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| 5/16 |
| 2009/2/20-22 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52613 Activity:high |
2/20 Interview with Peter Schiff (economics, 2008)
http://blog.mises.org/archives/008039.asp
\_ gee, a government-is-evil site has an interview with a
government-is-evil guy. how useful. -tom
\_ How's that hedge fund going Petie? OOOOPS.
\_ Peter wants to go back to the Gold Standard. I agree with that.
\_ You mean you agree with Mr. My Hedgefund Completely Imploded?
Yeah, he sure seems like a *smart* guy.
\_ You can be right about some things and wrong about others.
You can also be right but get the timeframe wrong.
Hedge funds make bets that are inherently uncertain.
\_ He was a consistent bear from 2002 until now, so he was
dead wrong for five years. A stopped clock is right
twice a day. -tom
\_ One could correctly recognize the dot com bubble, oil
bubble, and housing bubble. It's much tougher to know
when it would pop, and what the world reaction would be.
\_ Exactly. I thought <DEAD>dot.com<DEAD>s were overpriced and
yet they kept going up and up and up! Eventually,
I was proven right but the devil is in the details.
\_ Well, I guess that justifies being a fringey Austrian
econonomics nutcase.
\_ Peter Shiff Was Wrong
http://tinyurl.com/ca3gkr (Mish's blog)
\_ Yeah, basically, Schiff was wrong about just about everything. |
| 5/16 |
| 2009/2/20-22 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Finance/Investment] UID:52608 Activity:high |
2/20 Was just watching Thu's CNBS on tivo. Gosh, Obama has no idea what
he's doing, does he? -Dem
\_ No, he doesn't. Everyone knew that. That's why I voted for Hilary.
However, I expected him to have competent advisors. I think
part of the problem is "What happens when you have competent
advisors who *disagree*?" as I feel is the case now. Someone
has to make the call.
\_ And this just occured to you?
\_ No. "I voted for Hilary."
\_ what happens when Krugman (!advisor), Geithner, Summers, Buffet,
and Volcker are all fucking wrong?
\_ Greenspan? Bernanke? Roubini? I actually think Buffet is
\_ Greenspan? Bernanke? Roubini? I actually think Buffett is
right and history will prove it.
\_ Buffet has been selling, after he told you to buy
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10464539/1/buffett-watch-the-oracle-sells-america.html
\_ Bull.
Sure, he sold some positions. He's also been buying
Intersoll-Rand, Nalco (NLC), and Burlington Northern
Ingersoll-Rand, Nalco (NLC), and Burlington Northern
since end of 3Q 2008. Most holdings are unchanged.
That's in BRK. Buffett's article was talking about
his personal holdings, which we don't really know
about what's happening there.
\_ What is "Thu's CNBS"?
\_ Sorry, Thursday CNBC. Specifically about 2-3 segments where
Rick Santelli and Steve L. are yelling at each other; also the
Meredith Whitney interview.
\_ Yeah the CBOE traders are all such great representatives
of the common man. How can you take this guy seriously, he
was a hedge fund advisor and one of the architects of CDOs?
\_ Your use of CNBC as a barometer of anything of substance says
more about you than about Obama.
\_ See above about specific segments on the bullshit channel;
I'm not too impressed with you myself
\_ Gibbs has a great response to Santelli's right wing frothing:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/02/dude_needs_decaf.php
\_ Uh, great response? He's a press secretary, and what I got from
that was:
- You're a derivatives (actually, bond) trader you motherfucker
- By preventing your neighbor's foreclosure, your house will
maintain value (Santelli actually addressed this yesterday,
saying most people buy a house to live in, not as in investment
and the need for house prices to return to normal supply/demand
levels overrides subsidy of foreclosed properties)
- Really smart people created this plan
- Go read the plan, and you'll see it helps a lot of people
Once again, Obama has no idea what he's doing -Dem |
| 2009/2/19-25 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52599 Activity:moderate |
2/19 "There is no scenario under which you would claim the government was
not involved ... -tom"
\_ Apparently there is no scenario under which you would agree
government policy has a hand in creating financial crises.
My point isn't about getting rid of the government itself
but the banking system supported by governments around the world.
These crises keep happening around the world and yet people always
find something to blame except the actual system. It's like
building your house next to a flood zone and then blaming the rain
when your house inevitably gets trashed.
On the surface, you can blame banks in these crises because we
always get these situations where banks create massive amounts of
debt based on overvalued assets. This is natural because greed is
natural. The problem is a) they are shielded from the consequences
and b) the govt-sanctioned system allows them to pyramid debt upon
debt in a tremendous explosion of newly created money, and a
tremendous skewing of the economy's fundamentals (trade balances,
capital allocation).
In a conservative system (not talking GOP or Dems here) a series
of failures would simply not be able to cause such deep problems.
After you unwound the failures then you'd still have the same
basic money supply in the economy.
With the current system, you are putting an impossible regulation
task onto the government. The current crisis is really an
extension of problems that have been building up for decades.
In the latest episode the Fed kept interest rates too low for too
long.
\_ Not a "conservative system", a "free market system". The free
market cannot work unless there's profit AND loss. Oh, and the
government shouldn't tell the companies to do something
unprofitable and then blame them for it.
\_ http://tinyurl.com/c83pfd (The Economist)
Your lefty fellow travelers over at The Economist don't seem
to agree. Financial crises are as old as capitalism.
\_ That article doesn't even touch on the issue of the banking
system itself. It's mostly ignored by all mainstream
sources as if it must be, always has been, and always will.
There's no proof that this credit expansion system is
really a benefit.
This isn't really a left/right issue either. The only people
who talk about this kind of thing are, I guess, libertarians.
\_ What are you talking about? Every macro econ class talks
about money supply. Read Chapter 13 of Keynes General
about money supply. Read Chapter 17 of Keynes General
Theory for the first modern discussion of it, but so did
Friedman, Von Mises, Krugman, all the greats. It might be
true that libertarians (and their fellow travellers, the
Austrians) are the only ones who seriously consider that
fiat money and franctional lending are a bad idea. Do you
notice that no one in the world is on the gold standard?
That is because it is a crappy way to run an economy, full
of booms and busts far worse than what we are experiencing
today.
\_ There's no evidence it's a crappy way to run an economy.
The real reason is very simple. Government inflation of
the currency is a hidden tax on holders of money. Govts
used this repeatedly in times of war, though they
usually returned to gold afterward. This is just a
fact, look at the history of about every major British
or US war. They inflated the currency tremendously in
WWI, then tried to deflate it again afterwards which was
doomed to failure.
This is also orthogonal to fractional reserve banking
where demand deposits are treated as bank assets,
and the money supply is exponentially expanded via debt.
There is no evidence this is needed or even beneficial.
Most of the historical problems, if you look into it,
were either a) not really crises or b) not actually
a free market gold standard.
The deflationary spiral problem is endemic to fractional
reserve inflation, so is the risk of widespread bank
failures. Banks today, in general, are not allowed to
fail. We pay for their mistakes via the government
bailing them out in one way or another. It's private
profits socialized losses. But actually this has been
the case for hundreds of years... because it wasn't
nipped in the bud, it's always been too painful to undo.
Govts bailed out banks many times in history.
\_ You imply that having a hidden tax on holding money
is a bad thing. I would argue that we don't want
people hoarding money a'la Scrooge McDuck.
\_ Let's see you argue it then.
\_ If you are not familiar with the historical poverty
of humanity and the many long periods of depression
and famine before 1900, then I cannot hope to type
enough words to educate you. Go read a history book
or something. The explosion of human wealth since the
invention of capitalism is really unprecedented.
\_ Capitalism is not synonymous with central banking.
There are no periods of famine and depression that
can be blamed on a lack of central banking.
You're also placing credit on "capitalism" when
there are so many other technological advances in
the same time frame.
\_ What do you think that the "capital" in
capitalism represents?
\_ Not central banking, that's for sure. Why,
what do you think it represents? Is this
a joke?
\_ Do you even know why we went off the gold standard?
\_ So that the gov't could inflate the currency whenever they
wanted.
\_ It all sounds like funny money to me.
\_ Is it better when completely random effects inflate the
money supply? (Someone discovered gold!) Or, even worse,
business as usual deflates the money supply? (Hold amount
of gold constant, increase GDP, automatic deflation!)
\_ You don't need a gold standard. The money-is-debt, fractional
reserve thing is mostly orthogonal to having a gold standard.
You could still have fiat money but make it non-debt based
(i.e. just directly create X amount of money by fiat).
A gold standard is a separate debate. Many arguments against
it are bogus though.
We left the gold standard so that the government could
finance wars without worrying about taxes or voters.
\_ Are you getting paid by the word? -tom
\_ I should be. My day job is boring, I guess.
\_ what is this quote from?
\_ an earlier motd thread |
| 2009/2/19-22 [Finance/Investment] UID:52598 Activity:low |
2/19 The Bush Decade was as bad economically as the Great Depression:
http://tinyurl.com/ar9h67
\_ It's only bad if you're the middle class or lower. Wonderful
for corporations and stock holders.
\_ I'm a stock holder and it hasn't been that great. The NASDAQ
never recovered and now the DOW is at 1990 levels. Awesome.
\_ Self reliance. Blame yourself for not getting out earlier.
\_ I'm not *blaming* anyone. I'm just pointing out that
Bush wasn't really favorable to anyone except his oil
buddies and defense contractors. The perception is
that all those "fat cat stockholders" like, I dunno,
just about everyone with a 401k, made out like bandits
and we most decidedly did not.
\_ Not that bad. More like 1997.
\_ Oh, come on.
\_ That's about the dumbest thing I've ever seen. The Dow is down 35%
IN THE LAST 6 months, forget the last decade. |
| 2009/2/13-18 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52566 Activity:nil |
2/13 Bubbles have repeatedly plagued Western finance since its origins
in the Italian Rensiassance:
http://tinyurl.com/c83pfd (The Economist)
(and an explaination why the CDS trades should "net to zero")
\_ They won't net to 0 if some people go bankrupt, drops out of
the system and can't pay up. Finance is not a zero sum game.
\_ Top people to blame for the financial crisis:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877320,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1878509_1878508,00.html |
| 2009/2/11-18 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52555 Activity:high |
2/10 Why tax cuts are a bad way to stimulate demand in a deflationary
environment:
http://tinyurl.com/ccatun
(Freakonomics Blog at NYT)
\_ Oh sure, you can't trust people with their own money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zISKoQegbxM
\_ No, you can't, when the collective interest is
diametrically opposed to the individual's interest.
We, collectively, need the economy stimulated.
However, we, individually, don't want to spend our
However, we, individually, want to save our money
money to maximize our personal financial security.
So, right now, you can't trust people with their
own money.
\_ Is this why the fed has racked up debts that work out to
over $30,000 per capita?
\_ How large are the debts that the private sector has
racked up?
\_ People know what they need and don't. We've been living in a
mode where people spend way beyond their capacity. Retreating
from that is normal. Deflation is good. We have tons of
immigrants and an inefficient culture of buying tons of
cheap crap.
"Deficient aggregate demand" isn't a problem. We still have
a huge trade imbalance so there are plenty of jobs we could
theoretically be doing instead of importing all that shit.
But the only way that would happen is if we let conditions
move towards equilibrium instead of borrowing trillions to
prop up the status quo.
\_ You almost make some sense. Good thing you aren't running
the Republican party or I'd have to vote for you.
\_ Do you think that people knew what they needed and what
they didn't need when they decided to leverage up buying
McMansions, flipping houses and buying SUVs? How about when
they bought all those exotic financial instruments which
bet on the housing bubble? Do you know what a deflationary
trap is? What you are advocating would put us in one,
the same as Japan post-bubble, and would give us our
own "lost decade" or two.
\_ People did that because it was what makes sense to do
given abundant cheap credit. The government's policies
steered the market towards cheap imports and housing
instead of real industry -- not only our direct
policies but how we allowed e.g. China to manipulate our
own economy. See:
http://blogs.cfr.org/setser/2009/02/02/it-wasnt-just-the-market/#more-4618
Of course long-term deflation is not good. But if it
wants to happen there's no point going around trying to
ignore the laws of gravity. We should look for ways to
cushion the fall and set things up for long term success.
The previous economy (dot com then crazy mortgage bubble)
was based on a tremendous amount of imaginary wealth.
To keep on pretending just prolongs and exacerbates.
The ideas you're talking about is the thinking that lead
us to where we are.
\_ No, it was a deliberate decision by the GOP to
deregulate the financial sector which led to the blow-
up in available credit, more than anything. There were
certainly other contributing factors, but that was
number one. To lower the Debt/GDP ratio, you can try
to lower debt or raise GDP. Your plan would try and
lower debt, but probably lower GDP even more - that
is what has happened in the past when debt bubbles
have been allowed to pop without any attempt to
clean up the mess afterwards. There is a chance that
by reallocating capital to more effective uses, we can
grow GDP and reduce overall debt that way. Most of
the increase in govt debt recently has just been a
shift from private to public hands, so has not
increased the overall debt burden to the US economy.
This is not guaranteed of course, a lot of it depends
on how good a job govt does in allocating capital to
productive uses. It is hard to imagine that they would
do a worse job than the private sector has over the
last decade, but anything is possible.
\- you can blame the GOP for some crazy tax policies
gutting enforcement funding or "capturing"
regulatory agencies and most of deregulation, but
there is a lot of blame to go around on dereg
and mkt fundamentalism. i'd be ok chaining
robert rubin and phil gramm together and sending
them off into interstellar space.
\_ Please see the Commodity Futures Modernization
Act of 2000.
\_ Even given the deregulated system,
there were clear lapses on the part of the
regulatory systems that did still exist. And
failures on the part of private regulators like
S&P. I believe part of that is simply a lack
of competition -- the need for government
oversight is directly related to market health.
Markets don't know what's productive, they just
tend to maximize utility in terms of profit. If
the environment is skewed the result is skewed.
It's like when "kind" people put out food for
animals; the animals will base their "economy" on
maximizing this free benefit. They don't
understand why there is free food, so they can't
understand that it might go away, or that the
humans might round them up and gas them.
Low interest rates, perpetual borrowing, and
China's market manipulations are our free food.
Even now China keeps investing in overcapacity and
trade surplus.
The deregulated financial industry made mistakes,
but basically it was drunk on the free shit.
Cheap credit was influenced by the trade deficit.
The Fed also maintained relatively very low
interest rates even while the housing bubble was
growing insanely fast. Greenspan denied that there
was a bubble. The government was basically telling
people that housing was the place to be.
\_ Look, you ideological nitwit; the housing bubble
is *not* the cause of our financial crisis.
\_ I rather think it is. If housing recovers
then all of these problems instantly go
away. Loose credit and low interest rates
combined with fraudulent mortgage lending
practices and dishonest borrowers are at
the heart of the problem. If you want to
know where most of the $$$ went, it went to
anyone who sold a property in the last 5
years that they had owned more than 5
years prior. Some of it when to speculators
and some of it went to people like you
and me whose house value doubled in a few
years. When salaries and real estate prices
match more closely then this will all blow
over but not until then. Leverage just
made things worse by wiping out capital,
but those speculators had a good run prior to
that so some should weather this. Some won't.
C'est la vie.
\_ We have had credit bubbles that did not
involve housing and we have had housing
cycles (bubbles?) that did not bring down
the financial sector. Unregulated and
overly risky speculation is what brought
down the financial sector, mostly the IBs
and hedge funds leveraging 30:1 on their
bets.
the financial sector.
\_ S&L crisis?
This isn't the first time Citi has
borrowed from the gov't either.
Was 1991 the last time?
This crisis is more severe because
the bubble was bigger, partly
because interest rates were lower
and other instruments were
underperforming or viewed as
risky. That's all. CA has had housing
bubbles that popped, but this is new
to most of the country.
Financial institutions leveraging themselves
ridiculously is the cause of our financial
crisis. Oh, if only the government didn't
exist, the invisible hand would have made sure
that the banks acted safely!
Here's a news flash: The financial crisis
*IS* THE FUCKING INVISIBLE HAND. The free
market is perfectly happy to drive off a cliff
and destroy a society. Government's job is
to make sure that doesn't happen. -tom
\_ Leveraging wasn't THE cause; misclassifying
risk was the cause, and is directly
related to the housing bubble. And the
mother of all the leveraging is the fed's
low interest rates.
The financial crisis is not the invisible
hand because government was riding
shotgun the entire way. Or more accurately,
the government was building a bridge to
the promised land out from the cliff, but
actually it went into thin air.
In any case you are arguing a strawman: I
am not arguing that gov't regulation is
unnecessary. I'm saying it didn't do its
job.
\_ Yeah, whatever. How about this: Could
you describe a possible scenario where
the free market, by itself, could cause
a financial crisis? Or is that
impossible? -tom
\_ Obviously yes, with banks: bank runs.
Although modern banks are completely
married to the government via the
central bank, and via the laws that
allow them to create money and lend
money that they simultaneously owe
to their depositors. That's not
really the free market; it's inherently
unstable, and supposedly the govt is
managing this in order to be able to
easily stimulate the economy.
It is theoretically possible to have
banking which is not based on the
current scheme.
http://mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf
You can't honestly have a free market
without a hard currency and a situation
where actors are held accountable for
their dealings.
A market run on an arbitrary government
fiat currency is inherently not free.
If banks were required to lend money
out of their own capital instead of
their customers, or else enter specific
contracts with customers to lend their
money, you could not have bank runs.
\_ Go sell it at Top Dog. -tom
\_ The model of modern corporations
is too conducive to disaster.
Responsibility is abdicated onto
a non-person legal entity, and
management transfers between
speculators who individually
do not have full understanding
of the business, but neither
stand very much to lose. The
executives and employees stand
to profit greatly from short
term schemes which are measured
by quarterly results.
Then you have the abomination of
"government sponsored corporations"
like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_mae
How can you say that the fin.
crisis is not directly related
to the actions of this agency
and the govt that created and
controlled it?
\_ Fannie Mae was a drop in the
bucket (and late) compared to
the total amount of CDOs
written. You should have
stopped at "bank runs have
happened long before there
was government regulation of
banks." Tell us how Tulip
Mania was big ole' gubmints
fault.
\_ Fraud and speculation are
not limited to the govt,
no, but the govt allows
for a special depth of
scope. Nothing's wrong
with a periodic recession.
But the govt banking scheme
creates vast money supply
variances which is what
creates a crisis.
\_ Prove it.
"Whether the U.S. had a central bank or not, the banks were _/
assured that if they inflated together and then got in trouble,
government would bail them out and permit them to suspend
specie payments for years. Such general suspensions of specie
payments occurred in 1819, 1837, 1839, and 1857..."
US banks are on the government's credit teat, and mommy government
always saves them, or at least the vast majority of them. And it
lets them multiply credit exponentially.
There's no real benefit to all that credit. It just inflates prices
and gives the fed. government a backdoor tax method.
Here, listen to FDR trying to explain away banking fraud.
http://www.fdic.gov/about/history/FDR_Fireside_Chat_Banking_Situation_03-12-33.mp3
Money as debt.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
Mystery of Banking
http://mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf
\_ that's not proof of anything; it's pure assertion. And it very
specifically does not address the question, which is whether
a crisis can be created without government intervention. (Hint:
it is completely obvious that a crisis can be created without
government intervention.) -tom
\_ I don't need to prove anything, I'm not your slave and your
question isn't "the" question. Hint: all the major crises
in US history were entangled with the government. Your Tulip
example was not a crisis and is anyway half legend.
You're going around calling people idiots making assertions
but demanding that others "prove" things (hint: no economic
theories have ever been "proven"). But you have the status
quo mainstream theories which you accept as gospel even though
repeatedly they have failed to prevent massive crises. I
don't claim that you can't have economic problems, that's not
a relevant question; an alternative system does not have to
involve 100% protection from recession for example; in fact
it's likely that recessions are necessary for healthy economy.
Only if some fail is competition meaningful.
\_ I didn't mention tulips. "All the major crises in US
history were entangled with the government" is tautalogical;
the US has a government that ideological morons like you
blame for everything. There is no scenario under which
you would claim the government was not involved, therefore,
the government is always involved, therefore, the goverment
is bad. QED. Or not. -tom
\_ How ironic that you blame government response to financial crises
as being responsible for creating these crises. Do you blame the
fire department for fires, too?
\_ If you weren't an idiot, you'd realize that's not what I said. |
| 2009/2/9-17 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52543 Activity:nil |
2/9 motd finance whizzes, if the total value of CDS last year was
62 trillion, and now it's basically worthless, does that mean
somewhere, somehow, someone collectively has lost 62 trillion?
thanks
\_ Yup. Somehow, somewhere, $62T of money just went with the
wind. And what's more, if people suddently decide that CDS
is worth something again, that money comes right back.
\_ These things are supposed to net out, so for every loser, there
should be a winner. Some of the losers are bankrupt though and won't
be able to make good on the claim. Your second proposition "now
it's basically worthless" is dubious, btw.
\_ Who are these 'winners'? Also I'm asking a real question, not
being an ass. thanks.
\_ I understand that you are not being an ass, but you are
repeating some common misperceptions here. If I buy a CDS
from you, giving you some cash up front in return for your
promise to make me whole if GM goes bankrupt and I lose the
money on a bond I just bought, and then GM goes bankrupt, you
are the loser and I am the winner. Is that clear enough? Now
if I go to redeem my claim and you declare bankruptcy, then
we are both losers, which is what people are afraid of now.
We don't know what this "counter-party risk" really tallies
up to right now, which is why the economy is in such a mess,
but it is certainly less than $62T.
\_ I disagree with you about this being a "zero sum" game. Here,
I definitely think there are losers without there being any
winners. Suppose suddenly all stocks are worthless. Who
wins? People who just got out of stocks might consider
themselves lucky, but they didn't directly benefit from
stocks going to zero: they won "otherwise". Short sellers
might win, but that's a small fraction of the loss, not a
zero sum.
\_ Stocks aren't very much like CDSs. If I redeem my CDS to
you and you honor it, you lose money and I gain it. The only
way there can be an overall loss if via counter-party risk
e.g. you don't make good on the contract.
\_ Why do you think they are worthless (URL, please)? They are still
enforceable contracts, unless written by Lehman. They also aren't
"supposed to net out." That was the undoing of the ibanks. They're
supposed to be underwritten by people who can price the risk of
default accurately. They're like tradeable insurance.
\_ Yes, for every person losing a dollar, another person gains
a dollar. That is what "net out" means. The $62T didn't just
disappear, except in bankruptcy cases, where it can be argued
that it never really existed in the first place.
\_ Correct me if I am wrong, but the costs of insuring debt
fluctuates because these things are traded. Worse,
derivatives based on these things were traded.
\_ Yes, but their book value is not $62T, just the nominal
value.
\_ I would argue that most of the value of the 72T CDS market is/was
imaginary, and therefore all of the profits and jobs and stock
fluctuations based on CDS trade profits are a load o'crap,
and this is a huge contributing factor to current financial woe. |
| 2009/2/2-8 [Finance/Investment] UID:52498 Activity:nil |
2/2 How do smart people put up with idiocy and continue to respond with
rational arguments? This is a general question, but responding to
people who think $20B is a good idea is a good example. Tom, how do you
respond and not spontaneously combust when responding?
\_ It's not $20B is a good idea or a bad idea. It's "Is this
reasonable?". I do not think it is reasonable if it is spread
among 12 CEOs. However, that's not how it is allocated. This is
part of the pay package for most employees on Wall Street. Maybe we
should cut all Wall Street salaries to zero and eliminate their
health insurance. Is that more your speed?
\_ I wasn't asking you. I'd go crazy talking to you. I already am.
\_ nice straw man. -tom
\_ How about we cut all Wall Street salaries to 10X the median
income and give everyone in America health insurance. -!op
\_ Sounds good, comrade. Do you know how many people could
live in one of their expensive Hamptons mansions?
\_ No, but I have a funny feeling that in the next decade or
so we just might find out.
\_ How about we let companies fail intead of bailing them out and
not care about exec pay/bonuses if we aren't their employees
or stockholders?
\_ Banks failing will have far-reaching consequences on
the global economy and may cost more money than bailing
them out will. |
| 2009/2/2-3 [Politics/Foreign/Europe, Finance/Investment] UID:52496 Activity:low |
2/2 http://tinyurl.com/buyetf (Jesse's cafe) Stock tip ... what is it, #6? Start with paragraph 6. What the knowledgable and "insiders" are talking about. Note they may be wrong. (fyi, some bozo probably set that tiny URL code earlier) \_ What a waste of time. Many paragraphs to say that they don't know anything and that the situation is fluid. Genius. \_ Sorry, there is no "buy at x" "sell at y" type advice, but isn't identifying what they don't know, and what they think will happen in/around 2010 helpful? \_ This is fearmongering at its worst. |
| 2009/1/28-2/4 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52483 Activity:very high |
1/28 Pork bill passes the House, no R's vote for it.
\_ which pork bill?
\_ Yay, fair and balanced NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99919378
Also, GOP apparently unclear on definition of pork.
\_ Even Chris Matthews called it one big earmark.
\_ The fact that you think he represents informed liberal
opinion says a lot about you.
\_ Pell Grants are pork?
\_ Apparently the R's haven't heard that old adage about
holes, shovels, and digging.
\_ Apparently, you're an idiot.
\_ Thanks for playing anyway.
\_ I think Democrats should of tied the "Pork" bill along with
should've or "should have" -- ...
TARP and Auto bail out. I failed to understand why money to
investment bank / commercial bank (e.g. TARP) is not considered
"pork" by Republicans while putting money into infrastructure is.
\_ Bankers donate money to the Republican party, but construction
workers do not.
\_ I wasn't particularly pro-bailout, but there are a few important
differences. The bailout money was often used in ways that
might come back. (Loans, stock, etc.) The bailout was also a
targetted attempt to have an immediate effect on a vital piece of
the economy. No capital and capitalism doesn't work.
Infrastructure may take years to even begin construction, that's
not a quick action. The stimulus bill also also is not
particularly targeted. It seems to chuck a billion or two to
anyone the dems like.
\_ As opposed to $18.4 billion for bonuses for the investment
bankers who got us into this mess. -tom
\_ tom prefers life in the mud.
\_ Yawn. Justify your side's naked corruption by pointing out
the other side's flaws. How exciting.
\_ what in the stimulus bill is naked corruption? -tom
\_ I already told you. Pell Grants. -!op
\_ I see: funding golden parachutes for
millionaires is OK; funding higher education
for the poor is naked corruption. Great.
