Chat at 8PM Tonight: Focus on Day Trading

Everyone's welcome to the chat at 8PM tonight. We'll talk in detail about a number of day trades that TraderMike recently made. There's only room for 50 of us, so make sure you're on time, and for those who can't make it tonight or can't get in, I will post the complete transcript tomorrow.

Reading Roundup (XI) - Big Brother, Origami, Cage Fighting, etc.

Articles I've recently read with my comments in italics, and other miscellany:

High-tech tracked London suspects, by John Thorne.
["In Britain, as CCTV cameras have sprouted across the land during the last decade, more Britons have joked - and civil libertarians have complained - that they have become the most watched people on earth. It's estimated that there is one camera for every 14 people here; in big cities like London, it can mean that nearly all a person's movements from the moment he or she leaves the house are caught on tape." I was always disturbed by the number of CCTV cameras around London, especially when searching for a place to pee in the park.]

Embedding advertisements in syndicated content, (patent application).
[Google makes a Microsoftian move; what happened to the "not evil" schtick? Let's hope it gets rejected.]

How Wall Street Wrecked United's Pension, by Mary Williams Walsh.
["... at the end of the regulatory patchwork is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Officials there have access to some of the most current and detailed information about pensions, but they cannot do a lot with it; a 1994 act of Congress requires them to keep it secret." I've always been disgusted by the lack of disclosure surrounding traditional pension plans. "Once a year, an outside auditor is supposed to review the plan and issue an opinion about its conformity with generally accepted accounting principles." The auditor *must* review the plan, and part of conforming with GAAP has to do with whether the investment assumptions are realistic... Wall Street didn't "wreck" United's pension, though I admit it makes a great headline. ;-)]

Don't Worry About China. Learn From It., by Ben Stein.
["Americans who want to make sure they stay well off accomplish nothing by worrying about China. But we can certainly learn something from China. Individuals and nations become rich by investing in human capital - getting a good education, learning good work habits, saving and investing prudently and living healthy lives. Any young Americans who want to keep up with the Chinese can get a good education, work hard, save as much as possible, invest prudently - and they will be just fine now, in 25 years and in 50 years." Ben Stein - my favorite yenta. His advice is right on.]

Alive and Thriving in the Midwest: Brawling in Cages, by Michael Wilson.
[The NYTimes reports on "a brutish pseudo-sport." Watching a cage fight is similar to watching pornography: both stimulate the lizard brain, revealing the inextricable link between sex and death, creation and destruction.]

Reading Between the Lines of Used Book Sales, by Hal Varian.
["A car salesman will often highlight the resale value of a new car, yet booksellers rarely mention the resale value of a new book. Nevertheless, the value can be quite significant." I never took the resale value of my textbooks into account when I bought them, but I did buy all of them from Taiwan ("international editions") for a fraction of their US retail cost. Kids today are even smarter: they scan one textbook and share it worldwide via P2P. Down with the textbook mafia!]

Extreme Origami
[Beautiful stuff, and a reminder that when it comes to value-added stuff, it's the Japanese we compete with at the moment, not the Chinese.]

We bought a new cellphone for my wife this past weekend. It's a Samsung SGH-D488 and it cost 2700 kuai ($333). She likes it because it has a touch pad that recognizes both Chinese and English handwriting, which makes it easier to write SMS I guess. (I have never sent an SMS in my life and don't plan to start anytime soon.) I'll let you know the moment it breaks or gets lost. Can you tell I hate cellphones?

Electricity costs RMB 0.47 (5.8 cents) a kilowatt hour in Beijing. I know this because you have to pre-pay for electricity... you go to the bank to add value to your electricity card (which has a little chip on it), then you come home and insert your card in the meter -- presto! you have another 1000 kilowatts or however much power you bought. I look forward to reporting our August expenses in great detail, a la the old Consumer Expenditure Surveys.

Top Forming in Crude? XLE Finds Sellers?

The XLE is finding sellers as it probes all-time highs. It's possible that crude is forming a top. Notice the "divergence" in the two price charts? It's all just guesswork; I wouldn't bet the farm based on a bunch of squiggly lines.

Light Sweet Crude, Hourly Chart

Energy SPDR (XLE), Hourly Chart