increased the standard of living of the (under)employed. According to http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg1713.cfm the "poor" enjoys a lot of amenities in life. In fact they would be considered middle class or even upper class in coutries that you are so worried about taking our jobs away. What makes this possible is the low prices introduced by stores like Walmart. I don't have any love for walmart, but during the time I was employed, I got everything from walmart and it kept my expense down and finance afloat. Most of the people who trashes walmart are those too rich to know the need of the low income Americans. \_ that is interesting and i value your opinion, but could you find more evidence of this not coming from an incredibly right wing think tank like the Heritage Foundation? I happen to be from one of those little towns that Wal-Mart has indirectly completely devestated. You can probably say "that's because of cheap labor available from China, quit whining." and once again I agree but it still sucks. I think there is a direct temporary short term benefit, like as you said when you're poor it's pretty awesome and convenient to be able to go to walmart and clothe yourself almost completely for under $30, but in the long term the presence of a walmart directly depresses or destroys the possibility of any local retail jobs that have any chance of offering a liveable wage. Maybe everyone in America needs to retrain immediately for jobs in the New Economy. I have not read of any evidence that the current or even past presidential administrations actively care or are offering any leadership in this area. \_ Bush's job training program is "be a Halliburton contractor in the front lines in Iraq so when you get shot and killed we can NOT REPORT it because you were a civilian non existent contractor but since you don't go in the 'troops killed' column, we don't have to tell anyone and the american public doesn't and won't care. [reformatted - formatd] \_ Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, etc weren't exactly great job creation plans. People die in war zones, shit happens. They get hazard pay. Also to endlessly argue that the very poor in this country are much better off than say arsenic poisoned homeless dudes in Bangladesh or entire generations of people who live in garbage dumps in Manila and never see solid land is a circular argument, it's not going to win me over. \_ Whatever you think of its source and author, you should consider its facts and arguments in their own rights. The data that article cites comes from US govt reports. See the article and its references. And let me just quote "The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)" \_ Living space != standard of living. If it did, we'd be sending food and blankets to the Japanese. \_ It's part of the whole picture. And the average japanese are miserable in that regard. \_ does living space automatically equate to a higher standard of living? Mongolian steppe herders probably have spaces the size of Delaware all to themselves. \_ see above, and your comparison is not valid. You know how much tent space per person they have? \_ I don't think living density in this country is going to approach japanese or european or southeast asian or chinese levels any time soon unless we suddenly run out of oil, we have pretty hard to overcome urban sprawl problems, that ironically walmart has exploited very successfully. \_ Japan: 127,214,499 ppl in 374,744 sq km. USA: 290,342,554 ppl in 9,158,960 sq km Or roughly half as many people in 1/24th the space. The US will never achieve this level of pop density. \_ does the above include (or exclude?) areas of the US you're not going to live in, like national parks or volcanoes or the sides of mountains or Houston? \_ Of course, as well as huge chunks of Hokkaido and numerous inhospitable rocks in dispute with Russia. \_ None may enter the sacred forests of Hokkaido, reknowned for their countless soap factories. \_ So why support a company that makes billions by rapidly furthering us towards a great equalization of global poor people by lowering the standard of living of poor people in the US to India's poor? Is that how globalization is supposed to work? Great! Actually no one is really saying how much they love Walmart, and I bet they just pave over all the poor people at Marco's work and he has little concept of it and is probably a nice guy. I know a couple of people who work at Chevron-Texaco and they had absolutely NO IDEA why people would keep 'blocking the main road to campus' or protesting or giving them mean looks when they went to work in San Ramon. I mean, come on, they have college degrees from UCB but they choose to be really stupid. I answer their evite party invites with NO BLOOD FOR OIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! \_ Well, Walmart sells cheap stuff. \_ Now you see many of the so called "liberals" are haters. \_ what is this "so called" stuff? I AM a liberal and damn fucking proud of it, ok not proud enough to sign my name today, check back later. I notice none of today's posters are sufficiently walmart loving or frothing at the mouth, what happened to free market guy? or free republic guy? on vacation? \_ And what about Chicom troll? You'd think cct would have a (painfully incoherent) opinion about all of this. \_ Has it occurred to you that Marco's giving a "conservative estimate," such that he sets an appropriate expectation, and such that he isn't brokering a salary negotiation? I'm pretty sure http://Walmart.com will pay market for you superstars out there. --chris \_ I said "average" or "below". |