Enjoy losing in 2012. -tom
\_ This number is bandied about, but what does it mean? I
read it is about 50% less than last year. What is the
average size of the bonus awarded and what is the base
pay? For instance, if total payroll is $1T (say) then
$18.4B in bonuses seems small. Or even if total
payroll is $18B then $18B in bonuses can still be
small if it is spread over 1M employees. I don't
sympathize with the banks, but this number is thrown
out there without much explanation. Were these bonuses
all cash or was there stock or options also awarded?
It costs the bank no cash to award someone $1M in options,
for instance.
all cash or were stock/options also awarded? It costs the
bank no cash to award someone $1M in options, for instance.
\_ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/business/29bonus.html
The number is based largely on personal income tax
collections. It excludes stock options. -tom
\_ It almost doesn't matter what it means, other than
this: the guys who ruined our economy, destroyed their
companies and lost trillions of dollars are being
rewarded with bonuses.
\_ I think the word "bonus" is what trips people
up. It's just salary. It's more in good years
and less in bad years, like you might expect.
It will never really be zero any more than
you can expect those people to work for free no
matter how poorly they are performing. Certain
professions earn a significant amount of salary each
year in a lump sum "bonus" and it's not quite the
same thing as if you or I get a bonus at work.
For example, my sister's ex-husband worked for a
law firm and every year they got a "Christmas
bonus" of 1 week's salary. It's common in law
just as in banking. Eliminating the bonus is
equivalent to cutting salary. Would it make you
feel better if they said they were reducing their
"base salary" 50%? That's essentially what is
happening. Their salary is tied to performance,
but that doesn't mean their poor performance = zero
salary any more than yours should be. If they
perform poorly enough they will be fired and
many have been. BTW, the average bonus was $112K,
which was down 36.7%. Sounds like a big pay cut
to me. Did you get a 37% pay cut because your
company's revenues went down in the poor market?
many have been.
\_ What was the average base pay? The bonus could
go to zero and these losers would still get paid
more than enough. Using taxpayer dollars to
give incentive-based pay to people who drove
their companies into bankruptcy and the entire
economy into crisis is absolutely, completely
indefensible. And then to attack Pell Grants!
I suppose the conservative strategy of asserting
things too ridiculous to argue against is still
in force. -tom
\_ 1. I didn't attack Pell Grants.
2. I like how you say their pay would be
"more than enough", comrade. I think you
could survive on half your current salary
and in a studio apartment instead of a
house, but the market values your services
more than that. I read that the average Wall
Street salary is around $300K with a base
salary of $100-250K. So it's reasonable
to think a typical package might be $150K
base salary and a $150K bonus. If you
eliminate the $150K bonus entirely then
base pay is still more than enough to live
on, but likely far less than what it would
take to retain top talent. Heck, you can
barely get a sysadmin for City of SF for
$150K. Lots of these guys are Harvard
Business grad with years of experience
who fell prey to the whims of their
CEOs who decided to use a lot of leverage.
The CEOs should suffer. The rank-and-file
traders and bankers are suffering
enough if you pay attention to how many
are out of work now.
\_ No, they haven't suffered enough. The
banking sector is still bloated and
overpaid. There is no particular reason
that a Harvard MBA should make $300k,
unless he is contributing that much to
society. For the last 10 years, the
bankers have disastrously misallocated
capital. If they don't like mere $150k
salaries, good luck finding an industry
that will support them in the lifestyle
they think they deserve.
\_ http://tinyurl.com/ajf25h (WSJ)
\_ People aren't paid according to
"what they contribute to society".
Most of those guys are very smart
and will find something else to
do, which would leave the banks
run by people less capable. You think
it's bad *now*?
\_ I don't think there's any evidence
that the people running the banks
are very capable. If they're so
fucking capable, why are they all
going bankrupt? The argument about
"that's what it costs to retain
top talent" is 100% bullshit.
The system is rigged. CEOs, VPs
and hotshots get to decide who to
pay what--and, surprise surprise,
they decide that it's vital to
the interest of the company to
pay CEOs, VPs and hotshots more
and more as a function of total
revenue and earnings. Until the
whole thing comes crashing down
and they ask the government to
bail them out. The absolute first
thing that should happen before
any bankrupt institution is bailed
out is that all performance-based
pay should be immediately suspended
until the company is solvent. If
that means that executives leave
for other companies that managed
their assets better and therefore
aren't going bankrupt, that's fine;
isn't survival of the fittest one
of the tenets of the market
economists? -tom
\_ Lots of free-market cheerleaders
seem to forget the basic econ 101
stuff that says what is needed
for markets to function. Namely
competition and low barriers to
entry.
What is it about these banks that
makes them able to keep fat
profits year after year?
\_ Somehow society was able to function
with a banking sector that was half
the current size - as a proportion
of the economy - for many decades.
All those Ivy geniuses can go find
another way to game the system (and
ultimately rip off the taxpayer, no
doubt). Almost every "invention" of
the financial sector in the last 10
years was crap. Is it seriously
your contention that these guys
deserve lifetime employment on the
public dime at $300k/yr, even though
what they produce has no value to
society whatsover?
\_ Somehow society was able to
function with a banking sector that
was half the current size - as a
proportion of the economy - for
many decades. All those Ivy
geniuses can go find another way to
game the system (and ultimately rip
off the taxpayer, no doubt). Almost
every "invention" of the financial
sector in the last 10 years was
crap. Is it seriously your
contention that these guys deserve
lifetime employment on the public
dime at $300k/yr, even though what
they produce has no value to
society whatsoever?
\_ I don't think they deserve
lifetime employment on the
public dime forever. I never
said that. However, letting
the big banks BK would be a
disaster. This whole thing
about bonuses is a PR stunt
as is Obama's outrage. Banks
are going to need $1T and we're
worrying about $20B in bonuses
that were earned? Do you really
contend that banks have no value
to society?!
A bank that does a good job of allocating _/
capital to productive uses has a value.
Do you think that the primary inventions
of the financial sector of the last decade
or so (CDS, CDOs, SIVs, etc) have had a
net positive value? If so, why are all
the banks collapsing? If anything, the
total contribution to society by the
financial sector over the last decade
has been strongly negative. This is
reflected in the change in their
equity value, and in the collapse in
value of all the stupid things they
allocated capital to (most exurban
McMansions, but also the mostly
speculative paper instraments used
speculative paper instruments used
to gamble on them).
\_ http://tinyurl.com/ajf25h (WJ)
Check out the comments. Even the WSJ readers
are getting restless.
\_ Just the media stirring up shit and now the
rabble is roused. What about bailing out
auto workers who made shit cars? I know a
lot of people are against that, too, but
at some point you have to place blame
where it is due, which is management. The
auto workers were just building the cars
they were told to build. Likewise, the bank
employees were just selling the products they
were told to sell while the government
cheered from the sidelines about how many
more people could now afford home ownership
while keeping rates insanely low and wasting
$$$ in Iraq. Blame Bush for this mess.
\_ It is funny that you think that the
readership of the WSJ is "the rabble."
You can imagine what the actual rabble
think of the bank bailouts.
\_ Doesn't matter what they think. They
don't realize what will happen without
lending or credit. For instance, most
hospitals use large lines of credit to
cover bills during the period between
when services are rendered and the
insurance companies finally pay. The
average consumer relies on banks for
a lot more than they realize.
\_ In a democracy, what the people think
matters. Especially when you coming to
the taxpayer, hat in hand, asking for
a bailout. The current overleveraged
banks could all fail and all that
would happen is that new bunch would
crop up to take their place. No doubt
the economy needs credit. Why do we
need Citibank, JPM and all the other
crooks?
\_ That's why we have a republic.
We don't need uninformed citizens
making these decisions.
\_ I am mostly unimpressed with
what our elected representatives
have done so far, but you are
probably right, a directly
democratic response would
probably be even worse.
\_ automaker bailout is what, 1/100th of the
bank bailout?
\_ In other industries, you are awarded a bonus for doing well
or if the company has done well in that year. There is no sane
person who can claim the banking industry did well in 2008.
So why did they get bonuses? That's what bugs me.
\_ This is not "other industries" and Wall Street and law firms
work differently.
\_ They work differently because they've stacked the deck in
favor of lining their own pockets. The role of government
is to protect taxpayer assets, not performance-based
compensation for executives of bankrupt companies. Let
them try to convince the bankruptcy court that the first
priority is to pay them their bonuses. -tom
\_ Bankruptcy courts are genrally in favor of companies
making payroll.
\_ Bonuses != payroll.
\_ Except that in the case of certain firms (like banks)
they really are almost the same thing. Bonuses
are not some optional incentives based on merit
or something, although they can be tied to it.
Think of bonuses more like tips for a waitress.
Sure, you make more if you're good but they aren't
really optional. Even bad service results in a
tip (or should anyway) because the payscale and
taxes are based on that.
\_ Bankers don't make $2.80/hr.
\_ This is back to the "They make more than *I*
think they are worth" argument. We can say
that about software engineers or any job,
really. However, that's not how salaries
are determined in this country. Go back to
Soviet Russia. It's much more equitable there.
\_ Except software engineers are not asking
for handouts from the Federal government.
You keep "forgetting" that part.
\_ Tangential. You can argue that companies
shouldn't be receiving aid, but that's
not your argument. Your argument is
that the government should dictate
salaries in turn for aid. That will
leave those companies without any
employees, because paying them 50%
of market rate for salaries will
have them leaving in droves. How
will that help anything? The banks
may as well BK then.
\_ OK. -tom
\_ So let's be clear that your issue
isn't "bonuses". It's that the
banks are receiving any money
at all. Why beat around the
bush for 6 paragraphs?
\_ So let's be clear that you
love to beat up straw men
rather than paying attention.
Fine. I'm not particularly
pleased that the banks are
receiving money, and I'm
outraged that the money
they're receiving is going
incentive-based pay for the
assholes who caused the
problem. And it's totally
typical for the Republican
typical of the Republican
disdain for the American
public. -tom
\_ I seriously doubt that the employees
will be leaving in droves, even if they
were paid the starvation wages of
will be leaving in droves, even if
they were paid the starvation wages of
$300k/yr. Especially since 100s of
thousands of others in their field
will be out of work. But it is a risk
I am willing to take.
\_ Exactly... this is ridiculous.
where exactly are they all gonna
go? The best they might do is
start a new company, or perhaps
use their genius to go to one of
those other lucrative $500k
careers out there, which would be
such a terrible loss for America
I know, our capital would be so
misallocated.
\_ One obvious place is to the
hedge funds and regional
banks, growing them into
megabanks of the type they
work for now. Of course, only
the best will leave. The bad
ones will remain to handle
the delevering, valuation
of assets, and spending of
TARP funds. My fear is that
the best ones are leaving
*anyway*. Wouldn't you?
\_ And if they go to a regional
bank (probably not making
$300k/yr) and grow it into
a well-run company that
efficiently makes loans, has
a well-run risk management
department and is not sucking
off the taxpayers teat, this
is a bad thing how, exactly?
\_ The Bad Thing is what
happens to the banks
they left.
Most hedge funds are closing,
not hiring, btw.
\_ Many are folding b/c
investors are withdrawing,
but this is a blip on
the radar. Mutual
funds, pensions, and
even hedgies still
manage a lot of money.
\_ Hedge funds are closing
because the returns on
their strategy have
dropped to 20% of
the original, rather
small percentage.
In fact, according to
DeLong it was a large
hedge fund getting
out of the business,
which hosed a number
of other highly
leveraged hedge funds,
which acted as the
trigger for the
whole liquidity
crisis. -tom
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123353536455237761.html
"It's just a tough, tough time, and there are a lot of
good people out there looking for work."
\_ Right, but they aren't going to work for $6.50/hour.
Let's not confuse "looking for work" with "looking
for any work at any price".
\_ I have a friend who does ibanking for UBS, 1st out of biz school,
didn't get fired in the 4 rounds of layoffs, I was adding up
her base salary (120k) to the bonus she got 140k and wondered
what the hell she did that was worth 260k a year.
\_ Is she hot? picsP |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Computer/Companies/Google, Finance/Investment] UID:52443 Activity:kinda low |
1/22 And that's why you should own GOOG.
\_ Google reported fourth-quarter net income of $382 million, down 68%
from $1.2 billion a year ago.
\_ I don't get it. How can you have 68% down but sales going up
18%? Are they getting more sales but with less money per
transaction?
\_ Profit = (Price - Cost)xQuantity - Fixed Costs
Costs went up?
\_ They wrote down the value of a few investments.
\_ $1.09B
\_ Leaving aside the asset write-down, GOOG had $1.48B
in operational profit for the quarter, up 23% from
last year. In this economy that's amazing. GOOG
is still a frieght train. -tom
\_ I do own GOOG and I am underwater on it even though I bought at
a comparatively low price. Brilliant.
\_ AAPL profits are still growing at an increasing rate.
$2.3B in adjusted net income ($1.61B GAAP profit)
\_ AAPL is another good company to own. |
| 2009/1/13-22 [Finance/Investment] UID:52374 Activity:nil |
1/13 http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/01/13/missing.pilot.profile/index.html Financial managers are so awesome. People like this makes me want to pull my money out of 401K. You just don't know what kind of people are managing your asset. \_ No. This is not a reason to pull your money out of your 401k. This is the reason why you don't give your financial advisor/wealth manager trading authority in your accounts. The fund managers who run the funds in your 401k are much more stringently regulated than the Bernie Madoffs of the world. The brokerage that holds your account is reasonably regulated as well. This guy is someone people hired as an additional layer on top of that, and gave authority to move assets around as needed. The lesson is that if you hire someone for their investment advice, place the trades yourself (and never give them the authority to do it for you). \_ Or just use low-cost stock/bond index funds for 90% of your 401k and "play" with the other 10%. \_ what about Mervyn's employees with 401(k)'s? It's also the same company that manages a whole lot of other retail employees plans. As I understand it, rollovers have been delayed for a couple months already because of "illiquid assets" in funds with "Stable Value" in the same, and significant "administrative fees" have been nailing them since. |
| 2009/1/8-12 [Finance/Investment] UID:52345 Activity:nil |
1/8 Financial services industry appears to have been ripping off states
and cities for years in the municipal bond business
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/business/09insure.html
\- say it with me, "clawback". |
| 2009/1/8-12 [Finance/Investment] UID:52342 Activity:nil |
1/8 Stock market isn't going anywhere... and I haven't made a penny
for a few weeks. It's been dry, but not unexpected. -week trader
\_ I am up over 10% since Dec 1. -buy and holder |
| 2009/1/7 [Finance/Investment] UID:52338 Activity:nil 61%like:52335 |
1/7 http://tinyurl.com/7lzzhv Barron's article warning about Treasuries. \_ Buy corporate bonds while you still can! |
| 2009/1/7-12 [Finance/Investment] UID:52335 Activity:nil 61%like:52338 |
1/7 http://tinyurl.com/7lzzhv Barron's article warning about Treasuries says to buy TBT and PST. \_ Of course last year Barron's was telling us that the housing crisis would be minor and blow over by mid 2008. \_ CBS Marketwatch commentary says the same: http://tinyurl.com/7swxxd I am not saying this is good advice. It may be a contrarian indicator. However, it is something to consider and do more research on. |
| 2009/1/5-8 [Finance/Investment] UID:52314 Activity:low |
1/3 Need stock market tip. What is the historic normal for the
first quarter of the year? Up, down, random, etc? I had a bunch
of limit orders but there were very little movement in the second
half of Q4, which was expected but disappointing considering that
I make most of the money on big swings -week trader
\_ http://www.moneychimp.com/features/monthly_returns.htm
In general, the first part of the year is not so great,
especially the first year of a new President's term. However,
based on history 2008 should have been a great year and we know
how that went. That's why past results don't guarantee future
returns. Overall, the markets have been more stable and less
volatile recently which has been making it harder to trade, but is
better for the long-term outlook of the markets.
\_ 404 Not Found
\_ Typo. Fixed. |
| 2008/12/22-2009/1/7 [Finance/Investment] UID:52293 Activity:nil |
12/22 link:tinyurl.com/9encrb (usnews.com) Optimist Roubini sez: - Unemployment will continue to increase through 2010 - 33% probability a multi-year economic stagnation continues beyond that http://tinyurl.com/7a72mg (bloomberg.com) NBER member sez: - Unemployment may exceed 10% and could "stay there for a while" - 50% change of calling depression over next three years \_ To some people, a bad economy is good. It weeds out competitors. \_ Welcome to the Great Depression of Barack Obama \_ Didn't Dubya have something to do with it? \_ http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/04/pf/forecast_economy1.moneymag Economy should turn up in Q2 of 2009. \_ You can have GDP being less negative or slightly positive in Q2 of 2009, and all of the above still be true. |
| 2008/12/15-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:52252 Activity:nil |
12/14 Short-term pop possibility: FDRY is being bought by Brocade.
Deal is priced at $16.50 (cash, not tied to BRCD's stock price).
FDRY is currently trading at $15.70; shareholder vote is on
Wednesday 12/17. FDRY shareholders will gladly take the deal;
the only risk is that financing for the deal falls through,
but it looks solid to me. Quick 5%. -tom
\_ Will look into it, but there's not much room for arbitrage
at this point. When would the deal close?
\_ Supposed to close by 12/31. There will also be a special
dividend to shareholders from sale of auctionable securities.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/081208/aqm044.html?.v=61
($50 million is about 30 cents/share).
Looks like pretty easy money to me. -tom
\_ Update: Auction rate securities sold, proceeds 24.9 cents
per share to be paid as dividends on the sale. -tom
\_ this doesn't sound like tom. -tom #1 fan
\_ Why not? I am on record as holding FDRY. -tom
\_ I didn't think of you as someone who believed that
individual investors can effectively act as arbitrageurs.
\_ As a general rule, that's true, but I think this market
is pretty broken, which leaves some opportunities out
there. If the deal fails, FDRY will tank, so you're taking
on some risk. If the deal succeeds, the math is pretty
obvious. -tom
P.S.: Just bought some at 15.50 in my play account.
\_ Update: Merger approved, deal expected to close
tomorrow, stock at 16.66. Too late to get in now.
Brocade might be interesting as a long-term play,
if you think adding Foundry improves their business.
-tom
\_ Good trade. Congrats! That's almost 10% if you
include the dividend. You selling now?
\_ I'll just wait for the deal to close, they'll
be paying out cash. -tom |
| 2008/12/14-17 [Finance/Investment] UID:52247 Activity:nil |
12/13 I've been reading about this super awesome day trader giving you
advice. I'm sure he's good and made a lot of money, but
unfortunately, his advice does NOT work for everyone, esp. those
who don't have time to stare at the stock market every few
hours or so at work, or those who don't have a lot of money,
or those who don't like big risks. If you want to trade but want
to minimize risk and don't want to stare at motd + ticker, week
trading is the way to go. You'll at most spend anywhere between
20min-60min a day, and 0-5 transactions a week. Here is the
thing, you can spend a bunch of time staring at the ticker and
make transactions, or just take advange of the fact that 1) the
stock market isn't going anywhere. It's not going to do down 50%
and it's not going to go up 50%. 2) there are a bunch of mini-wave
while the market is flat, especially for the next year or so.
3) at any given time, 1/2 of the people will tell you to buy
and "just trust me!" and 1/2 of the people will tell you to sell
and "just trust me!" Fact of the matter is NOBODY knows what the
next day will be, so ignore those people. Just keep putting down a
tiny little chunk of money when it goes down 5-10% from what you feel
is a low point (hint, when people panic and think it's the end
of the world because the Fed did something, THAT is the time to
buy), antd sell when it reaches your goal (2-8%). The key is SELL
even if you only made a little profit. The market will keep going
up and down, but mostly flat. It's *not* going to go up 50% or down
50%. So fuck the day trading advice if you don't have time, or you
just don't feel like each day will make a huge gain or huge
loss for you. Ride lots of safe little waves, and be happy when
you have a little gain. I guarantee that you're not going to do
fabulously or get super rich like the super awesome day trader,
but I guarantee you that your total gain throughout the year will be
moderate (way higher than CDs and bonds), and if you could hold
long term (if market tanks for 2-5 more years) you'll never lose a
anything. It's safe, stress-free, and it's been working
out fabulously for me. Do the week trade with me guys.
\_ Now that I get the ticker on my Blackberry it's really easy to
watch the markets. Good advice here, though. Invest in whatever
way works for you, but invest. Especially now. You will regret
it if you don't. Most money is made in a bear market.
\_ How is your advice any different than your bog-standard "reversion
to mean" strategy? I think you've got a pretty high opinion
of yourself.
\_ I believe the super duper day trader dude last week has
a much much higher opinion of himself than anyone else,
including this risk averse week trader. |
| 2008/12/12 [Finance/Investment] UID:52242 Activity:nil |
12/12 Poor Japanese investor! 25 years and down 18%, excluding inflation.
How many more years until he can sell? ob should have bought American
stocks! he'd be up 6.8 times, or 8% per year cumulative! |
| 2008/12/12-17 [Finance/Investment] UID:52238 Activity:moderate |
12/12 $50B Ponzi scheme uncovered:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Madoff-alleged-50-billion-rb-13819411.html
\_ The Invisible Hand should take care of this.
\- "We are victims" --hedge fund people
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/business/13damage.html?em
This guys need to have an electrode planted in his brain
to fry him if he's ever caught pushing deregulation as the
solution to everything:
"Where were the auditors?" asked Bill Grayson, the
president of Falcon Point Capital, a hedge fund based in
San Francisco. "Where was his chief compliance officer?
Where was the S.E.C.?"
\_ I thought the whole point of hedge funds was maximum return
for maximum risk -- if it goes belly up, either through
fraud or for legitimate reasons, you're supposed to be
able to shrug it off because you're a rich fatcat with
tons of money to invest and lose.
\_ Dave Barry put it best: "If things go well, you take
a small profit. If things go badly, you take a
plane to Venezuela." -tom
\- i prefer "if you owe the bank $100, you have a
problem. if you owe the bank $1million, the bank
has a problem." --psb
\_ Rosalie Goes Shopping?
\_ Another waterboarding candidate:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/nyregion/14lawyer.html |
| 2008/12/12-17 [Finance/Investment] UID:52234 Activity:high |
12/12 Make sure you buy stocks today. You can thank me later. I am
looking at UYG and DIG, but you might have your own favorites.
Markets are overreacting to the auto bailout.
\_ 1% down? DOW is still above 8000 S&P above 800.
\_ I bought UYG at open for 4.79. It is 5.16 now.
DIG opened at 28.01 and is now at 28.82.
Both have traded higher than that already today, too. (UYG
as high as 5.30 and DIG as high as 29.61). That's 10% on
UYG and 6% on DIG in 2 hours. (I posted the advice pre-market.)
You are welcome.
P.S. It is now 9:37am PST and I am still holding these. I
think they have more room to run. Good luck with your 0%
Treasuries, Treasury Guy.
\_ You talking to me ASSHOLE??
Treasury guy sez: 80% in safety, 20% in whatever the hell
you want. *snort*
\_ making a call on one stock that's +1.14% for the day and
another that's -1.16% for the day, and claiming that's a
10% increase, is fairly silly.
\_ My silliness is buying me a new 52" LCD TV this
weekend. How's yours working out for you? UYG went
from 4.79 to 5.49. You need to track stocks from the
open, not from yesterday's close like the ticker does.
\_ next time I'm awake at 4:00 AM I'll be sure to
take your advice.
\_ You gotta be up with the market.
\_ Your advice was "make sure you buy stocks today", and
that "markets are overreacting to the auto bailout."
The DJIA is currently up 0.12%, which means that the
rationale for your advice was shit; the markets
aren't overreacting to anything. Neither of the stocks
you suggested have been remarkable performers on the
day. Congratulations on making money, if you really
did, but it's a lucky call, not a good one. -tom
\_ You don't follow the markets that closely, or you
would have known that Asia was down heavily last
night, as was S&P futures, supposedly on the news
that "the market is upset that the automakers were
not bailed out." And stocks were down at open.
\_ The markets did overreact. Overseas markets tanked
greatly and so did the premarket in the US. The
market looks like it's up 0.12% *NOW* which is after
I made my gains from the pre-market 8% down these
picks were at, dude. I acted on it, and you are
just a hater.
\_ Stop stomping my changes, schmuck. What he said,
basically.
\_ Woo, the Dow opened down about 1%, and went almost
to 2% down before rebounding to flat. Whiplash,
I tell you, whiplash! I will stop pointing out
the obvious, since you're clearly a brilliant
market analyst who regularly uses $100 bills as
toilet paper and only deigns to communicate
with us out of a feeling of benevolence towards
the masses. -tom
\_ I didn't tell you to buy the DOW. I gave
you picks that were down about 8-10%. I
hope you are having fun buying-and-holding,
though. How's that GOOG working out for you?
\_ Up 5.18% today, thanks. I must be
brilliant. You didn't tell me to buy the
Dow, but given that the Dow was basically
flat, your reasoning has no basis in
reality. -tom
\_ obviously op is saying you will make at least 5%. Just make sure
to tell us when to sell or how much percentage profit to take.
\_ That's for you to decide. I'm not giving away all of my secrets.
I will say I sold out of DIG already.
BTW, I am not doing this to brag as much as because someone
here was complaining that I only talked about trades post-facto.
So I gave you a cookie, posting the trade before the markets
even opened based on pre-market trading and what happened in
the international markets overnight.
\_ the problem is if you tell people to buy, they hold for a week
they're down -10% at some point and sell then and you just
they're down -10% at some point and sell, then you just
fucked someone. you should have said it was a daytrade imo.
\_ I think even if you bought UYG as an intermediate play
you will make money. Heck, buy it tomorrow and hold
and I bet you will make 10% on it easy if you are
willing to hold it and sell when it hits 6. That's why
I chose it to spoonfeed people with in case anyone
took my advice. It's both a good daytrade *and* a good
stock to hold for a week or four or fifty. I trade it
and I buy it to keep, which is what I do with a lot of
my trades. If I am not willing to own it then I won't
trade it.
\_ ok great, I think you do both yourself and the ppl you
intend to help a favor if you say, "buy uyg at 12/12
market open and sell during day, or hold up to a year
for possible 10% profit"
\_ I agree with the above poster, if you want to demonstrate
your daytrading prowess (which I am impressed with btw) you
need to call out when you sell as well as when you buy. What
are you worried about, that we will all trade with you and
move the market? I appreciate the info though, I was
the guy who asked you to tell us when you traded.
\_ Worried about giving away information for free that
some people pay a lot of money for. I think I've helped
CSUA enough for free already. The strategy for selling
is "Sell, when you are comfortable with the gain." My
comfort level and yours might be different. I have
made a lot of money recently and so I am more willing
to take some risks than someone trading with their
last $5K might be. I also have hedged some positions.
