Slow Groove

Have been adding funds back to equities

2012-01-23T20:32:00.003-06:00

Over the past few weeks I've been a net buyer of stocks. I don't trust the feeling that the market wants to go up, but this just feels different than the long grind of most of last year. I had raised my portfolio to a fairly high level of cash - well over 50% - so it'll take me a while to move back in, but here's some of my main stock holdings as of the end of today

NEU Newmarket corp - petroleum additives
TEO Telecom Argentina - Telecom
LHCG LHC Group - home health
CLF Cliff's Natural Resources - iron ore / coal
CHL China Mobile - wireless
EBAY Ebay - retail / paypal
ASML ASML Holding - semiconductor equip
DAR Darling Int'l - grease recycling / biofuel
HITK HiTech Pharmacal - generic drugs
BBL BHP Billiton - oil / gas / mining

along with some smaller positions in much more speculative
GTAT GT Advanced Tech - solar
WFR MEMC Electronics - solar
ESIC Easylink services
ARCI Appliance Recylcing

still a lot of cash on the sidelines, but less than 2 months ago.

Good article on Apple iPhone manufacturing and supply chain

2012-01-22T13:37:00.003-06:00

Here's a really good article detailing several key drivers pushing electronics manufacturing to Asia - with the specific example of Apple's iPhone used to illustrate. Here's the article: Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class
quote:

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.

Restatement of Existing Home Sales by NAR

2012-01-02T21:31:00.002-06:00

The National Association of Realtors just "restated" their existing homes sales from 2007 to present. While it was in their interest to keep the boom going and make the market seem better than it is, this should be enough of a datapoint to make you never trust their announcements regarding home sales going forward.

Here's the chart showing the initially reported homesales over the past 4 yrs. vs. restated figures. The decline was much worse and more rapid than initially reported.

Solar "gardens"

2012-01-01T23:05:00.001-06:00

New models for solar - solar gardens
from Forbes. Pretty cool idea.

"The first such project in the country is currently underway in Colorado Springs, Colo., where an old landfill is being given a second life as a community solar garden. Three-and-a-half acres of the 40-acre site will soon host 500 kw of solar panels, all owned by local residents who will be seeing an average 10-percent reduction on their energy bills (the panels cost $550, with a minimum purchase of two panels)."

Drama vs. real life

2011-12-29T18:49:00.002-06:00

Derek Sivers wrote this of Kurt Vonnegut talking of Drama vs. real life... thought it was interesting perspective.

How Doctors Die

2011-12-05T23:41:00.005-06:00

I saw this article claiming doctors tend to be far less aggressive on themselves than on the average patient when treating terminal situations. I don't know if this claim is substantiated by a study, but the article claims:

"It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently."

This is a really good article that's worth a read.

Making a mess

2011-12-05T22:57:00.002-06:00

My wife tells me sometimes you have to make a mess to clean up a mess... Well I'm making a mess. I really need to clear some some stuff out of the house. Putting some things up on ebay.

and sometimes things just need to be thrown away.

government, democracy, and the will of the people

2011-11-29T12:02:00.005-06:00

which is the higher goal of democratic government?
- to reflect the will of the people, or
- to protect from the will of the people?

Democracy - in my mind at least - has little meaning absent a bill of rights. As new democracies form around the world I wish more emphasis was given to the later.

Interesting observation from Jeff Bezos of Amazon

2011-11-26T20:00:00.002-06:00

"If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue."

Here's the Forbes interview - good stuff.

Jinx

2011-11-02T20:15:00.003-06:00

I think the post about trying to pay off the house caused the universe to reassert its primacy. Found out the main heating/cooling unit for the house needs replacement. ;-)

Pay off house by end of next year

2011-10-31T17:10:00.006-06:00

My wife and I were talking and assuming all goes well (meaning my job holds out that long - vehicles hold out - no other unexpected runs on the bank acct ) we're going to try to pay off the house by the end of next year. We just sent in another payment against principle and I'm really OK with diverting cashflow there.

At this point, there's really only a couple key concerns in my mind:
- maintain sufficient liquidity in event of emergency (emergency fund). This is my top concern by a far stretch, esp. given job uncertainty.
- I used to have a concern about alternative stock market returns I'd be missing out on, but I'm really 50/50 on the market right now anyhow, so using extra cash to remove a certain mortgage debt seems a reasonable way to go. While a surge in the markets could happen, I don't expect it, and even if it did I'd still be holding alot of cash, so going ahead and paying down the house makes sense in this context also given a guaranteed return of whatever our mortgage rate is vs. almost 0% for holding cash right now.

I still plan to fund the 401k, maintain investing accts, and fund other retirement accts, but just be willing to send in extra payments against principle as liquidity permits.

I like the flexibility that having cash-on-hand brings - but think it's time to spend it down some to get rid of this debt overhang of the home mortgage. As much as anything I think the mortgage weighs on my mind, pre-occupies my thinking and decision-making, and strangles my perspective.

Yeah, I'm 40 and it's mid-life crisis time - if such a thing exists - but debt is an insidious little thing that creeps in and has a way of taking over. It has kept me on the hampster wheel - that much is for sure. But I'm not built to handle debt very well, so getting rid of it will hopefully free my soul a bit to do better and more interesting things with my life.

Karl Denninger goes off

2011-09-10T23:25:00.006-06:00

This rant by Karl Denninger is good. Karl has been on the Armegeddon watch for a long time and I just hope he's not right that everything is a house of cards, but I do like reading his perspective. Warning, this will likely scare your pants off.

The catalyst at present is that Greek default begins the process that brings the whole system down and that govts are so weak now they can't prevent it. His thesis that the bankers and over-leveraged financial hucksters have scammed and skimmed for so long that they've killed the beast that they make a living from - and it's our own fault for not stopping them and letting them get away with it.

Portfolio update

2011-09-07T17:31:00.002-06:00

It's been a long time since I've updated my investing info on here. Early in the year I raised cash levels and have been running at a high cash level most of the year. I've been moving in and out of positions, but overall had not real strong convictions.

Here's my holdings right now from largest to smallest.

AAPL - Apple
INTC - Intel
NEU - Newmarket Corp (petroleum additives and products)
TEO - Telecom Argentina (telecom)
CHL - China Mobile (wireless)
MFB - Maidenform Brands (apparel)
ASML - ASML Holding (semiconductor equipment)
MDF - Metropolitan Health Networks (healthcare provider)
GPS - The Gap (retail)
MED - Medifast (diet/health foods)

One big move I made recently was to exit a large position in Ebix. I'd just reached max pain with the losses on that one and with so much else on the market cheap I felt like I'd move that money into something else for the time being. Ebix seems very inexpensive to me, but there's very big money on the short side of that one pushing that stock around in a big way.

All-in-all I'm still about 50% cash as it's not clear there's much upside to things right now, although there do appear to be alot of inexpensive stocks.

I've been adding to TEO and INTC several times of the past few months, and gotten yanked around by market moves in AAPL, but I'm liking alot of valuations I see. Some I'm looking to add to in near future include those I hold plus MSFT. I'm really wanting to get MSFT a point or two lower from where it's now. Things move on and off of my radar but for the most part I remain confused by how much value the big techs seem to have in them - especially AAPL, INTC, MSFT, and others. There's alot of other very interesting stuff out there - including more semi-equips AMAT KLIC LRCX, some retailers GES ROST, some basic material companies CF CLF FCX, healthcare AGP LHCG AFAM, other telecoms AMX, oil CVX XOM CEO.... lots of value - but I'm just trying to be deliberate with buys and maybe sell some rallies.

Our government doesn't work because...

2011-08-21T08:48:00.003-06:00

I saw this in the paper today and it caused me to smile and at the same time I thought he was onto something...

"Our government doesn’t work — not because we have dysfunctional politicians, but because we have dysfunctional voters." - NEIL deGRASSE TYSON

If we elect a bunch of folks that can't get along, don't expect them to get along. It's one thing to disagree, another to allow for concensus despite disagreements. We won't vote for that guy though.

Full Rotation movie of Asteroid Vesta

2011-08-03T21:06:00.005-06:00

compiled from photos from the Dawn mission. The grooves running around the "equator" of the asteroid are interesting - kindof like debris may have bounced around the asteroid for huge amounts of time in low gravity gradually carving out the apparent channels.

Click for rotational movie. (Click the lower right corner of the video window to make it full screen.)