2004/2/18 [Finance/Investment] UID:12294 Activity:high |
2/18 Hey, ICGE guy! Where's the movement? \_ Last Trade: 0.39 Trade Time: 2:57PM ET Change: Down 0.01 (2.50%) Day's Range: 0.39 - 0.4 52wk Range: 0.26 - 0.96 Volume: 31,576,090 Avg Vol (3m): 39,417,181 So nothing happened at all. -- !icge guy \_ earnings announcement is premarket Thursday |
2004/2/17 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:29811 Activity:high |
2/17 stock tip: ICGE to be debt free before bell thursday. get in tomorrow.. at .43.. will be at .80 by thursday \_ Insider information? \_ no.. but 7 insider buys today \_ It must be a pump-and-dump stock \_ This guy is trying to cash-in his stock options. \_ I get spam pumping this stock all the time. Why am I seeing this pump and dump crap on the motd? |
2004/2/3-4 [Finance/Investment] UID:12095 Activity:nil |
2/3 Random economics question: So the dollar keeps getting hammered. Eventually, as I recall dimly from Econ 1 ages ago, this can cause Real Bad Stuff to happen. When does this bad stuff kick in, and how? And what is it? \_ It depends on how fast it declines. If it happens fast then you get things like a run on the banks and then we're all fucked. If it happens slowly enough then you get a shift from imports to exports, some jobs move around, good for some, bad for others. \_ This is a big question and the answer is not universally agreed upon. But some of it is already kicking in, in the higher prices for oil and other imported goods. If it leads to asset flight, the effects would be much stronger: falling stock markets, raised interest rates and falling real estate prices. Right now, the Japanese govt is propping up the US dollar to the tune of $90B/mo, yes that is $1T/yr at the current rate. Who knows how long this can last. \_ I thought it was China. \_ http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/story/0,4567,106947,00.html This article says 7T Yen last month, or about $65B. China is also buying up US bonds, dunno how much. \_ if oil is going up how come my gas prices are going down? \_ You sure about that? link:csua.org/u/5tu (LA Times) \_ Yes. I don't pay the LA Times to tell me what my gas prices are. I see my CC statement every month and the numbers posted all over Bay Area gas stations. |
2004/1/20 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:11848 Activity:very high |
1/20 What do you liberals think of the following: a big chunk of the state budget is in pension funds for gov't employees. How about we stop new enrollment in these state run funds for new govt employees and offer 401K plan instead? Also give incentives for current employees to convert to 401K. The idea is to scale back govt run programs. Empower each individual to think about his/her own retirement and let them manage their own retirement money instead of asking the govt to take care of this. We can grandfather the program and keep everything the same for current employees to keep them happy. But the new teachers or prison guards or other civil service workers will only have 401K instead. "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." \_ Out of curiousity, can anyone speak to the tax incentives for a business for setting up a pension fund versus a matching 401k? Or give me a pointer for where I might read up on this. I've been curious about the widespread disappearance of pensions. -scotsmaan \_ Imagine it was this: "A big chunk of the company budget is in the pension plan. How about we stop offering a pension and in stead offer them a 401K. Also encourage everyone in the pension to convert to a 401K. The idea is to get the pension plan off the books." I guess I don't know how I feel about this. What kind of 'encouragement' will you give current and former employees to switch? The fact that the state, as an employer runs a pension for its employees doesn't really seem overly socialist, just standard business practice. \_ Imagine? Those of us with jobs don't have to imagine. What universe do you work in where people still get pensions? Most of us don't even get 401k matching. And more importantly, how do I get a ticket to your universe?? Why should government employees get special benefits the working stiffs don't? Imagine that. The obvious method of conversion is offering 401k matching. It is what the rest of us get (if we're lucky). Pensions are not standard business practice anymore. Not for a long time. \_ that's because "standard business practice" is "fuck the employees" The fact that the state, as an employer \_ Get