So it's not really important when *I* sell. You can
figure that part out for yourself. I think a 5-10% gain
in a day would've been a good target. Some of my picks
(like C) I am *still* holding even though they are up
big (and were up bigger).
\_ Are you actually getting paid to do this, or is this
"some people pay a lot of money for" all in your own
mind?
\_ No, I am not paid. My point is "Why exactly should I
help make you money?" What's in it for me? I'm
just trying to help people better understand the
market and convince people that the market is
the best place to make money. Not cash, not
treasuries, not bonds. Too much scared money
right now. If you want detailed advice subscribe to
a newsletter. If there's enough demand for my
advice maybe I'll start my own newsletter and
charge for it. But there's no reward in it for
me to publish all of my trades.
\_ We all contribute to the motd in our own way.
I was kind enough to warn people about the
housing bubble, for which I was widely ridiculed.
If you make enough money daytrading, you can set
up your own fund. My advice it to quite while you
are ahead, but enjoy your luck while it lasts.
\_ No luck involved in being long equities.
Luck is for shorts.
\_ This is relevant to my interests, but alas, I have no capital
whatsoever :( . --toulouse |
| 2008/12/11-16 [Finance/Investment] UID:52230 Activity:kinda low |
12/11 http://bailoutwine.com/site/how_it_works.asp \_ Cool I just bought a couple of bottles. I hope it turns out to be good and expensive wine. be both a good and an expensive wine. |
| 2008/12/8-12 [Finance/Investment] UID:52202 Activity:nil |
12/8 Today was such a good day on the market. I got one great sell
triggered from a limit I set last week. I love the stock
market. I love week trading. No stress whatsoever. By the way,
are you guys expecting the rally for a while? I'm actually a
bit of pessimistic. I'm buying a bunch when it drops another 10% |
| 2008/12/6-10 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52184 Activity:nil |
12/6 Interesting finance/business story:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_49/b4111040876189.htm |
| 2008/12/5-10 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52177 Activity:nil |
12/5 http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bank-Julius-Baer-CEO-dies-rb-13755979.html 52-year-old CEO of Switzerland's largest wealth mgmt fund kills self \_ "wealth management." Nice euphemism. |
| 2008/12/3-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:52156 Activity:nil |
12/3 Another chief investment strategist says bottom is IN!
UBS analyst says S&P may rally to 1,300 by end of 2009!
omfg I'm gonna be *RICH*!
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0pWrGKepx1g
http://www.rttnews.com/ArticleView.aspx?Id=792104
\_ Everytime I listen to some "expert" I get screwed. Lately,
I've been doing the opposite and have been doing marvolously.
Don't listen to the experts man. Do the opposite. -week trader
\_ I made 50% this week even with a slightly down day today.
Pretty easy when we keep bouncing off of the same lows in a
range. When financials tanked on Monday I doubled my
position in them (I had bought into Citibank last week). Life is
good. It will suck when the markets stabilize and I will have
to convince myself that a 12% up year was "good". I can make
that in a good day right now. Why wait for 2009? The worst
thing for the stock market is for it to stay flat, which
thing for the stock market is for it to stay flat, which I
is what I think will happen when things settle down after
the "big buy back in" that the scared money will do once almost
the "big back buy in" that the scared money will do once almost
all the big gains have already been made. "You make most of
your money in a bear market -- you just don't know it at the
time." I am now 88% in equities, holding 12% cash to buy on
more dips, although I have no problem trading out for a profit
and waiting for a lower re-entry point. I'm also waiting for
oil stocks to dip some more before going in there. Almost there,
but not quite yet. I think it will take some (negative) earnings
reports to scare the prices down more. People are still too
bullish on oil.
\_ You are just playing the roulette table now. Good to be
in the market though, your biggest risk is missing out
on a big week.
\_ Except this roulette table is guaranteed by the Fed.
Up another 6% today. It's good to have skeptics like
you, though. When everyone is bullish it will be time
to sell. |
| 2008/12/2-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:52146 Activity:nil |
12/2 http://www.cnbc.com/id/28010476 Chief market strategist says a "very very very strong rally" is coming, +25% to +40% starting ~ Dec 15, ending in July '09. GODDAMMIT I'm going to make BUX!!1 \_ Cool, free money machine! What could go wrong? I am dumping all of my savings into QQQQ right now. \_ ^QQQQ^GOOG \_ http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/2/102214/940/743/668445 The average bull market goes up 40% in its first year. \_ ...if you could predict the day it starts going up, which you can't. -tom |
| 2008/12/1-6 [Finance/Investment, Recreation/Media] UID:52137 Activity:nil |
12/1 Isn't Star Wars Guy going to give us a quote about today's market?
\_ no, one guy hated it more than lulz guy, so ... in any case, last
week was all about the torps having gone in and the death star folks
still flipping switches as if everything were okay. today:
The rumble of a distant explosion begins.
\_ Last week was weird because people (like me) were on vacation.
I heard the number of shares available for trade was low.
\_ Yes, Thanksgiving week is usually very light volume, so h0z3r5
can move prices easily. |
| 2008/11/26-29 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Finance/Investment] UID:52113 Activity:nil |
11/26 Government bailout represents 60% of GDP!
http://www.csua.org/u/n02 (http://www.sfgate.com
\_ Thanks Bush! |
| 2008/11/24-12/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:52094 Activity:nil |
11/23 Investors giving up on the market:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122748809906051937.html
\_ That's weird, I am doing alright doing week trade.
That's for spending only 5-10 min a night setting up limit
orders, and not looking at the ticker or even thinking about
it during the day. I could probably make more if I stare
at it during the day but that's over my stress limit and
will interfere with my real work. -week trader
\_ You have to remember that traders like you and I are not
'investors'. I will dump a stock the minute I make my 10% on
it. That's not really 'investing'.
\_ That's very very true |
| 2008/11/24-12/1 [Finance/Banking, Finance/CC, Finance/Investment] UID:52089 Activity:nil |
11/23 http://blog.mint.com/blog/finance-core/a-visual-guide-to-the-financial-crisis \_ bahahahaha most hilarious \_ Whatever happened to all the FREE MARKET IS BETTER vote for GWB drones on motd? |
| 2008/11/24-12/1 [Finance/Investment] UID:52086 Activity:nil |
11/22 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081124/bs_nm/us_citigroup_9 Citigroup gets $306B bailout. \- http://tinyurl.com/6fr67u \_ link:preview.tinyurl.com/57u4lo \_ hey econ whizzzzes, Citigroup is worth about 15 billion now. Why doesn't the Government just buy Citigroup completely? \_ What would they do with it afterwards? |
| 2008/11/22-12/1 [Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity, Finance/Investment] UID:52079 Activity:moderate |
11/22 Pension gap divides public and private workers:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-02-20-pensions-cover_x.htm
At what point do we Just Say No? Making more money *after*
retiring seems like an issue. I say this as someone with family
who retired from the military who makes more now than when active.
Ridiculous.
\_ Come back when you stay at your crappy public sector job for 20+
\_ have you ever served?
\_ Public sector do not get stock options, generally do not get
bonuses, they do not get 401k matching, they do not have ESPP
options [there are obscure exceptions], they dont have crazy
expense accounts, they get most of their income on W-2, so their
tax loopholes are limited [compared to say 1099 people]. Sure
there are lame public sector employees and there is fraud and
corruption, but it's silly to focus as a class on military or
say CALPERS pensions. Take a look at something like the finance
industry which actively conspires with its elites by structuring
compensation [moving income to cap gains], paying for what is
clearly private income as corporate expense [car leases, club
memberships, subsidized loans], helping individual incorporate etc.
[yes, i know there are some exception to the above]. You might
looking at how LLNL is doing under public vs private management
(when Bechtel took over, people were basically kicked out of
CALPERS) ... $280M in cost overrruns and the lab continues to
deteriorate. Note also: the quality of "public employee/govt
worker" is quie different at a UCB, the National Labs, or the SEC
vs say the Port of Oakland.
\_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Schedule
Can you honestly say that these employees are overpaid? I am
a mid-level manager in a Fortune 500 company and I make more
than the Undersecretary of the Navy. This is nuts. Low level
employees, like bus drivers and mechanics, are probably overpaid
in the civil service sector though. We need stronger unions in
the private sector, obviously.
\_ I think people are missing the point here, which is that we
are paying certain people more to *not* work than to work.
That makes absolutely no sense. So for 20 years of good work
\- are you against paid sick leave? how about
employer subsidized health care? how about
employeer subsidized health care? how about
dependent coverage ... i mean that's paying for
people who dont even work for you. the person
missing the point is you, and the point is
"net present value" (of benefits) in this case
[although really there are a few other points ...
risk and return, at will employment vs public sector
terms, and to some extent "the sanctity of contract".
\_ "net present value" is too effing high. Only in your
socialist utopia does someone make more money at
retirement than when working.
\- do you understand the difference between when
money is "made" and when it is "paid"?
the issue is *length of service* i.e. the
amount of time over which you are earning the
money, not the age/time you are collecting it.
there is nothing magically different between
your pension being 99% of your income and 101%.
there is a big difference between whether you
earned it after 20 yrs or 40 yrs or whether
you are gettign paid at age 55 or 65.
these people get 20-30-40 years of paychecks at, or for more
than, the wage they retired at?! That's a sure way to
bankruptcy. I am in private sector and I make more, but at
age 65 I will get jack shit and that's the way most of
industry is. Why should Uncle Sam do any different?
\_ Because those people took lower-paying jobs partly because
of the retirement benefits and job security. A simple
choice of how to run your business, if you're one of the
people who thinks government should run like a business
(it shouldn't). -tom
\_ The jobs are not really that much lower-paying. You
might have a point if they were all working for 50% of
market rates, but the reality is that government
workers are paid pretty well. We've already been over
that.
\_ we've "been over that", you mean, back when you
made ridiculous assertions that were flatly contradicted
by the data you were presenting? -tom
\_ You mean when I showed you that tree trimmers for
LA County were making $70K or something like
that? That workers in SF were routinely making
over $100K? That crazy sysadmin pulled down
something like $120K? The DWP workers pull down
big bucks? Please rely on the actual data
and not your faulty memory and perceptions.
Here's a good start: the link I just posted,
which no one bothered to read.
\_ Data points with no context are meaningless.
The link you just posted is a USA Today story
with an editorial slant and similarly
context-free numbers. -tom
\_ How about the UC article some other kind person
dug up? You are always rationalizing. Get your
head out of the sand and WAKE UP!
\_ The UC article doesn't say anything about
compensation relative to the private
industry. And I agree that people shouldn't
be able to retire and come back to work
full time at the same salary; in fact,
it's against UC policy to do so, and
the article says they're going to
crack down on the very small number of
cases where it has happened. -tom
\_ Those ES level government workers I gave you the wiki
link to are making 50% or less what they would make
for similary responsible jobs in the private sector.
\_ 20 years is an extreme exaggeration, except for the military
you don't retire after 20 years and even there you only make
50% of your active duty salary. You don't make your case
stronger by exaggeration, you just make yourself look
misinformed.
\_ Actual data: If I were to retire from UC at age 50,
with 24 years of service (I started working here at
age 26), I would get less than 30% of my final
salary. -tom
\_ Actual data: read the article
\_ Your confirmation bias is showing. -tom
\_ I'm the one who is biased? Check out how
your UC colleagues are doing.
\_ Did you read the article I posted?
\_ Yes, and it said nothing about retiring at 20 years.
You just made that part up.
\_ How long do you think a police chief worked
who retired at age 46? Certainly not 30 years.
WTF should someone 46 years old be retired and
making $125K/year for the rest of his life to
sit on his ass at taxpayer expense? He might
make more money not working than he did when
he worked over the course of his life. We
can't afford those excesses for civil servants. He
can collect when he's 65 like everyone else.
Getting full salary at that time would be more than
generous. I'd support him getting HALF his salary
at age 65. To get a raise when retiring at age 46
is beyond the pale. He should still be contributing
to society in some way at that young age and
not sitting on his ass cashing checks from the
public.
\_ Once again, you're using one anecdote from
an article with an editorial slant and
with no context, and suggesting that the
issue is meaningful and widespread. It's
not. Aren't you suspicious when the article
says it will "boost his retirement benefit to
*as much as* $125,000 a year"? Why the
qualifier? [Here's why--they're not telling
you the whole story.] You'll believe what
you want to believe, go ahead, but you really
are demonstrating complete cluelessness here.
-tom
\_ http://fireflystudio.com/acton/circle/index.html
"Bill Fenniman retired in January 2007 after 27
years in law enforcement, the last 17 as Chief
of Police in the City of Dover NH." 35% more
than your claim of 20 years, it turns out.
And it turns out that he is contributing.
I hope to retire at 50 on my 401k and savings,
who are you to tell me I can't? I will probably
contribute to society in some way afterward,
but that is my business, isn't it?
\_ 401k and savings is your money. Do as you
wish with it. Not the same as getting
free checks for life starting at age 46.
\_ A worker's pension belongs to that
worker just as much as his 401k does.
-tom
\_ Of course. And how many employers
are contributing enough money to
their 401k plans such that you are
guaranteed to maintain your full-time
salary after you retire? Not many.
The government is paying A LOT more
than market for this. I've been
in the workforce 13 years and
there's barely 1 year worth of
my current salary in my 401k and that
counts my money plus my employer's
very generous 8.5% contribution.
(Most 401ks match a lot less than
this.) I read that the average
employee has about $100K in his 401k.
This dude is getting that each year
guaranteed forever starting at age 46.
As a taxpayer, I feel ripped off.
BTW, EBRI says that the average 401k
balance of someone in their 60s with
30 years of tenure is $190,593.
link:tinyurl.com/2a8a35
\_ If you don't understand why you
can't compare 401k balances
directly with pensions, it's not
worth wasting any more time on
you. -tom
\_ You can't compare directly,
but you can compare.
\_ So you took the gamble of a private
sector job with higher pay and
lower benefits, it hasn't worked out
that well for you, and now you are
upset that others who took the
safer route are doing better? What
a piece of work you are! What is
the value of 15k + 7k employer
is the value of 15k + 7k employer
match invested yearly for 27 years
at a 10% (average stock market)
gain? Here, I will make it really
easy for your: $2.8M. I bet you want
to privatize social security, too.
Am I right?
\_ Most people "take the gamble"
of a private sector job
with roughly THE SAME pay
as the government and end
up worse for it. Another
way of stating this is that
the average person in the
private sector is receiving
less compensation than the
average person in the
public sector. You cannot
count the $15K, because that's
my own money and you should
be aware that $7K is hardly
the average. So your $2.8M
number is bogus. Yes, I do
want to privatize SS, but
that's neither here nor there.
\_ you keep asserting that
public sector employees
are compensated more, but
asserting it over and over
doesn't make it true. -tom
\_ You are full of it. I showed
you the BLS stats that proved
that private and public
sector pay, including benefits
was similar, but you ignored
it.
\_ Stop stomping my edits. As I
was saying, I showed you the BLS
data that public and private
sector workers are paid similary
including benefits and you
ignored it.
\_ http://tinyurl.com/5klnuo
CA says it pays lower
than other public
sector employees and
yet even its salaries
are comparable (and
sometimes even lead) the
private sector.
Salaries, not total
compensation.
\_ ...when you compare the
state maximum to the
private sector median.
\_ Did you read why
the State did that?
\_ yes. the
justification is
ridiculous. -tom
\_ That is not how I read
Table 4. All above average
private sector paying jobs\
pay lower than market rate
when working for The
State (and most below
average paying jobs are
higher, why might that be
do you think?) Managerial
jobs are particularly low
paying.
\_ Sure, and how many
Americans are CFOs
and MDs?
\_ And programmers and
accountants, and
engineers and
nurses and ...
\_ Why don't they just work
for the government then,
if they pay is the same
and the benefits higher?
\_ Most people, like MOTD,
are laboring under the
impression that those
jobs pay less.
\_ you think that
"most people" are
incapable of
reading job
postings which list
job descriptions and
salary ranges? -tom
\_ Contract law only applies to private
sector employees? |
| 2008/11/21-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:52073 Activity:nil |
11/21 E*Trade survival depends on TARP funding. Larger brokerages reluctant
to acquire company because of its MBS/CDO liabilities (would rather
acquire brokerage side only via bankruptcy).
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE4AK6NM20081121?sp=true
\_ If my online tradng account is with ETrade, how will this
affect me? Should I transfer ASAP? Any recommendations?
I make ~10-20 trades a year at most.
\_ your immediate concern is articles like this leading to a
stampede for the door and contributing to a chaotic closure.
What do I think? I would close my account today and not take
no for an answer. The second this appears as a lead story on
http://CNN.com you may be in for a very long wait on the phone. -op
\_ You are covered for up to $1/2M by the Federal Govt, so if you
have less than this, your biggest inconvenience might be having
to wait a few months while your claim is processed. If you have
more than this, you should move some to another brokerage.
\_ My wife was in the Reserve Primary Fund in her 401(k), they've
gotten back 75%, but it's a waiting game while they try to
extract funds from the govt and figure out how to liquidate.
*Your* nightmare is if your stock portfolio is frozen, the
markets are crashing around you, and you can't do shit. All
that SIPC covers is return of stock, not value of stock when
a brokerage goes boom. Cash should be safe, though, up to
the insured amount. -op
\_ Not a nightmare if you are a buy and hold investor. But
if you want to be able to trade in and out of the market,
this could be problematic.
\_ Thanks. Any recommendation where to move to for online trading?
I only keep $50-$100k for a situation like this. Most of my
money I have with my brick and mortar bank and the financial
services compnay which manager our defined contribution retirement
plan. But I do want access to a way to trade online with low fees.
\_ People seem to like Scottrade, though if you are into daytrading
you can use http://thinkorswim.com like angry sysadmin.
\_ fyi, this showed up on drudge just now, not highlighted though |
| 2008/11/20-27 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:52054 Activity:nil |
11/19 Remember the 100-age investment rule we learned in grade school?
For example, if you're 65, you should put at least 100-65=35% of
your savings in stocks. Let's say I'm retiring at 65 today, then
effectively I'd have 1/2 of that much than say, 2004-2005, or
35%/2. I've lost nearly 17.5% of my savings because I retired at
the wrong time. Buy and hold works well when the market is stable
(post 1940 and pre 2008). In the end, do you think the 100-age
rule is still applicable in the turbulent market of the 21st century?
\_ The average return you get is directly related to the amount of
risk you take on. Come back when you've groked that concept. -tom
\_ Hell. My 401(k) balance went from $200k a year ago to $120k today.
YetI still think stocks is the way to go.
Yet I still think stocks is the way to go if you don't need the
money in a short time. I've never heard of that investment rule
since I didn't attend grade school in this country, but I guess its
idea is that you don't need all your money today even if you retire
today.
\_ We are in basically the same boat here.
\_ I think you should be about 75% in equities (25% in bonds)
throughout. I don't plan to change that mix just because I'm
60, although I might cash out to buy some property once I can
do so without any penalties.
\_ No. Even at a relatively young age (under 35), you should be
invested >= 50% into safety (CDs and Treasuries). I think this is
particularly true for those earning the median or less where they
live. For those earning more, you can afford to risk more.
particularly true for those earning the median or less for where
they live. For those earning more, you can afford to risk more.
\_ You are on crack if you put >50% of your retirement into CDs at
age 35. You might not even beat inflation. |
| 2008/11/19-25 [Finance/Investment] UID:52050 Activity:moderate |
11/19 http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/664-Ben-Steins-Idiocy.html Angry sysadmin's comments today are pretty good, and extend beyond Ben Stein's idiocy. What he really needs to do is nail Krugman. \_ You need to find yourself a new hero. \_ can you point out what's wrong with his position? \_ besides the complete lack of data backing his own position, and the logical fallacies present in virtually every paragraph? -tom \_ click on November 18. Ignore any discussion of technical indicators--they are not necessary to support his position. \_ click on November 18. Ignore any technical analysis--it isn't necessary to support his position. Yes, I try to ignore the hand-wavy statements. ignore the hand-wavy claims. \_ He is mostly wrong here, too, the credit markets have in fact mostly unfrozen, which you can see by looking at the LIBOR rates. He is just looking at recessionary indicators here. \_ Corporate bond yields. Commercial paper. Securitization market. CDS spreads on BRK. here's a Reuters article saying the "credit markets are still frozen": http://tinyurl.com/5snj6q consensus (which may be wrong) is that credit markets are "thawing" \_ Risk is just being priced appropriately, with a major recession looming. Money is there to be borrowed, the interest rates are just high. \_ what is it called when market rates are so high that the seller of debt can't afford the rate, and therefore doesn't want to sell bonds? and therefore doesn't sell the bonds? consensus is also that central banks are the only entities lending right now (in volume). \_ What do I call it? A return to rationality in lending. Okay, yield spreads are higher than I realized, but plenty of bonds are being issued: http://tinyurl.com/5by2g8 (Reuters) in lending. Non-junk bond yeild spreads are not unusually high. Billions of dollars of commercial paper are being rolled every day, so your "consensus" (which is not what I have seen in places like the WSJ and The Economist) is wrong. \_ "growing signs of a thaw" != "in fact mostly unfrozen" \_ fair enough \_ Recession looming? We're in it. We just haven't made it official yet. \_ Yes, he is a moron with no understanding of economics. We do in fact need inflationary government deficit spending, so as to avoid a deflationary collapse. Pretty much every economist agrees at this point, outside of the Austrian school nutters. \_ I think the misunderstanding here is that deficit spending is not necessarily exclusive of the transparency he is not necessarily exclusive of the transparency/reform he proposes. \_ In this post at least, he mostly claimed that stimulative government spending would lead to hyperinflation, which is plainly wrong. He has some points, but they get lost in the big mistake he makes where he presents the false dilemma of deflation vs. hyperinflation. \_ a huge weakness is he does not forecast an inflection point. sure, we spend like Yermom, but when is it when foreign purchasers decide U.S. Treasuries are not a good bet? This could theoretically last 20 more years or forever for that matter. -op \_ Well, since long term Treasury rates are under 4%, we must be a long way from saturating the demand for US backed bonds, don't you think? \_ the uncertainty here is exactly my point. there is the rumor that the Fed is buying long-term T's to reduce the rate, but I'd consider that tinfoil for now. -op \_ You understand how unlikely that is, right? That would reduce the money supply, which is the exact opposite of what The Fed is trying to do right now. \_ can you please stop repeating what I'm saying back to me and sounding like you made a point? it's irritating. \_ I can agree that transparency would be good, but I don't think he has any data which show that lack of transparency is the root cause of the market problems as he claims. -tom \_ okay, step by step. shadow banking system. SIVs. securitization. major effect on the global market? yes/no. take all the data you know yourself--let's not confine it to this one blog post. \_ Wake me up when he starts talking about ameros. \_ ameros are truly tinfoil -op |
| 2008/11/17 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:52014 Activity:nil 72%like:51977 |
11/14 http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/11/worst-economic.html PSOTO thinks we're all gonna die. \_ lulz lulz lulz lulz lulz lulz lulz lulz \_ does this sequence converge? \_ That's a pretty terrifying chart \_ "worst downturn since the Great Depression" - duh? we're all gonna die / mad max? I don't see that. |
| 2008/11/14-26 [Finance/Investment] UID:51983 Activity:low |
11/14 Interesting stock trader psychology I noticed today. The markets
were mixed and I was pulling for a huge $$$ day (as opposed to the
so-so one I ended up with) but when it became clear that was not
going to happen and the rally died then everyone just stopped
buying, which led to the bloodbath at the close. If you just
looked at the open and close you would think there was a crazy
sell-off, but the reality is that most of the eventual losses were
over the last 10-15 minutes when the bulls decided to call it a week
and the shorts continued to sell. Given that I expect a rally on
next week at some point, because "it was not as bad as it looked".
That plus the G20 meeting over the weekend. Even though my positions
are still positive (and I usually sell at the end of every day) I will
hold them overnight. No point selling into the hands of the shorts
and I'm still green on the day even after the sell off.
\_ I enjoy reading your motd posts about day trading. Do you do this
as a full time job? Or do you have your brokerage account web
site open at work at all times? I don't have the world's most
demanding job, but I would go insane doing my work and managing
my account all day like you do.
\_ All you have to do is watch a handful of stocks on a ticker.
It's not much time at all. I get up before the markets open
and see what's up. Then I go about my regular business until
8am or so when I check again. Between then and lunch I just
glance at the ticker every few minutes and then at lunch
time I really watch intently for a time to get out (if I
haven't already and still have a position open).
\_ Most day traders end up losing their shorts.
\_ This can't be true, because for most of history the market
has risen. A rising market erases a lot of mistakes. It's more
challenging now than it typically is. If the market is up then
you will be up even if your buy and sell signals are goofed
and if the market is down then you will be down no matter
what you do.
\_ No, it is true. Volatility + leverage + frequent trading
by an amature leads to most of the money ending up in the
hands of the pros, over time. I can show you how this works,
but I think you can figure it out for yourself pretty
easily. If you have real talent at this, you should try
to get a job with a brokerage and use OPM. But they aren't
really hiring right now.
\_ 1. No one said you need to use leverage. I think it
would be foolish to even for buy-and-hold. I don't.
2. You have a point that transaction fees can eat up
profits, but I don't pay any and "Lower profit because
of fees and taxes" is not the same as "losing your
shirt". It's just less profit (all else being
equal) - during a rising market, of course.
\_ How do you avoid commissions again?
\_ Maintain a certain balance in my account
\_ All right, both you guys put forth excellent reasons.
Is there any data?
\_ Yes, but nothing really great and it is contradictory.
Part of the problem is defining what a "day trader" is.
There are many strategies that involve buying and selling
on the same day and many studies are not careful about
differentiating. Someone making money on spreads and
trading 400 times per day is doing something very different
from a person range trading, for instance. Leverage plays
a big part in it, too, because you can be wiped out very
quickly if you buy $100K of stock with just $25K in your
account if it goes against you. That's why I don't use
leverage, although I do use margin for legal reasons. |
| 2008/11/14-26 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:51977 Activity:low 72%like:51974 72%like:52014 |
11/14 lulz http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/11/worst-economic.html BDELONG thinks we're all gonna die. \_ lulz lulz lulz lulz lulz lulz lulz lulz \_ does this sequence converge? \_ That's a pretty terrifying chart \_ "worst downturn since the Great Depression" - duh? we're all gonna die / mad max? I don't see that. |
| 2008/11/14 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:51974 Activity:nil 72%like:51977 |
11/14 http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/11/worst-economic.html BDELONG thinks we're all gonna die. "lulz" |
| 2008/11/12-26 [Computer/Companies/Google, Finance/Investment] UID:51948 Activity:low |
11/12 Intel warns. Q4 revenue forecast down 10%. At 1996 levels.