Here's also a really nice hi-res photo

Patently absurd

2011-07-23T16:00:00.004-06:00

Here's a really good article from NPR about the sad state of patent law in the U.S.. Especially software patents and tech companies. It appears tech companies are buying patents to defend themselves against the other guy's patents, and all the cost is really doing very little to spur innovation or bring anything new to market because so many patents are vague, broad, and obvious.

from the article:

"we talked to a half dozen different software engineers. All of them hated the patent system, and half of them had patents in their names that they felt shouldn't have been granted. In polls, as many as 80 percent of software engineers say the patent system actually hinders innovation. It doesn't encourage them to come up with new ideas and create new products. It actually gets in their way.

Many patents are so broad, engineers say, that everyone's guilty of infringement. This causes huge problems for almost anyone trying to start or grow a business on the Internet.

"We're at a point in the state of intellectual property where existing patents probably cover every behavior that's happening on the Internet or our mobile phones today,"

iPads instead of stacks of printed presentations

2011-07-23T07:59:00.002-06:00

Here's an interesting article on a small local government buying Apple iPads to distrubute meeting documents and is doing away with printed agendas and presentations for meetings.

from the article
"At the end of the day, when you are printing agendas around 200 pages apiece and after the meeting they go into the recycling bin, you say, “Why are we doing it like this?” We have to run 20 agendas at 200 pages per agenda. That’s 4,000 pages just on that one, and that’s not including the time to put it together. And you usually don’t get it right the first time because everything changes. I would think it takes over eight hours per packet. "

Quote: Paul Tudor Jones

2011-07-16T11:04:00.003-06:00

I was re-reading Paul Tudor Jones' interview in Jack Schwager's book "Market Wizards" and came back across this quote which I remember from the first time I read it. He pretty much called the 2008 financial collapse more than a decade in advance.

"Everything gets destroyed a hundred times faster than it is built up. It takes one day to tear down something that might have taken ten years to build. If the economy starts to go with the kind of leverage that is in it, it will deteriorate so fast that people's heads will spin. I hate to believe it, but in my gut that is what I think is going to happen."

"I know from studying history that credit eventually kills all great societies. We have essentially taken out our American Express card and said we are going to have a great time.... (snip) We borrowed against the future, and soon we will have to pay."

- master trader Paul Tudor Jones - interviewed approx 1989-1990.

Distribution of Stock Price Movements

2011-06-25T13:47:00.004-06:00

So maybe this will be a boring post, maybe not. I found it interesting as I'd tried to google information on this subject before and had been unable much that was useful.

My basic question was "what is the distribution of stock price movements?" (what % of the time do they go up, down, and by how much when they do?)

I didn't really feel like a "normal" distribution made sense as down moves "seem" larger and more violent than upward movements in stock prices. (A normal distribution is the normal "bell shaped" distribution we've all come to "assume" in many cases so we can use basic statistical tools such as standard deviations and allows us to constrain probabilities - example if a normal distribution applied we could assume 95% of price movements would fall within +or- 2 standard deviations of the mean of the distribution. This is particularly useful understanding risk).

Well, I was reading Jack Schwager's "The New Market Wizards" this morning - the chapter on trader William Eckhardt and the topic comes up, and when asked about statistics and stock price movements - and he is talking about only using "blunt statistical instruments" and says "I believe that price distributions are pathological." Ha. I kindof cracked up when I read it, but he goes on to talk about fractals and the problem seems to be that sample variance increases as data increases when you look at stock price movement. The more you look at, the more weird, unusual, unexpected moves you find... The implication of this being "it means that lurking somewhere out there are more extreme scenarios than you might imagine". This book came out in 1992, so the term "black swan" wasn't used then, but what he was talking about is the "black swan" concept that's so popular now after the financial collapse of 2008. Market outcomes that you think might be so highly improbable as to not exist might in reality be far more likely than we expect.

By now I've read alot of the stories of these traders in both "Market Wizards" and "The New Market Wizards" and one theme that they keep coming back to is cut your losses fast - and keep your risk small so that no one event can wipe you out. It seems the field is littered with traders who can make money for years but then "blow up" when they run into something unexpected and haven't properly respected risk. Assume risk is much larger than you expect it is, because how you manage risk makes the difference between surviving and getting wiped out.

MIssissippi River Flooding and Hurricanes

2011-06-05T17:43:00.004-06:00

I work in the insurance industry and a couple weeks ago the issue of this year's hurricane forecasting came up. At the time we were going through some of the worst MS river flooding in years, perhaps back to 1927. My thought is that MS river flooding should be correlated with hurricane activity as the MS river dumps so much water into the Gulf of Mexico - a major storm path for the hurricanes. My initial thought was this should impact hurricane activity because the temperature of water in the gulf is associated with hurricane severity and formation. If the MS river is dumping alot of excess "cooler" water into the gulf it should be associated with lowered hurricane activity.

Average year: From what I can tell an "average" year for storm activity is "The official NHC seasonal averages are 11 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 major hurricanes." I think the 11 named storms include tropical storms, not just hurricanes. Recently it seems almost all forecasts have been higher than this, but I guess the above are much longer term averages.

I didn't investigate any of this throughly, mostly just quickly looked some stuff up - but thought it was interesting non-the-less. MS river flooding does seem correlated with below average storm and hurricane activity - at least from what I can tell - I'd be betting the "under".

Bad MS flooding years:

1927: I started by looking at 1927 hurricane data - because 1927 was the worst year for MS river flooding in U.S. history. I honestly didn't know if they even kept hurricane records back then, but they did have records. The hurricanes didn't have names, but they did show tracks... we had 4 hurricanes that year, and interestingly all of the hurricanes stayed in the Atlantic / not entering the gulf of Mexico.

1951: A "moderately active" hurricane year. This is apparently the most active hurricane year of the MS river flood years looked at - 8 hurricanes in all, but interestingly none of the hurricanes made landfall in the US as a hurricane. Strong "stay in the Atlantic" tendencies here too.

1973: The 1973 flooding of the MS was some of the worst in U.S. history so I also looked there. Interestingly only 4 hurricanes that year also - although 1 did reach strong category 3 status out in the Atlantic. Like in 1927 there was a strong tendency for storms to stay in the Atlantic.

1983: 1983 MS river flooding was charactarized as the 2nd worst MS river flooding in the past century, so we look here also. Similar trends arise. 3 hurricanes that year - and the "lowest accumulated cyclone energy count since 1950". 2 of the 3 hurricanes did enter the gulf that year though.

1993: Another bad MS river flooding year per Wikipedia. 4 hurricanes that year with tendency to stay out in the Atlantic again.

Atlantic Hurricane Seasons

1927 4 hurricanes
1951 8 hurricanes
1973 4 hurricanes
1983 3 hurricanes
1993 4 hurricanes
2011 ?

1927 Wikipedia entry
1951 Wikipedia entry
1973 Wikipedia entry
1983 Wikipedia entry
1993 Wikipedia entry

Scrabble Triple Triple word score

2011-05-28T20:33:00.004-06:00

Hey all, played scrabble w/ wife and Dad today. I'm normally not a big board game guy, but had something pretty cool that I don't recall ever happening while playing Scrabble. Check out the board below.

"Divulged" on the right covers two triple word scores and also used all 7 tiles. This is probably my biggest word ever - 167 pts. 13 x 3 x 3 +50pt for using all 7 tiles.

"Tempter" on the bottom was also a 7 tile word (along with "It" on the bottom) which gave me another 50 pt bonus. I don't think I'd ever had multiple 7 tile words in a game either.

Cooking Pizzas on Mother's Day weekend

2011-05-07T17:00:00.005-06:00

When I was younger one of my favorite meals was home-made pizza. There was a lot to prepare with pizzas so usually me and my Mom, or me and my Mom and my brother would all help put the pizzas together.

I made some pizzas today - here's how it went - in picture collage style.

...and adding more toppings

..and the final product

Been adding back to my portfolio

2011-05-04T19:36:00.002-06:00

I'd raised alot of cash a few months back, but now moved some of that back into the market recently.

This week I've added to or opened positions in the following stocks:

MSFT - Microsoft - back in again. I like the softy. It just looks cheap to me and I can't figure out why.
AAPL - aaahhhh! I broke down and bought the Apple too! First time for me, but it looks cheap too.
EBIX - Added some more back to my position today.
MDF - Metropolitan Health - I doubled up my position here. This is a deep value play for me.
MED - Medifast
DST - DST Systems

I've got my eye on a few others, but sticking my toe back in the market with these.

Photopic Sky Survey

2011-05-04T19:29:00.002-06:00

Look at this Photopic Sky Survey of the night sky. Zoom in a few things. Find the Orion Nebula or Andromeda. This is impressive.

And according to this article, all the photos were taken by an amateur astronomer, Nick Risinger. Thanks Nick - very cool!