a better job. My mom's company has both a pension and a 401(k) (which they match 6%). My gf's company has both a pension and a 403(b) (but no matching). Neither work for the government in any way, shape, or form. \_ Many govt. employees (like myself) are paid much less than private sector salaries, live in constant fear of being laid off due to the current fiscal crises, never get bonuses or stock options, and do not get raises when there's a deficit. It's quite a trade-off. \- you dont have a 403b? i dont think the working conditions at say the port of oakland is the same at say lbl or ucb. --psb \_ You think people out here don't have the same fears? Our fears are much much much greater than yours. There have been *millions* of jobs lost in the last few years alone in industry. How many government jobs in the same time? Industry jobs can even go poof during good times. And I've yet to receive a single penny of bonuses, an option worth more than the paper it was on, and it's been a long time since anyone has seen a raise. You get raises in good times, eh? Most of us only get raises by quitting and finding a new job. I've done government work. You basically don't. I have very little sympathy. \_ If you're looking for ways to solve the current budget crisis, how about demanding the billions owed to us by the energy industry? \_ It's in court. |
2004/1/9 [Finance/Investment] UID:11723 Activity:nil |
1/9 Ultra leftist Warren Buffet hates America: http://www.pbs.org/wsw/news/fortunearticle_20031026_03.html |
2004/1/7-8 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:11707 Activity:nil |
1/7 thanks guy who recommened EMRG at .60 (now at 3.90) and ICGE! \_ Damn, I never got that notice. Be louder next time! \_ $1.7 million in cash, lost $2 million in the quarter ended 9/30 on revenues of $254K. My advice is to take your profit, fast. -tom \_ I heard on wall that pepsi was the place to invest my life savings. \_ no, you didn't. -tom \_ sure I did. It was at about 48.5 at the time. CNNfn says it's now at 46.44, down .50 since opening. I'll bet the wall logs say who came up with this winner.... heh. \_ I think PEP is a fine company to own. It's certainly not "the place to invest your life savings." If your time horizon on stock performance is 2 weeks, it's not a stock for you. -tom \_ and now look at SCOX! 1.09 a year ago and now 17! |
2003/12/27 [Finance/Investment] UID:11597 Activity:high |
12/26 If the economy is so bad, how come NASDAQ has gone from 1300 to nearly 2000 in less than 1 year? \_ Little do you know that you're still losing money. The USD has gone down against every other major currency. \_ LOL I'm not going to denominate my NASDAQ earnings in Euro. \_ Lots of markets around the globe beat NASDAQ handily, partly due to the sinking dollar, and they still seem more reasonably valued than the NASDAQ. Your loss my gain. Hopefully the dollar's decline is gradual and under control, without any panic setting in. Otherwise, the NASDAQ may crash like in 1987. \_ Bullshit. Name the foreign markets you're investing in. \_ Japan, India, China and satellites, Eastern Europe and Russia. US was a good investment back in Oct02 and Mar03, but less so now, but I still have some US stocks. Feel free to compare charts of Nasdaq vs MJFOX (Japan fund), IFN (India fund), EUROX (Eastern Europe / Russia fund), MAPTX (Asia Pacific ex Japan fund), TGLDX (gold and precious metals fund) or BHP (commodity proxy). \_ I didn't ask you to look at http://cnnfn.com and find indexes that have done better. I want to know what you're invested in. You are *not* invested in 6 different foreign markets including gold funds since 10/2. \_ I have all of the above. And no, I didn't have all of them since 10/2. I was more heavily weighted in US before the middle of \_ Why not? I have all of the above. And no, this year (Nasdaq had better valuation then and did relatively better first half of this year compared to many of the above funds, etc., but relatively worse in the past few months). Again check the charts. \_ This is another investor who pulled most of my money out of the US 18 months ago. My money is in EWG (Germany), EWZ (Brazil), ETINX (E*Trade International Fund), HMC (Honda), QQQ (Nasdaq 100), STZ (Australian Beer Maker), TTF (Thai Fund), EWH (Hong Kong), EWH (Singapore), EWJ (Japan) and ASL (South African Gold producer). All have beaten the S&P 500. My 401k is 50% OARIX. And yes, I pulled my money out because of the Administration's have some US stocks. I didn't have them since 10/2. I was more heavily weighted in US before the middle of this year (Nasdaq had better valuation then and did relatively better compared to many of the above funds, etc., but relatively worse in the past few months). policies. \_ Cause stocks were cheap back in Oct02 and Mar03, and there were few other places to put your money. Also, because the stock market is good at predicting the future, and it likes Bush Jr's stimulation plan, at least in the short term. But the guy above is right about US dollar's decline. It may lead to inflation soon. There is already a