GOOG afterhours at 285. Time to buy?
\_ I think GOOG is a buy under $300 and I bought. --GOOG h8ter
\_ how long are you holding for? will you buy more if it gets
cheaper?
\_ I'll hold until I need the money, however long that
is. I'll buy more if it continues to fall as long as nothing
significant changes with GOOG's business (like a strong new
competitor developing). I'd reconsider buying more shares if
it falls below $200, but I wouldn't sell what I own.
\_ tnx. i am also trying to figure out when to buy in.
\_ Yesterday was a good time. I made 25% today by
buying a favorite daytrading stock near the low and
selling just before close. I wonder who the morons
are who are selling low and buying high?
\_ Please post on the motd when you make your trades,
not the next day. TIA.
\_ GOOG is still low even after today. Buy tomorrow
if it opens the same or down. The philosophy
is simple: Buy low, sell high. I have made a
lot of money the last ~6 weeks using this
simple idea. When strong stocks break 52 week
lows then by all means BUY. A lot of the pain
of the market is behind us. Many stocks are down
50% on the year. They aren't going to fall
another 50% IMO. Only the kooky DOW 5000
people think that and you know what, even if
they are right, I will be there on that DOW
5000 day buying. I am holding very few
positions long and overnight, although GOOG
is one of them. |
| 2008/11/12-13 [Finance/Investment] UID:51939 Activity:nil |
11/12 angry lol poker guy says wall street is doomed
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfoli
o/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?print=true
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5vj34l |
| 2008/11/12-13 [Finance/Investment] UID:51933 Activity:nil |
11/12 I am renaming myself Dow 7000 Guy
\_ Optimist
\_ Should I Move To Emerging Market Country Guy?
\_ between the 2x bush elections and prop8 passing and the
dow tanking you'd think there'd be nobody living in
the BA, but i guess that moving talk is just.. talk. |
| 2008/11/11-26 [Finance/Investment] UID:51902 Activity:nil |
11/10 As an employee of a company, I'm prohibited to short my own
company's stock. I'm also prohibited to trade during blackout
period. But am I prohibited to day trade my own company's
stock during open period? Thanks for any help!
\_ If you were prohibited during open period, why have a blackout
period at all?
\_ You are always prohibited from trading stock if you have
material insider information, but otherwise, you should be
allowed to trade in your own companies stock during open
trading periods. Why not ask your company instead of the motd?
\_ Vader's wingman panics at the sight of the oncoming pirate starship
and veers radically to one side, colliding with Vader's TIE fighter
(MMIFF delayed) |
| 2008/11/10-26 [Health/Disease/AIDS, Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:51901 Activity:nil |
11/10 lolz when your 401k is gone, heroin will look pretty attractive
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/drg23.htm
\_ Hardly, that crap's expensive! Now, crank maybe...
\_ shooting heroin leaves you VERY constipated. seriously.
sometimes when i shoot junk i don't have to shit for 2 weeks. |
| 2008/11/10-26 [Finance/Investment] UID:51896 Activity:nil |
11/10 What is the difference between QQQQ and SPY? How should I decide
which one to buy?
\_ punch them into yahoo finance, click on Profile
\_ I trade QQQQ all the time, betting that it's going nowhere but
will have a lot of mini waves (up down 5-7% in a week), and I've
been riding on QQQQ and doing well based on this guess. I've been
monitoring SPY and see that both waves are so similar, that
it's most likely not worth trading both. DIA on the other
hand is like QQQQ, but more gentle mini-waves. I also do DIA.
I've been doing VERY conservative week trades. -week trader
\_ If that's your belief, look at butterfly spreads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Options_strategy
\_ Can you post to the motd each time you trade? TIA.
\_ Check out QLD. It basically follows QQQQ, but the returns are
~2x QQQQ (up or down).
\_ Leverage, leverage, leverage! What could possibly go wrong? |
| 2008/11/5 [Finance/Investment] UID:51843 Activity:high |
11/5 When Bush talks, stock prices go down. That is a perfect time
to buy more stocks. I've been doing pretty well with this
simple yet effective strategy. -week trader
\_ DEATH STAR INTERCOM VOICE: Commence primary ignition. |
| 2008/11/4 [Finance/Investment] UID:51830 Activity:nil |
11/4 What is KFC's stock symbol? How do I buy it BEFORE tomorrow's
market opens (e.g. how do I do off-hour trading)?
\_ It's awesome how quickly you went from annoying to
just plain pathetic. Have a great 4 years! |
| 2008/11/4 [Finance/Investment] UID:51813 Activity:nil |
11/4 It's time for CHANGE!!! Watch the stock market swing wildly in
either direction. Good luck guys. -super hedge guy
\_ A large burst of Vader's laserfire engulfs Artoo. The arms go limp
limp on the smoking little droid as he makes a high-pitched sound. |
| 2008/10/30 [Finance/Investment] UID:51734 Activity:nil |
10/29 Dear motd Republicans: you're about to lose. You should take some
time and look in the mirror. The majority wants change. Look in
the mirror, and think why your ideology is dated, and what you
need to change. Better luck next time!
\_ Congratulations on getting more than 50.1% of the popular vote
for the first time since 1964. Even a broken clock is right
twice a day.
\_ The Republicans had to preside over a stock market crash,
dragged-out war, and nominate a 70-year old geezer with an
airhead sidekick to get to this point, and it's still in
doubt.
\_ LOL |
| 2008/10/29 [Finance/Investment] UID:51728 Activity:high 80%like:51723 |
10/29 wtf is going on with the last 5 minutes of trading?
\_ automatic trading?
\_ do you mean:
(a) lots of market-close orders
(b) i've got a lot of shorts that need to be worth something
\_ no idea
\_ as i understand it GE just warned on earnings -op
\_ Not true. DOW reported it, but it's a fabrication.
\_ the ceo said something wishy-washy at a speech and
the company said it was "taken out of context"
\_ I dunno but I sold some stuff in the afternoon high point
so I'm happy.
\_ Did you buy puts like I told you?
\_ have you heard of the VIX/volatility crush
\_ You mean the high premiums on options right now because
of the high VIX? If so, yes. If not, do tell.
\_ So you should be selling calls, not buying puts. |
| 2008/10/29 [Finance/Investment] UID:51718 Activity:high |
10/28 Angry sysadmin says:
"Buy and hold for decades" is the most dangerous piece of shit advice
anyone can give anyone. You have no fucking idea where the market will
be when you need the money. Buy and hold for decades presumes you will
be in one of the "up cycles" when you need out.
This is frequently not true, and when its not true you get it in both
holes. That is an ASININE market strategy. If the last 20 years have
taught you ANYTHING, its this.
\_ You should put money into stocks when you do NOT need the money
immediately. Long term means 20 or more years, and if you need
money or anticipate the money you put into stock market, don't.
Why would you anyways?
\_ Who gave you such an advice? The standard advice for 401(k) is
to gradually move from high-risk high-yield items (e.g. tech stock)
to low-risk low-yield items (e.g. CD) as you approach retirement
age. There are even funds that automatically does this for you
according to your age and projected retirement age.
\_ http://www.denninger.net/resume.html
\_ Do you want resume of timecube guy
\_ Now we know why he is so angry, he lost all his money in the stock
market.
\_ actually ...
\_ I am guessing this guy got crushed in 2001, he has it written
all over his face.
\_ actually ...
\_ VTIVX baby! Ride it for the next 30 years... |
| 2008/10/28-31 [Finance/Investment] UID:51713 Activity:low |
10/28 Biggest DJIA up days (ob past history does not guarantee future reslts)
1. March 15, 1933 15.34%
2. Oct. 6, 1931 14.87%
3. Oct. 30, 1929 12.34%
4. Sept. 21, 1932 11.36%
5. Oct. 13, 2008 11.08% <--
6. Oct. 28, 2008 10.88% <--
7. Oct. 21, 1987 10.15%
8. Aug. 3, 1932 9.52%
9. Feb. 11, 1932 9.47%
10. Nov. 14, 1929 9.36%
11. Dec. 18, 1931 9.35%
\_ Interesting, where did you get this data? I'd like to find out
how much they declined (or even rise) the next day. My feeling
is that most of the activities will be profit taking.
\_ http://tinyurl.com/682ytf
\_ Also interesting is where they went the previous day. The
stock market recently looks like a rubber ball, bouncing up
after selloffs pass a certain threshold. Then it all gets
sold off again at the next excuse. It *seems* like at some
point it should start trending up again. A lot of cash was
pulled out of the market and is apparently itching to get
back in.
\_ that's funny. my impression is that there's a lot of money
still in the market waiting to get out at higher prices.
\_ Well, you can say that about all the money in the market,
ultimately.
ultimately. If these guys are waiting to get out then
they must implicitly think that current values are ok
and stocks will go up. If they have some better place
place to put their money then they should get out now
and put it there.
and put it there. So those signs point to current
valuations being at some approximate floor.
\_ they must be thinking, "I have so much money in the
market, I can't sell it all at once. Hope I can sell
it over time at decent prices before things really go
in the crapper." Not counting pension funds.
\_ That would imply they think the market will first
go up significantly, then go down even more
significantly. That's kind of an odd scenario.
\_ but it would be the best scenario for me if I were
stuck and wanted out at good prices
\_ an ideal scenario if I were in that position
\_ I am sure the market is going to up or down and
then move the other way and then turn around and
do something else for a while.
\_ No you idiot, it is going to do the exact
opposite.
\_ Note that 30s and 87 were really ROUGH financial times.
\_ and we have FDIC-backed deposits. '87 was a one-time affair. -op
\_ If you had invested on Day #1, you would have doubled your money
in three months and tripled it in a year.
\_ super
\_ If you had invested on Day #2, you would have been down
60% within nine months.
\_ :-( |
| 2008/10/28-29 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:51712 Activity:nil |
10/28 http://tinyurl.com/6l3kpr (wsj.com) http://tinyurl.com/364bdv (boston.com) Oldies but goodies, Greenspan sez: - More H-1Bs -> Buy more overpriced homes -> Home prices stabilize -> Overpaid engineers/professionals make less -> PROFIT! |
| 2008/10/28-30 [Finance/Investment] UID:51702 Activity:nil |
10/28 Dow up 10% today. This is not healthy.
\_ now that we are healthy again Obama can tax us all
\_ You aren't taxed? How did you pull that off?
\_ No indeed. Volatility is bad.
\_ Stop whining and make some money like the rest of us. Now is a
good time to buy puts, because Thursday's GDP report has a good
chance of sending the markets back down.
\_ thanks for your advice. What stocks/indices are your personal
favorites and what do you think may go down by (5%? 10%)?
Note that I'm asking for YOUR opinion that's all.
\_ I'd buy puts on the DOW. DOW is heavy financials which
are not out of the woods yets.
\- if you were investing today, you have have implicily
(or explicitly) been betting on what the fed will do
tomorrow. |
| 2008/10/27-31 [Finance/Investment] UID:51697 Activity:nil |
10/27 In housing markets, why is high prices associated with high number of
transactions, and low prices associated with low number of
transactions? From my simplistic view using supply and demand curves,
the prices and the number of transactions should be independent. Thx.
\_ Doesn't that indicate that more people buy houses as investments,
rather than as a place to live in? Sad sad world.
\_ Gee, "supply and demand curves" are not as gospel as the little
Invisible Hand is Everything brains believe. Here's a hint, simple
rules for complex systems are never right.
\_ simple rules often are correct for statics or equillibrium
conditions, e.g. conservations rules, but often you are
interested in dynamics or out of equillbirum situations.
analogous to the great conservation rules in physics are the
"great" accounting identities in econ.
"great" accounting identities in econ. the simp;est explanation
of higher prices being postiives correlated with higher
transactions is liqudiy preference, but there are some
subtler issues that are difficult to summarize here. it involves
modeling some asymmetries between the buyers and sellers,
modelling the growth of the housing stock in an area and the
change in demand in that area etc.
\_ The economy is *not* an equilibrium system, despite
what traditional econ teaches you (and then attempts
to un-teach you at the graduate level). Check out
"The Origin of Wealth" for a good overview.
\- yes, and the same is true of "real world physics". but
the point is that you first learn simple normative stuff
[PV=nRT, F=ma, GDP=C+I+X-M], and than add increasingly
complicated boundary conditions and complicating factors.
these simple rules are often quite powerful when thinking
about problems, e.g. the parition of energy, energy
conservation etc. it cant answer all questions ... like
the positive effect on trade vs loss of purchasing power
when your currency goes down, but it's a necessary starting
point. BTW, you want wish to see the "new growth theory"
whichs seems to try an account for some of the stuff
in the book you mention. the "king" of new growth theory
is PROMER, formerly of ucb dept econ, currently at the
'Fraud, not related to DROMER and CROMER currently still
at UCB Econ. (whoa, according to wikipedia PROMER is the
son of RROMER. "i did not know that.").
\_ Agreed, but at least in Physics the simplifying
assumptions and abstractions allow you to make
predictions which are still borne out when you
introduce complicating factors. The issue with
the assumptions made in traditional econ is that
they often don't hold up in the real world. Thanks
for the pointers, btw.
\- there are some areas where "economics" most
definitey is in equillibirum: cross-currency
arbitrage for example. now you are right, long
term currency rates are uncertain. and yes that is
why in advanced econ classes you study stuff like
dornbusch overshooting, CIP, UIP, PPP etc. and
the other thing is some of these "simple normaitve
statements" do lauch research agendas, like the
efficient markets hypothesis ... you dont have to
believe in that has a description of the mkt but it
is a starting point just like "rational economic
man" is a point of departure from normative to
behavioral economics. OK TNX. |
| 2008/10/24-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:51668 Activity:nil |
10/24 Week trade guy, what brokerage do you use? I'm curious about how
you are trading indexes.
\_ I'm using Etrade. It's very expensive, at $10 a trade. But
since my volume is super low, it's not a big deal. Also I
have Etrade bank at 3.3% interest rate and that's where my
paycheck goes. I only trade 2 things right now: DIA and QQQQ.
I make it VERY SIMPLE and only use limit orders. If it goes down
10-15% more, limit trigger buys more. If it go up 10-15%,
trigger sell and I simply wait till the next market panic. At one
time
I only have 4 limit orders to worry about: sell DIA/QQQQ if high,
buy more DIA/QQQQ if low. My life is very carefree. I don't run
all that number crunching bullshit. It's meaningless in a recession
where anything goes. KEEP IT SIMPLE and your life will be
carefree... My typical day is just 5 min research, adjust limit,
then go to sleep. I go to work without having to stare at the stock
market ticker. It's been carefree and profitable. I like week
trading.
\_ Is it possible to trade VIX? |
| 2008/10/23-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:51661 Activity:kinda low |
10/23 So, day trader guy, what's your method? What are you trading?
\_ BIGGS: (over headset) Hurry up, Luke!
\_ I'm doing week trade. I trade index like DIA and QQQQ, which
don't have as big of a movement. I set my expectations to be
low (5-8% up down). I set limit (if up, sell 1/2, if down,
buy more). I don't like day trade anymore, it's too stressful.
Week trade is the way to go.
\_ This sounds like the old coin-flip double-down strategy.
If the index trends downward, won't you lose money this
way? Or, actually you'll end up with all your money in
the index, which I guess will eventually go back up if you
wait long enough... -op
\_ You'll never time it perfectly. You'll always miss
opportunities. The hardest thing is getting in at the
right time. When people panic and all is gloom, that's
when I go in. By doing so, I don't make big bucks, but
I don't lose much either. By the way, I only use this
strategy when I anticipate the market to be flat
(recession), where you can ride a lot of micro-waves.
\_ Interesting, when things are up you just buy and hold?
That's actually pretty reasonable... How long have you
been doing this?
\_ Been doing it this year, with anticipation of a long
recession. My dad did the same thing in the housing
slump and recession of the 90s (1994-1998). You can't
do this when the economy is booming/rising... only
when it's slumping and flat. When everyone panics,
that's a good time to buy. Look at 911 and the stock
prices during that time. Note that there are some
index that I bought that are higher than it is now, and
I'm just holding them on till the next boom, maybe
in 5-8 years. The key is to not tie a lot of money
that you'll need, and instead break it up into a bunch
of chunks and *ladder* it so that you'll always have
an in/out flow of capitals. And also expect to not see
1/2 of that money till the next boom. You'll make it
really well, it's just a matter of time (1-2 decades).
way? -op
\_ I'm a different guy, but I was trading MS until recently. Still
am sometimes. Been doing WFT, but it has been scarier and I'm
rethinking that. Also sometimes GS and GE. GE is not a great trade,
but the advantage is that if you get stuck it will usually work its
way back and it's not a terrible stock to own if you become a
bagholder. Trade stocks you wouldn't mind buying and holding.
(Except MS, which is purely speculative on my part, I do.) My
method involves buying in on weakness and selling high. Duh. Find a
stock with a lot of volatility (just about everything right now), a
decent volume, and a recent history of wide swings in *both*
directions. (Don't buy something just working its way down except
to short.) I adjust my stops so that I never lose more than my goal
(usually 10% but in this volatile market, even 10% stops me out
too early sometimes). I try not to hold overnight. Occasionally I
do. It's a good way to: 1) Get screwed, or 2) Score a big gain, and
3) Die young of heart failure. Another rule: Never trade in the
first hour the market opens unless you are liquidating an overnight
position. I use a lot of technical indicator mumbo jumbo, but I
find it relatively useless in this market. Just buy low, sell high.
If the trade turns against you sell for a loss and live to fight
another day, but don't sell too early. Set your stops so that
the stock has room to wiggle. Sell short *and* long to make money
both ways. Buy options for leverage. I tend to do this more for
short plays, because options have a fixed downside compared to a
short sale, margin is a bitch, and lots of stocks have had short
restrictions lately (if you can find shares to short!) Also, be
keenly aware of the federal regulations involving day trading (e.g.
settled money, minimum balances, buying power). I learned a lot of
these the hard way. Profits have been down this week but I am
still green for the week and overall. The market tends to move
*very* quickly when it does move and my biggest failing over
the week has been being away from my computer during the day's
high/low and not having a sell order in place because I wanted
to "let it run" and it runs against me in a matter of minutes.
This is why I've had small gains when I could have had large ones.
Example: Stock opens at 14. Buy stock at 13.50. Stock drops to
12.50 (still not 10%). Keep holding. Stock moves to 14.50. Adjust
Example: Stock opens at 14. Buy stock at 13. Stock drops to 12
(still not 10% from 13). Keep holding. Stock moves to 14.50. Adjust
bottom stop all the way to, say 14, but don't have a limit sell in
because I want to see if it hits 15 and "I can always sell on the
way down". Go make coffee (or something) secure that my profit is
"locked in" (it's not going to fall .50 in 15 minutes and I
have a sell in at 14). Get back and see that it's trading at
have a stop sell in at 14). Get back and see that it's trading at
14.30. Shit. Okay. Just sell. Type type type. Order in. Buy the
time it executes stock is at 14.20. Take small(er) profit and be
thankful. Stock closes at 14 again. Realize that SOB stock
actually went all the way to 14.70 while I was away. Curse
fricking $500 cup of coffee. This has happened more than once
and I need to pay more careful attention. Daytrading is
sometimes all about a few moments in a long trading day.
\_ Where do you read about the federal rules? I understand there
is a 3-day settlement period on trades (ie, the money from
is not available for buying for 3 days) , but trading on
margin takes care of this?
\_ Yes, you pretty much need a margin account or else you
need to trade less frequently or with a smaller % of your
capital. This is because of Reg T (free ride). You will
also need a $25K minimum balance and be aware that buying
power for daytrading is 4x but if you hold overnight it
is only 2x. Calculating exactly how much $$$ you can
trade with without a call cqn be nasty. Your broker can
help you and I understand some online brokerages do this
math for you but mine doesn't.
\_ You are daytrading on margin?? Please post to the motd
the day you go broke, which will probably be sooner
rather than later.
\_ You pretty much *have* to daytrade on margin, brainiac.
This is because of the regulations mentioned above.
However, it doesn't mean what you think it does.
Trading on margin doesn't necessarily mean I:
1) Trade more than the cash value of my account, or
2) Pay interest.
For example, let us say I have $100K in my account.
I buy stock XYZ for $40K. I sell it later that
day for $60K. Then I buy ABC for $40K and sell it
for $60K the same day. Using a cash account I can
only execute one more trade that day (for $20K) and
indeed for the next 3 days until settlement even
though I made $40K because you have to use settled
funds to trade. A margin account avoids all of
that, because when you buy on margin you don't have
to wait for settlement. Anything else you don't
know that I can help you with?
\_ MS as in Morgan Stanley or Microsoft?
\_ If you have to ask this you are not ready for my advice.
\_ Ah, get off yer high horse. This is the motd. Not that
I was planning to day trade anyway. |
| 2008/10/23-28 [Finance/Investment] UID:51649 Activity:nil |
10/23 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJ8os6vTknLk&refer=home Greenspan Concedes He `Found a Flaw' in His Free-Market Ideology Oh man, I can't wait to socialize the entire nation. I'm tired of people who got rich by the virtue of being lucky. \_ You're such a player-hater. Being rich from being lucky, that's something we should tolerate (maybe envy) but tolerate. Being rich by crushing those beneath them, intolerable. Being rich and avoiding paying reasonable taxes, intolerable. Being rich through theft, intolerable. We should work toward leveling opportunities, not unreasonable confiscation. \_ How about being rich by winning the sperm lottery? Or is that just another variant of being rich by being lucky? \_ I addressed that by saying we should work toward leveling opportunities. Sizeable inheritance tax is in order. \_ Troll+++ |
| 2008/10/20-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:51585 Activity:nil |
10/19 Oldie but goodie: Don't borrow (leverage up) to buy stocks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTCKxye9_so |
| 2008/10/19-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:51583 Activity:nil |
10/19 MacGruber checks his stock portfolio
http://tinyurl.com/5c9e2b (hulu.com) |
| 2008/10/19-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:51576 Activity:moderate |
10/18 http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/money-stampeding-out-market/7452 \_ All that cash just sitting on the sidelines now getting 3% is going to end up being put to use somewhere. What do you think investors are going to do with it, buy houses? \_ what's the next bubble? \_ Guns and canned food? \_ I don't know. I think "alternative energy" is probably a good candidate. What about you, what do you think? |
| 2008/10/19-23 [Finance/Investment] UID:51574 Activity:nil |
10/19 http://tinyurl.com/5nhbdg (fool.com) Response to Buffet's "buy equities you fucks" op-ed letter |
| 2008/10/17-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:51571 Activity:kinda low |
10/17 http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=31449 44-year-old veteran trader kills self after losing several million daytrading S&P 500 futures on Wed. \_ And we should pity gamblers because ...... \_ Because he worked very hard like many Americans do. \_ Most Americans don't live on gambling. \_ What's fundamentally different between a Math PhD at Goldman Sachs doing numerical analysis to beat the market vs. a stock broker who uses his superior understanding of psychology to beat the market? \_ Neither of them are doing anything particularly useful, so no, not fundamendally different. \_ who says we are pitying da foo'? \- nouriel roubini has killed himself: http://gawker.com/5064429/nick-denton-is-an-anti+semite-with-a-nazi-mind |
| 2008/10/17-20 [Finance/Investment] UID:51567 Activity:nil |
10/17 Up up and away: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99sep/9909dow.htm |
| 2008/10/17-20 [Finance/Investment] UID:51561 Activity:nil |
10/17 Buffet: Buy stocks now you fucks </troll>
\_ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html
\_ I was about to post this as well.
"I've been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I'm
talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States
government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway
holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep
looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100
percent in United States equities." |
| 2008/10/17-22 [Finance/Investment] UID:51559 Activity:kinda low |
10/22 How many people here still day trade (compared to the dot-com
days when almost everyone played)?
\_ it's too dangerous right now.
\_ looks like only Thu was an OpEx up day - but expectation was met
\_ Dude, I just *started* day trading. It's an awesome environment
to trade in. These wild, crazy swings up and down are great for
trading! I can make $1000/day easy. I can see why some people
get overconfident and quit their day jobs. I'm just enjoying it
while it lasts.
\_ What are you betting on these days? I'm too chicken so I
only do QQQQ and DIA and I'm actually doing OK with the
predictable fluctuations. In addition I'm trading such
low volume that if I get screwed, I'll just hold on for
5-20 years and will still be ok.
\_ Just close out your position at the end of each day and
you'll never be screwed. I place stops to limit losses.
The bad part is that I miss big gaps up at open. The good
part is that I miss big gaps down at open.
\_ But you end up paying transaction fees.
\_ 1. I get free trades through my broker.
2. Even if I didn't, you think I am going to sweat
a $20 fee to make $1000+? It's not as many
trades as you think. 2-4 per day is all I need.
You can keep changing the stops and limits all
you want and it's still the same "trade" if it
doesn't execute.
\_ Doesn't the capital gains tax make your gains
go away for the most part?
\_ No more than it does for other income. |
| 2008/10/17-20 [Finance/Investment] UID:51557 Activity:nil |
10/16 http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1198779&pageid=0 Okay, here's one emerging mkts article. I'm not offering it to support my case--just take it as a data point. \_ There is no evidence of leverage here, just a flight to quality, which is occuring in markets worldwide. |
| 2008/10/15-20 [Finance/Investment] UID:51535 Activity:moderate |
10/14 DJIA and S&P500 suffer worst 1-day percentage declines since 1987 Black
Monday crash.
\_ It's all ACORN's fault.
\_ You laugh, but the market is clearly terrified that there is
going to be Obama Socialism in America.
\_ Clearly! Why just the other day the market and I were
having dinner and after it had a few too many glasses of
wine it sheepishly admitted that while things may have been
rough lately, what with the housing market and all, what
really was worrying it, deep down inside, was the prospect
of Obama Socialism in America.
really kept it up at night was the prospect of Obama
Socialism in America. It took real willpower not to pat it
on the hand and say "It's ok, we've all known this about you
for a while now. There's nothing to be ashamed of."
\_ Yeah, that damn socialist might bail out the largest
insurance company in the world, or *nationalize the banks*!
Oh wait...
\_ sorry about my earlier post where I had written something like "get
rid of 50% more on some multi-week rally". I had originally meant to
write "get rid of 50% on some rally which may last from 1 day to
a few months". I'm sticking to my original thesis: this fucker can
collapse at ANY moment, and, you may see REAL panic selling, and
panic or not, the strong likelihood is it's going down. -op
\_ I bought today. If tomorrow is a bad day I will buy more. I'm
making money with these fluctuations by trading, but I still
have the majority of my $$$ "buy and hold". I'm down on the
year because of that, but I'm not 64 so I don't sweat it.
