Portfolio changes

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.