hidden inflation in terms of high housing, metals and commodity prices. Inflation in prices of everyday good may follow soon. \_ Here's why you don't get your economic advice from the motd. The dollar's decline and every other economic indicator is pointing to DEflation, *not* INflation. Sheesh. Inflation has never been lower in your young life. If it rises a few points it will still be lower than it has been in many years. \_ Nah, dollar decline implies foreign goods and commodities become more expensive implies inflation. Other factors such as productivity gains, cwappy economy, china are mitigating the effects of inflation so far, but it is not due to the declining dollar. Inflation is not a good thing, but it is bearable in a booming economy. What you \_ It seems that in addition to econ 101, you need logic 101. \_ This only works if US consumers respond to the increased price of foreign goods and therefore buy less. This has not worked in the auto market, I am not sure it will in other markets either. don't want is a cwappy economy combined with inflation. You need to retake economic 101. don't want is a cwappy economy combined with inflation. You need to retake econ 101. \_ No, no, no, a declining dollar makes our goods and services cheaper for foreigners to buy and increases exports so it is cheaper to hire American workers which makes more money flow through our economy instead of our welfare system and brings foreign investment here as well which has the same effect. You need to retake econ P. \_ It seems that in addition to econ 101, you need logic 101. \_ This only works if US consumers respond to the increased price of foreign goods and therefore buy less. This has not worked in the auto market, I am not sure it will in other markets either. \_ Here is my question, as I am worried. We (USA) is relying on foreign money for financing our account (trade) deficit as well as budget deficit. If the dollar continue to tank, that means at some point, these foreign governments will stop buying dollar (there is no point to buy a current which is constantly decline in value, as it means losing money). Once they doing that we will be forced to raise long term interest rate to attract more foreign influx of currencies. That would kill off the economic recovery which my job is depend upon. This sounds like a dooms day scenario, I am pretty sure I am wrong. But, where is the fault my logic? they've learned Engrish, and deserve the rewards they get. \_ Sorry, sir, but your grammar is flawed. No job for you. \_ The flaw in your logic is fundamental. You have taken the time to learn something about economics, and presumably computer science at this great institution, but never bothered to learn how tense and number are used in the English language. Of these three skills: economics, technical computer skills, and English language communication skills, which do you think is most likely to help you keep your job? Or get a new job? or build a business that creates new jobs in America? My contempt for you is not xenophobia. There vast numbers of people who somehow manage to operate profesionally in a language that is not their native language. Those people work harder and are more people oriented than those who choose to give up once they've learned Engrish, and deserve the rewards they get. \_ Sorry, sir, but your grammar is flawed. No job for you. \_ "There vast numbers of" stuck right out. The flaw in your grammar is fundamental. (hah!) \_ Ok, now here is someone with a clue even if he doesn't know it unlike Mr. "the sky is falling" Inflation Monger above. Yes, this is a very real thing to be concerned with. One possibility is that as the European economies continue to slide and crash and ours continues to pull out of it, the USD will look like a huge bargain. Then you'll see the Euro crash and the dollar rise. Then the worry is that if it rises too fast our exports will suffer and there'll be even more reason to outsource to the third world. \_ That's my hope too, but why would foreigners want the dollar? Stocks are already fully valued, treasuries pay a pittance. There are better investments elsewhere. US dollars in asian governments' hands, the stake Big budget and trade deficits don't help. High government (federal and state), corporate and personal US dollars in asian government hands, the stake debt levels don't help either. Neither does the out-sourcing trend and unemployment. On the plus side it is in many of the foreign goverments' interest to let the dollar slide gradually and not in a panic, so they continue to buy some dollar, and pray that the falling dollar will improve US competitiveness and then its economy. This presents an opportunity to make some profit off the falling dollar, or at least not let it hit you on the head. - inflation monger \_ certain things such as political stability and military might seem to be undervalued. US currencies are still the universal standard in times of crisis. \_ You are right, but that's about the only thing it has going for it. Don't exploit a good thing too much. Besides with