\_ an excellent way to approach this. as long as you have a
model. i'm all in favor of keeping 80% in "safety", and 20%
doing whatever the hell you want. although I would have
liquidated that 80% a few weeks ago when I mentioned it and
had it ready to buy now at lower prices.
\_ "Had it ready" is not the same as buying. Or is it?
\_ let's put it this way: if you had sold when I said, you
would currently be very right.
\_ I don't believe you (or anyone else) can time
the markets. However, you can do an analysis and
realize that a global recession isn't the end of
corporate earnings for many, many businesses and
that the markets are reacting to fear and uncertainty
instead of acting rationally. That's the time to
make smart purchases. Many companies might see
growth slow or sales decline, but that doesn't
necessarily dictate a 50% drop in stock value. I
wouldn't touch most banks with a 10 foot pole
right now, but people are still going to drink
beer, get laid, buy aspirin, etc. KO (which I do
not own) fell 34% this year because why? No good
reason. Even if sales slowed a little (which they
didn't) you've got to be kidding me... You wait
for the rally to buy. I'll buy before the rally
and lock in some really nice dividend yields
while I'm at it. I figure in another 10-15 years
my dividends will be yielding double figures based
on what I bought some stocks for. Some are
already close. Sure, the dividends might be cut
some near-term, but I don't sweat that.
\_ see my post "clearly what I am saying". I agree
with you on many points, actually. the biggest
place where we differ is what "timing the market"
means, but we can agree to disagree.
\_ What do Soros and Buffett do except time the
market?
\_ I don't know about Soros, but Buffett
looks at long-term potential and doesn't
worry about what the markets overall will do
tomorrow or 3 months from now.
\_ He holds onto his cash and waits to buy
when he sees good values. I don't know how
you can call that anything but "timing."
\_ I'm on the same boat as you are, and I can hold for a very
long time, though if the market goes down 15% more,
I'd be a little bit worried because I'd have to keep
buying until... I run out, and god knows how low it's
gonna get. My gutsy feeling is that we're already hitting
the bottom, though, if it goes down say, 30-50% more,
I'd be very very anxious. But like you said, I'm not 64
so I got a few decades to wait, so that is good news.
\_ This is called "testing the bottom."
\_ clearly what I am saying is that there is a strong likelihood
that bottom will fail from 1 day to x months from now. that's
a thesis that may be totally wrong, but i do believe it.
I also believe there is great merit to the "buy well-
diversified value stocks in businesses you understand" model
of investment--there's nothing wrong with that. Index and
targeted retirement funds though ...
of investment--there's nothing wrong with that. to put it
most clearly, the conclusion one could have reached not too
long ago was: "My investments are excellent and diversified.
The stock will outperform. However, the market is
overleveraged, and as funds and other financial entities
delever out of the market to raise cash in a multi-year,
global credit deleveraging (with all its associated nastiness)
I will move out into cash and replace it into the same stocks
at a lower entry point, maximizing my long-term compounded
gains. When is that entry point? Well, let's start with
the idea that it's a multi-year slow down ..."
btw, I'm also the guy who posted about traders expecting a
bounce tomorrow, Fri, or both, as Fri is OpEx day. Yes, I'm
playing with my 20% money.
bounce tomorrow, Fri, or both, as Fri is OpEx day.
today, funds shat out of overlevered energy and commodity
based equity investments at a "high price", because they
believe in the multi-year thesis too.
I wonder how long it will take to purge all the levered
emerging market bets.
\_ What makes you believe that there are levered EM bets?
To me, China looks like it has the healthiest balance sheet
of any economy period right now.
\_ EM in general will continue to get super-smacked by
credit deleveraging. as far as fund investment, "hot"
areas, like energy, commods and EM, were all levered up.
what i said was that, of these 3, EM has furthest to go
\_ Why do you think that EM is levered? You still have
not answered this question, just restated that you
are convinced that it is true. Stocks generally
are hard to leverage, unlike those other asset
classes.
\_ okay you got me there. all i've got is that
general feeling based on the forums I troll. |
| 2008/10/15-17 [Finance/Investment] UID:51534 Activity:nil |
10/14 Stocks down further. Are you avoiding a falling knife, or
or going in because it may have bottomed out already? Discuss.
\_ You worry about those fighters! I'll worry about the tower! <groan>
\_ Millenium Falcon == bond traders/market
\_ Traders are expecting Thu, Fri, or both to be significant "up"
days as Fri is an OpEx day. Sticksave announcements or significant
LIBOR contraction therefore need to happen from now through Monday
morning for us to keep this propped up. (what we do not need is
another bank/country going critical). Economic numbers were
horrible this morning.
\_ What does OpEx mean? Options Expiry? |
| 2008/10/14-17 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:51515 Activity:low |
10/14 Too much debt from law school? Be a prostitute!
link:www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_10622483?nclick_check=1
\_ This link is not working?
\_ Clearly the lesson here is that you should only study something
if you're rich!
\_ heard of "Go to grad school only if you can afford it" ?
\_ In what way does your statement contradict mine?
\_ At least it's honest work.
\_ Bah, they're getting her on tax evasion! Fer chrissake.
\_ I love how she ended up marrying a rich Dot Commer. I personally
would have liked to hit that.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/473r48 (NSFW)
\_ That link doesn't work.
This does:
http://insiderescortsecrets.com/wordpress/tag/touchofbrazilnet
It would be nice to screw a lawyer instead of the opposite
for a change.
\_ Weird, it worked this morning. Someone must have gotten
it pulled. |
| 2008/10/13-15 [Finance/Investment] UID:51495 Activity:nil 63%like:51494 |
10/13 Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize, you heard it here first:
*Boredcast Message from 'psb': Tue Oct 7 13:13:54 2008
|| i wonder if the nobel people will give PKRUGMAN the econ prize
|| as a way of sticking it to BUSHCO
|| well the econ nobel people
||
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2008
Good informal commentary at:
http://tinyurl.com/3ewln8 [tyler cowan]
This is also an intereting essay for PK fans:
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/howiwork.html
Given all the yammering from Ben Stein lately, it is time to
recycle this:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/06/a_missing_piece.html
\_ The already insane have gone insane:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/10/crooked-timber.html |
| 2008/10/13-15 [Politics/Foreign/Canada, Finance/Investment] UID:51492 Activity:low |
10/12 Is http://kitco.com a good website to trade precious metal with? \_ How many manhole covers did you steal today? :-) \_ Are you trying to be funny? How is this "clever" or "funny"? |
| 2008/10/11-15 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:51477 Activity:nil |
10/11 "Firms Try to Shore Up Incentive Pay"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122358951896420723.html?mod=yhoofront
Good news for us. |
| 2008/10/10-15 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:51472 Activity:nil |
10/10 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10mulligan.html The Economy is just fine, really. |
| 2008/10/8-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:51439 Activity:nil |
10/8 Stock market finally getting to about where it should be
http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2008/10/stock-market-is-about-where-it-should.html
\_ This person is an idiot. Even he is right about this (which I
doubt). For instance he also is a global warming denier.
\_ So should I buy stocks now? It's so low and tempting... |
| 2008/10/8-9 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:51438 Activity:nil |
10/8 Fed cuts interest rate by 1.5%. It's going to save the housing
market! Yeah baby! Good job! Make America an ownership society!
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/fed/main-surprise.asp
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/fed/winners-losers_surprise.asp |
| 2008/10/8-9 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:51437 Activity:low |
10/8 Curious, how does our economy today compare to Japan's economy
10-15 years ago? I heard that they had a housing crises as well
in the old days where home values dropped over 50% of the value
and had an extended (decade long) recession. Is this true? What
are some similarities and differences between our current economy
and Japan's economy 10-15 years ago?
\_ U.S.: No savers, reserve currency, natural resources, WMDs
Japan: Savers, carry currency, export driven, no WMDs
Common: Housing bubble, equity bubble, zombie banks
\_ Not bad. You get a B+.
\_ A big difference is that Japan has declining population, with
low birth rates and virtually no immigration. -tom
\_ Japan has no gay people, just like Iran.
\_ http://www.japanboyz.com BTW what does this have to do with
their economy anyway?
\_ We should be able to export gay porn and build our economy
that way, an option that was not open to the Japanese.
\_ Have you heard of yaoi? |
| 2008/10/8-9 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:51429 Activity:kinda low 80%like:51427 |
10/8 Coordinated intl rate cuts
Ten year note up significantly even though equities down
-> potential "game over" (or ass-raping) scenario
In case anyone didn't see it yet, please see "Stock tip 3" from two
days ago
\_ I asked and he doesn't know what he's talking about. Now what?
You didn't give a single advice.
\_ well, my advice from 3 weeks ago was for the desired safe part
of your portfolio to be out 33% at 11388. I said back then that
this market could shitnap at any time so it was time to sell the
pop the next day.
My advice in "Stock tip 3" is: Don't go "all-in long" now in
case you're thinking about it.
Should you sell now, now that we're down to 9,270? It's your
call, but do your research and ask me a fundamentals question.
At this point I won't tell you to sell (but I will tell you to
"don't buy" index funds or the equivalent).
Actually, I will say I would go 80% into safe money right the
fuck now, but I'm not going to tell you to do that. It's your
money.
\_ I think it's time to buy. The market has overreacted.
\_ dude, the tip is: LEH CDS settlement in TWO FUCKING DAYS.
you don't hear this in mainstream news. i haven't been
playing a game with you guys for the last three months.
\_ what is LEH CDS
\_ lehman credit default swap settlement
financial institutions (including insurance co.'s)
will need significant cash to pay off insurance on
Lehman debt and other securities as a result of LEH
bankruptcy. these swaps are held around the world.
\_ oh i thought that all got sold to barclays
\_ only brokerage piece, because that has a whole
bunch of regular-investor money, I believe
\_ This is already priced in, imho.
\_ okay, I'm glad you're thinking though. IMO you
stand a better chance than people who haven't done
enough research to confidently say that.
\_ do you think the solvent finance firms will ask
for a gov. loan to help cover the costs of buying
the former assets of Lehman at firesale prices?
that would be ironic.
\_ if no one objects, sure! solvent financial
entities will be getting a whole lot of free
money. -op
\_ Well, I thought so last week and I was obviously
wrong. I am about 90% in right now and really
itching to go "all in" but the 10% that is still
out is my wife's IRA and she won't give the go
ahead. At some point I will start selling bonds
and buying stock, but I will probably wait until
Q1 for that. To clarify, I mean "all in" for the
65% of my capital that I risk in the equity
markets. I always keep about 6 months cash (that
works out to about 10%) 10% in US Bonds and 15%
in CA munis.
\_ marital bliss >> possible equity gain
besides, you already are 90% in. you'll be
a hero if you can sell at a good price.
a hero if you can sell at profit.
\_ I am pretty sure that by the time I
retire the stock market will be higher
than it is today.
\_ ^will be higher^return better than CD
rates -op
\_ Since the dividend yield on the SPY
alone is equal to current CD
alone is close to current CD
rates, it is hard to imagine how
I could go wrong. I guess all the
companies in the S&P 500 could cut
or eliminate dividends. |
| 2008/10/8-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:51428 Activity:nil |
10/8 By the time the next president takes office, President George W. Bush
may have earned the dubious honor of being the first president to see
the Dow Jones Industrial Average fall, on a percentage basis, during
his two terms of service, in almost 90 years.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4wzjws
\) what's the point of saying "on a percentage basis"?
\_ what's the point of saying "on a percentage basis"?
\_ The Dow never fell before? |
| 2008/10/8 [Finance/Investment] UID:51427 Activity:nil 80%like:51429 |
10/8 Coordinated intl rate cuts
In case anyone didn't see it yet, please see "Stock tip 3" from two
days ago
\_ I asked and he doesn't know what he's talking about. Now what?
You didn't give a single advice.
\_ well, my advice from two weeks ago was for the desired safe part
of your portfolio to be out 33% at 11388. |
| 2008/10/7-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:51412 Activity:nil |
10/6 Stock prices are really low. Is now a good time to buy stocks?
GOOG is only $350 now. What do you guys think?
\_ I think it's going to go lower.
\_ If you're going to invest in stocks right now, your primary
consideration should be that the companies you invest in
should be companies which are likely to survive or thrive in
an extended economic downturn. My guess would be that this
market is going to go down more before it goes up, but I
wouldn't bother trying to time it; invest in good companies
and you'll be OK. -tom
\_ like tom wrote, just see how TM did relative to the Nikkei 225 from
it's peak. use http://finance.yahoo.com.
its peak. use http://finance.yahoo.com. ob TM != GOOG, but someone find
a better example. |
| 2008/10/7-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:51411 Activity:nil |
10/6 Financial advice from our good 'ol Ben Stein:
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/yourlife/112984
\_ Finally a reason to agree with Ben Stein, at least mostly.
\_ A broken clock is right twice a day. I'm sure Stein supported
most of the things he's now decrying. -tom
\_ ob the asspounding he was getting for the last year or
so on finance segments
\_ Total agreement. -pp |
| 2008/10/6-9 [Finance/Investment, Finance/Banking] UID:51397 Activity:nil |
10/6 Stock tip 3: Ask your professional financial advisor how "LEH CDS
settlement this Friday might affect my portfolio". If he doesn't
know what you're talking about ... |
| 2008/10/6-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:51395 Activity:nil |
10/6 Jim Cramer: All Your Stock Are Belong To Us
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27045699
\_ Any money you need in the next five years does not belong in the
stock market. This is always true, not just today. |
| 2008/10/6-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:51393 Activity:low |
10/5 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aQdenm7JAur8 35-year-old former Goldman VP Neel Kashkari to head new dept in charge of $700B bailout fund - known as The Office of Financial Stability \_ ob he worked in the IT department! -op \_ did he really? \_ http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4950BS20081006 \_ No. He worked in IT investment securities. \_ He should hire Angry Sysadmin to help him. |
| 2008/10/6-9 [Finance/Investment] UID:51392 Activity:nil |
10/5 This American Life has a great (and extremely scary) podcast on
the commercial paper market, credit default swaps, and the current
financial armageddon. Worth an hour of your time...
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=365
\_ one important mistake early in the program:
the host says no one wants to buy MBS/CDO. This is not correct.
the banks don't want to sell them at market prices, because then
they wouldn't have assets to mark to model with. so, the govt
gives them free money and everyone's golden.
\_ Most of the program was about CDS, not MBS. This is an
important distinction.
\_ true. but he can't fuck up the MBS/CDO intro.
\_ also, if you have iTunes go look up Bloomberg on the Economy
podcast, the one with Nouriel Roubini last week. It's even better
IMO.
\_ Is that the NYU economist who thinks we're all headed for
the Stone Age next year? That guy is really depressing. I
hope he's not right.
\_ Stone Age? He said in the show that he's long equities and
does not believe in timing the market. Go listen. What have
you learned about trading stocks if not: Don't get emotional. |
| 2008/10/5-9 [Recreation/Dating, Finance/Investment] UID:51385 Activity:nil |
10/5 http://tinyurl.com/3l6dsz Behold, the list of companies affected by LEH bankruptcy and the cash amounts. CDS settlement this Friday! |
| 2008/10/3-6 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:51367 Activity:nil |
10/3 Stock tip 2: Lifetime of this pump will be much more short lived
than people might expect. (I.e., do not go all in long, although you
could do so if you put in some stops--but that isn't long, is it?
times like this are where the phrase "don't try to time the market"
originate from)
\_ Stock tip A: VIX levels like this are only seen at the top or the
bottom of the market. We know we are not at the top, so...
\_ Stock tip mu: Ignore stock advice based on technical factors
given by random hosers.
\_ VIX is a measure of put and call options based on volume and
difference from fair value. Notice how shorts are prohibited
for about a 1,000 stocks? They're all in options now. Stock
tip mu guy is right--you'd be hosed if you didn't understand
this. -op
\_ VIX has nothing to do with "fair value" whatever that means:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4exdqx
\_ http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fairvalue.asp
ok, probably the wrong term, but let's just say, "the
current market price of the underlying"
\_ Lifetime of the pump after House passage was assured: 0 minutes. -op |
| 2008/10/3-6 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:51363 Activity:nil |
10/3 House passes bailout by significant margin. Guys, THINK about your
long-term equity investments. You'll have PLENTY of people to blame
in the near future, but where will your money have gone? Please
consider the advice of a professional financial advisor, too, but
in the end, it's YOUR MONEY.
Practical advice: If you're not sure, move part into safety.
\_ Coherence isn't your strong point is it?
\_ WHAT is your problem dude?
\_ At 3% CD rates, subtracting taxes and inflation, you are losing
about 2%/yr with your cash position. This is a guaranteed way
to end up poor in your old age. Is that what you want? I have
gone from 0->$1M in 10 years, how have you done?
\_ Past performance is not a predictor of future results. The
specific reasons why have been what all my posts for the last
two months have been about.
I won't argue with you if you are confident in what you're doing.
Good luck. I sincerely hope you do well in your investments.
\_ Good luck to you, too. I think you should spend some more
time thinking about how to hedge against what imho is the
inevitable dollar devaluation to come. Sitting in Treasuries
is not going to cut it.
\_ thanks. fyi, that's exactly what I'm working on.
\_ I am buying lots of TIPS and have for a while now. If
the dollar falls then inflation should rise.
\_ This is not a bad call, but I assume you know about the
"upfront tax" costs of a TIP. This is not an issue in
a IRA. |
| 2008/10/2-6 [Finance/Investment] UID:51355 Activity:low |
10/2 Prison Mackerel economics
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290720439096481.html
\- hello the famous paper in this spirit is:
http://www.albany.edu/~mirer/eco110/pow.html
it is somewhat odd that paper is not referenced in the article.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2550133
it is somewhat odd that paper is not referenced in the article. tnx.
\_ I'd love to pay strippers with mackerels
\_ I love the idea that it was chosen as currency because noone
actually wants to eat that crap.
\_ I don't get that part. Cigs were used because they were
extremely valuable to many people. Why would you use something
with no particular value, that isn't backed up by anything?
\_ If you think of cigs as the gold standard, mackerels are now
more of a free-floating economy. That said, they're very
similar to greenbacks: they're not in infinite supply; they
have no intrinsic value by themselves, though they _can_ be
eaten if it comes to that (much as you _can_ heat or wall-
paper your house with dollar bills if it comes to that); and
they can be traded for services because there are people who
will pretend that they have value. Added bonus: they're of
use and value as themselves to people who want to build
muscle, so you're getting in the good graces of big dudes
when you trade them to them. Big dudes are their own kind of
currency in the joint.
\_ So wait, smokers who go to prison my immediately go cold turkey now? |
| 2008/10/2-6 [Finance/Investment] UID:51348 Activity:low |
10/2 Why is it I see on TV about all the J6P's talking about how their
401(k) has blown up implying they couldn't do anything about it. Like
they didn't realize they could login (or call their broker) and
transfer some or all into the 401(k)'s money market fund?
Well, you guys, Berkeley grads, know you can do that right?
I'm talking about 401(k), not IRA or your personal stock portfolio.
\_ Yes they can transfer, but isn't it too late to transfer after it
has blown up?
\_ well, guess it was more of a rhetorical question. I already have
my own answer. anyways, investment tip guys:
"repricing of U.S. credit" - you may be hearing this in the
future. I have not read this phrase anywhere else, yet. (in
fact there are 0 phrase matches on google)
(disclaimer: this is not a suggestion to plow everything into
random foreign stock markets. instead, you are all berkeley
grads and can create your own model about how this will evidence
itself in market indicators and impacts your investments.)
\_ What do you think this will do to the value of the dollar?
\_ in the short term, the value of the dollar is being
driven up by financial entities delevering dollar-denom
investments and fear that more european banks won't survive
the delevering. in the medium term ...
also keep in mind that smart money right now is trying
to figure out if there is anything safer than long-term
U.S. Treasuries (and there may not be--but the general
hedge of reallocation has been going on for some time)
hedge of reallocation has been going on for ~1-2 yrs)
\_ The "smart money" was busy buying MBS last year.
\_ and the 3-5 years before that (volume wise). the
topic is not whether this is "smart", but how you
stay ahead of the game.
\_ Not every 401k is the same. For instance, at my old company the
only 401k option was company stock. Not all are so restrictive,
but there are at least some without a money market or equivalent
fund. |
| 2008/10/2-4 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:51344 Activity:nil |
10/1 "Maria Sharapova could be yours for a cool $10,000" - Y! Sports Blogs
http://www.csua.org/u/mi8
So affordable. I wonder what the rate is for not-cute-but-busty
Serena Williams. |
| 2008/9/30-10/4 [Finance/Investment] UID:51332 Activity:nil |
9/30 Mommy, why is GOOG closing at 320 in my brokerage account and why is
http://finance.yahoo.com showing it real-time as 298, both with spike
volume at the close? At least NASDAQ is investigating ...
ob GOOG to 100 guy, was that you?
\_ official closing price of 341 -op
\_ NASDAQ busts all trades below $400 at close. Official close is
$400.52. -op
\_ Yeah, I finally covered my short at a small gain. Damn that NASDAQ! |
| 2008/9/24-29 [Finance/Investment] UID:51274 Activity:nil |
9/23 btw, the 9/23 video for http://market-ticker.denninger.net is pretty good |
| 2008/9/23-29 [Finance/Investment] UID:51268 Activity:nil |
9/23 hey bought GS @ 100 guy. Mr. Buffett is buying preferreds. Time to
sell before everyone realizes that preferreds are dilutative.
(Good job.)
\_ You know, I might just do that. I was buying an IB, not a bank.
\_ Should have sold at $135.
\_ It is trading at $135 in afterhours, you know.
\_ It is trading at $135 in afterhours, you know. I'll call
my broker and dump it.
\_ I didn't know, but sounds like a good time to get out.
You can always buy back in if you feel this is a
long-term hold, but if you just wanted a trade I'd
bail with the 35% gain. |
| 2008/9/23-29 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:51267 Activity:nil |
9/22 Roaring 20s --> Great Depression
Roaring Millenium --> Great Depression II
\_ does our state have a BUDGET yet?
More concerning is we are about to hand $700B to one person and our
Fed chief Ben Bernanke fully supports this idea--and if you Dems,
Republicans, and libertarians haven't figured out by now:
He who controls the money has the power.
\_ Oh, I get it! In our crisis, we're appointing a Dictator.
\_ but he knows much more about finances than you do and he wants
to help you
\_ Right after he helps himself and his former i-banking
buddies.
\_ but Ben Bernanke supports the plan, and he has a Ph.D.
in Economics from MIT, did his dissertation on the Great
Depression, got his B.S. in Economics from Harvard, was
class valedictorian and got the highest score on the SAT
in his state when he took it. He wrote three books on
macroeconomics! He chaired the Princeton Economics dept
for 7 years before joining the Fed!
\_ Obviously smart and probably knows much more about
economics than I do. Perhaps not very wise, though.
\_ the idea that turning ONE knob in a stereo
system to make it sound pleasing to everyone,
is ridiculous.
\_ huh?
\_ Hey, we could have had Harriet Miers.
\_ Should he have seen this coming? He sure didn't
seem to from his past comments. Not that I'm blaming
him per se, since this is really complicated and
unpredictable stuff, but I don't feel like any of
these guys are sure how this plan is really going
to turn out. So it's basically a $700 B hunch/prayer.
\_ "Large amounts of risk, particularly
credit risk, have become concentrated in
the hands of relatively few derivatives
dealers, who in addition trade
extensively with one other. The troubles
of one could quickly infect the others....
[leveraged] derivatives severely curtail
the ability of regulators to curb
leverage and generally get their arms
around the risk profiles of banks,
insurers and other financial
institutions. Similarly, even experienced
investors and analysts encounter major
problems in analyzing the financial
condition of firms that are heavily
involved with derivatives contracts. The
derivatives genie is now well out of the
bottle, and these instruments will almost
certainly multiply in variety and number
until some event makes their toxicity
clear. Central banks and governments have
so far found no effective way to control,
or even monitor, the risks posed by these
contracts. In my view, derivatives are
financial weapons of mass destruction,
carrying dangers that, while now latent,
are potentially lethal." --Warren
Buffett, 2002
[Yes, he should have seen it coming. -tom]
\_ Predictions are all fine and good, and someone
is bound to get it right, but I don't think
anyone really saw it coming to this extent.
\_ Buffett wasn't making a prediction;
he was describing a risk. A large
portion of his business is managing
risk, and he's very good at it. He
didn't say "in fall 2007, some
weird activity by hedge funds will
trigger a liquidity crisis which
will eventually cause multiple
major financial institutions to
fail during calendar 2008." He simply
pointed out that the proliferation of
derivitive contracts in a deregulated
financial market set up a situation where
numerous institutions were taking on
risks they could not measure, and
declaring assets they could not quantify,
and that it was likely that some trigger
event would cause massive problems for
the entire industry. And it's not like
there wasn't any warning; the LTCM bailout
was a foreshock that was pretty much
ignored. -tom
\_ He described a risk and predicted it
would cause pain in the industry. I'm
just saying no one really thought it
would cause this much pain. Anyway,
back to the real point -- if the guys
on top didn't clearly see this coming,
then they probably don't clearly see
a way out.
\_ Or more likely, they just didn't care,
since it's "not my problem."
\_ The Invisible Hand will take care
of it. |
| 2008/9/22-29 [Finance/Investment] UID:51259 Activity:nil |
9/22 What caused the Great Depression? Is it happening now?
http://yanswersblog.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/19/ask-mike-what-caused-the-great-depression |
| 2008/9/22-23 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:51254 Activity:kinda low |
9/21 Krugman on the Paulson "Plan":
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/opinion/22krugman.html
"... it will be crippled by inadequate capital unless the federal
government hugely overpays for the assets it buys, giving financial
firms  and their stockholders and executives  a giant windfall at
taxpayer expense....if the government is going to provide capital to
financial firms, it should get what people who provide capital are
entitled to  a share in ownership, so that all the gains if the
rescue plan works don’t go to the people who made the mess in the
first place."
\- i dont think PAULSON is too bad, but this clearly has to be
decided by more than 1-2 people no matter who they are. and this
is one case where diversity would be a good thing, i.e. not ideal
if the dems say shoved RRUBIN into the process [also a GS elite
then to citgroup] ... better to have LSUMMERS, NROUBINI, PVOLKER,
JSTIGLITZ and various other non-tainted, not-super-ideological
finance or macro academics ... probably cant involve people now
in the private sector like MDELRAN].