Hoveround

2011-04-30T15:44:00.003-06:00

I saw an ad for the Hoveround watching the NFL draft today. Am I the only one that it upsets a little bit that they advertise "at little or no cost"? I'm all for devices that help folks get mobility, but with all the budget issues we face should they be provided at "little or no cost"?

I go on record and say no. Why wouldn't I want one if it was nearly free?

Uranus Visible at Dawn on Saturday

2011-04-21T18:36:00.002-06:00

Uranus Will Be Visible at Dawn on Saturday.... Just thought I'd warn you.

Phantoms - Rose Reiter

2011-04-08T20:15:00.004-06:00

This is the first song I ever heard by artist Rose Reiter many years ago, and I became an immediate fan. I heard it as I was clicking through tunes on www.unsignedbandweb.com - a website that hosts songs for unsigned artists. There's often a lot of "not so good" to wade through to find the gems, but then some-times you find something like this - something of such clear talent and quality that it makes you wonder why some songs/artists get a big push by a label, and why others remain heard by only a few.

This is Phantoms by Rose Reiter - one of the best songs that few people have heard.

Messy stores = more sales

2011-04-08T13:56:00.003-06:00

As an investor in retail stores I found this article in today's NYTimes very interestng. It speaks to several retailers, but in particular Wal-Mart's efforts to make their stores more appealing and less "messy". Of the nicer/more orderly stores:

“They loved the experience,” William S. Simon, the chief executive of Wal-Mart’s United States division, said at a recent confer-ence. “They just bought less. And that generally is not a good long-term strategy.”

Here's the full story: Retailers Pile Stuff in the Aisles.

There's an investment angle to watch for here too. WMT pays a nice dividend, is cheap by my metrics, and has a powerful brand and competitive moat if they'll just get back to basics.

Mars with an ocean

2011-03-28T14:53:00.002-06:00

Here's an interesting map, utilizing NASA survey data, showing what Mars may have looked like with an ocean.

Through the Rainbow

2011-03-23T18:36:00.002-06:00

Today I drove through a rainbow. I didn't think it was possible, but today I honestly think it occurred. There was no pot of gold or leprechaun though that I could see, and certainly no gateway to Asgard.

Anyhow, I was driving home from work and it was monsoon season. Water standing in the road several inches deep in places because it can't drain fast enough.

It's raining so hard I can hardly see and then all of a sudden as I'm driving by the lake and nearing crossing the dam on my way home the rain lets up and I'm in bright sunshine. Wind and mist is still blowing, but there clear bright sunshine too. In front of me across the dam less than 100-200 yards away is a big fat rainbow, almost touching the ground/road.

As I cross the dam I expect the rainbow to "back away" from me as I approach because I thought rainbows were all about the angle between the misty rain, observers eye, and the sun/light source. Anyhow as I approached the rainbow to my surprise didn't run away from me. I swear I think I drove right through it. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me but I thought I saw some of the color even as I was very close to entering where I perceived the rainbow to be touching down.

About a mile down the road I saw another big, bright rainbow, so all-in-all a pretty cool trip home.

Three stories in a day

2011-03-21T19:28:00.003-06:00

Flamingos falling from the sky in Siberia
Apparently some bird's internal compass can get reversed

The Far Side of the Moon - very cool pic recently released by NASA.
We're all familiar with the side of the moon facing earth, but have you ever seen the other side? It's far more cratered (if you think about it it makes sense) and looks quite a bit more foreign than the familiar moon we've come to know.

A 26 pound rabbit.
I'm not kidding. He was one big bunny.

Inside story on the space race

2011-03-19T13:32:00.002-06:00

Here's a story from NPR regarding an early Russian cosmonaut who plunged to his death in the early stages of the space race between the U.S. and Soviet Union. The story puts a human face on the highly politicized competition between super-powers.

Here's Vladimir Komarov's story: "I'm not going to make it back from this flight."

Solar Power projection

2011-03-16T23:17:00.003-06:00

Here's an interesting Solar Power projection from Scientific American. If costs keep falling in a predictable manner, solar power may be highly price competitive within the next decade.

The shape of the curve is interesting though. Has solar hit a plateau, or are costs continuing to fall?

The Walking Cactus

2011-03-02T20:41:00.002-06:00

Check out this odd new Cambrian explosion creature whose fossils were discovered in China. It's been dubbed "the walking cactus"

Portfolio update 2011 02-25

2011-02-26T18:06:00.002-06:00

I haven't updated in a while, so figured I'd better do so. Honestly I haven't been that engaged with what's going on with the market since I've raised to a high cash level waiting for a pullback.

My only stock holdings currently are (in order of size of position)

EBIX Ebix - IT software services
TEO Telecom Argentina - telecom / wireless
DO Diamond Offshore - offshore drilling - gulf exposure
CSCO Cisco - Networking
LHCG LHC Grp - Home Health
MDF Metropolitan Health Networks - health services - microcap

and that's it. I hadn't seen anything I couldn't live without, so I've just been on the sidelines, but some interesting companies have slid back in price since the start of the year so repurchase opportunities may be near.

Spiders/Snakes, or Need some cheap glasses?

2011-01-26T23:13:00.002-06:00

This study surprised me some. I figured we were hard wired to be afraid of snakes and spiders, but it turns out we're just predisposed to learn to be afraid of them very easily, but we're not born with the fear. I would've guessed we were born with it.

Plus I saw this and thought it was a great deal. Need some cheap glasses? Check out this offer from Sears. 2 pair + lenses for $99

Can a giraffe swim/float?

2011-01-15T13:09:00.003-06:00

I saw this question on a science link on Scientific American the other day. "Can a giraffe swim? or float?"

The knee-jerk reaction is to say "of course it can" because can't all animals swim/float? But then I started thinking about it and how tall, muscular and dense they look at the zoo - my next thought was a) in a giraffe's environment when would it ever need to swim? B) if it walked into the water wouldn't it just go in while still walking on the ground and hold it's neck up, and C) if it did get in too deep of water wouldn't it's big neck cause it to be front heavy and make it tip forward like a front-engine car sinking face-first into the water?

For what it's worth, here's a study that attempts to determine. Apparently nobody's ever seen a swimming giraffe - but they haven't put a giraffe in deep water to check either.

Portfolio update 2011 01-07

2011-01-08T19:00:00.003-06:00

Haven't posted here in a while. Figured I'd update some changes made in the past few weeks. Essentially have raised some cash and am just hanging out for some more attractive opportunities to buy.

Here's what I hold now in order of position size:

EBIX Ebix (IT)
UFPT UFP Tech (packaging)
CHL China Mobile (telecom)
TEO Telecom Argentina (telecom)
SHOO Steve Madden (shoes)
DO Diamond Offshore (drilling)
CSCO Cisco (internet / routers)
LHCG LHC Group (home health)
MDF Metropolitan Health Networks

I'm about 50% cash - just waiting for pullbacks somewhere and better buy prices. Of the above the only "large" or "big" commitment for me is Ebix. Everything else is a standard to small size position. I still like MSFT/INTC which were twi of my other larger holdings, but sold my remaining at the end of the year due more to the way the charts were behaving than anything. My general feeling was that there was alot of complacency about risk at the end of the year so I liquidated some spots and am just taking a wait/see approach now and am fine holding cash with intent to deploy should good opportunities present.

Portfolio changes

2010-12-17T17:58:00.002-06:00

Made quite a few adjustments to the portfolio today. General approach was to raise cash to deploy in the coming weeks should better options present themselves.

Some recent actions:
- reduced MSFT Microsoft position by about half. Was my top holding and the oversized position was too big for my comfort.
- sold one of my drillers NE Noble Energy. The drillers just aren't acting right and wanted to lighten up. I still hold DO Diamond Offshore
- sold LLY Eli Lilly. The more I thought about it I just didn't know enough about it and the only reason I owned it was metrics and dividend. I need to stick to mutual funds for pharmaceutical exposure.
- sold AFAM Almost Family home healthcare. Yep... that was me selling about a half an hour before the stock rose by $1.63 to close up 4.3% for the day... Dangit! Some huge upside volume started hitting the stock soon after I sold. Not sure what was going on.
- added to WDC Western Digital. It had dropped pretty severely in the past few days on no news so I took the other side as most other related tech has been pretty solid.

Top Holdings in order now (excluding mutual funds) are:
EBIX Ebix
INTC Intel
MSFT Microsoft
WDC Western Digital
CHL China Mobile - telecom/wireless
UFPT UFP Tech - packaging
TEO Telecom Argentina - telecom
DO Diamond Offshore - offshore driller
LHCG LHC Group - home health
MDF Metropolitan Health Networks - healthcare facilities

After the activity today my cash level is up to almost 50% so I'll look to redeploy some of this next week. That cash level is a bit excessive and surely I can find 1 or 2 places to put it.

