Articles Written by Jason Coleman
So Kim and I are in the process of buying a house. We’re going through a lot and learning tons of stuff that would be great to share with all of you.
Perhaps more importantly, there are a bunch of folks smarter than me who occasionally read this. So I’m hoping we can get some good advice here and there.
But to start I’ll just try to give a little background in this post before I get into some more specific topics later. For those who don’t know, I do web development with my wife Kim. We work for our own company Stranger Studios and work from home (our apartment right now). This is all going very well. Work is good. Making your own hours is great. Spending every minute of every day with the woman I love is truly incredible. I doubt most couples could do it, but Kim and I pull it off with style.
Life is good. Ok.
Because we work from home, we could live anywhere. And we’ve been conscious of this. We’ve considered a number of places to settle down for the next 5 years or so: Arizona, New Mexico, Mexico Proper, San Francisco, Napa, Oregon, Idaho. One fun game we had was to open up Google Maps and just zoom into a random spot on the map. We’d look for lakes, rivers, small towns, or anything else that looked interesting to live near.
I don’t usually post links from link requests emailed to me, but I got one from Ken Fisher’s team… and I think Ken Fisher is pretty cool. I like his book. He writes for Forbes, which I should start getting since Business 2.0 went under. He’s pretty smart and has been right about the market more often than not. I like the way he thinks.
Check out my review of The Only Three Questions That Count.
And then checkout Mr. Fisher’s website to find more stuff by him. Learn about Kenneth Fisher and his contributions to the world of finance at KennethFisher.com.
Monday, Nov. 26, 2007
by Jason
Here’s my latest post about AMD.
Here’s an excerpt from a Frobes article:
“Intel’s latest desktop processors have faster clocks speeds and use
smaller transistors–45 nanometers as opposed to 65 nanometers–that
allow them to do more work with less power, _all else being equal_.
“We think that Intel is consolidating its performance lead in
desktops,” Wachovia analyst David Wong wrote in a note to investors
Monday.”
!! “All else being equalt.” All else is not equal. Sure, Intel can
brute force faster speeds with the working capital that they have, but
AMD is going to finesse it’s way into the chip spotlight, just like
they did a few years ago.
You should be able to see my recent posts here.
Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007
by Jason
This two-part series by Bryant Urstadt is some of the best investing writing I’ve ever read. Bryant gives a run down of exactly what-the-f happened this Summer 2007. After reading these two pieces, "it all makes sense, man".
Part 1: The Blow Up
Teaser:
On Wednesday, August 8, not long after the markets closed, 200 of the smartest people on Wall Street gathered in a conference room at Four World Financial Center, the 34-story headquarters of Merrill Lynch. August is usually a slow month, but the rows of chairs were full, and highly paid financial engineers were standing by the windows at the back, which looked out over black Town Cars below and the Hudson River beyond. They didn’t look like Masters of the Universe; they looked like members of a chess club. They were "quants," and they had a lot to talk about, for their work was at the heart of one of the most worrisome summer markets in decades.
Part 2: The Blow Up
If you’re prompted to subscribe, do it. It’s very quick, and I’ve gotten no spam from these guys.
(thanks, Ugly)
Monday, Nov. 5, 2007
by Jason
1. We have a new author! His name is Alex, and he’s already published a great article on alternative energy that is getting some attention in the comments. View the great discussion over there.
2. People are signing up for the mailing list. Good. I still have no idea what we’ll do with it. In the meantime, you can win a chance to get some free books and know that we won’t be giving away your email address or selling it to spammers, etc. Please sign up. I want to keep in touch with y’all.
3. Speaking of keeping in touch, we’re thinking of ways to bring the forums back. We may hire someone to spam protect the old forums or move to a thirdparty solution. If you have suggestions, speak up in the comments.
4. Also, we’re considering updating the blog design and layout. It’s something we’ve dreamed about for a while. We even have a v2 that is 80% complete, although totally outdated. We’d start from scratch to build a better site that will help you navigate all the good content we’ve built up over the years.
5. I AM the real Jason Coleman. This guy is the Fake Steve Jobs.
6. Ugly got a job and I miss his Investing posts at UglyChart.com. He has been posting links more often, and even just linked to DateSpaces. He’s supposed to start "position trading" November 1st.
7. DateSpaces.com is a site that could work. It’s a location search engine with a focus on dating. If you live in New York City, check it out. If not, complain and get them to expand to your city.
Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007
by Jason
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 You may notice a new widget in the right sidebar. There’s a little form for you to join our mailing list. Do it now, and then I’ll tell you why.