\_ I'd be all for this if they included a provision limiting the pay
of every employee of these firms to 100k, just this year. |
| 2008/9/19-23 [Politics/Foreign/Europe, Finance/Investment] UID:51240 Activity:nil |
9/19 bumped for discussion:
\_ My financial advisor says to not try and time the market.
\_ what else did your financial advisor say? did you ask them about
getting more of your portfolio into safer, lower yielding assets?
\_ No, actually he told me that the latest recommendations for
someone my age was to be 50% in overseas stocks. He also seems
to think that I have a bit too much in dividend paying blue
chips and that I should buy more small caps, but he hasn't
said anything like that in a few months. He also said that
there was no reason to be concerned about Pimco Total Return
anymore, since the Fed guaranteed all the FNM debt.
\_ re PIMCO Total Return:
- ask him why funds seem to be selling agency paper this
week if there is no risk
- ask him what about the MBSs inside
re overseas:
- what is the breakdown by country/region?
(Europe/UK/Japan/China/India/etc.?)
\_ Can regular individual give PIMCO money to manage
or is it just for the super-rich and institutions?
\_ Anyone can buy Pimco Total Return, it is the
largest fund overall, in terms of assets. Ticker
is PTRAX.
\_ Get him as your advisor yourself and ask him all these
questions if you are so curious. Who told you that
funds are selling all this agency paper? I just looked
and it looks like PTRAX is 80% in cash right now
anyway. I will eventually ask him the country by
country breakdown, probably by email next week. If
you are curious, I can post it to the motd. |
| 2008/9/18-23 [Finance/Investment] UID:51230 Activity:kinda low |
9/18 Here's your pop. This may last from 1 to x days/months. Please
consult a professional financial advisor.
(I personally would sell ~15% of whatever I wanted to end up being safe
on tomorrow's peak, and more later if the market continued up. This
RTC plan is going to levitate the market again for an undetermined
amount of time *if* it gets implemented. if it gets held up ...)
\_ When will be the peak tomorrow?
\_ Today was +3.86% in DJIA. Expect up to +4%, then look for
resistance on upward movement. Largest volume occurs in the last
1-2 hours, so you could wait for that too.
Then again, remember I said we can shitnap at any time, starting
\_ Today was +3.86% in DJIA. Expect +0 to +4%, then look for
resistance on upward movement. Finally, largest volume occurs
in the last 1-2 hours, so you could wait for that too.
Then again, remember I said we can shitnap at anytime, starting
tomorrow.
My personal opinion based on what I know and not based on
technical analysis is "the dislocation is going to happen
sooner than people think". What this means is I would be out
16% tomorrow on a +2% pop and 16% every other day there is a
+2% pop from my last sale price, six times, until I am 100% safe.
That is, if I wanted 80% safe I would be moving 16% of that
80% on each move. And my 20% whatever the hell I wanted to do
with it. fyi if you do the math this means I would be completely
done with my 80% safety portfolio at DJIA 12,388. I hope you
will get the chance to liquidate 66% (4 moves out of 6).
You can modify to suit your tastes, but the generail idea is:
- You believe this will be a temporary uptrend
- You have a disciplined plan to re-allocate
- You don't swing in and out of trades
- You're not putting MORE money into stocks other than in the
speculative side of your portfolio
- You have some model of where you will re-enter markets again,
like the 50DMA/200DMA +1% cross that I mentioned
All of the above is worth what you paid for it: Please consult
a professional financial advisor.
\_ My financial advisor says to not try and time the market. |
| 2008/9/18-19 [Computer/Rants, Finance/Investment] UID:51223 Activity:kinda low |
9/18 Easy advice 2. If you have PIMCO, please consult a professional
financial advisor about whether to move ALL of that PIMCO money into
cash or a mostly Treasury-backed bond fund (note to avoid agency paper,
MBS, and swaps with major banks, ESPECIALLY investment banks).
I got my wife to sell all her PIMCO today; I originally said to sell
after the FNM/FRE bailout.
Also read today's latest PIMCO news and how Bill Gross is feeling.
Yes, a lot of institutional funds (including pension/retirement) have
PIMCO.
\_ There are a lot of different Pimco funds, what are you talking
about? All of them?
\_ the ones with lots of MBS and agency paper. Total Return is one.
\_ I see your point, though this stuff looks like it is
backed by the US government at this point. How is it
different than a T-Bill? |
| 2008/9/17-19 [Finance/Investment] UID:51207 Activity:high |
9/17 Guys, several days ago I posted (not on soda) that confidence was
severely shaken in the financial markets and this effect would be
long-lasting.
Today, there is almost a sense of panic among U.S. investment bankers,
traders, and politicians in the finance/banking committees.
You know what white collar workers are thinking by virtue of
being one.
Note I am not telling you what to do, just giving you data points.
\_ I believe in the 2G currency in our new economy: gold and guns
\_ What exactly will this lower confidence mean? What exactly does
"confidence in the financial markets" mean?
\_ http://market-ticker.denninger.net -op
\_ Ok, America government is totally fucked. What is new?
Should we stock up food and ammos? What's your advice?
\_ you've been given the tools. i posted to motd at least
three times on 8/21, 8/22, and 9/10 about this, and I got
yelled at then and I got yelled at after the market
dropped. i posted because i would've felt guilty if i
didn't give you guys a warning. i did, three times. i
have not gloated at all. what should you do? do some
research, and come back in a few days with a proposal -op
\_ 1) Liquidate
2} Buy bonds
3) open up Swiss accounts
\_ I like the Find Your Russian Beauty ad to the right.
\_ I bought 100 shares of GS for $100 today. All kinds of stocks are
on discount, I can barely contain myself. "Be greedy when others
are fearful." -Warren Buffet
on discount, I can barely contain myself. Anyone with half a brain
takes this as an opportunity to buy. "Be Greedy When Others Are
Fearful" - Warren Buffet
\_ That assumes you know something other people don't.
Investors are punishing all financials now because no one knows
who's telling the truth anymore. Do you have inside sources or
do a lot of your own research? Otherwise you might want
to stick to a more diversified strategy.
\_ hey, he's up $14. Well, only $10 if you count afterhours.
who knows, if the stock goes up to $130 tomorrow that's a
$30K profit.
\_ You added a zero.
\_ oops, should be $3K. silly me I thought he put in
$100K into GS.
\_ I know that Paulson, who is an ex-CEO of GS, is the Secretary
of the Treasury. I know enough about how Wall Street (and the
world in general) to know that he won't let his former pals
down. I also know that it is better to move contrary to the
herd, having sold my overinflated <DEAD>dot.com<DEAD> stock in 2000. But
I sometimes move early, I admit.
\_ You might be interested to know that Warren Buffet is
not buying investment banks right now. The rumor is
that he called them a "falling knife". I considered buying
GS, but I think their prospects are uncertain. People on
Wall Street think we are not near the end of this mess. As
far as GS fell, they are still only at a 3 year low. What
you need to do is buy stocks that fell because of sheer
sympathy and I don't think that qualifies GS.
\_ Yeah, this one is "mad money" and is already down
again today. I am mostly in boring dividend paying
stocks like KO and PM and GE. Got any other suggestions?
\_ MON?
\_ I heard GE gets over 50% of its profits, revenue, or
something from its finance divisions. Which is
probably why it got punished more than you'd
otherwise expect.
\- are you thinking of GE capital? GE capital isnt
finance in teh sense of retail loans and such.
for example they used to own a huge fraction of
shipping containers in the world.
\_ Where did you hear that? I read in the WSJ that
they got 25% of their profits from that division
last year, so that part might be down. It is still
a steal at current prices. I just bought some
EWG, too.
\_ I'd say GS starts to get interesting in the low 90s
and is a definite buy at 85.
\_ How did you calculate those price points?
\_ It's up to $135 now. WTF in their right mind
would buy at $135 in this market? Sure, it's
lower than it was but no effing way. I am
curious if the guy who bought at $100 is out now.
\_ No, I am just happy that I got some stock in
such a great institution at such a low price.
Though I am temted to sell some calls at this
level to lock in some of my gain. |
| 2008/9/17-19 [Finance/Investment] UID:51204 Activity:nil |
9/17 Okay, easy stuff first. If you are invested in a "targeted retirement"
fund (where it auto-allocates into stocks/bonds/money markets depending
on your age), it is currently cornholing you in both eye sockets and
will assfuck you for years to come. As of this year, new employees are
auto-enrolled into the 401(k), typically with 100% allocation to this
type of fund. This is a SCAM. Also, I have NOT seen a single news
article (and I read a lot) criticizing the safety of this type of fund.
\_ What's your gripe? My only gripe with these types of funds is
that they are too conservative. I want to be 80% equities now,
10 years from now, and 10 years into retirement.
\_ what KIND of equities and bonds are these funds buying ...
\_ The same kind that other funds are buying. A lot of these
targeted funds are "funds of funds".
\_ so we're saying the equities ultimately bought should
perform at least as well as a DJI or S&P index? (minus fees
or if they're being run in a riskier fashion, some amount
above or below a DJI/S&P index? by riskier, I mean you are
in a retire-in-30 years fund, so conventional wisdom is not
only can they allocate you to more stocks, but they can
allocate you into "growth stocks" and "emerging market") |
| 2008/9/15 [Finance/Banking, Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:51169 Activity:nil 58%like:51173 |
9/15 Fed now accepts equity (company stock) as collateral for loans. Yay! |
| 2008/9/11-17 [Finance/Investment] UID:51132 Activity:nil |
9/10 Guys, have you moved 50% of your 401(k) and IRA out of equities and
into high quality bonds or Treasury-based money markets? I'm not
kidding. Here you are, arguing about Obama, McCain, and Palin, and
your money is disappearing.
\_ What are you talking about? My portfolio looks fine.
\_ good. now what about the rest of you? all the equity-based
choices in my 401(k) plan are all negative 3-month and 1-year.
\_ You're an idiot.
\_ are you angry about something?
\_ You don't think the President has influence over the economy?
\_ I don't either can stop the multi-year move in equities.
\_ I don't think either can stop the multi-year move in equities.
\_ No, I have the same allocation I always have, which is 6 mos
living expenses in CDs, 20% of my total investment portfolio in
CA Munis (taxable part, of course) about 10% more in high quality
bonds and 70% in stocks. I am leaning way toward blue chip dividend
paying stocks though, but I have been in a multi-year move in that
direction. I saw the financials ready to blow up over a year ago.
I am down a bit from the top, but not losing any sleep over it.
Oh, I also am heavily invested overseas and I recommend you do the
same.
\_ IMO, your equity allocation is too high (assuming you are in
index funds), and I personally have been shorting emerging
markets.
I do agree that you aren't too far away from what a professional
financial advisor would suggest; but I'm saying CFPs are wrong.
\_ I am not in index funds, as I said, I am leaning heavily
towards profitable companies with little debt who pay a
big dividend and are either located outside the US or do
most of their business outside the US. I am starting to doubt
the "great decoupling" theory though.
\_ ok. i hope your portfolio does not get pulled down with
the rest of the market (even if they are profitable blue
chips with little debt). FYI, China and Japan are going in
the toilet. European, especially UK banks are arguably in
more trouble than the U.S. financial system.
\_ I hope you are not still sitting out the month the
market goes up 20%, which it inevitably will, sooner
or later. How are you going to decide to jump back in?
\_ when the 50DMA increases past the 200DMA by 1% |
| 2008/9/11-18 [Finance/Investment] UID:51130 Activity:nil |
9/11 Thanks Bushies, for nationalizing F&F to bail out China:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/65a5lz (WSJ)
\_ I think it was a bipartisan failure.
\_ Congress gave Hank the gun, but isn't Hank the one who fired it?
Guns don't kill people--people do! |
| 2008/9/8-14 [Finance/Investment] UID:51098 Activity:nil |
9/8 My company stock is really low right now and I'd like to buy
stocks. However, I think I am subject to this "Quiet Period"
contract I signed. Does the quiet period prohibit me from buying,
selling, shorting, or all of the above? Where do I find out more
information? Thanks.
\_ Read the contract. -tom
\_ what tom said. but generally, if you are not an officer,
director, or have >= 10% of the company's shares but are a
regular employee, it is STILL insider trading if you trade
based on "material non-public information". In practice this
means squishing depends on:
- how closely your bet was to some major product announcement/
buy-out/order/etc.
- e-mail evidence of your receipt of non-public info
- magnitude and rate of stock price change
- how much money you made
- how many other people traded on the inside information
- one data point: an nvidia engineer got nailed for a $60K
profit on a trade from ~ $76 -> $118 in which the deal
announcement was made within 1 week of the buy. 14 other
nvidia employees were also charged. that was in 2000.
\_ you cant but CEO can and that is what he is doing right now
then he'll buy them back toward the end after you all sold your
stocks.. then buy them and put out good news to raise stock price
\_ According to tom CEOs don't buy stock because they are already
compensated in stock. |
| 2008/8/29-9/3 [Recreation/Food, Finance/Investment] UID:50999 Activity:nil |
8/29 I'm a Googler. I'm also one of the most senior Googlers and I
barely joined in 2005. A bunch of old timers, esp. those before
2003 dumped their options a while ago. One guy I know became a real
estate developer. Another started his own coffee shop. Another guy
is traveling around the world. There were also quite a few who went
in stealth mode trying to start their own companies. Ya know, when
a bunch of old farts realized they could pursue their lifelong dreams
without financial worries, they simply dumped their stocks and did
what anyone else would do. Pursuing their dreams. Most of them loved
pre 2004 Google but wanted to pursue their dreams even more. I presume
this is common everywhere else even Microsoft in the heydays. People
may call the liquidation of stocks "insider trading." I think it's
normal in a successful company that has become too successful. Ya
know, I joined late and I'm not a millionaire, but if I were in
their shoes, I'd do the exact same thing. I'd love to open up my own
coffee shop. I hate tech. Fuck tech. Bye for now.
\_ Coffee shops are not capital intensive enterprises. You probably can
own one if you want to. Joe Blow employee is not usually an insider,
by the way. We're talking about officers, directors, board
members, and so on.
\_ But living well on the income from a coffee shop is hard. It
is nice to be able to do somthing you want to do and not have
to worry about making money. |
| 2008/8/26-9/3 [Finance/Investment, Industry/Startup] UID:50970 Activity:moderate |
8/26 I just bought GOOG at 500 last week, WHY IS IT DOWN??? What's
up? I don't see any news that would indicate that it's in
trouble. Argh! -newbie investor
\_ http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=324097
Opinion: Why Google has lost its mojo -- and why you should care
Sorry. You should have shorted it.
\_ that article is awful.
\_ if you're going to freak out every time a stock you own goes down,
you shouldn't be investing in the stock market. What's your
time horizon on GOOG? -tom
\_ I'm looking at maybe 5 years? -op
\_ So don't worry about the stock price. Do you think the
company has changed since last week? -tom
\_ No, but it's possible sentiment has. GOOG was driven to
heights by investor sentiment more than by any actual
quantitative analysis. Number of insider buys over
the last year: 0. 399 sells, though.
\_ GOOG was driven to heights by making enormous gobs
of money. They appear to still be making enormous
gobs of money. If you believe they will stop making
money, sell. If you believe they'll continue to grow
and make more money, don't worry about the stock
price. "In the short term, the stock market is a
voting machine, in the long term, it's a weighing
machine. --Buffett". -tom
\_ Interesting that insiders don't see it as a buy,
but as a sell. As for the long term, how did
GOOG do 5 years ago? Oh wait, it wasn't around.
Nice quote from Buffett. I doubt he owns GOOG.
\_ Isn't this what they mean when they say
"X continues to defy analysts expectations"?
\_ Why would insiders buy, when they already have
stock built into their compensation package?
And of course insiders sell; that's what
happens when you use stock or stock options
as part of compensation. Microsoft had 77k
shares purchased, 40 million shares sold by
insiders. That has nothing to do with the
propsects of the company; it just has to do
with whether people's options are above water
or not. -tom
\_ Would you buy if you strongly felt it would
double in a year and the market was
undervaluing it? I'm not saying it's a
predictor necessarily, but 399 sells and 0
buys doesn't fill me with warm fuzzies.
\_ you really have no idea what you're
talking about. -tom
\_ Nice rebuttal. Did you spend all day
coming up with that?
Maybe you should read some of these
papers:
http://tinyurl.com/5ahs5d
One of his conclusions:
"This paper provides evidence that
insiders possess, and trade upon,
knowledge of specific and
economically-significant forthcoming
accounting disclosures as long as
two years prior to the disclosure.
Stock sales by insiders increase
three to nine quarters prior to a
break in a string of consecutive
increases in quarterly earnings.
Insider stock sales are greater for
growth firms, before a longer period
of declining earnings, and when the
earnings decline the break is
greater. Consistent with avoiding an
established legal jeopardy, there is
little abnormal selling in the two
quarters immediately prior to the
break."
Another addressing the <DEAD>dot.com<DEAD> bubble:
"Furthermore, stock corrections
after the bubble burst are strongly
negatively associated with estimated
levels of earnings management and
insider selling during the bubble."
\_ how about this: find a technology
company that uses stock-based
compensation, that has gone up in
stock price over the past year,
that doesn't have a huge amount
of insider selling. -tom
\_ That's the catch. If the stock
went up significantly then why
would they buy? It's already
higher than their built-in price
target. If you only look at
companies whose stock has gone
up of course you will find few
buyers: It's overpriced! Why not
find one which has few sales, or at
least a better ratio than 399:0?
AAPL has had some inside buyers. I
am not sure GOOG has ever had an
insider buy. (Not that I could
find.) Are you implying this guy's
research is garbage? It implies
that insiders trade on knowledge
they have, which anyone with common
sense would think is a sound
conclusion. Compare AAPL to
GOOG. AAPL has some buyers. I
am not sure GOOG has ever had
an inside buy.
conclusion.
\_ In the last 6 months Apple has
zero insider purchases and
> 1 million shares sold by
insiders (14.6% of the total
insider holdings). That's
just what happens when stocks
go up. That doesn't mean the
stock is overpriced; it means
that people are exercising
options and having to sell
to cover taxes, or just taking
profits. If you are getting
stock-based compensation, it's
probably a stupid idea to
buy more stock in your company;
you should be diversifying.
-tom
\_ AAPL has had zero insider buys
and over 1 million shares sold
in the past 6 months (16% of
insider holdings). That's just
what happens when you have
stock-based compensation; people
sell to cover taxes on their
option exercises, or they just
take profits. It is generally
stupid to buy stock in your
company when you already get
paid partly in stock; you
should diversify. -tom
\_ shouldn't you be shorting GOOG at 100 ?
\_ I'm not the short GOOG at 100 guy -op, different guy |
| 2008/8/26-9/3 [Finance/Investment] UID:50969 Activity:nil |
8/26 I just place limit buy on Etrade for X amount worth of $$$ but I
don't actually have X amount in the trading account. What would
happen if the order actually executes? Do I owe Etrade a steep %
of interest or it gets taken out magically from my savings/checking
accounts?
\_ The buy probably doesn't execute, unless you have a margin account
with them.
\_ I'm going to guess that you get as many shares as you have $$$
for, but it's possible it will execute and you will have to
fund the account ASAP (plus fees, I'm sure). This will depend
on your brokerage, so ask them and not us. |
| 2008/8/15-21 [Finance/Investment, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50873 Activity:nil |
8/14 http://preview.tinyurl.com/5frn2e He buried the lede: "The purchasing power of the typical worker has now fallen back to 1998 levels, despite a 29% increase in productivity over that period." \_ It's just another sign of the ongoing third-worldization of the US. Concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite, less social mobility, no middle class, decreased access to medicine and education. Third-worldization. \_ *yawn* \_ Excellent ... - mr. burns \_ This only happens when the Republicans are in power. Hopefully not for too much longer. |
| 2008/8/12-18 [Finance/CC, Finance/Investment] UID:50852 Activity:high |
8/11 Our Phony Economy
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/06/0082042
\_ This is an outstanding article. My hope for Obama is that
he could become the first serious politician on either side
of the aisle to challenge the assumption that GDP growth shoulds
of the aisle to challenge the assumption that GDP growth should
be our primary metric of success. -tom
\_ Success is how many countries we can free from TYRANTS
and AXIS OF EVIL in this world.
\_ Given the success of a $ measurement of "the economy", perhaps
the fix is to provide $ values for the things that have been
left out? Estimates of the value of "health", "environment"
and "resources"?
\_ This article doesn't mention any concepts not taught in Econ 1.
Every economist knows these things. I'm not sure what's so
great about the article or how it really addresses what's
wrong with measuring the growth of the economy via GDP. An
$800 pair of shoes *does* contribute 40x more to the economy
than a $20 pair of shoes.
\_ Proving you don't know what you are talking about. If I buy
an 800 dollar pair of shoes and wear them once or twice
less is added to the economy then if 40 people buy 20 dollar
shoes and use them to be more productive as people with shoes
can contribute more to the economy than people without shoes,
they can walk longer distances, are less likely to hurt
themselves, etc etc. Big luxury items don't create as much
wealth as a simaler level of basic needs. That's not to say
they don't contribute ANYTHING.
\_ You have it BACKWARDS. It's called Demand and
Supply (or it should have been). How are you going
to make those other people buy the 40 pairs of
shoes because you've given up the $800 pair?
People make their own decisions about what to buy,
which leads to demand, which is fulfilled by
supply. Now if you think 40 x $20 shoes >> $800,
then you let us know when you come up with a new
mathematical model that is internally consistent,
which somehow awards bonus dollars for having been
bought by the noble and now magically more
productive. Also, do you think people buy a $20
pair of shoes and then say, oh, I can be so much
more productive now. No, poor people without shoes
with an entrepreneurial bent decide to take a
chance and make some money, then realize they can
be more productive with shoes, and so buy a
pair. The whole theory is backwards.
\_ Why are you assuming people are attacking capatalism?
Noone is trying to say people shouldn't buy luxuries.
People are saying when the economy becomes too geared
towards buying and selling luxuries that do not
generate work in and of themselves that an economy
suffers, even if the GDP is still going up.
\_ This doesn't make sense. Nothing generates work in
and of themselves. "Real GDP" going up means there
is more overall value in the country, regardless of
what it was. The market is better at deciding value
than you are. A real problem that is mentioned in
the article is when "commons" damage is not accounted
for.
\_ Please provide some proof that the market is
"better at deciding value than you are." That's
merely an assertion. -tom
\_ America = free market, the strongest nation
in the world. You're an idiot. Go back to
Russia.
\_ America = democracy, the largst government
in the world, therefore the most central
control of spending. I see you are totally
incapable of arguing your point. -tom
\_ Well, is it just a coincidence that market-
based economies outperform planned economies?
Were those planned economies just unfortunately
saddled with the wrong planners?
But let me put it another way: it's not so
important that the market is better at it.
It's that *I* am better at deciding what's
valuable *to me* than you are. And when we
all do that it's called a market.
\_ Is Bernake a market planner? There
are aspects of planning in all
Western countries, and aspects of
market economies in Cuba and China.
Are we outperforming China right
now? By what metric? It has already
\_ China mysteriously has been doing
*far* better since they reformed their
system to incorporate market principles
beginning in 1978.
Chinese people are the biggest fans of
the free market in the world.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/bgprg
been proven that groups of individuals
making "rational" decisions for them as
individuals can produce negative results
for the entire system. And the use of
GDP as a proxy for success has problems
well beyond the problems of the commons
or of incomplete information; the use of
GDP as a proxy for success places a value
judgement on monetary transactions--
monetary transactions are inherently
more valuable than non-monetary
transactions. Buying food is valued more
highly than growing your own. Paying
$1000 for a cat is valued more highly
than adopting a stray. It is clear that
dialog and politics in the US are
beholden to these values, but it is not
at all clear that they produce good results
for the society. -tom
\_ If you have $1000 and you adopt a
stray cat then you have $1000 to
spend on something else. The $1000
doesn't go away unless you stuff it
in your mattress.
\_ All economies are planned, to a certain
extent. The best performing economies over
the long run are mixed economies, apparently
ones with a bit more central planning than
in the US. See Sweden vs. US long term median
per capita salary growth. Even in per capita
GDP they pretty much equal us, with a more
evenly distributed income structure and
less income volatility.
\_ Sweden and the US still have roughly
similar economic structures: market
based democracy plus socialist programs.
Sweden and the US have too many other
differences... the US gets huge numbers
of poor immigrants.
\_ I don't really disagree, but then again
the Democrats and Republicans don't
really disagree either. What's 30% vs.
40% state control of the economy?
Mostly, a tempest in a teapot, but
listening to FOX NEWS, you would think
it was the difference between liberty
and slavery.
\_ Who says what's more productive? That's USSR mentality.
If someone wants $800 shoes, why not? The money doesn't
disappear: the shoe makers profit and buy stuff from
others etc. and people are happier. That guy had to first
come up with the $800 somewhere too, probably doing
something productive somewhere in that chain.
\_ Do you have a problem with reading comprehension?
Noone said you shouldn't be able to buy 800 dollar
shoes. But 800 dollar shoes do not help the economy
as much as 40 $20 shoes, assuming 40 $20 shoes are used
in the manner most people use them. Just like buying
a 500k supercar doesn't help as much 30 people buying
middle of the road vehicles that let them be more
productive. If you don't understand that you have
no bussiness saying the article writer doesn't know
what they are talking about.
\_ Can you prove that people are happier because they have
$800 shoes? Because all the attempts to measure how
happy people are have found little or no correlation
between the number of luxury items someone has and
their level of happiness. America has gotten
ridiculously wealthy in the past 60 years and has
not gotten any happier. I think discussing what is
or isn't more "productive" is totally missing the point;
the purpose of our country isn't to produce as much
as it possibly can, the purpose is to promote the
general welfare of the people. The assumption built
into much of our discussion is that growing the GDP is
equivalent to promoting the general welfare, but there
is really no evidence that the two are equivalent or
even correlated. -tom
\_ Says Comrade Tom
\_ You have no substance. -tom
\_
,. ^_^ ., <-------- tom
_ .' '. _
/\) (/\
/ / \ \
( Y) (Y )
\_ The point is people buy what they want. Whether they
are happy or not is beside the point. It might be
found that slaves were happier as slaves than free
men.
\_ Actually, whether we are happy is exactly the
point. Would you prefer a large and growing
economy where everyone is unhappy, or a static
economy where everyone is happy? Getting rid
of weekends would do a great job of growing
the economy, but it would not be of societal
benefit. The point is that growth of the
economy is not equivalent to improvement of the
country. -tom
\_ Getting rid of weekends would be a planned
totalitarian move, not a market action.
Would it really grow the economy, I'm not
so sure... people need days off for errands,
shopping, and recreation which generates a lot
of GDP.