like 2 trillion worth of US dollars in asian governments' hands, the stake and risk is very high for them. And in times of crisis, there is always gold, and euro is now a reasonable alternative. \_ Except that the EU is the last gasp of the dead European empires of the past. They're only trying to regain lost glory. There was a time when almost all of them had more powerful economies than the US. Now it takes all of them together to get into that scale and they're still not making it. Europe will continue it's slow decline into obscurity until it one day becomes nothing more than history book material for American grad students. They're dying \_ That's my hope too, but why would foreigners want the dollar? Stocks are already fully valued, treasuries pay a pittance. and risk is very high for them. And in times of crisis, there is always gold, and euro is now a reasonable alternative. European empires of the past. They're only trying to regain lost glory. There was a time when almost all of them had more powerful economies than the US. Now it takes all of them together to get into that scale and they're still not making it. Europe will continue it's slow decline into obscurity until it one day becomes nothing more than history book material for American grad students. They're dying and they know it. That's hardly a good long term investment. It's ok for now because what you're doing is riding up the curve a bit as they improve effeciency but that's just a blip up on the long and painful trend downwards. and they know it. That's hardly a good long term investment. It's ok for now because what you're doing is riding up the curve a bit as they improve effeciency but that's just a blip up on the long and painful trend downwards. \_ This is not true. Look at the comparative performance of any European economy vs. the US since WWII. Look at GDP/capita vs. the US in Germany, Norway, Luxemborg, Italy over the last 20 years. Look at productivity per hour worked vs the US today. EU has been long outstripping the US in gains per worker and continues to do so. The US has gained in total population, masking this gain, but all that means is that the US is increasingly a source of cheap labor. \_ Heh. It's easy to outstrip US since WWII if you were starting from a FLAMING WRECK that was Europe back then. "Fastest growing" is a crock of an indicator. \_ I think demographics are working in the favor of the US in the long run though, so I agree with you there. The US is in almost as bad a shape though. I think it is smart to invest in the economies that are still going to be growing in 50 years. |
2003/12/16 [Finance/Investment] UID:11470 Activity:nil |
12/15 http://money.cnn.com/2003/12/15/technology/jobs/index.htm?cnn=yes \_ so what? why post this link? |
2003/12/14-15 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:11453 Activity:low |
12/14 What's the general uptake on the economy in California right now? Central/Western Europe was complete shit (nothing at all going on), and increasingly so until about this summer, then sometime in September/October things just started picking up (projects, jobs, etc.) It was far more so than the usual fall/spring budgeting cycle, but rather, as if people just sort of collectively decided to be sick and tired of doom and gloom--how about the US? -John \_ Nothing like it here. I still have a number of friends either out of work or temp'ing it. There's a few more job notices, but employers seem to be enjoying their scarcity. \_ seconded. \_ I know people hiring. Give me their names. -ausman \_ How bout other areas in the US? It still seems that MS is hiring quite a bit. \_ Things are much better than 18 months ago. It will never be like 1999 again. \_ never? that's bullshit. the boomtime mentality is hardcoded into the human brain. once people decide it's boomtime, all history is forgotten and everyone thinks they're going to get rich. you think the late '90s were the first boom or the first bubble economy? do you really think it'll be the last? \_ So my pedantic friend: when do you think the tech economy is going to "recover" to its 1999 state? That is what the original question was about. \_ Fine. I am sure there will be another Tulip Mania or Internet Bubble again in human history. We will not be around though. \_ You're an idiot. \_ Nice comeback. Did you take rhetoric? \_ We'll be around, except the next boom will be something else, either quantum, biotech, nanotech, or something totally different. don't forget all the nontech booms that we'll also see. \_ biotech has already gone through several boom-bust cycles. regions that depend on natural resources like mining go thruogh boom bust cycles all the time. I think my "you're an idiot" comment pretty much sums up the above post. it's just another one of those fucking idiots who thinks the entire world starts and stops with the software industry in the Bay area. a bumper sticker from my home state (alaska) states "please god, give us another boom, and this time we promise not to piss it away." \_ Sure there are little boomlets all over the world