Ho John Lee’s Weblog

Returned to Palo Alto last night, which was the original plan, but also a little surprising. When we left home, I had been thinking we might end up stranded on vacation for an extra day or two. We booked our travel plans late, and weren’t able to get seats on a return flight from Hawaii to the Bay Area on Saturday, Sunday, or even Monday by the time we left. I’ve discovered that the flight booking sites don’t update availability regularly. So even though there were fares listed on various sites (United, American, Expedia, Orbitz), if you tried to book them, various warnings and errors appeared, encouraging you to call an agent, who told you there weren’t really any seats. I decided we’d just head out on vacation and sort it out after we got there.

A rainbow a day…

• MF Global warning sparks fears of sell-off
  UK broker Man Financial raises CFD margins from 25 to 90% on UK small cap and all US stocks.
  (tags: finance banking trading futures derivatives stock risk management)

• Fed Days - E-mini S&P intraday archive
  A collection of intraday E-Mini S&P500 charts (ES) for the past several FOMC interest rate policy change days.
  (tags: markets stock futures options federal reserve economy interest rate policy trading risk management history archive)
• trinity table, jim harmon, new physics and spiritual healing discovery
  I don’t know about the “Portal or opening accessing the Universal Consciousness and other dimensionalities”, but it looks like a cool piece of furniture.
  (tags: random cool furniture)

• USENIX - Publications - Proceedings
  Archives of all Usenix papers just became freely available online.
  (tags: usenix unix linux computer systems technology research academic archive)
• RealityTrader Blog: “History teaches us…”
  Some good thoughts on learning from the current trading environment. “Logic of underlying events vs. logic of market movement.”
  (tags: trading education finance markets)

…start with a large one.

This weekend’s news that JP Morgan will take over Bear Stearns for around $2/share is astonishing. Last Friday BSC closed at around 30. A week ago it was around 60. A year ago it was around $150/share. So in a year the shares are down by 99%, and even the bargain shoppers who got in on Friday are down by something like 85%, based on today’s close.

• Functions: GoogleFinance updates
  How to use data from Google Finance in spreadsheets on Google Docs.
  (tags: google finance spreadsheet data resource howto)

• The Best Tools for Visualization - ReadWriteWeb
  A collection of interesting visualization applications from around the web.
  (tags: visualization web2.0 graphics design interface)
• About Daylight Saving Time - History, rationale, laws & dates
  All about Daylight Savings Time, including when different countries change their clocks each year. US DST is very early this year, compared with Europe and Asia.
  (tags: time clock dst history culture reference)
• Bloomberg.com: Accounting Rule Jeopardizes Bear Stearns, Lehman, Whalen Says
  “Why are people scared? Because they don’t know what the true value of assets are. They see the accountants forcing all these firms to write down their assets to zero, even though these things are still paying as contracted, they haven’t defaulted”
  (tags: bsc banking finance accounting counterparty risk management trading stocks fas157 credit crisis)

• Why falling Flash prices threaten Microsoft | Technology | The Guardian
  Some thoughts on the Asus Eee, Linux-based low cost systems vs more expensive WinXP/Vista models, and changing use models
  (tags: hardware software consumer electronics personal computing msft microsoft windows linux opensource)
• HP Revamps HP Labs; Zeroing In On Larger Projects
  A summary of reorganization and project themes for HPL going forward. Heavy emphasis on shift from devices to service-based applications.
  (tags: hp hpq hpl research themes computing information technology trends ideas webservices personal electronics)
• ADP Employment Report
  The ADP National Employment ReportSM is a measure of nonfarm private employment, based on a subset of aggregated and anonymous payroll data that represents approximately 392,000 of ADP’s 500,000 U.S. business clients and roughly 24 million employees.
  (tags: economics statistics data investing us economy reference)
• Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey
  US Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll data. Each month surveys about 150,000 businesses and government agencies, representing approximately 390,000 individual worksites, in order to provide detailed industry data on employment, hours, and earning
  (tags: economics statistics data investing us economy reference)
• Live from Apple’s iPhone SDK press conference - Engadget
  Notes and pictures from today’s iPhone SDK launch. Exchange integration via ActiveSync, development tools, investment fund. Apps delivered only via Apple Store?
  (tags: aapl apple iphone sdk mobile software development msft rimm smartphone)
• FLOORED : Standing in the Twilight of Open Outcry
  “In a feature-length documentary set for release later this year, Smith aims to chronicle the vanishing life and times of the open-outcry futures trader, highlighting the clash between technology and humanity, and the personal toll of progress.”
  (tags: futures options pit electronic trading finance culture trends movie)

