Thanks, but Joining the Darkside

Effective April 13, 2012, pages maintained only for historical reference and do not reflect current opinions nor events.

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To all my past blog readers, you know that it's always been about the money, so now I'm off to the Darkside, where money talks, and everyone else? Well, you know what they can do. But in the meantime, thank you so much for giving me a piece of your day. It has always been very gratifying for me, and thanks to the modern miracle of website analytics, I know where all of you live and get your dry cleaning done.

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Creature of Habit

I really am a creature of habit.

If you have any doubt just do a search of this blog for "creature of habit" and you’ll see just how many times I’ve mentioned that personality characteristic of mine.

Although it's convenient to blame redundancy on memory lapses that accompany advancing age, that's really not the root cause.

That would be me.

It wouldn't take you 27 years of marriage to realize that I'm a repetitive sort.

The last time I wrote a blog was from 2007-8 and it was in memory of my father and appropriately, was named after him in a manner that was understood by those who knew him.

Szelhamos.com

It ran for precisely one year. What gratified me about that year was that over 10,000 hits came specifically to watch the fairly crudely designed PowerPoint slideshow that tried to provide a glimpse into his life. Certainly far more people than he would have met during his lifetime came to know him and his signature invitation to all, as well.

After that one year period, writing about the same topic as now and with the same non-sensical perspective that only a delusionally knowledgeable person could have, it was time to hang it up.

The second incarnation celebrates its first anniversary today.

This time around the Szelhamos.com site was resurrected in order to find an outlet to publicize my book, Option to Profit, that, as a creature of habit, I’ve name dropped about 10,000 times, as well.

Option to Profit. And make that 10,000 and one.

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The Real Sugar of Life

Who better to give the real last word to than Sugar Momma, who I've mentioned on more than one occasion?

 

 

Sugar Momma speaks out for the first and last time.

 

I have absolutely no background or interest in trading, the stock market, or options.

 

I came from a career in mental health and dealing with people as opposed to numbers. But living with TheAcsMan, I have been forced to pick up a few insights that can apply to the market or the supermarket of people in your life.

 

Yes, money, financial stability, all important things. But the real sugar of life comes from the people in your life. Your family, friends, neighbors, co workers, the cashier at Giant who wonders what you are going to do with all that baby bok choy.

 

Some of the important lessons you learn about trading are similar ideas that can apply to your relationships. There are ups and downs, Cycles, Gotta wait it out, Dont Panic, Be patient, do your homework. You take these lessons and go through life and think you know what's going on with people, what to expect, how to deal.

 

But people, like the market can sometimes really surprise you, even later in life when you think you know all about someone or something. You know the market, you know a person, been doing all this for 30 years and then a person does something or makes a change that really can be shocking. 

 

So, like with the market, dont panic, don't assume just because it sounds right doesn't mean it's true.

 

Do a little research, be honest, communicate. Try to learn and find out all you can before you jump to those conclusions that can have some major consequences. If you don't you just might lose something more important than money.

 

The sugar of life.

We Didn't Start the Fire

What a great song.

There are probably more college history and sociology courses centered around the tumultuous tale of the 20th century that is told in that song than any other musical composition ever, with the possible exception of American Pie.

For my money though, the Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley stand-off is a metaphor for East versus West tension and nuclear stockpiles build-up.

Or maybe it's just about some coming of age kind of thing, I don't know, but naming a movie series after the song has cheapened us all. Why didn't they just call it "Twinkies?" That would have made so much more sense.

As I re-discover the lyrics, I realize that I've actually used many of the subjects in passing, through various blog entries, as everything in the past has a degree of connection to the present, if you have a syphilitic riddled mind.

Their have been cover versions, remakes and satirical versions of the classical song and its driving musical beat. For those that lived through much of the historical period covered it's an incredibly moving song making you want even more and sometimes wondering how anyone ever survived the cumulative "us."

It was done despite "us."

But, with all due respect to Billy Joel (which is never a respectful way to begin a sentence), those that marched with Chou En-Lai and perhaps banged their shoes with Kruschev. the world's political and cultural events of the 20th century have nothing on even a single week in the financial markets.

In hindight, as quickly as the seminal events of the 20th century may have unfolded, they were at a snail's pace compared to the events and non-events that shake, rattle and roll the markets.

In that small section of the universe change comes about in quantum leaps forward and backward.