Of course it's better if we're happy. Maybe
we should put antidepressant drugs in municipal
water supplies?
You can't make everyone happy though. Which
country is so ideal in this regard?
This country has a highly stressed cultural
fabric. We have many different races and
cultures which contributes to isolation and
lack of unity. This is just the nature of
our nation and has little to do with markets.
Anyway, people seem pretty happy to me.
\_ You know that the "free market" didn't
invent the weekend, right? -tom
\_ Huh? That $800 already exists in the pocket of someone.
Whichever way they spend it is going to put $800 in
the pocket of the shoe company (for sake of argument
let's say the same company makes $800 snakeskin boots
and $20 rubber shoes) which will be used to pay wages and
investors who will then spend the money as they see fit.
It doesn't really matter what they buy with that $800 as
long as they spend it instead of saving it. In fact, since
luxury items have a higher markup you might argue that
luxury items have an environmental benefit because it's
less harm to the environment to make one pair of snakeskin
boots versus 40 pairs of rubber shoes. Same with your
car example. One supercar is better for the environment.
\_ Wealthy people spend money on vehicles that pollute
more. Look at Larry and Sergey. They got 2 Prii
but decided to get a modified 757 instead of
LearJet/CitationX which are more efficient. Also
jets carrying 2-4 people have horrible mileage
compared to automobiles, yet, they choose to fly
frequently. $$$ = more usage = more waste =
more pollution.
\_ side note: it is fucking stupid to pluralize
"prius" as "prii". -tom
\_ Priusen
\_ But shoes have value. If you take a man with no
shoes and give him a pair of cheap shoes he is better
equiped to create wealth. Probably more wealth than
those shoes cost in the first place. Luxury goods,
on the other hand, don't add as much beyond their
purchase price. You know the whole concept that money
makes money? It's not as productive if all that money
is being spent on is luxuries.
That millionaire is going to spend his $$$ on something
and 30 middle-of-the-road vehicle is not as efficient.
He's not going to give the $500K to someone else, which is
an assumption you seem to make. However, the $500K ends up
in the economy in either case where it gets spent on
other goods and services, perhaps on middle-of-the-road
vehicles purchased by the people who made the supercar.
\_ Sure it is, because it ends up in the same place
either way - in the pockets of the people who made
the goods. How does a millionaire buying 40
pairs of $20 shoes contribute more to the
economy than the same millionaire buying one
pair of $800 shoes? It doesn't.
\_ Generally utilitarian items are used more
productivly than luxuries. Are you really this
stupid? Items used friviously have less
benefit to an economy than items used
productivly. Expensive luxuries are much more
likely to be used friviously. And that's a
problem in economies where the wealth is
concentrated among a small portion. Yes,
they will spend money. Yes that money will
go to people who spend money. But most of
the money stays in the small percentage it
will be spent on luxuries it won't be as
beneficial to the economy as a whole creating
less wealth than if the money was being spent
productivly.
\_ Virtually all shoes are luxuries. You can
buy sturdy utilitarian shoes for $10 on
sale or $20 new. People choose fashionable
ones as luxuries. Luxuries make people's
lives happier. This is good: we're not
all working for the glory of the fatherland.
Demand for luxuries creates demand for
productive stuff to make those luxuries and
people jobs. We're far past the point of
struggling for really basic stuff like
a pair of shoes (most of us anyway). It's
all about improving quality of life now.
Wealth concentration is a separate issue
from whether GDP growth in luxuries is
somehow bad for the economy.
Trade imbalances are bad, wealth
concentration is bad. Economic activity good.
\_ You have a hard time with reading
comprehension.
\_ No, this person is apparently
just missing the point..
Hey you! Another, hopefully clearer,
analogy: is $10k of medicine which
keeps a scientist alive, who makes
a key breakthrough that makes
cars 10% more efficient MORE or LESS
"economically beneficial" than some
rich doofus spending $10k on designer
toilet paper? Which is the better
Hey you! Another, hopefully
clearer, analogy: is $10k of
medicine which keeps a scientist
alive, who makes a key breakthrough
that makes cars 10% more efficient
MORE or LESS "economically
beneficial" than some rich doofus
spending $10k on designer toilet
paper? Which is the better
allocation of the $10k resource?
Which benefits society in general
more? Which individual is "happier"?
YES, the $10k is given to someone
either way, and is "recycled", but
the HUMAN EFFORT required to earn
the $10k is WASTED in one case and
BENEFITS SOCIETY in the other.
more? Which individual is
"happier"? YES, the $10k is given
to someone either way, and is
"recycled", but the HUMAN EFFORT
required to earn the $10k is WASTED
in one case and BENEFITS SOCIETY in
the other.
\_ This is fallacious. The $10k is
not either spent on saving a
scientist or someone's luxury.
There are enough resources for
both things to happen. You also
\_ But there are not resources
enough for EVERYTHING to
happen. The key point is
to maximize benefit of
resources expended. $10k
designer toilet paper is
of less benefit than $10k
of beneficial preventative
immunizations, since you
apparently don't like
scientists. Same with
$800 pair of luxury shoes
vs. 40 pair of $20 utility
shoes. The market sometimes
does a very poor job of
maximizing benefit.
\_ The market does a better
job than any other method
can. It's not 100%
efficient, but as close to
it as one can get.
\_ Maybe, or maybe not,
but GDB does not measure
many economic goods with
value, as this article
points out. It is broken.
points out. It is
broken.
\_ Your theory says this.
But the reality is that
the market is better at
optimizing distribution
of some resources and
that community decision
making (democracy) is
better in other cases.
don't know ahead of time whether
medical spending will keep
someone alive or that someone
will do something good. Maybe
scientist will actually go nuts
and SHOOT everyone in his lab
thereby HARMING SOCIETY. And at
the end of the day, what do we
get out of the efficient cars?
Cars are luxuries too. They are
mostly conveniences for people.
Aren't we all supposed to move
to the city and use mass transit?
\_ Look, you don't know what you
talking about and you are
either trolling or stupid.
You also seem to think that
our point is that everyone
should live in a communist
society with no luxuries.
That's not what anyone is
saying. So take off your
blinders and read the whole
thread again or just please
die.
\_ Here we go with ad hominem
SPLUTTERING. Nice job,
fuckface.
Your argument is totally
disingenuous. What you're
really getting at is wealth
equalization, and hinting
at some sort of eugenics-
based resource allocation.
The guy buying ridiculous
luxuries is doing that
because he's an EVIL RICH
BASTARD.
\_ How did you ever pass
the reading comprehension
CAT tests?
\_ Maybe you just don't get it.
What is the point of all the "productive
spending"? what is it all for? at the
top of the food chain is luxury.
You don't even make sense. "most of the
money stays in the small percentage it
will be spent on luxuries" What? speak
English.
\_ 30-40% of growth in healthcare doesn't have to mean we're getting
more sick. It may mean we're just more and more focused on being
healthier.
\_ Or getting ripped off more and more by the insurance companies.
\_ And this is the point of the article: GDP, by itself, with no
analysis of where the money is going, is not itself an indicator
of efficiency or success. A more meaningful figure would include
an analysis of American health, and corruption and inefficiency
in the healthcare industry.
\_ That's a straw man argument. No one claimed GDP growth
measures efficiency, quality of life, or "success" (whatever
that means). However, a larger GDP almost by definition
means a larger economy and a larger economy means, again
almost by definition, more goods and services produced.
Think of it as "economic capacity" or "economic capability".
A larger GDP nation can outproduce a smaller one, whether
all those goods and services go to one individual
(dictatorship), everyone (communism), or are distributed
by the free market (capitalism).
\_ Read the article. The author argues that when the govt.
says that the economy is strong based solely on GDP, that
is a meaningless simplification. Yes, a _significantly_
higher GDP demonstrates the difference between a
modern industrialized nation and a third-world developing
nation. However, if the President says the economy is
strong because GDP has increased half a percent, what does
that mean? Does it mean people paid more money for the
same amount of gas (money that goes directly into the
pockets of the House of Saud)? Does it mean more people
are eating out? Does it mean that it was hotter this
summer so ice cream sales are on the rise? It might mean
any of the above or none at all. At small levels of
difference, it's a meaningless stat.
\_ But it's a straw man argument, because no one is
saying that GDP by itself is so incredibly meaningful.
This is mentioned in Econ 1, as are externalities.
Real GDP versus nominal GDP are also basic concepts.
So this genius author points out something every Econ 1
student learns - that there are limitations and
caveats when measuring economic output and that GDP
(even Real GDP) alone doesn't tell the whole story. BFD.
Even the Wikipedia article on GDP talks about its
limitations. There was nothing interesting or novel
in that article.
\_ Sweet mother of god, this guy is not talking about
people who've taken Econ 101, he's talking about
politicians who wave around a 1-point increase in
GDP as if it's the holy fucking grail.
\_ So you're damning a statistic and centuries of
economics on measuring econ output because Bush
and other policticians are abusing the term?
and other politicians are abusing the term?
\_ Did you read the article?
\_ I don't know if he did, but I did and
it was full of crap like (coming full
circle) the specious argument about $800
shoes somehow contributing less than
40 pairs of $20 shoes. He worries that
"[t]he money in the big pot could be going
to cancer treatments or casinos, violent
video games or usurious credit-card rates."
Yes, it could. So what? It's still economic
output. Somehow "violent video games" are a
lesser form of economic output or something?
It sounds like he wants to characterize
what is "good spending" and what is
not. In fact, he goes so far as to say
that people are not rational with their
expenditures. Presumably they would be
a lot happier if he made their expenditures
for them? He speculates that marriage is a
threat to GDP because there's no divorce
spending? Is he on crack? The money that
isn't spent on divorce will be spent on
something else (or invested). It doesn't
disappear and will be reflected in the
GDP either way as the person who receives it
will then make his own economic decisions.
Economics is not about value judgements.
His article boils down to: "People
don't spend their money the way I think
they should." No wonder Tom likes it.
\_ His point was that touting an increase in
the GDP as some sort of indicator of
the health of the nation is overly
simplistic and meaningless. We're
measuring throughput while ignoring
destination. We don't know if the end
result is investment in our own
economy (yay!) or pools full of diamonds
in Riyadh (boo). He's saying that we
\_ GDP includes an exports minus imports
in the equation. Consumption isn't a
one way street. To pay for diamonds in
Riyadh requires spending money.
need to assess more than just the amount
of money that trades hands. That's not
the same as a "planned economy" a la
Stalin or Mao; it's arming the consumer
with tools for making more informed
choices. His point about divorce was an
obvious exaggeration designed to show
that an activity which increases money
flowing from one set of hands to another
is not necessarily an indicator of a
a healthy economy; it's an indicator of
nothing more than money moving. I don't
see where you see this ominous shadow
of socialism that seems to have you in
a tizzy. I don't see anything anti-
capitalism in wanting to know where the
money's flowing; if anything, I think
it's the basis for the purest capitalism.
\_ Nothing wrong with knowing where
the money is flowing, but what does it
matter? His undertone is that it's not
necessarily flowing where it should
be. He can't make that call. Divorces
make plenty of people happy. Recall
the days before they were common.
I can sell you a service and then you
can sell me one back. It's not
"nothing more than money moving". Two
services were performed.
\_ Do you think that having two
parents working and paying a
nanny to raise the kids is
inherently better for the
country than having one parent
stay home? -tom
\_ No idea and, unlike you, I don't
profess to know. However, if
parents are doing it then they
must feel it benefits them and
their family.
\_ The problem is, because we
are measuring our success
by GDP, we create political,
economic, and social
incentives to make the
choice to outsource
parenting. Prior to Keynes,
families with two working
parents were virtually
unheard of; now they are the
common case. It's
fallacious to consider this
the result of the free
market, except insofar as
free market ideology values
monetary transactions and
thus encourages them. You
get what you measure. -tom
\_ Uh, that's not due to
measuring GDP. Those
incentives exist anyway.
Prior to Keynes women
couldn't even vote in
general and their
economic opportunities
were culturally limited.
How do you propose to
"get the women back in
the kitchen"?
\_ Look, it's simple;
the metric you use to
measure success has
effects on behavior.
This is self-evident.
The primary measure we
have used to measure
success of the country
in the past 60 years
has been GDP. It is
not at all coincidental
that the society we
have built in that time
values consumption,
planned osbolescence,
and outsourcing. Those
are predictable effects
of using GDP to measure
success. The point is,
no one ever bothered to
prove that we'd be
better off with GDP
as our primary success
metric. And it's not
clear that we are. -tom
\_ Dude, you are way out
on a wobbly limb here.
The BEA uses GDP as
a measurement of
economic strength.
You'll have a hard
time proving that
individual purchasing
and business
decisions are
somehow tied to that
measuring stick.
Consumers and
corporations aren't
making decisions
based on how they
affect GDP. GDP
reflects the
decisions. It doesn't
drive them.
\_ The incentives
our society puts
in place are based
on how they affect
GDP. Individual
decisions are
skewed based on
those incentives.
-tom
\_ I assume you are
referring to
interest rates
when you say
incentives?
I think your
position is
untenable.
Rates are
determined
by a lot more
than just GDP
and it's not
clear to what
extent monetary
policy affects
the economy.
(See Japan's 0%
rates and yet
sluggish
economy.)
You are
reaching.
_/
Why would you assume I'm
referring to interest rates?
I'm referring to an enormous
number of decisions around
taxation, subsidy, and policy.
For example, farm subsidies
for factory farms. "Get big
or get out." Subsidy for the
road system, while passenger
rail is starved. Oil
subsidies. The military-
industrial complex. Allowing
obnoxious advertising
virtually everywhere. Christ,
the week after 9/11 there were
press conferences that weren't
about terrorism or security,
they were about "America: Open
For Business!" All these
things are in support of the
idea that more consumption is
better. You can't go through
an election cycle without
hearing virtually every
politician talk about "growing
the economy" and "creating
jobs"; no one even suggests
that growing the economy might
not be the right goal. -tom
\_ Please provide proof that any of
these are tied to a large extent to
the way that GDP is measured. I
mean, seriously, how does the
way GDP is measured lead to the
decision (if it's even true,
which is its own argument) to
subsidize roads versus rail?
How would you change the way
GDP is measured in order to get
the "correct" result?
mean, seriously, how does the way
GDP is measured lead to the decision
(if it's even true, which is its own
discussion) to subsidize roads
versus rail? How would you change
the way GDP is measured in order to
get the "correct" result?
\_ hi dim!
\_ I'm not talking about changing the
way GDP is measured, I'm talking
about changing the way *success*
is measured. Success is measured
in the US by GDP growth, therefore
politicians make decisions which
encourage GDP growth. An
auto-based culture has many more
transactions than a transit-based
culture; its inefficiency
"creates jobs" and therefore is
good if you're measuring success
by GDP. -tom
good if y
good if you measure success by
GDP. -tom
\_ What you are missing, just like
before, is that *if* a
mass-transit-based culture has
fewer transactions and/or
smaller transactions (not
necessarily true) then that
leaves more resources to
spend on other projects,
which makes the GDP pretty
much unchanged as compared
to auto-based. These are not
decisions that affect the size
of GDP. These are distribution
decisions: how do we spend the
GDP that we are capable of
generating.
\_ What *you* are missing is
that GDP is the result of
labor, and that the US
systematically encourages
choices which result in
increased labor. For
example, if someone stays
home with the kids, that
family will have less
income and spend less money.
If someone decides to take
a lower-paying job so he
doesn't have to commute
an hour each way, the family
will have less income.
If someone decides to work
a part-time job because he
really enjoys working in
the garden, and is able
to provide a good percentage
of the food the family
consumes, the family will
have less income. In all
these scenarios, the family
spends less and thus
contributes less to GDP.
It's not a zero-sum game.
Why should Americans work
more hours and have less
vacation than Europeans?
Shouldn't our excees
capacity be used at least
partly to give people more
leisure time? -tom
\_ That's not some official
policy. That's just
economics. Yes, choosing
to work less results in
less output. If you work
a good job you can afford
to have lots of free time
if you want. Maybe our
capacity isn't as excess
as it seems... tons of
people are in debt. Maybe
it's a function of our
banking industry which
idolizes debt. Debt
pushes up money supply
and inflates everything.
We have to go into debt
to compete for resources
against everyone else who
is in debt, working off
their monthly payments.
We're all indentured to
banks.
people are in debt.
Americans don't like to
"do without".
\_ Our use of GDP as a
measure for success
is not merely an
official policy; it
is deeply ingrained
in our culture. The
idea that more is
always better has been
so effectively sold to
us that most Americans
accept the idea as
axiomatic. It's not.
There is no reason
why Americans need
to use 2-3 times more
resources per capita
than Europeans; we
just assume that the
ways we do things are
the best ways, because
that's the way we've
"always" done it. -tom
\_ It's not just us.
Immigrants who come
here lap it up. And
they all use GDP to
measure their econs.
\_ GDP is a decent
measurement of
the size of an
economy. It's
not clear it's
a good
measurement of
the *success*
of an economy.
-tom
\_ You are just wrong about there being
centuries of measuring economic statistics.
This stuff was practically invented by FDR
and his economists. Keynes is considered
the father of Macroeconomics. |
| 2008/8/7-10 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:50808 Activity:nil |
8/6 The Financial Times has published an excellent series of articles on
the root causes of the current financial crises and suggestions of
what to do next (not light reading):
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a09f751e-6187-11dd-af94-000077b07658.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cc160f46-624f-11dd-9ff9-000077b07658.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d13db7bc-638a-11dd-844f-0000779fd18c.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/794801a8-63e8-11dd-844f-0000779fd18c.html
\_ didn't the FT publish an article a few months ago about
ROGUE COMPUTERS that forced Moodys to grade bonds as AAA ?
\- people you want to read and listen to who are not as well-known
as WBUFFET: Bill Gross, Martin Wolf, Md El-Erian.
\_ root cause == real estate bubble, infection of monetary institutions
with bonds backed by real estate
solution == stuff the bad bonds and future mortgages into FNM/FRE
and bill the taxpayer for any losses
who benefited == finance guys, real estate agents, mortgage brokers
\_ also: conservative ideologues who use the
governmental debt they manufactured as an
excuse to cut government services. -tom
\_ There are more government services now
than ever before. |
| 2008/7/24-28 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:50680 Activity:nil |
7/24 Hope none of you or your relatives have > $100K in checking+savings+
CDs or any bonds/stock in Downey S&L or WaMu. Friday night is
bank failure night.
\_ URL?
\_ http://preview.tinyurl.com/6m9suj (NYT)
S.E.C. Warns Wall Street: Stop Spreading the False Rumors
\_ This says nothing about Downey or WaMu. More URL? |
| 2008/7/16-23 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Finance/Investment] UID:50595 Activity:nil |
7/16 Yes let's start making interest rate super low and make it super easy
to get loans so that every American can own a home! Go for it
Greenspan, and keep it up Bernanke. "We're creating...an ownership
society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able
to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house,
welcome to my piece of property," Bush said in October 2004.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080218/klein
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/what_ownership_society.php
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03E6DE153FF933A15751C1A9659C8B63
Please don't f***ing paste your f***ing CATO links here, thank you.
\_ All of that started in 1996.
\_ It is all Bill Clinton's fault.
\_ related to the carbon emission thread above. This is the perfect
time for US to curb consumer behaviors. we can now impose
heavy taxes on housing that has sq.feet per person larger than a
a preset limit, *AND* we can impose rules on developers that mediem
house size to a fixed sq feet. China has similiar regulation
already in place to curb large houses. Time for US to do something
similiar. |
| 2008/7/16-23 [Politics/Domestic/SocialSecurity, Finance/Investment] UID:50587 Activity:nil |
7/15 My mom's fixed annuity is maturing and we're wondering what we
should be doing with it. She's 70 and we gotta put the money
where it is safe (no stock market, no 401k). What are some good
choices to make now, considering that the US economy is failing
and the banking industry is fubar?
\_ I would buy another fixed annuity with enough of it so that
annuity + SS = bare bones enough to live off of, put half the
rest into a CA Muni ladder (or bond fund, if you have less than
$1/4M to do this right) and buy an index fund with the rest.
She is still too young to get 100% out of the market. What is
wrong with an annuity?
\_ I thought if you have over $3000 then you're not eligible
for SS? Or is that something else?
\_ I think this is related to SSI (Supplemental Security
Income) for low income, not the Retirement SS. SSI allows
a higher paycheck from the government.
\_ No, even Warren Buffett gets SS. It is for everyone who
has contributed for at least five years. Maybe you are
thinking of the bankruptcy code. I think you are allowed
to keep a car worth $3000 in a bankruptcy.
\_ Ok so I tried to Google for Social Security but it seems
complex, is there a SS for Dummies web site? Thanks!
\_ http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561113_2/Social_Security.html
Courtesy of Bill Gates |
| 2008/7/14-16 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:50567 Activity:nil |
7/14 Onion once again more like reality than "real news"
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/recession_plagued_nation_demands |
| 2008/7/11-13 [Finance/Investment] UID:50538 Activity:nil |
7/11 Private the gains, socialize the losses. Thanks for the billions,
now I am going to retire suckahs, says the financial sector!
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5ta8n7
\_ You missed the "force the losses" |
| 2008/7/9-13 [Science/Space, Finance/Investment] UID:50514 Activity:nil |
7/8 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25517085 Economy today is very very healthy compared to say, the 70s and 80s. However the problem today is very different. Over-leveraging. Thanks to deregulation, commercial and investment banks used ridiculous degrees of leverage on investments that turned out to have much less value than they thought. Yay to deregulation!!! Let's deregulate EVERYTHING in the name of PROFIT! Deregulate electricity, healthcare, education, transportation, water, air, etc etc \_ Please list all of the successful planned economies of the last 100 years. \_ Straw man. Regulation != "planned economy". For that matter, list all of the successful free markets of the last 100 years. (I know, all market failures are due to government regulation). \_ Sweden, Norway, Luxemborg... need I go on? \_ Norway is a mixed economy. So probably is Sweden, although I'm not sure. You're already down to Luxembourg? What's next Monaco? Please do go on. |
| 2008/7/8 [Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan, Finance/Investment] UID:50492 Activity:nil |
7/7 The Failures of Neoliberalism:
http://dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=14905 (Stiglitz) |
| 2008/6/19-23 [Finance/Investment] UID:50313 Activity:nil |
6/19 If I place a limit order to buy 500 shares at $20, is it always all
or nothing? Meaning I will end up with 0 rather than 300 shares
if the price doesn't stick around at $20 long enough for an order
of 500 to be filled? I obviously don't want to break it up into a
lot of transactions to save on fees.
\_ No, it is not always all or nothing, though you can usually contact
your broker and make it that way, usually for a fee. In practice,
they always get filled for me anyway, even if it is in a few
tranches.
\_ So you are saying I might end up with only 300 shares?
I don't want to end up only with a really small number filled
since then the transaction fees will swamp my gains. Is
this a realitic concern with a $2000-$5000 trade?
\_ Your broker should have some kind of document that explains
what they do when an order is not completely filled. You
probably won't run into this problem if you trade stocks
that have reasonable volume. |
| 2008/6/10-13 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:50215 Activity:low |
6/10 Millions Paid to Dead CEOs Outrage Over 'Golden Coffins': Tech T:
http://www.csua.org/u/lqh (finance.yahoo.com)
"Among the more outrageous posthumous packages:
* $298.1 million for Comcast CEO Brian Roberts
* $288 million for Nabors CEO Eugene Isenberg
* $115.6 million for Occidental CEO Ray Irani
* $17 million for Shaw Group CEO J.M. Bernhard to not compete with
the firm after he dies"
I wonder if J.M. Bernhard is thinking about breaching the contract.
\_ Why should you care what someone's compensation is?
\_ It's just funny that a firm is willing to pay a CEO to not
compete with the firm after he dies. --- OP
\_ That's the wording of the author, not of the contract.
\_ see the WSJ link; it's a non-compete clause in the
contract, which still pays off if he's dead. -tom
\_ Correct. Which is different than the wording of the
author. -pp
\_ I understand now. Thx. -- OP
\_ it's still pretty lame to have a non-compete clause
pay off in the case of death. -tom
\_ duh. It is just to make sure his family gets the
money if he leaves the company by dying instead
of by leaving. It is to encourage him to stay
until he dies and not leave early to cash in on
the non-compete when he's otherwise doing a good
job. It is not lame if you accept that any
non-compete clause was worth that number. Why is
it necessary to explain such a simple concept?
\_ What better way to guarantee fulfillment of the
non-compete side of a contract than to die? |
| 2008/6/8-10 [Finance/Investment] UID:50184 Activity:nil |
6/8 How many different mutual funds should I have in my roth IRA?
I know there are many factors, but I want to know shoudl I just
invest all my roth IRA money into one mutual fund, or divide it up
into 2, 5, 10, whatever. thanks in advance.
\_ It's not about how many funds you have, it's about what's in them.
Consider diversifying your assets. If you buy a small-cap fund,
for example, you'll want to also buy at least one large-cap fund
to spread the risk. On the other hand, if you buy just
one target-date fund (which contains an asset allocation mix
that the fund company judges is appropriate for your age), that
may be all you need. This sounds like the best option for you,
at least until you learn more about asset allocation and decide
that you would rather do your own management. |
| 2008/6/1-2 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:50109 Activity:nil |
6/1 No comment:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/fashion/01rich.html
\_ Why does the NY Times not include their postal address so I can
send them my feces? |
| 2008/5/26-30 [Science/GlobalWarming, Finance/Investment] UID:50054 Activity:nil |
5/25 http://preview.tinyurl.com/4rheqx The WSJ on the commodity "bubble." |
| 2008/5/24-30 [Finance/Investment] UID:50049 Activity:nil |
5/24 I'm looking for a financial advisor/planner to help guide me
with where to invest my money. I have the foundation set up
(Roth IRA and 401(k)) but I want someone to recommend good
funds to invest them in. I prefer one that doesn't get a
commission if I buy from a certain company. I see lots of ads
for Charles Schwab. Would they be what I want? Thanks.
\_ Their fee for service consultation seem reasonably priced. If they
recommend "Schwab" funds, run for hills. For 401k, you can do this yourself
by finding recommended Asset Allocation for your age, then mapping
the categories therein to the limited options you have in yer 401k.
Asset Allocation says put 10% in a small-cap US stock fund -> Hey, I only
have one fund to choose from in this category. Easy as cake. Repeat.
\_ Their fee for service consultation seem reasonably
priced. If they recommend "Schwab" funds, run for
hills. For 401k, you can do this yourself by finding
recommended Asset Allocation for your age, then mapping the
categories therein to the limited options you have in yer
401k. Asset Allocation says put 10% in a small-cap US
stock fund -> Hey, I only have one fund to choose from in
this category. Easy as cake. Repeat.