Some I'm looking at: CSCO Cisco, KMB Kimberly Clark (again), MCD McDonalds?... ABT Abbot Labs... maybe a few others. I'll know better after I work on things over the weekend.

Protecting yourself in nuclear detonation

2010-12-16T20:49:00.005-06:00

This is one of the most interesting things I've read in a while. I saw this link a NYTimes story today about best way to survive a nuclear detonation. The new studies indicate there's lots we can do to substantially increase odds of surviving. Two keys to surviving.

1. Hide fast from radiation. Brick concrete basements of big buildings are best, or middle interior rooms of big office buildings. My initial inclination would be to try to get away as fast as possible, but it sounds like finding cover from radiation is by far the best way to go.
2. Stay put. The radioactive fallout is worst in the first few hours after the detonation and radiation levels quickly fall.

Here's a Fact Sheet from the Dept. of Homeland Security. Note the first image shows how radiation levels spike in the first hour after a blast and then fall off considerably after 6 hours or so. Taking cover can significantly reduce your exposure.

The second image on the second page shows levels of protection provided by different places and building types. Like mentioned above, lots of brick and concrete between you and radiation is good, and if you can combine that and get underground it's even better. But failing being in a big concrete building basement, an average home basement seems to provide sufficient protection.

In the article the experts make it clear that the event is more survivable than expected if shelter from the radiation can be achieved.

Get this - students know who the most effective teachers are

2010-12-11T12:50:00.002-06:00

I've always felt it was fairly easy as a student to tell who the best teachers were, and thought it was strange that schools never asked students who the best teachers were. (I guess I'd assumed the unions didn't want there to be comparisons between good and bad teachers?) Now a big study by the Gates has confirmed it as reported in the NYTimes.

From the story: “Kids know effective teaching when they experience it,” he said. “As a nation, we’ve wasted what students know about their own classroom experiences instead of using that knowledge to inform school reform efforts.”

"Thousands of students have filled out confidential questionnaires about the learning environment that their teachers create. After comparing the students’ ratings with teachers’ value-added scores, researchers have concluded that there is quite a bit of agreement."

Here's the full story. Pretty good read.

Jack Handey

2010-12-04T10:51:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I wish I had fingers on my toes so I could pick up ice cubes more easily when I drop them in the kitchen floor. How convenient. But then I wondered if I had fingers on my toes would I instead walk on my arms and view the world upside down? And when I was on the internet would that mean I'd have to type with my keyboard on the floor?

Intel's Andy Grove on importance of manufacturing - what a great read!

2010-12-02T21:10:00.002-06:00

I'm a fan of Intel founder Andy Grove (and coincidentally I'm currently an investor also!). But I was very impressed with Mr. Grove's article about the importance of manufacturing - and the importance of keeping even low skill jobs to maintain a presence in the evolving knowledgebase of future new technologies, but also to simply provide employment as an end in-and-of-itself.

Without scaling, we don’t just lose jobs -- we lose our hold on new technologies. Losing the ability to scale will ultimately damage our capacity to innovate.

In a sense he's saying you can't have the high skill jobs without bringing along the low skill jobs too. In effect - you need alot of low skilled jobs so you can know enough and be innovative enough to be involved in the next big thing. There's alot of value in doing things on a very large scale - and we lose alot of know-how by farming so much of it out overseas to lower cost producers.

This definitely flies in the face of prevailing economics, but there's a cohesion to his argument that has some resonating qualities. I found this perspective definitely worth the read.

Couple of cool things I read today - Friedman and Tyche

2010-12-01T19:02:00.003-06:00

Here's a very good Thomas Friedman piece from the Times on what Chinese diplomats are likely saying about us (if we could see their diplomatic cables).
quote: "Things are going well here for China. America remains a deeply politically polarized country, which is certainly helpful for our goal of overtaking the U.S. as the world’s most powerful economy and nation. But we’re particularly optimistic because the Americans are polarized over all the wrong things. " read the whole op-ed

Here's a very interesting story that hypothesizes an unknown/unseen larger-than-Jupiter-sized planet way way out there that might be responsible for throwing comets into the solar system. We've heard this and similar theory before, but what I find interesting in this story is that there's a smidgen of evidence, and that a current mission might be able to find it if it exists despite it's great distance and coldness.

"The researchers noted that most comets that fly into the inner solar system seem to come from the outer region of the Oort cloud. Their calculations suggest the gravitational influence of a planet one to four times the mass of Jupiter in this area might be responsible.

Two centuries of observations have indicated an anomaly that suggests the existence of Tyche, Matese said. "The probability that it could be caused by a statistical fluke has remained very small," he added"

Wouldn't it be cool to uncover another planet?

S.Korean Civilian perspective on Incheon shelling

2010-11-28T12:16:00.003-06:00

Qoute: “We shouldn’t attack them, because we have become a democracy, and I can still remember when we were still like them, poor and eating out of cans. But if we give them any more money, they’ll use it to kill us.” - Choi Byung-soo from South Korean Island of Incheon that was shelled by North Korea.

Here's a good article from S.Korean civilian perspective from those on the island.

Images

2010-11-26T13:09:00.003-06:00

I came across these cool series of images on the BBC website - well worth a look

Landscape Photography

Odd Architecture

Why do zebras have stripes?

2010-11-21T11:29:00.002-06:00

I was watching a TV show today prior to football with Bill Hanna and got to wondering why zebras had stripes. If anything to me it seems like they make the animals stand out / more obvious to predators.

From what I can tell from brief reading on several websites there aren't many explanations that make good sense to me, but some of the leading ideas include.
1. Form of recognition between animals in the herd. My thought is this is plausible, but why would such outlandish stripe displays be so rare amoungst herbivores - most are just brown?
2. At key point when lions pounce on the zebra herd the swirling stripes can cause just enough confusion to help survival - especially to make it harder to find/track the younger zebras as prey. This to me seems plausible - although wikipedia notes that field observers don't notice any particular confusion amoung lions in the hunt.
2a. In a tight herd it makes it difficult to isolate individual animals, they all blend together.
3. Simple camoflauge. Apparently lions are color blind and the white black stripes would not be noticed (Like orange hats and deer), and the striking black/white color isn't such a big deal for primary hunting times of lions - dusk/dawn/and at night. I can't speak to this other than no other animals have adopted coloring close.
4. thermal effects - black absorbs heat, white repels heat, and the difference in the coat colors creates micro-air-currents around the body creating a cooling effect. Net effect a large amount of heat is deflected, and cooling current produced near the body. I would've never thought of that potential. Who knows - kindof strange idea, but maybe?
5. Visually the stripes serve to confuse the tse-tse fly. I guess if it reduces the load of flies on the animals it might have some merit, but would it be enough?

None of the answers are really very satisfying if for no other reason than no other similar animals seem to find much value in such crazy coats.

Part of me wonders if the stripes are a by-product of something else going on, or a byproduct of something that used to be advantageous that now is just leftover from history.

Heres some links with ideas:
story 1
story 2
story 3

Obligatory post

2010-11-17T21:14:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted here in a while.... Not much interesting happening I guess. Mind in neutral. Eyes glazed with slobber slowly dripping from the edge of my mouth.

Things of note:
- I turned 40. In hindsight that probably wasn't a good idea. That's way too long to be taking up space and not getting much good or interesting done. Gotta try to do better in that regard. Maybe I need a new career.
- The Microsoft trade seems like it's working against me at the moment. The stock looks so cheap to me right now, but the action is not favorable. Gotta keep an eye on it. I don't understand the the selling, but clearly more sellers than buyers right now.
- Need to check on how to do some concrete. My driveway is busted up from where a tree root grew up under it. I'll get to play red-neck in the city and see how bad I can mess that up while embarrassing my wife. Maybe there's a youtube video explaining how to properly mix and pour concrete to repair a small section of driveway.
- Have you noticed Diet Mountain Dews are really expensive in the stores right now? I'm having withdrawal waiting for prices to come back down.
- It sure does get dark early now.

Well, that's about all for the excitement now.

"Constitutional" Amendment

2010-11-02T22:20:00.003-06:00

I went to vote today and we had what I considered a strange amendment on the ballot. The amendment passed and put the right to hunt and fish into the state constitution. Not that I have anything against hunting and fishing, subject to reasonable restrictions (ie no hunting on main street in rush hour). But really? Do you put this in the constitution?

At the next election I would like to offer my own "constitutional" amendment guaranteeing all citizens the right to take a dump and a leak - of course subject to local sanitary and decency laws. You know, just so that it's understood. I want free and ungoverned bowel and bladder movements - well not _too_ free, but free within reasonable bodily control. And I want the right to flush included in that amendment.