all the time, but they are not the same as an economic wide bubble, the way the US stock market in 1929 or 1999 was. If you think the Dot Com boom was something that was confined to the Bay Area, then you are the provinicial fool, my friend. \_ Japan in the late 80s is at least as big as the recent US bubble. \_ i have a quantum pc i can sell you. it's in this little box, but if you open the box, it breaks. \_ I recommend John K. Galbraith's A Short History of Financial Euphoria. Though not his best book, it's a short, thoroughly entertaining read. \_ Galbraith is the best author I've never read. \_ Yea, some would argue there is a big housing bubble right now, so I guess there is a big boom in housing related jobs. Lots of people I know recently went into real estate, housing appraisal, mortgage, etc. There is also a big boom in China, and some say a big gold and commodity boom coming up soon. \_ Some would argue therefore it is true? Nonsense. \_ You are right, a bubble is never a bubble until it bursts. \_ You revealed the code! Howard Dean is posting on the motd! \_ http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20031208_homevalues.htm The housing market is doing what it should be doing. It is cool in the recently hot areas, including SF Bay Area. |
2003/12/7 [Finance/Investment, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:11343 Activity:nil 50%like:29695 |
12/6 Can a modern hard disk operate reliably in a garage with the temperature change that happens when you open the garage door? Like 50 -> 30 deg F. \_ shouldn't be a problem, i presumed. The internal temperature of harddrive shouldn't change that drastically. |
2003/11/10-11 [Politics/Domestic/911, Finance/Investment] UID:11009 Activity:high |
11/10 American Consumerism: Let us honor the veterans during veteran's day. let us celebrate by shopping for clothes! \_ Or better yet, shop for some American Gold Eagle gold coins from the US mint: http://www.goldinfo.net/gvs.html \_ Every other important day has been turned into a lame shopping event. Why not VDay, too? |
2003/11/4-5 [Finance/Investment] UID:10938 Activity:nil |
11/4 Serious question for a change. My wife and I are looking at home births. That is, giving birth at home with the help of midwives and NO doctors present. The old fashion way I suppose. I'm curious if any sodans were born this way or gave birth this way. Thanks. \_ lila was born in a tent. YMMV. \_ url? \_ ya whatever, the next thing yer gonna say is her dad was an alcoholic and her mom was a hooker in some Hick state? \_ I know several couples who have done the home birthing method, but I have no personal experience with it (obviously). Their children were not born with big dents in their head from someone using tongs to remove them from the birth canal. Plus the next night you can dump the kiddie pool of water and afterbirth into the storm drain! - danh \_ throw it away? them's good eatin'. mmm, afterbirth. -Mama Lion \_ why would you want to do this? Save hospital costs? Or because it would be nice to be "old-fashioned"? \_ If you're doing this because of some wish to be "natural" and/or "wholistic," then you're an idiot. Any idea why the expected lifespan of humans continue to increase? Well, the ability of doctors to save babies' lives, and prevent any harm to birthing mothers has something to do with it. Don't shun science. \_ Most women also don't consider the lack of access to an epidural a good thing either. \_ doesn't the decision for an epidural have to be made before the whole process anyway? (e.g. you can't change your mind and decide on it when in labor already?) I recall seeing some web pages on "water births" a while back, that might be worth looking into... \_ I don't like getting into a shouting match on the motd. But if you're really interested in the subject read "Reclaiming our health" by John Robbins and "Spontaneous Healing" by Andrew Weil. It's a complicated issue. Don't expect to glean a few lines and go run around attacking other people's position with it. That's teenage behavior. -OP \_ glean a few lines? I don't think this word means what you think it means. \_ Immaturity? On the motd? I'm shocked. \_ If you're the kind of person who doesn't keep a spare tire in the trunk, doesn't make backups of their important files, runs with scissors, and isn't afraid of heights, \_ Don't make fun of poor Weird Al then I guess you'd feel comfortable home birthing too. -ax \_ Do you also intend to not vaccinate your children? \_ Fuck you. \_ Come on, what did you expect from the motd, a rational discussion without personal attacks? Pshaw. Here's one vote for just turning the motd off completely. Its boring. |
2003/10/30 [Finance/Investment] UID:29598 Activity:very high |