• Linda Bradford Raschke - LBR Group
  Assorted technical trade setups, mostly for short term trading with indicators.
  (tags: stock futures technical trading markets reference)
• Intel: Otellini Says 53% Drop In NAND Pricing In Q1; Sharp Fall Affects Inventory As Well As Unit Pricing
  Summary of Intel earnings presentation, contains a lot of interesting trend and snapshot data for the personal computing universe, shifting use model (mobility) and geography
  (tags: pc personal computing market data trends intel intc semiconductor information technology investing)
• How to Tune a Violin - wikiHow
  Just what it says.
  (tags: music violin education k12 kids)
• Global Guerrillas: HENRY OKAH
  A profile of a modern entrepreneurial guerilla in Nigeria. When they’re talking about unrest in Nigeria disrupting Shell oil production and spiking the price of crude, that’s him.
  (tags: oil energy nigeria africa global economy warfare networks terrorism defense policy future trends)

• New Web sites help buyers learn about ‘REO’ properties - SiliconValley.com
  SJ Mercury News 2/25/08 on web sites marketing foreclosed properties in the Bay Area.
  (tags: bayarea realestate reo subprime crisis culture finance economics trends housing)

• Star Trek - Video Episodes on CBS.com
  Star Trek - The Original Series, free streaming online!
  (tags: startrek geek culture history television scifi video free)
• MultiMonitor Support and Windows Vista
  Good to know - on average, you need to have display cards with graphics chips from the same vendor to use multimonitor modes on Vista, unlike WinXP.
  (tags: microsoft windows vista winxp multimonitor video display graphics driver hardware sysadmin)
• Print 2.0: Unlocking the Power of Print:
  Print 2.0 = print the Web 2.0 stuff? At first glance I’m a little unclear.
  (tags: hp hpq web printing web2.0 consumer marketing)
• QTusers Forum
  Good stuff for QuoteTracker users.
  (tags: quotetracker support technical charting trading software tools stock finance analysis)
• Motherboard Specifications, M2N68-LA (Narra2)
  AM2 socket motherboard with NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE chipset, used in recent AMD-based HP Pavilion a61xx, a62xx, a63xx including a6110n and a6330f.
  (tags: pc hardware sysadmin motherboard amd reference)
• PCSSL - U12G spring 2008
  Spring soccer league.
  (tags: spring soccer 2008 pcssl)
• Berkshire Hathaway 2007 Letter to Shareholders (PDF)
  “Our gain in net worth during 2007 was $12.3 billion…Over the last 43 years…book value has grown from $19 to $78,008, a rate of 21.1% compounded annually.
  (tags: finance value investing economics stocks culture)
• Robert Macrae - The Hidden Cost of the Stoploss - AIMA Journal, April 2005 (PDF)
  “For a portfolio investor in non-trending trades, stoploss is a bad approach. It looks in the wrong place, leads to unprofitable turnover, increases transaction costs, decreases expected returns and increases volatility. Just say no.”
  (tags: finance portfolio statistics quantitative trading risk management stocks futures)
• Re-Examining the Hidden Cost of the Stop-Loss (PDF)
  Kira Detko, Wilson Ma, Guy Morita at UWash, undergrad research competition entry motivated by Macrae’s paper. This assumes single market, low slippage vs illiquid portfolio in Macrae?
  (tags: finance portfolio statistics quantitative trading risk management stocks futures)