What do we mail out over our mailing list? Nothing yet. We’re still figuring it out, but it will likely have to do with updates on what’s going on with the blog and stuff we’re giving away. One thing you can be sure of is that we will never give, sell, or rent your email address to someone else. We hate spam and don’t want to contribute to your inbox problems. We’ll never send more than a couple emails per month… if that.
We’re just looking to bring our community together in new ways. If you are an InvestorGeeks reader and support the articles we’re writing and the stuff we’re doing for charities, then sign up and become a “member”.
Speaking of give aways. People who sign up for the mailing list over the next month will have a chance to win a free copy of Active Value Investing, by Vitaliy Katsenelson (see our review here). We will choose a couple (exactly 2) winners at random. The grand prize will be a signed copy of Active Value Investing. One runner up will receive a non-signed copy of the book. It’s a great book that y’all should read and will look great on your trading desk (you do have one of those don’t you?).
Monday, Oct. 29, 2007
by Jason
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Question: are we in a bull market or bear market? What if there was a third option? In Active Value Investing, Vitaliy Katsenelson makes a case that the current market is actual a "range-bound market" and then gives you the tools to take full advantage of the fact.
What is a Range Bound Market?
Range-bound markets are characterized by their roller-coaster-like volatility and the fact that despite this volatility, money invested in the beginning of the cycle will have close to 0% gains by the end of the cycle. In fact, range-bound markets are more common than bear markets. Katsenelson says:
"…if you look at the U.S. stock market during the entire twentieth century, most of the prolonged (greater than five years) markets were actually bull or range-bound markets. Prolonged bear (declining) markets happened in the past only when high market valuation was coupled with significant economic deterioration, similar to what was going on in Japan from the late 1980s through 2003 or so."
This chart from the book shows the past 107 years bull, bear, and range-bound markets as labeled by Kevin A. Turtle.
Lots of hub bub in the poker community about some apparent cheating that has been going on at AbsolutePoker.com. Bobby has a nice comic about the cheating at PlusEV.net, and probably the best place to get info and updates is Absolute Poker Cheats blog that was setup just for the occasion.
Traders will appreciate this chart showing how much of an outlier one suspected cheater is. That red dot in the upper right corner represents the win-rate of the suspected cheater. The trading analogy would be a trader who trades 90% of the stocks on the market and correctly predicts the stocks movement 90% of the time. With stats like these, you could make an insane amount of money. And that’s exactly what these guys have done, reportedly making hundreds of thousands of dollars in a short time.
from the Absolute Poker Cheats blog
For the poker illiterate, VPIP stands for “variably put money into pot”, which is a statistic that tracks what percentage of hands you play. Good players are in the 15-30% range. The cheaters are in the 70-90%.
BB/100 stands for “big blinds per 100 hands”, which measures how profitable you are. So if you were playing $100/$200 poker with a 1BB win-rate, you would win on average $200 every 100 hands. Winning players can make about 1-3BB/100 at the medium and high limits. In the short term (across a small number of hands), lucky players can make about 100BB/100 hands. The cheater graphed makes 500BB/100.
The graph is pretty damning, but probably most damning of all (at least to a poker player with a bit of knowledge) is to go over some of the actual hand histories that leaked for this player. You can read some play-by-play analysis with some guesses as to the cheaters thinking here or see a video replay of the hands here (requires a free registration). The short of it is that the villain is playing uncannily like he/she can see the other players cards.
Is there cheating like this going on in the stock market?
Obviously, Martha Stewart-style insider trading goes on, but what I’m thinking about here is the kinds of cheating available to unethical brokers. Unlike the online poker rooms, many of the big brokers have their own traders “playing” in the same market as their clients. This creates the same kind of conflicts-of-interest that the poker sites try to avoid.
My father-in-law is nearing retirement and looking to get into some real estate plays to diversify his investments. I’ve already referred him to The Millionaire Maker: Act, Think, and Make Money the Way the Wealthy Do and Start Late, Finish Rich: A No-Fail Plan for Achieving Financial Freedom at Any Age (Finish Rich Book Series), both great books on general wealth-building.
I was hoping someone out there might point us towards some good online resources though, especially ones dealing with real estate investing in particular. Thanks for the help. If we get some good info, I’ll do a round up later.
Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2007
by Jason
My cousin Candice, who just moved to Toronto, ran in the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Race for the Cure last week. InvestorGeeks donated $300 on her behalf, and Candice was able to raise $525 total to help fund breast cancer research and awareness programs.
Since last Fall, InvestorGeeks has been donating 100% of after-expense profits to charity. So far we’ve contributed $700 total to a couple of great causes and have some good stuff lined up for the end of the year. I think I’ll start keeping track of the donations in the sidebar somewhere. Look for that soon.
If you like what you read here, and want to support InvestorGeeks, I think you can still donate to the CBCF on Candice’s behalf through this link. Show your support.