10/29 when you chip, do you: 1) use the same swing but change club to change distance or 2) use the same club (P/S) but change the swing to change distance Poll: 1: . 2: \_ Another poll. Who thinks motd polls about golf are: Dumb: Pathetic: . Both: ... \_ i felt the guy in Falling Down had the right idea about golf and golfers. \_ when I chip I put yermom over the arm of the couch and take her ass just the way she likes it. how about you? how you do take yermom's ass? \_ Whenever possible I chip with my 7 iron with alot of run - this gives me much more accuracy. Elevated shots or where an abrupt stop is required use a wedge. -freeper guy (10 handicap) wedge. Perhaps you meant pitch rather than chip? -freeper guy (10 handicap) \_ golfers deserve no sympathy, ever. \_ why am i not suprised you are a golfer? could you please do the world a favor and sterilize yourself? thanks. \_ hate speech from the left? Who would of thought. \_ I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk? \_ Clint Eastwood plays golf too. \_ so do 90% of the presidents of US. By the way the old George Bush really kicked Clinton's ass in one of the games even though Clinton said he really really wanted to win. |
2003/10/30 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:10862 Activity:nil |
10/29 Here it is. Bush in '04. No one cares about anything but the economy: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20031030/D7UGHGD02.html \_ Yeah, no one cares about blatant lying, coverups, or botched invasions. No one cares about America's debt. No one cares about the rape of the environment or the erosion of our civil liberties. Not if they can buy more Playstation 2! *sigh* How's Canada these days? \_ Nope, they don't, actually. If they cared about any of those things Clinton wouldn't have been elected the first time. The economy is the most important thing to voters and to many voters the only important thing. You're naive and childish if you think it's about playstations. It's about being able to raise one's children better than one was raised. Welcome to the adult world. \_ so if the nations parks and wild lands have been destroyed and we're in a constant state of war with the rest of the world with increased child asthma rates from pollution and the inability to live safely in our homes without being randomly detained without trial how exactly do we provide a better life for our children? Also, if you see how wrong things are going in this country and turn away becuase you don't believe you can change it it doesn't make you mature it makes you a coward. \_ You know air pollution levels have been dropping steadily since the 70's. Even under *gasp* republicans. And I don't think most Americans mind that we're in a constant state of war with people who have been attacking us over the last 10-20 years. \_ Fine, so we dissagree. My point is that the motivation for poeple caring about these issues is that poeple want to make this country a better place for their children than it was for them. You claimed that all people care about is the economy because that's what matters for the quality of life of their children. When I refute you, you come back with "oh yeah? well the Republicans are better on these issues anyway." I believe that some of the republican leadership is right on about the environment, actually. I just think that the average republican on the street (like you) is a loudmouthed selfish jerk who votes based entirely on their projected income tax burden and doesn't care about society at large or the long term future of this nation. Your comments bear that stereotype out to a tee. \_ And fuck you! \_ If you're such an adult, how come you can't be bothered to use motdedit like the rest of us? \_ *laugh* That's the best you can do? Golly, it's gotta be Gore in 04 now with *that* great zinger! Ouch! \_ Hey you know what? Fuck you too! \_ You are right... MOVE THERE THEN. \_ Guess what? Fuck you! \_ The economy? The economy has a good chance of crapping up next year. |
2003/10/30 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:10855 Activity:low |
10/29 John Templeton predicts that housing prices will fall by 90% http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P52744.asp \_ probably not mentioned: the bay area exception \_ When there is a big one, it will fall to 1/10 the value. \_ If it does then I'm buying all I can afford, baby! \_ see also the threat of greater inflation as our economy tanks. I'm looking forward to my loan suddenly be worth 10 times what I owe on it. \_ As bearish as I am about housing prices, I find that hard to believe. \_ Actual quote: "After home prices go down to one-tenth of the highest price homeowners paid, then buy." The meaning is slightly different. \_ In my area houses just went over 600k recently. If you wait until they hit 60k before you buy I hope you really like paying rent because you'll be paying it for the rest of your life. Homeless motd kids, keep up the housing price drop fantasy. I was hoping the same thing a few years ago when houses here were going for 350k. I bought in at 430k and no, virginia, there's no end in sight. It's very simple. More people keep coming in than there is available housing. The author needs to take econ 1 at some place better than hayward. \_ yea, that's what they once said in HK too. No, I don't think the price will drop to 1/10, but you are the one fantasizing if you think housing prices