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53 mutations in the DNA sequence were detected. These mutations were found to occur in 15% of people with schizophrenia and 5% in those not affected by the disease.
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Any Vietnam/American Marriage Brokers?
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Interesting stuff, I've been thinking about my next art project.
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Damn Pancretic Cancer again
March 2008 Archives
I was checking my volatility chart this morning and noticed a massive volatility spike on 3/18, two days after my timing model issued a BUY signal. The BUY signal flashed on 3/14, I moved money around on 3/17 and the volatility spike happened the following day. This is sure beginning to look like a bottom, something that I posted about in my "Has The Market Bottomed?" post earlier this week.
Still though, a lot depends on how the subprime mess continues to devolve and how the general market handles it, but the sentiment seems to be firming and I'm seeing a lot of contrarian indicators pointing to higher markets in the future. This could, of course, be a big head fake and we could easily go down from here. However I plan to rotate money out of my bond holdings over the next few weeks and slowly move money back in, assuming we don't break the recent S&P500 low of 1276!
Disclosure: Still 40% in cash and bonds.
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LOL
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Of course, nothing in Paul's world is ever done in the conventional sense, so he has refused to drop out of the race and endorse the presumptive G.O.P. nominee, Senator John McCain. Instead he argues that all Republicans should have "the right to vote for
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This could've easily gone the wrong way fast.
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The archive, of nearly 10,000 samples of infectious bacteria, was the result of more than 20 years' work and included some very rare strains. what a bunch of dumbasses for leaving those samples there!
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WOW
I really like Wordpress's popular post plugin. Without it I couldn't showcase my updated Top 10 posts! Without further ado, here they are:
- Calculating Historical VolatilityÂ
- Building an AI financial market model - Lesson I
- Build an ETF Trend System in Excel
- Building an AI financial market model - Lesson III
- Building an AI financial market model - Lesson II
- Understanding Fuzzy Trend Following in Excel
- Building an AI financial market model - Lesson V (updated!)
- Building an AI financial market model - Lesson IV
- Using Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithms to Build a Trading Model
- Monte Carlo Simulations For S&P500 Volatility Timing Model
Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) has been thrashing around for the past few weeks on some high volatility. One moment the price of oil is at $90, the next its at $111, and now its around $100. Although XOM is mostly a refiner, the price of oil affects its profit margins and in turn the expectations of investors/traders.
Loading up my Exxon Mobil neural net model this morning I find that its giving us a BUY signal for this morning's open. This neural net model has been pretty profitable over the last 60 bars, its up over 11% (not including commissions/fees).
I've been using Stock NeuroMaster since the beginning of the year and have been very happy with it. I owe my readers a tips and tricks post on how I use it generate these BUY and SELL signals. If I have time I'll write up the post over lunch!
Loading up my Exxon Mobil neural net model this morning I find that its giving us a BUY signal for this morning's open. This neural net model has been pretty profitable over the last 60 bars, its up over 11% (not including commissions/fees).
I've been using Stock NeuroMaster since the beginning of the year and have been very happy with it. I owe my readers a tips and tricks post on how I use it generate these BUY and SELL signals. If I have time I'll write up the post over lunch!
I've been riding General Electric (GE) up and down for the past year and it looks like it might finally be heading back up. My GE neural net model gave a solid BUY signal on 3/17/08 for the following open and a HOLD signal at yesterday's close. This will work out nicely if a market bottom was put in place on 3/17. If.
Now I have to check my EME, C, XOM, and NE models!
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RapidMiner Test Vide
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The researchers have now borrowed some of the principles of evolutionary biology to come up with a computer algorithm to make such predictions possible. They feed different variables, such as earnings per share, liabilities and net income, into their gene
I'm not sure yet but its beginning to look that way for now. On 3/17/08 my market timing model indicators registered the highest reading since I started running it. The next three days the indicator collapsed as quickly as it shot up. My twitter followers would've known that I started buying funds in my 401k accounts that day and I'm sitting on small gains right now.