:-)

Investment Update - 10-30

2010-10-30T15:17:00.003-06:00

Just a quick update.

Added a few stock positions this week.

Added
ARO Aeropostale - teen retailer
WDC Western Digital - tech / hard drives
MRK Merck - major drugs
DO Diamond Offshore - offshore drilling, mostly shallower water (gulf of Mexico exposure)

Sold
AZN Astrazeneca - drugs. This one wasn't acting right, and decided to sell and swap into MRK instead.

My Stock portfolio has largely become dominated by Tech / Healthcare / Consumer Brand/ Retail over the past couple of months. It looks like this now from large to small:
EBIX Ebix
MSFT Microsoft
INTC Intel
DECK Deckers Outdoors
TXN Texas Instruments
GILD Gilead Sciences
TEO Telecom Argentina
NE Noble Energy
DO Diamond Offshore
WDC Western Digital
ROST Ross Stores
MRK Merck
ARO Aeropostale
GES Guess

Still sitting on a whole lot of cash.

New Theory of Money

2010-10-30T13:57:00.003-06:00

I found this to be a very interesting read on financial systems.
Time for a New Theory of Money

I find the central arguments around the purpose of banking very interesting - that banks should exist for reasons other than the profit motive - that they serve a public role of money creation (due to fractional reserves banks essentially create money when they create a loan). It places banks somewhere between a pure economic animal and makes it a hybrid public/private institution. The discussion attributes much of the recent economic problems to banks getting into businesses they were never intended for, and argues for back to basics banks, even if state owned.

Stock update - 10-26-10

2010-10-26T21:00:00.002-06:00

As part of my ongoing series of position trades I sold out of JNJ Johnson and Johnson for about 10-11% gain. In from 8-16 at 57.93 and out 10-25 at 64.08 and picked up a dividend along the way. The overall market moves have helped me considerably on the position trades that I've done up to now (KMB, PEP, WMT, CMCSA, and JNJ). I also group ongoing positions in MSFT and INTC into that same basket, although they fit into the Greenblatt Magic Formula approach I'm working on also.

Additionally I sold a smaller position in BID Sothebys after holding for a few years. Sothebys is one crazy acting stock. It's been bouncing all over the place.

Revising Greenblatt's Magic Formula approach

2010-10-24T19:51:00.003-06:00

I've been spending alot of time working on Joel Greenblatt's Magic Formula approach to stock selection, and thought I'd refine an initial model that I'd put together to help select investments. Over the past week I've spent almost every free waking hour away from work working on this new model (I say waking hour because I'd often fall asleep at my PC at night while building out the calcs). The new model was designed to take into account several more factors than the one he describes in his book. I added several variations of return on capital, a few more measurements on valuation, added an entire section on growth measurements, and added a couple of components on balance sheet strength and price strength.

Well, the new model is pretty much completed and I downloaded new data, sorted things, and .... despite all the changes I pretty much end up with the same list of stocks that the initial simplified model supplied. Maybe in slightly different order, but they're all there. Greenblatt's initial criteria of Ranking stocks based on Return on Capital and EBIT earnings yield seems to be pretty robust, even when supplemented with quite a bit of other types of similar desirable measurements.

Stocks at the top of the interest list are same as before: ARO Aeropostale, WDC Western Digital, TJX TJ Maxx, MRK Merck, BBY Best Buy, GD General Dynamics, and so forth for the bigger names.

I'm still digging around with some of the smaller company names, but overall I'm being presented with a similar set of companies as before.

I guess the next step in working with this is figuring out buy/sell points to make this an ongoing/workable approach.

Stock purchase activity

2010-10-18T14:32:00.005-06:00

I had the day off work and spent some time working on my investments. I'd been doing a lot of work on a new investment method advocated by Joel Greenblatt called Magic Formula Investing. Greenblatt is the author of "The Little Book that Beats the Market" where he describes his quantitative value investing approach - an approach that suits me well since I like stock screens (from AAII Stock Investor software) and working with and modeling data in Excel.

Today I opened positions in quite a few companies that seem to score highly using a modified version of the Greenblatt methodology. I'm still not completely comfortable with what's going on, but there's nothing like having real money on the line to make me pay attention better and learn from the trades I do using this method. Greenblatt's methodology directs us toward some underperformers and many of these companies have well-known issues, but that's the kind of company that often scores well using Greenblatt's approach: it's often "hold your nose and buy" because he's found that stocks with issues are often undervalued (when they meet certain criteria).

Purchases today
INTC Intel - semiconductors
NE Noble Corp - oil drilling
GILD Gilead Sciences - Drugs
AZN Astrazeneca - Drugs
TXN Texas Instruments - semiconductors
ROST Ross Stores - retail apparel
GES Guess Inc - branded apparel
TEO Telecom Argentina - telecom

The most troublesome stocks to me are the drug companies because I don't understand the industry, patents and pipelines, so I'm just going with the approach on these so far. I also had a buy order in for MRK Merck today that didn't fill. I may end up getting MRK at a future date. There are tons of drug companies showing up on the screen right now, and I'm also currently in JNJ Johnson and Johnson. I'll watch and learn how to deal with Health Care stocks as things progress. The drug companies pay big dividends so I like that cushion with these stocks.

Normally I should exclude ADR's from the screens, but I often don't do that just to see where they fall in the rankings. That left foreign stock AZN in the mix for me, and also left TEO Telecom Argentina in there. I liked the return on capital they're getting, the growth rate, and the 7% dividend (albeit likely not sustainable) given the 100+% payout ratio. We'll see how this goes. (edit: I see the dividend yield was mis-stated. It's an irregular dividend - likely not more than 4% in practice, maybe less depending on if it's paid every year)

I've got my eye on several other retailers, but I started today with ROST Ross Stores and GES Guess. TJX TJ Max is one I'm looking at, as well as companies like COH Coach, BKE Buckle, ARO Aeropostale BIG Big Lots, PETS Petsmart, BBY Best Buy... and several others. My wife likes TJ Max so that may be the next one I go with.

In the Tech side of things I added INTC Intel and TXN Texas Instruments. I already had a pretty big position in MSFT Microsoft from a month or two back, and also have my eye on WDC Western Digital which I likely would've bought today if it hadn't have jumped abut 9% last Friday. WDC ranks well here too.

The last one to talk about here NE Noble Corp. They're a deep sea driller that's been hurt by the spill disaster in the Gulf. The other options I was looking at included DO Diamond Offshore and CEO CNOOC. The purchase in the energy segment was really done more in the spirit of diversification than anything else. I'm uncomfortable with capital intensive companies whose business can dry up /boom with uncontrollable moves in the price of oil.

In the end I'll plan to follow a rotation with these companies and keep updating the Greenblatt approach and changing stocks as appropriate. Most of these are in retirement accounts so I don't have capital gains to worry about.

Crooked Still

2010-10-12T21:46:00.002-06:00

Check out this tune by one of the more interesting bands I've come across in a while. They're called Crooked Still and this is one of my favorite songs by them: "Come into my Kitchen"

Naica's Los Crystales cave

2010-10-08T21:05:00.003-06:00

See this video of the Naica's Los Crystales cave in Chihuahua, Mexico. Is this not one of the most unreal things you've ever seen? As you watch imagine 130F degree temps and 100% humidity as you slowly bake.

Read more about it on Wikipedia. There's a show on Natural Geographic about the caves also (where I heard about them in the first place).

My new hero: Peter Schiff

2010-10-05T18:59:00.003-06:00

Whoa, I just saw a link to video from Peter Schiff on seekingalpha.com, an investing website with alot of great articles.

I'm going to have to read more about Peter Schiff but this guy called the economic mess we are in - and he put the other talking heads to shame. Watch this video of him on various news shows as he's literally laughed at by commentators and other guests when he warns about the coming mortgage crisis, banking collapse, and economic recession.

Peter Schiff is my new hero! Prepare to see who was clueless (utterly) - and consider whether you should listen to these guys ever again. They couldn't even imagine Peter Schiff's argument being accurate - to the degree that they dismissed him with laughs and giggles. It's scary how right Peter Schiff was and few others could see it.

Conundrum

2010-10-04T18:42:00.003-06:00

I for-the-most-part try to keep political topics off of my blog, but I found this post from Politico interesting and curious at the same time.

How does a news organization cover White House hopefuls when so many are on the payroll? .... With the exception of Mitt Romney, Fox now has deals with every major potential Republican presidential candidate not currently in elected office.