In a somewhat contradictory stance, despite the reliance on charts and the inferences drawn based upon past history, in the world of financial news, past history is meaningless. Further, in the compressed time frame of the markets, ancient past history is defined simply by the release of any new piece of information or data. Good news is quickly forgotten, as is great news. Bad news? As if it never existed if something else exists.

Market Alzheimer's Disease? Perhaps.

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Kwanzaaian Economics

I've always liked the disclosure that begins with the words "it is not within the scope..."

Disclaimer, disclosure. It's all the same, isn't it?

Disclosure is a nice way of of saying that idiots need not apply and should have their hands held elsewhere if they need help pulling up their big boy pants.

Disclaimer is what you do when you know that despite your disclosure, people will still follow their blind prejudices, knowing that they can always blame someone else for their mistakes.

So let me disclose that it is not within the scope of this blog to create awareness of higher levels of being or finance. It is only meant to entertain me and keep me away from the neighbors.

I do very little on Facebook (or life, in general), having joined at the same time as I started this blog and started Tweeting. All were done with a singular purpose and objective in mind, which was to sell books.

I do belong to one membership site, which is comprised of past students at the small elementary school that I had attended. It happened to be a Yeshivah, which if you're unaware, is the Jewish version of a parochial school.

Jews, as you may be aware, through personal experience, or through your redneck stereotypes, can be an argumentative group.

It's alright for me to say "My Hebrew" in  mixed company and "My Heeber" when outsiders aren't around, but it's not permitted for you to do the same.

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The Legacy of Woody Guthrie

When I was growing up, Arlo Guthrie was a rebel.

In an era when songs were neatly packaged for radio play and rarely even approached 4 minutes in length, his "Alice's Restaurant" was a beautiful gift for those disk jockeys with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Prior to that, the first 4+ minute song to regularly receive airplay was "Ode to Billy Joe" in the summer of 1967.

Arlo Guthrie wasn't an accidental rebel. It was in his genes.

His father, Woody Guthrie blazed the trail.

Fascinatingly, despite the off beaten path of his ne-er do well life, Woody Guthrie is best remembered for his stirring songs, such as "This Land is Your Land,"  that sing the praises of America's natural beauty, as well as our own rights as a free people..

But he left behind another legacy.

That was for the passage of the genes necessary for that horribly generative neurological disease, Huntington's Disease, a disease which makes itself known during early adulthood and then eats away at the core of those so cruelly afflicted, until they just wither away to nothingness upon expiration

Huntington's Disease itself is at the core of a great ethical issue and internal personal conflict, as the presence of the gene combination necessary for it to manifest itself as the disease in future years can easily be known long before signs and symptoms appear.

The question facing the heirs of Woody Guthrie is whether they want to know their fate, especially since there is no treatment and certainly no cure.

How do you live your life knowing with  absolute certainty that you will begin a horrible descent? How do you look your own children in the eye knowing that you may have very well passed the same fate onto them?

The dilemma is further heightened when you consider the possibility that the health insurance companies that may pay for the diagnostic testing may conceivably then become the very same companies to deny care on the basis of the insured having a  "pre-exisiting condition."

We were never meant to know the unknown.

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Weekend Update

What an oddly serene, yet uncomfortable week coming up.

Here we were, on Good Friday, on the precipice of another year in which lunar coincidence allows Passover and Easter to coincide.

For many, serenity comes from family time, celebration and sometimes the re-inforcement of faith, culture and heritage.

In honor of the holiness of Good Friday, even capitalists will put away their arms and take the day off from their all consuming efforts. After all, the Prince of Peace wasn't exactly a fan of the 1%, so what better way to honor the message of peace than to take a day off from advancing your personal caches of wealth?

I may not recall much from my college Theology class days, but I'm fairly certain that among the things that was not discussed at that Last Supper Seder was hedging strategies for the coming week.

Even those Jewish people without much in the way of belief will retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt in whatever metaphors are appropriate for their own friends and family. Again, hedging strategies are not likely to play a role in the re-telling of the story.

But still, what a perfect day to release the employment numbers.

Our currency may say "In God We Trust," but report releases rest for no deity.

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Full Disclosure

For starters, allow me to make full disclosure.

On Monday I sold puts on shares of Groupon as a reflection of a short term bullish sentiment on its shares.

Unless you've been living in a cave or have been on an South Pole expedition you know that Groupon is that beleaguered daily deal space leader that has had a rough time of things.