I remain extremely cautious and still hold about 40% cash and bonds but if the low on 3/17 holds (1276) then we have a good chance to see the markets recover.
I know this is so last week but you have to admire how quickly Gold broke down. The chart reveals that it broke through its 50 DMA within in two trading sessions and could even head lower from here. A lot of people think the top in Gold has happened and I probably agree with them for now.
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I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of animals in the wild that I'd only seen in zoos before. It was remarkable how different they seemed. Particularly lions. Lions in the wild seem about ten times more alive.
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the old cemetary in my old stomping grounds
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I know this type all too well from my past!
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There is no legalized ethnic discrimination in China, but privilege and power are overwhelmingly the preserve of the Han, while Tibetans live largely confined to segregated urban ghettos and poor villages in their own ancestral lands.
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This guy has some neat photos
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Another good flickr photographer. Lots of inspiration
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the crucial exposure setting for night photograhy
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nice lingerie collection
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Elementary my dear Watson, Elementary!
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The comments are priceless
I've been getting tons of emails from readers asking me where all my RapidMiner video tutorials are. As you may or may not know, I started making RapidMiner Video Tutorials last year but had to stop because of my illness over the Winter. In between that time, my trial subscription ran out and I decided not to fork up the $299 to pay for Camstasia Studio 5 because of financial issues related with my illness.
However, if my readers feel generous and willing to make donations to the Camstasia Studio 5 fund, I will be able to get a copy of the software and produce my new tutorials in video format.
I can make these videos a lot faster than I can write up the tutorial posts, believe me!
I've mentioned this before but there are some compatibility issues between YALE 3.4 and RapidMiner 4.0. You can't load YALE 3.4 files into RapidMiner 4.0 directly and have it work correctly. As such, the downloads that are a part of my tutorials won't work in RapidMiner unless you build them from scratch in RapidMiner.
My plan is to upload revised RapidMiner tutorial versions over the next few weeks, time permitting. I'm currently balance a massive work load and my time is gotten limited and I'm way behind on my new tutorials. Maybe if I have time at lunch today I'll make some edits to the tutorials...
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When Mr. Shute led a seminar called, “So you want to be a farmer?†in December in New York, it was standing room only with over 40 people, he said. This is what my wife wants to do.
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Nothing attached him to earth but the grip of his size-14 feet and the confident belief that, if needed, his parachute would open quickly and cleanly and not slam him into the canyon wall.
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yeah those jeans are tight!
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In Wildness is the preservation of the world.
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Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about about 95 percent of Native Americans, researchers said.
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"Preliminary studies indicate there is a serious risk…. We should know that it's safe before we put it in our food." - RIGHT, I don't buy this as the pancea for all our ills.
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Didn't JP Morgan try to avert the 1929 Stock Market Crash as well? Wierd how history seems to be repeating itself. No crash yet, right?
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Bear Stearns, the second-largest underwriter of U.S. mortgage bonds, tumbled the most ever after the brokerage said its liquidity deteriorated in the past day
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An enormous volcanic eruption in the sixth century seems to have triggered catastrophic global cooling, perhaps precipitating famine, cultural conflict and plague across the planet.
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Between 2002 and 2006, the Pattersons biked from California east across the United States to Greenland, through Europe and Russia, down Africa, then from southern Chile all the way back up to California.
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via maoxian
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Remember the late 1970s when digital watches were the latest craze? Now look at your wrists. RIGHT!
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I'm sticking with film.
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cool
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BY THAT FALLEN HOUSE THE PEAR-TREE STANDS FULL-BLOOMING ... AN ANCIENT BATTLE-SITE
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Still, Mr. Willman, 47 and single, said he was holding out hope that Gorda’s notorious prices would have a silver lining. “I keep waiting for some single rich woman to come through and drive me away,†he said.
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If nature is left to its own devices, about 7.59 billion years from now Earth will be dragged from its orbit by an engorged red Sun and spiral to a rapid vaporous death.