Stocks - still cautious

2010-09-28T23:28:00.004-06:00

The stock market's run-up has surprised me over the past month or so. I've been gradually raising cash along the way.

I recently cleared my largest position in CTSH Cognizant Tech - a company I'd been in for around 5 years. I've closed out a few other longer term holdings too, including HANS.

Today I closed out a short term swing trade in WalMart WMT. I was in for about 3 months, picked up a dividend along the way, and sold for about 7.5% net gain in total. So far I'm enjoying the opportunities to move in and out of positions in some of the big companies that just seem cheap to me.

While I'm still taking a very cautious stance on the economy and stock market, I still want to stay partially invested, so after looking over some options I'm thinking MSFT Microsoft will be on the buy list for tomorrow.

Swamp People

2010-09-25T12:49:00.003-06:00

I don't watch much TV anymore, but I ran into the Swamp People series on the History Channel this morning. It's about Gator hunting with the Cajuns down in Louisiana. If you get a chance check it out. I can't turn it off.

Kosmoceratops

2010-09-22T20:45:00.003-06:00

Check out the story on the new dinosaur discovered in Utah, an apparent relative to Triceratops called Kosmoceratops that has 15 elaborate horns on it's head/shield. The picture is in the linked article.

Here's another article with a different picture from Utah's Salt Lake Tribune.

Quote of the Day - Jimi Hendrix

2010-09-15T19:25:00.006-06:00

"Just listen, and you'll hear" - Jimi Hendrix

I saw that quote in an NPR story about Jimi Hendrix earlier today. Here's the link to the story and the link to the podcast.

The 40th Anniversary of Hendrix's death is this weekend September 18th. He'd be 67 years old if he was still alive. I've never heard the song mentioned in the article... only problem is I can't find a copy of the song anywhere to download.

Over the past year or so I've gotten into Jimi Hendrix's playing in a very big way and now have a high level of admiration for what Hendrix was about. When I was younger I just didn't "get" Jimi, but I guess now that I've aged a little I have developed an unexpected level of admiration and respect. And most of the respect comes from listening to Hendrix's back-catalog - and the fine work on those songs that you'd never hear unless you searched them out. The popular rock songs that blanket the classic rock airwaves are O.K., but there's a whole different Hendrix out there that creates a whole new dimension - and without checking out his back-catalog via my emusic.com subscription I probably would've never heard most of it.

edit: after looking around here's a youtube video of the song that I came across. I guess the track was never officially released?

BELL’S LAW OF TELEPHONY

2010-09-13T19:22:00.002-06:00

I saw this article by Douglas Coupland and laughed:

"BELL’S LAW OF TELEPHONY No matter what technology is used, your monthly phone bill magically remains about the same size."

How true.

Remembering 9-11

2010-09-12T23:07:00.002-06:00

My wife forwarded me a link from author Meg Cabot's website relating the author's experience of 9/11 in NYC. This is a powerful read and will likely have you recalling where you were and the confusion surrounding the day.

Almost Famous

2010-09-09T01:11:00.003-06:00

I just saw this. I participated in a stock investing board on the Silicon Investor website where Michael Burry used to post. It sounds like he went on to become a successful hedge fund manager with keen insights into the market bubbles of the last decade.

Anyhow, I saw the Bloomberg story and was just like "Hey - I remember that guy!"

Six Million Dollar Man

2010-09-08T21:58:00.004-06:00

I just happened across this intro to the Six Million Dollar Man. This used to be one of my favorite shows when I was little.

"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology"

"Better.... Stronger... Faster..."

Oh yeah, that's classic. I want to run around the house in my jump suit now.

And all that for only $6 million dollars. I guess that used to seem like a lot of money.

Interesting research on effective Study Habits

2010-09-07T10:59:00.003-06:00

Here's the story.

1. Vary the location where you study. The associative nature of memory works better in more dynamic/changing environments.
1a. Break up the times when you study. 2-3 hours over several days are better than 2-3 hours in one sitting.
2. Study multiple but related material together (rather than intensely studying one topic)
3. Test yourself. Learning and Recalling seem to reinforce each other. Just looking at notes over and over isn't the same as studying notes and then forcing yourself to retrieve answers with quiz questions.

I found this particularly interesting - there's apparently very little support for the idea of "learning styles." Quote from article:

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.

One final thought: Have you noticed how sometimes it's very hard to accomplish a task on a given day no matter how hard you work at it (maybe something at work, or a guitar run, or a certain hurdle in a video game)? But if you take a break - maybe even sleep on it - then the next day it becomes much easier to do? Isn't that what they're suggesting above? Break up you study time - give your brain opportunity to digest what's learned - test yourself by trying again. (I personally find sleeping on an idea is very good for clarification - but they don't seem to outright suggest sleep between learning as a part of study schedule).

Thinking Different

2010-08-31T08:48:00.002-06:00

Here is a great little story about a Doctor and Scientist Donald A. Redelmeier who favors odd and non-traditional studies and observations.

Re winning an academy award. Do you tend to live longer because you win an Academy Award, or do you tend to win an Academy Award because you possess longevity increasing characteristics that attract votes?

Also - more accidents on election days? I agree it's seems what you'd expect. It's an extra trip for most people that carries some additional risk of accident. That's kindof like accidents going down when gas goes to $4/gallon. People drive less at $4 - (I work for an insurance company and can confirm frequency (accidents) went down when gas price went up, but accident levels are back to "normal" now despite approx $3 gas.)

And I really like his quote from the story:

“Do not get trapped into prior thoughts. It’s perfectly O.K. to change your mind as you learn more.”

Green Corn Moon

2010-08-30T23:29:00.003-06:00

Look at this cool photo from Montana. It was one of Yahoo's most emailed photos.

Assorted cool stories

2010-08-23T21:04:00.002-06:00

- In search for extra-terrestrial intelligence expect to find "Artificial" intelligence. The argument here is that in a few hundred years the processing power of a technological civilization will become so immense that it will likely swamp biological intelligence.

- About the "slippery slope." How small decisions and actions can significantly color our world and perception of the world. Apparently the little things matter alot. Makes me wonder if the effect of spending money we don't have (credit) functions similarly.

- Is this Gould's punctuated equilibrium?

Let the Fever play out

2010-08-21T10:28:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting post advocating the benefits of fever - and just letting the body's natural immune response play out. Apparently there's a surprising lack of studies to show that taking aspirin or other fever-reducers helps - it probably just keeps us sicker longer but makes us feel a bit better while we're sick (my read).

Iraq soldier point-of-view

2010-08-20T09:30:00.003-06:00

Here's real good American soldier point-of-view article about the winding down of the war in Iraq.

Bats hunting skills

2010-08-19T23:59:00.002-06:00

Here's an interesting article on bat hunting techniques, and some of the evolved defenses of moths to prevent themselves from being eaten by the bats.

Large Caps look inexpensive

2010-08-17T20:37:00.004-06:00

I've never in my investing life been a fan of big blue chip stocks - they've always looked expensive to me - until now. Add a nice dividend on top of a low earnings multiple on top of a financially strong company that's growing earnings and in this environment they look pretty good. I think I posted about Kimberly Clark KMB and PEP Pepsico. I recently also purchased WMT Wal-Mart and a couple days back added JNJ Johnson and Johnson.

There are others of those big blue chips on my radar too. I've decided to try to swing-trade some of these as they tend to oscillate - because my main interest at this point is preservation of capital at low risk while picking up income from dividend and/or small price moves.

Today I sold KMB and PEP for about maybe 5-7% gains each. Will keep each of these on the radar for re-entry points. I've never really done these longer term swing trades but there are alot of these big stable companies with dividend that seem to kindof oscillate a bit, and I really don't mind owning them - especially if I can pick up a few dividends in the process, while at the same time being in a decent % cash seems a decent low-risk alternative too while I wait for other buying opportunities.

Like I mentioned I moved into WMT Walmart and JNJ Johnson and Johnson recently, and am interested in Comcast CMCSA amoung some others depending on the price moves from week to week. The market seems to want to be manic and indecisive right now, and all my old growth screens aren't turning up much new of interest right now - so I'm trying something new.

As I work out how to value these big blue chip dividenders I think I'll have some interesting work ahead of me.

Stock update

2010-08-10T19:04:00.002-06:00

It's interesting to me that there have been alot of upside earnings surprises out there. Many commentators are reporting the dichotomy between earnings reports and employment, and it is a bit confusing, but there have been several good earning reports from companies I track.

Of those I track and/or own that seem to have business going well for them: CTSH, EBIX, HANS, DECK, KMB.

I'm actually looking to add to the EBIX position again. I want to be careful and not get top heavy without the market validating reported results, but I feel like EBIX's results deserve upping the ante a bit.

