What nice folks...our friends from Florida Atlantic

We had a little event last night for some students from Florida Atlanta University who had some levels of interest in trading and learning how.  Things like this are, interestingly enough, more education for us sometimes than for them.

I'm old school. I went to college before SAT preps and all that nonsense where you got by because you could navigate the dewey decimal system and new how to to decorate your library carrel (now selling as antiques).  The art of verbal communication was paramount as what passed as a word processor was an IBM Selectric II (3 pages at a time in memory) and there was NO internet. None. We communicated thoughtfully and respected research based knowledge. I've been therefore somewhat scornful of the recent college crops with the grade inflation, the casual view of history and ignorance of just plain things...music, literature, philosophy...the liberal arts in general. I've found them to be, snobbishly I'll admit, boring conversationalists.

So back to last night.  Up turns a dozen or so early 20 somethings who were interesting on a number of levels.  They were courteous and curious, smart on any number of levels and very verbal. They spoke well. They thought about what they were saying.  Their questions were well framed and probing.  Above all they were very very nice people and a pleasure to be around.

Of course we hope that some choose to pursue further prospects with us and we would gain a lot by having them among us.  Not to be too maudlin, but I would feel comfortable having them around and perchance to be friends with them.

As you can see I got more out of this than I bargained for and feel better for the experience.  These are bright people and FAU should be and I am sure is proud to have them as future alumni.

Jobs and the infamous "non-farm" payroll figure

Try looking it up...

When the employment figures come out the report always says  "non-farm payroll". As I said try to easily get that figure - that qualifier - and figuring why it is phrased that way.  I have a theory based on what I have read but it is probably wrong.

Just an observation and obviously my own as a private citizen and not as part of Prism..be clear on that...but the stats on this blog show that a lot of non-financial-trader types read this so here goes:

1.  It is a way to keep data constant...if we have always done it that way and we change in any way then historical data becomes irrelevant. 

2.  With that "qualifier" the non-farm could be read as "urban" where there are no farms (I've actually checked - there aren't a lot of farms in NYC) and this, to a minor degree slants things.

3.  There really aren't a lot of farms anymore. If you take the link in the title (the title is actually a link by the way)  but here it is anyway http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/demographics.html it is pretty interesting as real-deal farming numbers are pretty small and the "gentlemen farm" and a lot of others are just family operations that don't hire a lot of people.  Point is, the "farm payroll"  unemployment although probably highly seasonal and populated by a lot of low wage workers is pretty small. When I write "pretty" in anything I think of Larry David and Curb Your Entusiasm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_05qJTeNNI.

So there are probably a lot of good reasons to say "non-farm payroll" but it doesn't sinc up with the 6.8 million farms in operation 50+ years ago and the million or so farms currently - many of the very small -well I'm just not sure that this jobless stat isn't just a blip.

you mean you might go to trading school and not learn a thing????

Just so you know ... and this is a good local opinion from a collegue in the business for a number of years (here is the real summary ... something your mom didn't tell you)

 1.  Hotel seminars just do not work. Even if they might teach valuable information, retaining and applying it can be almost impossible.

2.  Trading Schools typically offer 3-days to 7-days classes with some limited live or simulated trading. Though better then seminars, they fall short in the amount of actual live trading time and few people are able to retain so much information in such a short timeframe.
 
3.  Seminar Companies and other Trading Schools make their money from selling classes. After making the sale they really have no vested interest in your success.


4.  Prism, makes the bulk of it’s revenue from profit-sharing with our traders. We supply the capital so we have skin in the game. If your trading fails we lose our own money, and when you are successful we profit along side you.


Got it?  There are schools and there are schools.  Choose wisely.
 

Learning how to trade is something that I'm really buying into

I think that people think that trading is an easy proposition.  At the core, it is. Buy low. Sell High and the best part is you can make money when the stocks go up and when the stocks go down you have to toss the second ball in the air catch profits where you can.

It seems like a slam dunk on face but this is a learning game and a patience game as all good things are. 

I liken this to an orchestral trumpet player...you practice and learn all the time - hours upon hours - and some nights in concert you play for maybe 10 minutes in the two hour concert.   In trading the actually "hush I'm trading" time is, in the course of a full day, a fairly narrow event.  You sit and wait for some pattern that fits into your plan then concentrate and transact like crazy and settle back in when things level out.  That's the "fool armed with a little knowledge" point of view but I'm of the opinion that if you don't have a good course (like in school course) in this you are out of your mind and if you don't have an expert sitting around near you while you are in the learning curve you are equally skating on thin ice.

A good floor, like this one, has a lot of amazing tools (filters is a trade jargon word) and if you go to a good school (very very hard to find but you just found the best one going) and learn the business and the tools and how everything works, you are again playing with fire.

I'm a huge believer in education and love to learn new things.  If you are serious about this stuff you need to learn the business.   It is like golf.  An untrained or uninstructed golfer really doesn't have a lot of fun and furthermore he is dangerous...think hard golf balls flying everywhere.