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Some of these mental problems might have been genetic — what kind of parent picks a name like Golden Rule or Mary Mee? — but it was still bad news. - THE SAME ONES WHO NAME THEIR KID FIBONACCI!
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Eh, gonna do that again, this time make some money at it.
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Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drin
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Tom discusses fundamental, technical, neural net, and monte carlo sim analysis of Boeing in a concise post. He concludes there Boeing might be worth waiting on to get cheaper before buying.
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pretty neat
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interesting advice
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The problem with this logic is that VIX option prices do not follow the VIX index. They follow VIX futures prices. A couple of months ago I decided to quantify how much this really matters.
Ah, the almighty ^VIX, everyone's favorite indicator and the one index that a lot of option traders watch with bated breath. What if I were to tell you that you can use Stock Neuromaster to generate BUY/SELL signals for the ^VIX? Would you be interested?
I'm sure that option traders and writers would be keenly interested if a^VIX neural net model generated a SELL signal for a new short position because it would mean volatility is expected to drop. If it generated a BUY signal for a long position, then the option trader would expect volatility to increase! Don't believe me? Here's the chart!
Another way to use this when trading options is to build a neural net model for a particular stock and then buy/sell call and put options against it!
I'm sure that option traders and writers would be keenly interested if a^VIX neural net model generated a SELL signal for a new short position because it would mean volatility is expected to drop. If it generated a BUY signal for a long position, then the option trader would expect volatility to increase! Don't believe me? Here's the chart!
Another way to use this when trading options is to build a neural net model for a particular stock and then buy/sell call and put options against it!
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Well it looks like I should remain shooting 120 film and scan it in.
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hahaha
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Well I guess I'll stick with film and then scan it in. An extra step but my camera rocks!
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in fact, one of my tips is, don't eat any food that's incapable of rotting. If the food can't rot eventually, there's something wrong.
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camera/tripod mount. This is a problem on my tripod w/ RZ camera.
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more quick release for the tripod/RZ
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To raise awareness on the Web, a stocks blogger started The Million Zimbabwe Dollar Homepage, a send-up of a famous stunt pulled in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student raising money for his education. - Congrats UGLY!!!
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With the exception of the EOS 1Ds, 1Ds mark II and 5D, which have full-size image sensors equivalent in size to a 35mm EOS film camera, most current EOS digital cameras use image sensors smaller than a 35mm film frame. Hmm, need to look into this careful
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Some of my old stuff. I should save up $ to get the big camera
I wrote in my Stock Signal Reviews - Boeing and The S&P500 post yesterday that you can use Stock Neuromaster to create buy and sell signals for Futures data as well. If you can download your quote data into a CSV format (or at least transform it to CSV), then you can import that data into the program, build a neural net model, and generate buy and sell signals. The only downside is that you have update the model manually by downloading the next day's, or week's, data in CSV format.
Tip: Read the help instructions on how to format the CSV data (especially for the date format) before you load it into Stock Neuromaster. If you don't formate the CSV data correctly, it won't load and you'll stare a blank screen wondering what happened.
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But Wheeler says he isn't yet scared of what is rapidly becoming known as the Death Star. “I’m not going to worry about it at all.â€
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As Ni Lar Win, an ethnic Mon, heads back to her village to consider the offer, Donata explains that by taking in struggling single mothers, she hopes to keep mothers and children together and help the mothers to rebuild their lives.
This week I featured the neural net models of Boeing Company (BA) and the S&P500 Index and indicated if each model had issued a BUY or SELL signal recently.
For my BA post, my neural net model issued a SELL signal on 2/26/08 (for 2/27 open) to establish a short position. It then issued a BUY signal to close the short position on 3/5/08 (for 3/6 open). This was another successful trade using the Stock Neuromaster system and it would've netted you a gross profit of +4.6% in 6 trading days!
I also gave my readers an S&P500 Trend snapshot from my longer term S&P500 neural net model. The model issued a SELL signal on 2/28/08 (for 2/29 open) to establish a short position. It then issued a BUY signal to close the short position on 3/5/08 (for 3/6 open) . It's too bad the model didn't anticipate the sell off yesterday and then issue the close position signal last night but its prediction of the short trend term was correct! This small trade would've netted you a gross profit of +2.3%!
Once again the system proves to be a money maker and the beauty of it is, you can pick what stocks you want to follow! One bonus to the Stock Neuromaster system is that you can download OHLC data for any asset, in CSV format, load it into the system and build a neural net model with BUY and SELL signals! Are you interested in modeling Futures like Gold, Silver, Aussie Dollar, or Wheat? You can do that with this little program!
For my BA post, my neural net model issued a SELL signal on 2/26/08 (for 2/27 open) to establish a short position. It then issued a BUY signal to close the short position on 3/5/08 (for 3/6 open). This was another successful trade using the Stock Neuromaster system and it would've netted you a gross profit of +4.6% in 6 trading days!
I also gave my readers an S&P500 Trend snapshot from my longer term S&P500 neural net model. The model issued a SELL signal on 2/28/08 (for 2/29 open) to establish a short position. It then issued a BUY signal to close the short position on 3/5/08 (for 3/6 open) . It's too bad the model didn't anticipate the sell off yesterday and then issue the close position signal last night but its prediction of the short trend term was correct! This small trade would've netted you a gross profit of +2.3%!
Once again the system proves to be a money maker and the beauty of it is, you can pick what stocks you want to follow! One bonus to the Stock Neuromaster system is that you can download OHLC data for any asset, in CSV format, load it into the system and build a neural net model with BUY and SELL signals! Are you interested in modeling Futures like Gold, Silver, Aussie Dollar, or Wheat? You can do that with this little program!
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Finally! It's arrived!
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Try these tricks on your kids, talk to them about the lessons to be learned -- and then quietly muse about whether you, too, fall prey to these financial traps. - heh, good tips!
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Investigators are searching for a woman on Thursday who was videotaped while spraying a girl with a pressured water hose at an Orlando car wash.- WTF is WRONG with people???
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via Maoxian
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Cancer researchers believe that further engineering the shape or surface properties of nanoparticles can enable the particles to actively target tumors - COOL STUFF!
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No, the Vietnamese have not forgotten what happened, but they have given us a humbling demonstration of the human capacity to get on with things, to get over even the most atrocious of life's chapters and to recover.
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Good artocle on financial volatility. Must review closely. Good website too.
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Haha
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Americans giving up homes before other assets as credit bubble bursts - International Herald Tribune"It's the American way of deleveraging," said Jochen Felsenheimer, a credit strategist at Unicredit in Munich. "First you sell your house, second you sell your car and in the end you also sell your TV set." - HA gotta keep the TV to the very end!!
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A large pepperoni pizza these days costs about as much as a share of Citigroup (C, news, msgs). Citigroup finished Wednesday at $22.15. - Yes it does, yes it surely does!
I was inspired to write this post after I read Foquant's (formerly CPP Trader) post on Inductive versus Deductive Algorithms. He hits the nail on the head when he ends his article with:
Personally, I have used deductive reasoning to develop frameworks for money management methods, and then tested data in a similar, inductive method, to create the details.There's a reason why I like Foquant's blog, he an I think the same way when we approach model building but he just likes to use fancy terms! :) Because I've been in the corporate world too long, I prefer to use the terms "top down" and "bottoms up," when building a financial/neural net model. However you can easily replace those terms with "deductive reasoning" and "inductive reasoning" respectively. The bottoms up approach is where you have oodles of data and you spend time cluster mining for relationships or for statistically significant patterns. Over time you start building a model that will lead to your output variable. This method is very rigorous and time consuming method but the final model should be very robust. The other approach, top down, is where you a lot of time observing your output variable (i.e. stock, currency, index) behaving in the market environment and try to figure out what makes it work. Once you think you have an idea on what makes your output variable function, you gather the appropriate input variables and then statistically try to prove their relevance. Of course if you find that your inputs aren't as robust as you like them to be, you'll have to spend additional time looking for the right ones. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses and figuring out what approach to use to build a model really depends on the individual. While one method tends to be more trial and error (top down), the other tends to be more hypothesis testing (bottom up). Personally I start with the top down approach to build a model and then to check it using a bottoms up approach, just like Foquant. This is perhaps the most time consuming way of building a financial model but its led to great success for me and I continue to use it to this day!
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“People struggle to buy homes in this city, for sure,†Mr. Ellerbrook said. “And then you have what looks, on the face of it, like the city giving money to people who made bad decisions.†- Exactly, why should my taxes pay for some boneheads bad d
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The fourth graders squirmed in their seats, waiting for their prizes. In a few minutes, they would learn how much money they had earned for their scores on recent reading and math exams. - Bad idea, you're killing the love for learning.
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Pandit visited Hong Kong a day after Citigroup shares sank to their lowest in more than nine years after a prominent Middle East investor said the bank needed to raise more capital and an analyst projected a $15 billion mortgage write-down. - OUCH! OUCH!
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Way to GO SHANE!
Yesterday I got a great email from Digital Dude who asked me why I didn't use a stop when I went long Citigroup @ $42/share and does buying more, now, make it right? I responded by saying that my strategy for long term is different than my short term one. Soon after I posted my reply I realized that my answer wasn't very clear to Digital Dude and my readers.
Simply put, my strategy in my 401k and IRA accounts is vastly different than my trading accounts, both for stocks and Forex. For my retirement accounts I like to market time the markets (buy in panics, take profits during euphoria), establish long term positions (5 years or more) in specific stocks like XOM, GE, and yes C! I choose these stocks on fundamentals and sentiment mostly and because I believe they're going to be winners 5 years from now. Just like on my mutual funds, I don't use stops when entering these positions because I expect to be in them for a long time. I'm always net long in my 401k and IRA accounts.
Sometimes this strategy backfires on me, like it did on Citigroup (C). So why buy more? My long term outlook for C still stands, I think its a great company despite its bad decision with its subprime investments. Now that the sentiment is even worse, rumors of another $18 Billion write down are floating around and fundamentally its become more attractive, I'm looking to add a few more shares to my 401k account. My exit strategy for these stocks will probably be bequeathing them to my grandchildren upon my death.
My trading strategy is entirely different. I use my neural nets to determine Forex trends or potential breakout stocks, I swing or position trade them, and I use stops! I typically place these stops using my Monte Carlo simulations. This works extremely well in the Forex markets I found out. My exit strategy on these are within a few days and occasionally weeks.
Just a word of caution, my trading and investment strategies work for me but they may not be right for you. I've learned the hard way over my trading and investing life what works for me and what doesn't. You'll have to find your own strategies.
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Or was I just one of those Americans who’ve developed the latest in American problems, Internet addiction disorder?
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The scientists believe that immune proteins in the brain may be so significant that disruption during development might also contribute to such conditions as autism and schizophrenia.
This is just a quick snapshot to see where the S&P500 is going. My long term S&P500 neural net model initiated a SELL signal on 2/28/08 (for 2/29 open) and maintains the short position for today's open. I guess my Monte Carlo simulation, with its bias to the downside, is being proven correct. I just wonder if my initial downside target of 1291 will be hit.
Its been a while since I posted my Forex Trend Signals and the reasons why are numerous: I've been sick, swamped at work, and taking a break from trading Forex. The break in trading Forex was out of necessity. Although my trend signals were correct, the markets intraday were extremely volatile and stopped me out several times in a row. So before I decimate my trading account, I took some time off to think about my strategies before I start trading again.
The signals for this week shouldn't come as a surprise to people, they are very obvious if you've been watching the market.
- AUDUSD - UP
- GBPUSD - UP
- EURUSD - UP
- OIL - UP
- GOLD - UP
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Add awesomely long lifespans to the benefits ledger for LEDs. An Edison bulb burns 1,000 hours before the hammered metal filament flakes out. CFLs achieve 10,000 hours. LEDs last 50,000, and soon 100,000, hours.
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A really cool and freaky piece of art. Wow.
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NMT's post on EMCOR was featured this week at Dividend Growth Investor
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Believe me, if you don't get niched in the customer's mind, your future options will be quite limited.
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That's it, the economy is repeating the 1970's all over again.
The Boeing Company (BA) was flying high for a while but recently has been dragged down through this market correction. BA is generally a popular stock and its even been showcased on Wallstrip last week, right before they lost a $40 billion dollar contract to their rival Northrop Grumman. This is a slap in the face for Boeing because Northrop will be using the Airbus’s (their main rival) plane design to replace the Air Force’s aging in-flight fueling planes.
Fundamental Analysis
S&P currently rates BA as a 4 star company and was downgraded from 5 stars at the end of last year. BA pays a $0.40 dividend, its gross margin is 16.1%, net profit is 6.1%, and its PE ratio of 15.8. It has an ROA of 7.3%, an astounding 73% ROE, and a ROI of 16.4%. BA’s earnings grew over 83% for the past year with last year’s earnings being $5.26. Analysts expect BA’s earnings to grow to $5.98 in 2008 and $7.15 in 2009! So far BA looks pretty good and with its recent price pull back, but is it a BUY?
Technical Analysis
The technical picture for BA is so-so on the weekly charts. After peaking around $105, BA has pulled back to the $80 level and below its 50 WMA. It’s looking short term Bearish to me but long term it’s still Bullish for one simple fact, in my mind, it’s above the 200 WMA. But is it a Buy?
Neural Net Signal
My BA neural net model issued a SELL signal on 2/26/08 to open a short position and it remains short going into today’s open. According to the neural net, it’s not a BUY but a SELL!
Price Targets
My Monte Carlo simulation indicates a downward bias for BA at this moment. That’s probably why the BA neural net model is short! The short term downside targets are: $78, then $71, and then $64. The most likely objective is the $71 level. Short term upside targets are $85 and $92.
Bottom line
I like BA for my 401k as a long term play but I’d wait to see if BA keeps selling off as indicated by my neural net model and my
Disclosure: No positions
I roamed around a lot when I lived in New Mexico and I came across several ghost towns. I loved finding them out in the middle of nowhere and poking around in them. If I had more time I would probably researched the reason why they were abandoned but we didn't stay too long at them. Usually they were on private property and had big "KEEP OUT" signs and we had to always watched out for a Rancher with a big rifle. Still though, the sign and the lure of ghost town adventure didn't deter my friend Kevin or me! I mean, how could you not be deterred?
I was chatting with the Chairman yesterday when he sent me this link from Bloomberg about the rise in house inventories and how they're at the same level since 1973.
In January 1973, the number of finished new homes for sale was 97,000, when the U.S. population was about 212 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In December 2007, 197,000 completed homes were on the market and in January 2008 there were 195,000. The current population is 303.5 million.It seems that back in 1973, the % inventory to the US population was 0.05% and today its 0.06%. I really don't know if these numbers are a cause for all the calamity the Bloomberg article alludes too but what it does mean is that home prices probably have further to fall. It's just a matter of time till we work off the inventory and hit bottom and I think we're almost there.
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Damn straight, boys and girls are different and they learn different.
I make it a habit of "selectively" catching falling knives and yesterday was definitely such a day. I emailed my members yesterday around lunch time yesterday to tell them that my Market Timing model issued a strong BUY signal. Interestingly enough it was at the 1335 level which is right around the 1337 support level I modeled using my Monte Carlo sim.
Could the market go lower from here? It sure could and I expect it to kiss the 1291 level,just like it nearly touched the 1383 level earlier this week. So why BUY now? Why not wait till the knife hits the floor?
Well its true that this type of investing is counter intuitive. No one can every pick the bottom exactly and I'd rather buy quality mutual funds and stocks that are being sold in panic then waiting for a chart bottom to form. It seems nutty and insane but it works for me.