always go up. \_ In the long term, they do. \_ Son, God is always making more people, He isn't making anymore land. And yes, historically, housing prices have always gone up. Real estate is one of the best long term investments you can make. The only way you can lose is buying swamp land. Prove me wrong. History is on my side. \_ The stock market is also a good "long term" investment and consistently beat real estate "long term". That doesn't mean you should buy stocks in March 2000. Yea, God made like 100 million people in Java, and is making plenty more everyday, so why don't you go invest in Java real estate? \_ Hey good shot as changing the subject. Let me refresh your memory. The topic was real estate in the US. This is a growing nation and getting richer everyday. Here's the econ 1a part: with more and more consumers who are wealthier each day than the one before and a housing supply that doesn't grow as fast, the housing market will continue to climb until those conditions change. Java? That was a nice try but ultimately feeble. Housing prices will continue to climb over the long haul and unlike the stock market, you can live in your house after a crash. Housing values can't go to zero, unlike your portfolio. \_ Wealthier? Did you even read the article? It mentioned the increasing debt of Americans as one of the principle causes of the predicted crash. That means negative wealth, if you need a translation. \_ Housing prices in the Bay Area have been growing much faster than wealth, income and population. Much "wealth" was destructed in the tech crash. Income has gone down slightly while unemployment has risen. Only thing sustaining the housing prices is the low interest rate, which can't go any lower. You can live in your house after a crash? Not if you lose your job. Not only will you not be able to live in your house, you will still be responsible for the mortgage which would be more than what you can get selling the house. Bankruptcy would be the only choice left. \_ If you lose your job the only place you will live is your mom's basement, anyway. --dim \_ I think you would rather live in your mom's basement without debt than with a shitload of debt, and debt collectors going after your arse day in and day out. |
2003/10/27-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:10824 Activity:high |
10/27 http://www.everbank.com/main.asp?affid=eb This is pretty neat. $10k to open a FDIC insured world currency deposit account. Buy say Australian dollars which has 3.9% interest rate and is also likely to rise against US$ (Australia is a nation of miners, and China is sucking away supplies of all kind of basic materials). \_ shut up, cmlee. \_ You can also buy renmibi, if you are into that sort of thing. \_ Damn it where were you a year and a half ago when i was asking about buying foreign currencies. I could have made like 25%. umm, i mean "thanks, good link." \_ Buying gold or gold stocks is pretty much a proxy for the same thing. \_ It plays on similar trends, but I think the Australian dollar would have more upside and less volatility. Look at the chart for the past year, for example, more volatility for gold: http://csua.org/u/4ti \_ You want to get into arbitrage? Why not just write me a check for your entire net worth? At least I'll put your money to good use. \_ I don't see what's so dangerous about buying some foreign currency. Nobody's trying to be a professional trader who currency. Nobody's trying to be a professional trader that trades everyday. Some of us have family, properties and assets overseas and we are forced to think about exchange rates in any case. Also, holding your money in US dollars is just as much a gamble as holding it in another currency. You are forced to "place a bet" no matter what. \_ Because most of your goods and services go up and down with your local currency. Exchange rates can change much faster relative to your local buying power, thus keeping all your money in the same currency as the country you live in is always safer for the average person than buying currency from somewhere else that you're not watching everyday. \_ You are right, but not all of us plan to be here always, and some of us want to buy property, invest, support family, etc. in other countries. It's also a good way to diversify (No one is suggesting that you use your entire nest egg to buy Australian dollars). Also, currency market is less than a free market and very much influenced by government fiscal policies, and because of that, it's long term trend is more predictable, and currently, the trend for the dollar is down, in my opinion. \_ you plan to live in some other country? what for? \_ Why not? We didn't become leader of the world \_ Anyone know why the 3-month, 6-mo., and 9-mo. Australian CD's have the same Interest Rate(3.88%), yet have differing APY's? The 3mo: 3.93%, 6mo: 3.91%, 9mo: 3.89% Is it b/c the 3mo. compounds every 3mo, whereas the 9mo. only every 9mo? -nivra \_ you plan to live in some other country? what for? by staying at home. |
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