KMB Kimberly-Clark has had a good run (I recently purchased this consumer staple company as a dividend stock and it's up nearly 10% since then - so I'm considering cashing out and waiting for a pullback as KMB has pretty much traded in the same price range for nearly a decade and I've more than made what I was expecting to get from the dividend in the first place.).

Other recent additions to the portfolio including PEP Pepsico and WMT WalMart. I may try a similar in-out on PEP like KMB as I bought it similarly for dividend and have more cap gain than dividend in short period. All of this is in retirement accts so no tax implications.

Anyhow, overall I've been pleasantly surprised with earnings so far, especially given such a pervasive bearish mood that seems out there.

Russian Fires

2010-08-08T19:05:00.001-06:00

Have you seen the devastating fires from the heat wave in Russia? This looks terrible - entire communities burning.

High Frequency Trading funkiness

2010-08-07T17:19:00.006-06:00

I came across this very interesting post about how high frequency traders are able to use ultrafast connections to find and take advantage and uncover your supposedly hidden stop and limit orders. It's yet another recent story that our financial system has evolved primarily to the benefit of the perpetuation of the financial system itself. It's become a parasite on the rest of society by skimming money out of our 401ks in the name millisecond level "liquidity".

It upsets me to read this because the solution for most folks is simply not to play the game - but that's not really a good use of your capital either. I guess ultimately it's just disappointing that a stock market system designed to help companies raise money and let investors create a market for the investments has turned into a poker table where the guy on the other side with the fastest computer in-a-way gets to see your cards before he places his bet.

Apparently Senator Chuck Schumer is working to get the SEC to act to limit/restrict the use of these flash orders that are supposedly letting high frequency traders see info that other market participants can't see or respond to.

Affluence and freedoms

2010-08-01T18:00:00.002-06:00

I was watching Book TV today and Ralph Nader was a guest for a couple of hours. For years he's been a consumer advocate (notably auto safety) and grassroots activist, but one thing that stuck with me from all the questions he took regarded the increased difficulty in organizing now.

He indicated it was very surprising to him that the information revolution and the internet has not spurred people to action. He says it's easier than ever to find out information now, but that it seems more difficult than ever to respond to do anything about the abuses they see. One line of thought is information overload - there's so much information available that you just can't make sense of all of it. For example: He remarks how he's so frustrated with how workers continually get screwed as their pensions are shredded by the companies they work for - but he finds it very difficult to organize a coherent push around that issue to help protect people.

Is it possible that there's so much information that the corporations with very narrow but very focused interests are much better able to use this knowledge to their advantage, while the attention of most average folks gets so diluted they can't make sense of it all - or at least can't stay focused on it long enough? That's sortof like John Bogle's argument about why the managers (CEOs, boards) are running companies for the interests of the managers nowadays, and are often no longer attempting to maximize returns for the greatly diluted shareholder interests who find it difficult to stay on top of boards - especially when so much investment is diluted in 401K and pensions etc?

Bogle sees the later as a challenge for capitalism, and Nader sees the former as a challenge for our democracy - and certainly sees corporate power stronger now than ever before - and growing.

An additional thought here - what role does affluence play in this? And is there a concern that once a certain level of affluence in society is reached are we sated - like on our happy drugs of Brave New World - and are we happy just to go along for the ride distracted by the relative abundance around us?

I might be the most boring person in the world

2010-07-31T23:20:00.002-06:00

My big plan for today was to go get my broken mower and mow the yard. That didn't happen - mower still not done. So instead I do a couple loads of laundry. Watch a sorry movie. Take a nap. Pay some bills. Rocking out to late night Book TV on C-Span now!

Internet poker might soon be legal again

2010-07-31T08:19:00.009-06:00

Internet poker and some other forms of online gambling was supposedly banned back (2006). "But I see ads for internet gambling on TV and online all the time?" you might say? I guess it's all run from offshore currently, and note that the ads will direct you to a dot net site that's a "play" site with fake money, but it'll have ways to link to the real sites where all the poker stars talk about playing.

Anyhow, it sounds like congress is looking at legislation to legalize internet gambling. It's not that they don't want to control your life (or more cynically protect campaign contributors like land-based casinos, or other forms of already legalized gambling - can you say the "lotto") - they're just out of money this time and need more revenues. In a way govt. debt has been good for cultural libertarians out there.

(Heck, even in some small towns I'm familiar with where nobody previously drank alcohol you can now go to an "upscale" O'Charlies because they've been willing to do the unthinkable - legalize liquor by the drink licensing - a needed profit center to attract new restaurants (and a new tax base for struggling city budgets).

Now with all this said, I know alot of folks struggle with gambling and other addictions so along with this I have to support programs to help people who can't control a gambling addiction. In my mind the two have to walk hand in hand - there has to be a recognition of the negative social costs of gambling, and some of the revenue _should_ be used to offset the negative effects it brings to society.

Anyhow, my post for the day.... it's not meant to be inflamatory, but I do find it interesting that societies have tendencies to want to control people's activities until it gets to the point of a) do I stand by my principles and support increased taxes, or b) do I just legalize it and tax the crud out of it? Often option (b) is the way we go. Option (b) comes with baggage often, and it's that compromise that makes govt. kindof icky - option b is usually not a nice clean solution - it has both positives and very visible negatives. But option C (not spending so much in the first place) hasn't proven very achievable either.

The really tough calls to me are the ones where the net negatives are equal to and/or outweigh the net positives. The derivative markets might be an example ;-) or certain activities classified as "predatory lending," certain life destroying drugs, or if your neighbor wants to put in a chicken coup. Tough calls are on the fringes - and there are those that would argue they have the right to do those things even if it makes society as a whole worse-off anyway. But we're off on an interesting tangent now.

Made good batch of home-made Chinese food

2010-07-25T16:12:00.006-06:00

I made a pretty good batch of home-made Chinese food today. Whenever I make Chinese it always comes out a bit different so I never know exactly what the best way to make it, but today's batch was pretty good.

Get 1 cup of rice going.

For the rest:
3 or 4 chicken breast fillets, sliced thin into small pieces. Cook on medium with a bit of sesame oil and oyster sauce initially (not too much of either flavors), and then as it get's going better I add soy sauce a few more times. That was more chicken than I was used to fixing but they were all in the same freezer bag - so it took longer to cook than usual at this point, but it eventually all turned white. I added soy sauce a few times as I stirred it.

added.
-small can of mushrooms, and
-small can of bamboo shoots, and
-big can of pineapple chunks. I put some of the pineapple juice in with the cooking chicken but remember drinking a bunch of the leftover pineapple juice too.
Added soy sauce a couple more times as it all cooked (I like the bamboo shoots to soak up the soy sauce), and added
- corn starch to thicken the liquids and turned back the heat

as all the excitement in the other pan is winding down in separate fry pan pour out some
- Asian frozen mixed vegetables from Kroger - mostly some type of long green bean, broccoli, onions, and mushroom (no carrots),
- another partial leftover bag of frozen broccoli, and
- a partial bag of frozen green beans.
On medium heat just got that going enough to heat it up but leaving the vegetables crunchy. Mixed in some soy sauce as it was cooking. Turned the heat back on that so vegetables were cooked but still crunchy.

Pretty much done at this point. Put down the rice on a plate, put on the cooked chicken w/ bamboo and pineapple, then on top put the vegetables. Had a real nice flavor. Probably just lucked out with the mix of soy sauce this time, but it was real good.

Plus, you can save it and it'll reheat very well in microwave for several more meals (or it's good straight out of the fridge if you like it cold).

Security

2010-07-21T23:39:00.001-06:00

Here's an interesting and critical article by the Washington Post on how large and unwieldy our security apparatus has grown.

Yet another reason to avoid big name stock recs

2010-07-19T22:55:00.003-06:00

I know we've talked about this before, but just a reality check in case that memory has faded. This time it's Goldman-Sachs.

From this NYT article
"Goldman Sachs can’t seem to stay out of the news, and I keep thinking about the amazing first quarter they had. In case you missed it Goldman made money on its own trades every single day in the first quarter. Meanwhile in the real world, people who followed Goldman’s recommended top trades for 2010 lost money on seven of the nine recommended trades."

Lyric of the Day

2010-07-17T13:49:00.003-06:00

I was downloading some tunes from emusic today and downloaded an Indigo Girls Live album that impressed me (alot of live albums aren't that good but I like this one). The lyric of the day comes from there. I love this turn of phrase:

"I got bitten by the bitter bug and now I just can't get enough
of ill will and my own conceits, and I'm weary of the world it seems"
- Second Time Around, The Indigo Girls

3 cool science stories from today

2010-07-13T17:45:00.002-06:00

It turns out today was chock-full of interesting science stories. I thought all of these were really good.