To brew or not to brew...Starbucks' brave new world

Someone at Starbucks might want to read a book or two about brand management.  It is a short book. In fact, some authors write only two paragraphs. The first paragraph is very simple: (words to the effect) "NEVER EVER do anything that weakens the perception of the brand, in particular, never ever ever dilute or confuse the main product".  VERY SIMPLY, don't futz around with something that is good and make it, in your customer's eyes, LESS GOOD.  Paragraph #2 is of course re-read paragraph #1 a few thousand million times and then, when you think you can go ahead and do it after you pretend that your product is your significant other and you are asking him/her permission to cheat on him/her and replace him/her with what could be termed an inferior product.

Instant coffee is a world unto its own. Read up on it some. Usually made with lower quality beans, the bitterness component is most usually cited. Starbucks says it is using good stuff. Notice they didn't say they were using great stuff but "good stuff"...that means in ad parlance that we are using something almost as good as....and that ladies and gentlemen is the issue....ALMOST.

AW BEANS

The National Parks

There are a number of them that I wanted to visit in my lifetime and Mr. Burns' documentary has turned up the heat to venture forth as we all should as like tomorrow, it will never be the same as today.

I finally "got it" last night viewing one of the episodes.  I wondered why there were so many vignettes with persons who were remotely connected to the establishment(s) of the system.  I think he wanted to convey to us that there is the physical "park" and the "visitors" park. That the parks themselves truly come alive when we humans - certainly minor actors on a much bigger stage and the parks reality is in the viewing by us. Certainly the old saw of if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make any noise.  The flip would be if the beauty of these parks, so well caught in Burns' work, isn't viewed, visited and enjoyed, they would in effect be silent.

Outside forces at play - our little universe.

No college Saturday night experience is complete without that "universe/electron" deep discussion...for all of you who didn't have that one, it is in a small scene of the National Lampoon Animal House where Donald Sutherland explains the idea that our little solar system is really just an atom with 9 electrons  and part of a much bigger scheme of things and if we could look closely at the electron, we would find it to be just another solar system and so on.  Men in Black  did a little of the same with the galaxy within Orion's Bell (not belt) and the locker at the train station that contained a micro colony etc.

I read a short sci-fi story in the late 50's...I think it was by Robert Heinlein but that was 50 years ago...called Fesseden's Worlds.  A guy set up this elaborate micro galaxy in his basement and watched it develop.  At one point he or someone couldn't help "playing God" and poking a developed planet with a pin...watching the horror and panic.  I'm not sure of the moral lesson although there must be one.

I sit with traders all day who are, in essence, looking at universes within universes and magic pins or something suddenly appearing in the sky. I suspect a special mindset does this although I'm not sure what kind..but it is infinitely patient and then quick to react.

Part of my job is to think about what makes a good trader..what mental makeup.  I foster the opinion that it is someone who plays chess on a high level and prefers the 3-D version of it...multiple layers so to speak. He/she is quite happy with the slice/size of the universe they inhabit and don't necessarily look with awe or fear at the larger and smaller sizes that surround them. They are very much into the "what if" philosophical school yet their lives are filled with practicality and reality.

Interesting mix.

David Brooks mentions Calvinist Restraint and Economic Values

Mr. Brooks opines that we have lost some of "founding fathers" type restraints...and notes the Calvinist Restraint that he feels was a guiding principle in this country. Oh contrare.  It appears that Mr. Brooks has been reading some stuff that came out in the backwater report (backwaterreport.com/?p=105) which pits Calvinism economics as the antithesis of socialism and communism.

Mr. Brooks appears smart enough not to quote this claptrap directly but frames his opinions around the central current argument that the current administration is really socialist at its core. Again. Not credible.

I am always alarmed when persons write about the economic trends in light of social discord or the "loosing of values" as if there is some movement afoot that is quid pro quo.  Beware.

Roman Polanski...not his day was it

I won't run a picture of him.  I think...again, my personal opinion and not representative of anyone or any other entity..strictly mine...is that he deserves a visit to the River Styx.

I saw a horribly inane interview with some rep from the festival that was going to give this guy an award.  He decried how anyone could consider jailing a guy with this much talent and achievement. Bull.

Talent and achievement are one thing.  Molesting a 13 year old girl after drugging her is obviously another. How in the world do the two relate?  You can be good at your job for a lifetime but that doesn't erase the act which, according to interviews, he freely admits committing and he has the affrontery to be pissed off at the judge for backing out of the plea bargain.  What plea bargain?

The public in general doesn't get all this in my opinion.  If it were you or me we would be looking at hard time and rightfully so.  Think of your daughter and then think of this and see if any other conclusion holds water.

That this indulgent ass and some around him think that putting out a film like the Pianist (which I own and watch often as a masterpiece of storytelling) gives him some sort of lifetime pass from being a creep. 

I can watch the DVD while he sits in jail for the rest of his life with absolutely no moral regret.