\_ Email me and I will hook you up with my guy. -ausman
\_ GAAAAAYYY.
\_ Gay hooking. |
| 2008/5/23 [Finance/Investment] UID:50038 Activity:moderate |
5/23 http://cij.inspiriting.com/?p=455 Who is to blame for surging food and energy prices? \_ No! It's India and China and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot! Peak oil! |
| 2008/5/23-24 [Computer, Finance/Investment] UID:50036 Activity:nil |
5/23 Erroneous computer programs made Moodys incorrectly
give AAA ratings to crazy weirdo debt CDO stuff I really
do not understand:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c82561a-2697-11dd-9c95-000077b07658.html |
| 2008/5/10-16 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:49927 Activity:nil |
5/10 psb are you Fair and Handsome Modern Indian Man?
http://tinyurl.com/446m8s
\- Bachnaa ae haseenon lo main aa gayaa [see below] |
| 2008/5/1-8 [Finance/Investment] UID:49870 Activity:kinda low |
5/1 Assuming a depreciating dollar, does that really mean foreign stocks
would be more attractive? After all, the inherent value of any given
company should be independent of the denomination -- if the dollar is
worth less, the company is worth more dollars. And revenue goes up
as prices go up. It would depend on whether there is something about
a stronger dollar that the individual company depends on.
\_ Value of foreign stocks and value of the dollar are not entirely
orthogonal. Any company that exports to the US would suffer
from a stronger dollar. Still, I would expect, and have observed,
^ by "stronger" i meant "weaker".
a general trend that investing in foreign stocks during a time
of a declining dollar has limited the damage from the recent
wall street bloodbath on my overall portfolio.
\_ What bloodbath? The drops that happened earlier were not
related to value of the dollar, but fears about the US and/or
world economy, which is somewhat orthogonal to exchange rates.
\_ If the US economy craters, overseas companies will take less of a
hit than US companies, but they'll still take a hit. Companies
which rely heavily on US consumerism will be hit hardest, of the
overseas companies. -tom
hit than US companies, but they'll still take a hit. Of the
overseas companies, those which rely heavily on US consumerism
will be hit hardest. -tom
\_ I'm more asking about the inflation/exchange rate issue, not
cratering of the US market itself. I saw a couple people imply
that a falling dollar implies foreign stocks, which sounded
like the way someone would advise moving into foreign currency
instruments, but I think that's fallacious for stocks.
\_ It depends on the company. Owning stock in foreign
companies is a hedge against the weak dollar; my foreign
holdings have done very well since the dollar has tanked.
But there are also foreign companies which will have
business problems due to a weak dollar. -tom
\_ It is a good hedge against the dollar falling, similar to the
hedge you get from foreign currency. Foreign stocks are demoninated
in their home currency, I hope that is obvious. You also get the
added effect of any stock market: more volatility combined with
more potential for gain.
\_ But my point is that stocks != holding currency. Currency will
just go down because it has no other value than itself. But
say, GE as a company has some real world value in terms of
physical and intellectual property, and its products have a
value independent of the currency (so if dollars were worth
2x less, that refrigerator will cost 2x more dollars, basically.)
Well, I guess it depends if the dollar is worth less due to
inflation or due to exchange rates... so US companies which
sell stuff overseas seem safe enough.)
\_ You realize that NOTHING has a fixed "intrinsic" value?
Things are "worth" what you can trade for it. If people
woke up one morning and decided they didn't want gold
anymore, it would lose nearly all it's "value".
That is perhaps not too likely to happen to gold, but
it happens to companies *all the time*. All markets
and currencies are pretty much imaginary constructs.
And imaginations sometimes run away.
\_ Nothing you said here appears to conflict with what
I said.
\_ It's a multivariate, chaotic system; you can't isolate one
variable like that. There are fundamental problems in the
US economy which are leading to the dollar's fall; those
problems affect US companies more than they do foreign
companies. -tom
\_ The simple answer is: no that is not how it works. A company
that only sells products in the US, with no overseas
competition, is not going to be able to raise their price.
The dollar is worth about 1/2 what it was in 2001, but
prices are not double, except for the price of oil, which is
a fungable commodity. Most goods are only up 25% or so.
a fungible commodity. Most goods are only up 25% or so.
A bunch of stuff (mostly made in China) has actually
gone down in price.
\_ But the US company's revenue will not show a 50% drop, it
is denominated in dollars. The US stock might rise if it
becomes more attractive for foreign investors.
If costs go up (oil, inflation-hit production inputs) then
they can raise their price, because they have to and so
does everyone else. Foreign companies can't come in and
undercut the US company if the exchange rate cheapens the
dollar and oil prices are high globally. So I still don't
see why falling dollar and/or inflation is, in and of
itself, bad for US stocks. Economic slowness due to
related factors might be a reason.
\_ There's no such thing as a falling dollar "in and of
itself."
\_ Okay. But the associated factors are not clearly
bad for the US stocks either. For example:
low interest rates tends to devalue a currency, but
low interest rates tend to make stocks more
attractive.
\_ Okay, I agree with your reasoning. But you can see
how stocks in a foreign market would tend to outperform
ones denominated in a local depreciating currency,
right?
\_ Yeah, obviously if nothing else changed then you
are gaining the exchange rate on top of the stock
growth. I guess there are too many variables as
tom implied. I should look at how NASDAQ or the
DOW performed relative to various international
indices on a dollar-basis over the last 5 years.
But there have been many many variables besides
exchange rate. |
| 2008/4/30 [Finance/Investment] UID:49858 Activity:high |
4/30 James Bond arrested for threatening to kill someone
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9106606?source=rss
\_ It was a KGB consparicy.
\_ Dude, it's SPECTOR.
\_ More like KAOS. |
| 2008/4/16-23 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:49765 Activity:high |
4/16 You thought gasoline was expensive now? You ain't seen nothing yet!
link:www.csua.org/u/las (Yahoo Finance, includes video)
\_ The free market will solve our energy crisis -dimwit #1 fan
\_ PEAK OIL alert. Also 'rationing by price' -- gotta love it.
\_ If the govt doesn't step in and do rationing, rationing by price
is how the market would do it.
\_ How many of you recall the gas lines of the 70s? Without
rationing by price we'll have lines *and* expensive gas, if
you can get it. Or oh hey we can do that whole even/odd
numbered plate thing again, yeah that was great. And don't
forget to ticket/fine/arrest any private citizen who dares
to give gas to anyone on the side of the road who runs out,
that was good for a laugh back then too.
\_ Dld that latter actually ever happen? I lived through
this, though I was quite young, but I don't remember
anything like that.
\_ Huh? What's wrong with 'rationing by price?' That's what the
market is FOR.
\_ Because when you ration nesseccities by price poor people
die. Old people die all the time in cold climates because
they can't afford heating oil.
\_ So how do you determine how much food/oil/whatever is
necessary and how much is beyond necessary? If you are
concerned about the poor then give them $$$ and let
them choose where to spend the $$$. That's still
rationing by price. I disagree with the idea that
every American should get a similar bundle of goods
that is "necessary".
\_ that's because you're an overprivileged twerp
\_ I forgot that you know what's best for people
more than they do. It's the leftist way to
boss people around.
\_ How do you "know" that freezing to death is
what is best for someone? Did they tell you
that?
\_ Can you read? "let them choose where to
spend the $$$" -!pp
\_ Nonono, the soviet style command economy
is clearly superior to western style
economics.
\_ We actually live in a mixed economy.
But you probably already know that.
\_ Sorry, missed that.
\_ Being able to survive a cold winter is pretty high
on the list.
\_ Some people have more tolerance for cold and
would prefer to spend the heating oil credit on
something more important to them like strippers
or booze or HDTV or whatever.
\_ Just wear a jacket at home. That's how I save on
gas bill.
\_ Cause where you live it regularly gets below 0F
\_ No, sorry. Government rationing will cause even worse
shortages and hurt even more people. Where do you
central control command economy guys get the idea the
government can actually make anything better? With gvt
imposed rationing you'll get a Soviet style system where
the rich and powerful get everything and the poor and
middle classes get nothing.
\_ And with no regulation, you get booms and panics
like in the 1880s. Why argue against the Straw Man
of a Soviet economy? Is your position so weak that
can't make your point any other way? Is there more
or less wealth inequality in Sweden or the US?
\_ A system in which everyone is equally poor is
a possible result and that wouldn't be a good
system. We can see examples of that in the China
of a couple decades ago, Soviet Russia, Cuba,
and so on. I don't think it matters how much of
the pie you get if it's a big enough pie. Everyone
sharing a small pie isn't a great alternative.
\_ That may be true, but it's a well known
psychological finding that people (a) care about
relative equality and (b) care specifically
about inequality of transferable assets, much
more so than other, much more 'unfair' and
blatant kinds of inequality. (There are some
interesting theories about how our attitudes about
fairness may have evolved which explain (a) and
(b)). -- ilyas
\_ I think most people in the USA don't care
or there would have been riots already. I
think people here assume (correctly) that
a rising tide lifts all boats. A wealthy,
powerful USA is something most Americans
desire and so far it has made us by far
the largest consumers in the world.
\_ Funny you should claim that right now.
Here is a front page article from the WSJ
that argues otherwise:
http://www.csua.org/u/lbj (WSJ)
(The rising boats opinion, not the
wealthy powerful America comment.)
\_ Do you think that people in Sweden, Denmark, The
Netherlands, etc are "poor"? Do you think that they
think of themselves as poor? The countries are
much more egalitarian than the US and people are
in general happier. And no one goes hungry or lacks
for housing or medical care.
Netherlands, etc are "poor"? Do you think that
they think of themselves as poor? The countries
are much more egalitarian than the US and people
are in general happier. And no one goes hungry or
lacks for housing or medical care.
\_ The Netherlands is a wealthy nation, but the
individuals are poor by American standards.
I say this as someone with a Dutch mother
and most of my family still living in Holland.
Sure, they aren't lacking in necessities.
On the other hand, they don't have any of the
luxuries people here have. I wouldn't eagerly
live their lifestyle nor that of my godfather's
Swedish ex-wife. Of course, someone who is
homeless would disagree. However, I think
overall the middle class in the USA is better
off than the middle class there. The rich are
rich both places. GDP per capita US is #2
in the world behind Luxembourg. Holland is
#16. Sweden is #25. I think our system,
while "unequal" benefits the citizenry more
than any other even though it's not "fair".
\_ But don't Dutch people consistently have
a higher "happiness" rating than Americans?
Food for thought. I believe Switzerland
comes out on top in that list, although
America is pretty high at number 20.
\_ Happiness can be acheieved with drugs.
It's not really something I aspire
to. YMMV.
\_ -1 to you, +1 to me.
\_ I am just saying that happiness is
a state of mind. I wouldn't
want to live in Third World
conditions just because the
people that do claim they are
happy about it.
\_ You were doing so good there for
a while too, after you dropped
the "a slightest bit of tax
increase is exactly equal to
Stalinism" line of argument, too.
Though you may in fact be
Stalinism" line of argument,
too. Though you may in fact be
another person, since your tone
is so different. But do you
really think that Swedes live
in "Third World" conditions? I
do not. The Dutch seem to have
quite pleasant lives and I have
been there many times. What you
say about the relative prosperity
of the middle class is no doubt
true, but all that junk that
Americans have doesn't seem to
improve their lives any.
say about the relative
prosperity of the middle class
is no doubt true, but all that
junk that Americans have
doesn't seem to improve their
lives any.
\_ That's pretty paternalistic.
-- ilyas
\_ I am one of those liberal
elitists you keep hearing
about.
\_ Good luck in the next
election! People LOVE
elitists!
\_ I am not running for
office.
\_ There may not be much of an oil trading system left by 2020 since
the "global economy" might be totally wrecked by nonstop warfare.
\_ Nonstop warfare? Caused by what? And fighting over what?
\_ Time to get a high gas mileage vehicle before manufacturers put an
SUV-like premium on them.
\_ Haven't they already?
\_ Yes on the hybrid ones, not yet on the regular engine ones.
\_ Get a bike as well! |
| 2008/4/15-23 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:49754 Activity:nil |
4/15 Massive numbers of homes with negative equity
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/04/15/BULE105CR4.DTL&o=0
and the associated article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/15/BULE105CR4.DTL
I had no idea the negative equity problem was as widespread as the
first link would suggest.
\_ It's "Number of homes purchased in 2006"!
\_ It's "homes ***purchased in 2006*** with negative equity"!
\_ well taht certainly lowers the scale of the problem, but its
still pretty big.
\_ "most affected are those who bought recently with little or no money
down". hahah, damn fools.
\_ I'd rather be negative equity with no money down than in the
same situation but 20% commited.
\_ Well, with 20% down and the same price they would be in a
better situation with the mortgage. The example woman
seemed to still want to live in the house she bought.
She bought more house than she could afford, relying on
unreasonable price increases.
\_ ObSuburbsSuck |
| 2008/4/13-19 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:49744 Activity:low |
4/14 The Conservative solution to the housing mess: print lots of money.
http://www.csua.org/u/l9t (WSJ)
\_ And the solution to the federal deficit. What is a better
solution to cut your deficit by 1/2 than inflation? MORE TAX?
\_ LESS SPENDING?
\_ Let's cut social programs.
\_ Agree. Let the homeless people go rampant on the street,
and let the desperate and starving ones carry their
struggle in their 'hood. Let's put them away somewhere
far so that we don't have to deal with them, ever.
\_ (inflation is, effectively, a tax on people with savings)
Let's designate that place as Southern California.
\_ Can we put them in all the empty McMansions in the exurbs
\_ I think these places are called SF, Berkeley, Oakland,
Hollywood, Venice, and Santa Monica.
\_ Sadly, criminals don't stay in one place. Therefore
a better solution is to put them far away from
the civilized world (e.g. putting criminals in
S Cal)
\_ Northern Cal seems to have more of an affinity
for these people based on voting trends and
anecodotal evidence. Southern Cal on the
other hand (e.g. Orange County) does not
except for the cities I mentioned.
\_ You have obviously never been to downtown
Los Angeles.
\_ Skid row? Skid row is a perfect example
of how poorly the homeless in SoCal are
treated and how unwelcome they are. For
example: ordinances against camping on
the street, ordinances against sleeping
on the sidewalk during the day, and so
on. The ACLU and LA constantly clash.
\_ (inflation is, effectively, a tax) |
| 2008/4/11-16 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Finance/Investment] UID:49721 Activity:nil |
4/11 McCain campaign attacks George Soros for funding third party groups,
even though Soros has funded McCain's own causes:
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/mccain_attacked_sorosfunded_de.php
\_ What's the betting pool like for odds on McCain self-destucting
or having a stroke before the election?
\_ "I was for George Soros before I was against him" |
| 2008/4/10-12 [Industry/Startup, Finance/Investment] UID:49709 Activity:nil |
4/10 Can an impartial stock investor please clarify the following statement
for me so that I can vote to the best of MY interest and not the
interest of the CEO/CTO/CFO?
"Approval of an amendment to X's 200X Stock Plan to increase the
number of authorized share of Class A common stock issuable
thereunfer by 6,500,000"?
\_ It is hard to say, without knowing more about the companies
condition. They are trying to increase the amount of preferred
shares available to sell, in case they need to raise capital.
This generally dilutes existing shares, but might be needed, if
they are low on cash or something.
\_ If I give you more details would that help? The company has
between 10-20K employees, their stock was inflated to
ridiculously high in Q4 2008 but has since then tanked about 40%.
\_ They might also be supplying shares for stock options and ESPP.
-- !OP |
| 2008/3/27-28 [Reference/RealEstate, Finance/Investment] UID:49585 Activity:nil |
3/27 "Ten Days That Changed Capitalism"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120657397294066915.html |
| 2008/3/26-28 [Science/GlobalWarming, Finance/Investment] UID:49568 Activity:nil |
3/25 http://www.bankaholic.com/2008/federal-reserve-is-failure Federal Reserve is a Failure while the White House praise America's new society of ownership during the housing boom. |
| 2008/3/25-28 [Reference/Tax, Finance/Investment] UID:49563 Activity:low |
3/25 How much are you guys expecting from GWBush's tax rebates?
\_ $0. Combined income of my wife and me is probably over the limit.
\_ So you're the wealthy?
\_ $600, a whole lot of money for a poor grad student..
\_ $1200 tax deduction, which, since we already overpaid through
withholding, means a $1200 bonus to our refund.
\_ $0. My income is too high.
\_ How do you figure this out based on your income?
\_ More than $75K if single or $150K if married and you're
probably getting nothing. I imagine most s/w engineers are
getting nothing, like me.
\_ 75K taxable income. (Post 401k, post all deductions.)
And it doesn't go away at 75k, although it does go down
pretty fast. If you have a house you probably will get
a refund.
\_ You mean if you have a MORTGAGE with a lot of interests
to deduct?
\_ Yes I did. See you knew exactly what I meant.
\_ ...the fact that it is wrong notwithstanding
\_ No, it's based on adjusted gross income. No mortgage
(or other itemized) deductions.
\_ None of you have actually explained how I would
calculate it.
\_ Learn to use google.
\_ Nothing. We make too much. |
| 2008/3/20-25 [Finance/Investment] UID:49519 Activity:nil |
3/20 Huge money flows out of equities as stock indexes rocket higher
http://tinyurl.com/2wzcfx (wsj.com)
(Look at the Money Flow column, then click Find Historical Data,
choose any another date, compare to today)
\_ Look at the "Buying on Weakness" link. What's your point?
\_ did you check the historical data? do you know how to count?
\_ What's your point?
\_ The stock market appears to be recovering. Why does this upset you? |
| 2008/3/19-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:49495 Activity:nil |
3/18 Fed cuts the interest rate by another 3/4% and saves the
housing market. Moral of the story: BUY THAT HOME NOW!
Bush promises to make the economy good no matter the cost!
\_ PS: US to Yen went from 120 to 98 from 2007 to now. |
| 2008/3/18-21 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:49491 Activity:nil |
3/18 Tent cities springing up in LA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnOOo6tRs8
\_ lazy people = poor people, proof that we shouldn't waste any
more money on social programs and handouts! -Republican
\_ You can go and give them your money. Why don't you?
\_ America! Fuck yeah! |
| 2008/3/17-21 [Finance, Finance/Investment] UID:49479 Activity:nil |
3/17 So, are we or are we not in a recession?
\_ A rule of thumb is "two consecutive quarters of declining GDP."
We may not have actually hit that yet, but it seems obvious we
will. -tom
\_ it's not a rule of thumb, it's the definition used in the field.
\_ there are two definitions:
(a) what you guys said
(b) NBER defined, to summarize: significant economic slowdown
as measured by a combination of factors, including (a)
\- on a local note, of these people:
http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html
frankel is ex-ucb dept econ, c. romer and d. romer are
ucb dept econ. |
| 2008/3/17-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:49471 Activity:nil |
3/17 BSC chart for last 5 days, making dot com bubble stocks proud!
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=BSC&t=5d
\_ "Unless derivatives contracts are collateralized or
guaranteed, their ultimate value also depends on the
creditworthiness of the counter-parties to them. But
before a contract is settled, the counter-parties record
profits and losses--often huge in amount--in their current
earnings statements without so much as a penny changing
hands. Reported earnings on derivatives are often wildly
overstated. That's because today's earnings are in a
significant way based on estimates whose inaccuracy may
not be exposed for many years. The errors usually reflect
the human tendency to take an optimistic view of one's
commitments. But the parties to derivatives also have
enormous incentives to cheat in accounting for them...The
two parties to the contract might well use differing
models allowing both to show substantial profits for many
years.
Another problem about derivatives is that they can
exacerbate trouble that a corporation has run into for
completely unrelated reasons. This pile-on effect occurs
because many derivatives contracts require that a company
suffering a credit downgrade immediately supply collateral
to counter-parties...The need to meet this demand can then
throw the company into a liquidity crisis that may, in
some cases, trigger still more downgrades. It all becomes
a spiral that can lead to a corporate meltdown.
A participant may see himself as prudent, believing his
large credit exposures to be diversified and therefore not
dangerous. However under certain circumstances, an
exogenous event that causes the receivable from Company A
to go bad will also affect those from Companies B through
Z.
The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and
these instruments will almost certainly multiply in
variety and number until some event makes their toxicity
clear...In my view, derivatives are financial weapons of
mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent,
are potentially lethal." --Warren Buffett, 2002
http://www.fintools.com/docs/Warren%20Buffet%20on%20Derivatives.pdf
-tom |
| 2008/3/16-21 [Finance/Investment] UID:49469 Activity:moderate |
3/16 JPM buys BSC at $2/share in stock swap (pending shareholder approval).
Fed agrees to take BSC collateral for $30B cash and will eat any loss.
Stock had been trading at $85/share in Jan.
Fed allows investment banks to borrow directly from Fed (previously
only banks with traditional checking/savings accounts were allowed).
Fed discount rate cut 0.25%.
All action announced just prior to Tokyo Stock Exchange open.
Scheduled Fed meeting this Tuesday, futures expecting 0.5 to 1.25%
cut to fed funds target.
Now at 97 Yen = 1 USD.
\_ Bush = Hero
\_ It is pretty weird that JP Morgan was able to buy all assets
of Bear Stearns, today, for 1/100th of what Bear Stearns was
worth a week ago.
\_ More like 1/30th, but still.
\_ if you also consider the Fed threw in $30B non-recourse on BSC
collateral, and the purchase price was $240M, you might
say JPM was GIVEN money to buy BSC -op
\_ That is what the markets think too, since JPM's stock
went up about ~$10B today, while most of their rivals
went down.
\_ I went to a career fair once where JPM brought in
a lot of 'real live employees' (as opposed to
recruiters) from NYC to man the booth. I cannot
believe how incredibly beautiful these women were.
I guess JPM management has good judgement in all things.
(Actually, my mom worked there after a merger and
at First USA under Jamie Dimon and Mr. Dimon is a
very well-regarded CEO, but JPM kind of sucked to
work for. Yes, my mom was a hottie back in the day.)
\_ ObYerMomJoke
\_ The Bear Stearns buyout was engineered to hide the fact that a
GIGANTIC portion of the assets of these investment houses are
"innovative financial instruments" that have even less value
than subprime mortgages. Most of the wealth is hallucinated
credit with no attachment to any tangible economic activity.
\_ It is just a big giant casino.
\_ Well, it is if you daytrade, but it's not to guys like Buffett.
\_ Well, it is if you daytrade, but it's not to guys like
Buffett.
\_ Not just for the day traders. For the derivatives guys,
the LBO guys, the foreign exchange guys, the CDOs, the
SIVs, the entire economy is run like one big slot machine. |
| 2008/3/15-17 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/Japan, Finance/Investment] UID:49464 Activity:nil |
3/14 Is it GDP growth or GDP/person that is the best measure of
an economies growth?
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10852462 |
| 2008/3/14-17 [Finance/Banking, Finance/Investment] UID:49457 Activity:high |
3/14 Fed provides emergency financing to BSC via JPM as other banks refuse
to lend to BSC at fed funds target
Fed to take on all credit risk for BSC collateral used to obtain
financing
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120550108028136579.html
On Monday, BSC said in a statement, "there is absolutely no truth to
the rumors of liquidity problems"
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aa874wpC8wcg
\_ Someone please translate this to plain English?
\_ You went to Cal?
\_ Read the WSJ article. WSJ = Wall Street Journal. If you have
q's, come back.
\_ The wsj article seems reasonable clear. In any event, here is
my understanding:
Bear Stearns Co. (BSC), a large NY investment bank, may not
have enough money to meet its obligations. J.P. Morgan (JPM)
has borrowed money from the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) and
loaned it to BSC to ensure that BSC has enough money to meet
its obligations. JPM, unlike BSC, is not technically an
investment bank, and therefore it may borrow money directly
from the Fed.
JPM is merely acting as a conduit for the Fed's loan to BSC.
BSC has pleged its assets to the Fed as security for the
loan. If BSC's asserts drop in value, then the Fed, and the
loan. If BSC's assets drop in value, then the Fed, and the
taxpayers, will take the loss; JPM is not taking on any risk.
\_ Why would we care? I mean, we're already borrowing a lot
of money and our deficit is huge, why can't we just borrow
more? I mean, if you owe the bank $1 million dollars,
the bank owns you. But if you owe the bank $100 trillion
dollars, then you own the bank.
\_ Which is why the dollar is doing oh so well on the
international market right now.
\_ 99 yen to 1 dollar!
\_ Personally I am concerned about the level of debt the
government takes on. I do not know if bailing out BSC
is better than the alternative, which is to let if fail.
I guess we have to trust that the Fed knows what it is
doing.
\_ The Fed is in panic mode:
"The Fed's role in the deal suggests federal officials
fear a systemic collapse of the U.S. financial system
were Bear Stearns to fail. The fear stems from Bear
central role in a multitrillion-dollar web of
interconnecting derivative contracts."
\_ Probably. Something about this situation reminds me
of the LTCM fiasco a few years back.
\- I dunno how old you were in 1998, but the funny
part of this is Bear Stearns is the banks that
part of this is Bear Stearns is the bank that
refused to play ball ... the scrappy outsider...
during the "genteel" bailout of LTCM. It's also
amazing to read about the arrogance of the LTCM
insiders dictating terms of the bailout. Just
unfucking believable.
\- I dunno how old you were when LTCM happened, but
the funny part of this is Bear Stearns is the
bank that refused to play ball ... the scrappy
outsider ... during the "genteel" bailout of
LTCM. It's also amazing to read about the
arrogance of the LTCM insiders dictating terms
of the bailout. Just unfucking believable.
\_ I didn't remember that BSC was one of the
hold outs during the LTCM bailout. That is
so ironic.
Re arrogance of LTCM insiders - Being a
nobel prize winner and 'furd prof goes to
some people heads.
\- it's not just merton and scholes.
YMWTR: http://tinyurl.com/rcrv8
\_ Deregulating the financial system was a mistake.
\_ Libural socialist rant! Why do you hate America?
\_ Yeah, me and FDR. Known America haters.
\_ FDR hated America, not only did he
sell out this country at Yalta, he
also instigated the New Deal which
was pratically communist.
was practically communist.
\_ Whoa! When the did the Birchers show up
on the motd?!
\_ Time to return to a gold and/or silver standard!
-rpaul
\_ Time to put Glass-Stiegel back in place.
Though it is too late for this recession, at
least it will keep the next one from being
as bad. I fear we will see a New Deal style
nationalization of the banking system before
this is all said and done. |
| 5/16 |