1. Emergent Gravity - good story about "emergent gravity" and a paper that's bringing the discussion that gravity may not be fundamental but is instead just an emergent property of a complex system. I've seen several stories about this recently but this provides a good background for the clue-less like myself.

2. The Bacteria in us all. I am always hesitant to take medicines, especially antibiotics, because I've tended to view my "system" as myself and a whole bunch of beneficial microbes living in me in sortof a symbiosis - and antibiotics for me seem kindof like bombs that kill everything in your system good or bad. Here's a story that talks about how little doctors or science knows about the biospheres inside of us, and how promoting the correct type of bacteria in us may be what's needed in the first place.

3. Interesting finding about preventing brain damage during stroke. I found this a highly non-intuitive finding - brain damage in a stroke can be minimized/prevented by stimulating the brain area impacted - at least in a rat. Flicking a whisker makes all the difference, but there are obvious things to try in people.

Asteroid Lutetia images

2010-07-11T12:15:00.004-06:00

Check out the images from the European Space Agency's Rosetta craft website - including a movie of the flyby. Lutetia is thought to be about 75 mi. wide at it's widest point. Very cool.

More on computers and lack of impact on educational outcomes

2010-07-11T11:48:00.005-06:00

More info that computers in low income households don't help close educational performance gaps - it may actually help create greater gaps by creating more distractions from study and schoolwork. (Kindof like the youtube video below is more fun to seek out than studying.) Here's the story.

You think I'd fit in one of these?

2010-07-10T09:24:00.003-06:00

The hamsters are kinda phat. I love this commercial for Kia Soul. Doo - Dah - Dippety!

Einstein paper

2010-07-09T18:06:00.000-06:00

Have you ever wanted to read how Einstein presented the concept of E equals M C squared?

It's only a 3 page paper, and the line of thought seems inspired by what is going on with what we now call radiation and what is happening when an object gives off energy as radiation.

we are led to the more general conclusion that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy-content;

In the paper he lays out a test of this hypothesis - by measuring the mass of radium salts over time.

Mozart

2010-07-07T21:41:00.001-06:00

I thought this was interesting about Mozart and conspiracy theories surrounding his death. (the entire Skeptoid Blog is filled with interesting reads on all sorts of topics).

...and while we're at it, his original name was apparently Wolfgang Theophilus Mozart. The name "Amadeus" is apparently adopted posthumously by writers and is the Latin versions of Theophilus. There's more on Mozart's names on Wikipedia.

2 new dividend stocks

2010-07-06T21:08:00.003-06:00

I didn't do much research on these, but I picked up a couple of dividend oriented stocks today: PEP Pepsico and KMB Kimberly-Clark. Again, not much research on either other than they seem to pass some screens and showed up in several articles trying to identify dependable dividend picks at reasonable prices. I simply did a quick look through a few of the companies and selected these.

The main goal here was to attempt to diversify my portfolio a bit away from the growth type stocks that dominate my portfolios, as well as make a little money at the same time via dividend since money markets are so lousy right now. Both companies have strong consumer brands, and Pepsico while a bit pricier still seems to have pretty good growth prospects.

I also had an order in for Comcast but that one didn't get filled.

2 questions from Dinner

2010-06-26T16:38:00.002-06:00

My wife and I were eating our Taco Bell this evening and two key questions arose.

1. Why is it called a Spork and not a Foon?

2. What is Xanthum gum?

Well, here's the answer about Xanthum Gum. In this case it's probably a thickener in the Mild Sauce packets from the restaurant - but it's a little disturbing that it's named for the bacteria that "form a slimy substance which acts as a natural stabilizer or thickener."

As to the first question, it turns out there's a Facebook page dedicated to the question. There's a long history on the Spork going back to the 1800s when it was a popular multifunction utensil. Old Sporks are collectible on ebay

Aurora from Space Station

2010-06-21T22:24:00.000-06:00

Check out this awesome photo of an Aurora from the space station.

Here's the story.

Tree Wall to halt the Sahara

2010-06-19T11:50:00.002-06:00

I read about this ambitious project to try to stop the southward advance of the Sahara desert the other day and thought it was worth a post if for no other reason than the bigh-thinking scale of the project.

Push for 'Great Green Wall of Africa' to halt Sahara

It sounds like it's nothing more than a big idea at this point and there's not alot of support for the effort, I'm inspired by the thinking that drives it - kindof like trying to control mother nature on a continental scale.

Quietly Not Going - On freezing and resuscitation

2010-06-14T17:40:00.003-06:00

This article about reviving people from clinical death after "freezing to death" is very interesting. It talks about an experiment with both yeast and worms that shows extreme cold combined with oxygen depravation creates conditions necessary for a high likelihood of resuscitation. If the oxygen is present while freezing though - not so good.

here's a quote from the story:

When subjected to literally freezing temperatures, the embryos of yeast and garden worms do not live, researchers found. A full 99 percent of those in the experiment died after 24 hours of exposure to temperatures just above freezing.

But, when first deprived of oxygen in the manner described above, 66 percent of the yeast and 97 percent of the garden worms survived. Upon re-warming and reintroduction of oxygen, the "two widely divergent organisms" reanimated and showed normal life spans, said scientists in a statement.

Which brings me around to thinking about the cases of people who are able to be revived after disappearing under frozen lakes, or the skier who had a skiing accident and "drowned" trapped with their head underwater in a very cold stream. There are other cases the article mentions where drowning is not central - but people just being exposed to extreme cold to rapidly induce a state of suspended animation as they'd say in Star Trek.

So where's it lead? the article mentions handling of donor organs as an example, but what if somebody is way far away from medical care and is going to die unless these conditions (extreme cold/oxygen deprevation) are induced? Sounds scary, but if it's your only way to have a chance of survival do you do it? I think I recall doctors already using lowering the body temperature as part of the proceedure to improve results in some types of surgery.

Anyhow, thought that was very interesting

Oil dependency

2010-06-13T08:41:00.002-06:00

Here's a good op-ed by Thomas Friedman today on how our oil dependency is creating many of the problems we face today, and that we each need to understand our individual role in the problem: This Time is Different.

It'll take a long time, but efforts to move to oil alternatives need to move forward. The problem is that the payoff may not be for 30-50 years. But then I tell myself we had an opportunity back in the 70s to change the course of things, but didn't change then either. Instead we became more dependent. It may not be clear where alternative efforts will lead us, but I think it's pretty clear where the current structure of oil dependency leads.

Confusopoly

2010-06-09T21:03:00.006-06:00

I saw the word Confusopoly today for the first time. It's a brilliant concept and word coined by Douglas Adams of Dilbert Fame.

Confusopoly "a group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price."

Here's a little more info.

We were talking at lunch about how confusing cell phone plans are and that it's nearly impossible to compare what should be a fairly similar product across carriers given all the differences in plans. Our thought was it's intentional complexity designed to confuse shoppers. Confusopoly sums up this business strategy perfectly.

BTW, the term is said also to apply to insurance - the business I'm in too - so don't trust a word I say. And don't pay attention to any new financial products which bundle:
- life insurance,
- an accident benefit,
- savings plan,
- investment plan,
- annuity,
- cash return at retirement,
- free airline miles, and
- a free 12 month subscription to your favorite magazine
in a single product that you couldn't possibly hope to understand without taking a night class.

Tip to the Blog of Diminishing Returns for the reference.

Corn chips a vegetable?

2010-06-08T21:46:00.002-06:00

I was contemplating supper tonight wondering whether I had had any vegetables yet today. I had corn chips at the Mexican place today and thought maybe they were a vegetable? Corn on the cob seems like a vegetable so maybe?

Anyhow, at least this website from University of Missouri says corn chips are not a vegetable but instead a are a grain.

I guess that makes sense in the context that corn decended from grasses like a post a short while ago discusses.

Life on Titan?

2010-06-07T17:31:00.002-06:00

Here's an interesting article about some intriguing atmospheric chemistry uncovered during NASA's Callisto mission around Saturn. The moon Titan has some atmospheric characteristics that some scientists intepret as compatible with some type of methane based alien life.

Here's the story on the new research from Science News: Life on Titan? New Clues to What's Consuming Hydrogen, Acetylene on Saturn's Moon

Limits of motivators

2010-06-02T21:30:00.002-06:00

Here's an interesting speech from TED that discusses the limits of traditional motivational techniques. The basic argument is that studies are showing that for a range of tasks that are ill-defined and require creativity carrot/stick type motivators can actually reduce productivity.

This video is long (18+min), worth a listen though: