Market timing

"[...] back in the spring of 1720, Sir Isaac Newton owned shares in the South Sea Company, the hottest stock in England. Sensing that the market was getting out of hand, the great physicist muttered that he "could calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of the people". Newton dumped his South Sea shares, pocketing a 100% profit totaling £7,000. But just months later, swept up in the wild enthusiasm of the market, Newton jumped back in at a much higher price - and lost £20,000 (or more than $3 million in today's money). For the rest of his life, he forbade anyone to speak the words "South Sea" in his presence."

Quote of the day

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

(Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

EMO Joke

- Knock knock!
- Who's there?
- Any.
- Any who?
- An EMO kid ...

(heard on Radio GUERILLA)

Interesting figures

Do you know that population with internet access spend 1 trillion hours watching TV per year???

If TV consumption decreased by as little as 1%, it would be enough to bring to life 100 projects about Wikipedia size per year.


source: Business Magazin, Clay Shirky "Web 2.0 Expo" presentation

Germany vs Spain

The final is about to begin. Quite a little bit of a surprise, I'm not sure how many would have predicted that Germany would reach the final. Spain, yes, they deserve to be here ... don't get me wrong, Germany as well (if they made it), especially after the match against Portugal.

Although the bookmakers see the Spain as the favorite here, I don't not what to say ... you know the definition of football: a sport between two teams, 11 against 11, played with a round ball, for 90 minutes, and where the Germans always wins.

I really hope we all see a really good match, and may the best team win!

PS my bet on this match, small stakes, is draw for first half, with Spain winning in the second half ...

Britain's Got Talent

I had the chance to be in Leeds, UK, one month ago, and I watched on TV one of the semifinals of "Britain's Got Talent". The winner of the semifinal, George Sampson, won the contest in the end, but below his performance - extraordinary - from the semifinal:

Re-visiting Graham. "The Intelligent Investor"

An excellent article from Barton BIGGS in this week's Money Express ...

So I think there couldn't be any better time than this to re-visit Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor", "by far the best book on investing ever written" (to quote Warren Buffett).

As Buffett wrote after Graham's death:
"Walter Lipman spoke of men who plant trees that other men will sit under. Ben Graham was such a man."

And what is an intelligent investor in Graham's view?
"The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists."

Dow Jones ...

down nearly 360 points, or 3.03%, to the lowest level for the last 20 months or so!!!

oil hit a new record, at $140.39 ... next stop $150? I think the question is how fast, and not if ...

Inflation ...

short update: as already priced by the market and expected by investors, NBR raised the monetary policy rate to 10% ... still no change in minimum reserve requirements ...

so, FED @ 2% (with Mr. Bernanke prepared to start raising the key lending rate fearing inflation might take off), NBR - 10%, and ECB - Mr. Trichet signaling interest rate hike to 4.25% ...

inflation - the disease of last century and this one as well?

Learning from past mistakes ... really?

they say an intelligent one could learn not only from his past mistakes, but from others as well ...

hmmm ... is this really the case?

ask yourself, how many married friends do you have?

and now, the tricky part: are you married? :)

Behavioural Finance

very interesting and challenging last night conference from Romanian Banking Institute, CFA Caffe - "Neuroscience and Behavioural Finance", with focus on investment and asset allocation (in bear markets) ...

2 remarkable speakers - Dr. Helmut Henschel, CFA and Adrian Mitroi, CFA, participative audience, topics discussed, made us forget (at least for those 3 hours) another RED day ... 2% down ...

definitely we are in a bear market, we short rallies ... but, on a longer horizon, I'm still bull on Romanian market ...

eOK

i've discovered - reading a business magazine - an interesting website, a new - let's call it - business idea: http://www.eok.ro/ ... LEGAL music distribution ... songs cannot be bought, just listened to for free on the website ...

who's behind this new concept? Florin Grozea, component of Hi-Q band ... congratulations!

Finally ...

... blogger ... life really surprises you sometimes ...

what you'll find here? articles about financial markets, stocks, investment ideas (both from my practical experience, and from various books), football (Romania has 22 million coaches, in case you don't know that already), movies, music, Eliade ... and other things that worth couple of minutes of your life ...

but enough for the first post, let the show begin.