If either of those are the case, you probably also still own shares of Research in Motion.

Sometimes you are your own worst enemy and there are no better recent examples of that adage than Groupon and Research in Motion.

From its IPO, including pre-IPO and post-IPO behaviors its been an embarrassment every way you can imagine. Embarrassment is one thing, but for those that purchased IPO day traded shares at $26, the drop below $15 is more meaningful.

In the past, I've been critical of Groupon and its juvenile leadership and arrogance. If you really care. take a look.

If you're really without a reason for living, I suppose that you could check through the Twitter archives and read other miscellaneous comments that I'd made over the months, especially about CEO Andrew Mason, although he certainly wasn't the only culprit.

During that time, I'd never own shares, nor had any interest, long or short in the shares of this company.

On Monday, I finally decided to take a position, by selling those April 2012 puts.

I did so following Groupon's press release regarding yet another accounting issue.

In the past, I've done very well selling puts on companies after they've taken big hits, but not being terribly speculative or risk taking by nature, those positions have always been small.

In this case, if I am assigned shares, I'll be on the hook for about 0.28% of my portfolio.

Since Monday, other than mentioning the fact that I had taken the position, I've made no comments, derogatory or laudatory, regarding Groupon.

Not as if I actually would influence anyone by doing so.

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It's All About Appearances

As time goes on I've come to realize that what I once thought was my absolute grasp on the secrets of the Universe were just a prelude to the growing realization that I understand nothing.

Nothing at all.

What I'm also realizing is that during that period of your life when you are on the path of professional ascendancy or at least hoping to be on that path it's not about substance at all.

It's always about appearances. The appearance of substance is priceless.

Which essentially means that the world is divided into just two camps.

Those that are truly capable and those that aren't, but may look good as they feign their way through the system and up the ladder.

For purposes of maintaining a dichotomy, I conveniently overlook those that are in no way capable, nor ever perceived as being capable.

I suppose that there could also be those that had been fully capable but got thrown to the curb as societ and technology passed them by.

Reserch in Motion seems to fall into that last category.

Just a few short days ago, after ridiculing the Research in Motion CEO's performance on the evening of the earnings report that missed analyst's estimates of $0.80 by 7/10's of a cent, the shares recovered from their immediate plunge and actually closed the quarter, which happened to be the very next day, up $1.

It doesn't matter whether you're dealing with a $14 stock or a $600 holding, but a 7% move is a big deal, just as apparently a 0.875% miss in earnings estimates turns out to be and then doesn't

I don't own shares of RIMM, but I have to wonder how in the second day of the new quarter it could be back down to a point that it's now trading 5% below its weekly low, which was already pretty low.

Did anything change?

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Is that All it Takes?

The day started with a nice surprise for me.

Still upset about the bad luck I'd had when my computer froze during the final minutes of FrIday's trading session, I was prepared to start the week with most of my Freeport McMoRan shares assigned from me after just having sold those calls earlier in the day on Friday.

Compound that with only a net $8 profit from the big mega-Millions drawing and you've got some blood pressure raising seething going on that can be internalized for only so long.

Sometimes, though, the system is neither perfect in its execution nor in its pricing.

For example, sometimes really stupid people win really big lottery prizes.

They can be safely assessed as having been stupid on the basis of blowing through tens of millions of dollars and more in just a few years and being left with nothing but memories of days of grandeur.

That reportedly happens fairly often, so there may be an inverse corrrelation between jackpot winners and IQ. I still don't understand all of the testimonials of past jackpot winners who claim that their lives became worse in so many untold ways after their good fortune.

Seven out of ten people that I polled on that issue agreed that it was a sign of stupidity at its greatest height.

Sometimes the system gets it wrong too, as shares are expected to be assigned if they closed more than a penny above their strike price.

But the surprise, the yawn of a system taking a break, was right there, staring at me this morning.

I felt as if I'd gotten a gift when only the smaller lot of my Freeport shares was assigned, leaving a bit more than 75% of the shares still safely stored in my portfolio.

Not quite a Mega-Millions jackpot, but I gladly accepted it.

Of course had those shares not taken a well deserved climb well higher this morning, I'd be muttering about the inequity of the system letting me down and would be raging against those 1% fat cats that comprise the 1% of the 1%.

Instead, move over and make room for me and my boys, Mac and Moran.

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