Reading Roundup - Taxi, Cramer Makes Great TV, Indian English Tutors, Chou Funds

Taxi 1.5
["Taxi uses Stockcharts.com's charting and annotation engine to load charts. I spent countless hours coding this program to make my charting life easier. The result is this program." I've haven't used this program yet, but it looks promising. via TraderMike]

CNBC's raging bull, by Matea Gold.
["'Mad Money with Jim Cramer' is... a far cry from sedate business fare like Louis Rukeyser's 'Wall Street Week,' which used to define the genre. Since it debuted in March, the program has transformed the 6 p.m. time slot from one of the business channel's lowest-rated into one of its highest, with an average of 182,000 viewers - a jump of 80% from a year ago, according to Nielsen Media Research." A reader kindly wrote in to explain that the volume climax in Capstone I wrote about the other day was a direct result of "the Cramer effect." (I've never seen the show, unfortunately.) again via TraderMike]

A Tutor Half a World Away, but as Close as a Keyboard, by Saritha Rai.
["Growing Stars is one of at least a half-dozen companies across India that are helping American children complete their homework and prepare for tests. As in other types of outsourcing, the driving factor in 'homework outsourcing,' as the practice is known, is the cost. Companies like Growing Stars and Career Launcher India in New Delhi charge American students $20 an hour for personal tutoring, compared with $50 or more charged by their American counterparts. Growing Stars pays its teachers a monthly salary of 10,000 rupees ($230), twice what they would earn in entry-level jobs at local schools." Fantastic! Ain't globalization grand?]

Chou Funds 2005 Semi-Annual Report, by Francis Chou.
["We continue to have problems finding genuine bargains in the market. We are diligently hunting for them and most times we are finding 'value trap' stocks that we would not touch with a barge pole. Most of these stocks can be grouped under the 'If it looks like garbage, smells like garbage, don't eat it' category." Francis Chou attempts to write in the style of Warren Buffett, but fails. You can't fault him for trying though, and his reports are always worth reading. (His position in Sears Holdings has been a huge winner -- one great pick can make up for dozens of so-so picks.)]

Health Care SPDR at All-Time High

The XLV has finally moved to a new all-time high. Health Care is one of my big "secular" investment themes and we own (and continue to add to) the XLV in our retirement accounts. If you don't have exposure to health care in your portfolio, you might want to consider buying the low-cost Health Care SPDR. (You might also want to consider the Vanguard Health Care Fund (VGHCX), but it has a $25,000 minimum buy-in now.)

UPDATE: Vanguard Health Care Fund was closed to new accounts on the close of business, March 23, 2005.

Health Care Select Sect SPDR (XLV), Weekly Chart