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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Hello Volatility my Old Friend

I don't know why, but so many things in life seem to be able to be expressed in someone else's song.

For lots of people, the feeling is that the song is speaking directly to them and captures exactly what they've felt.

For me, if that were the case, I'd be a die hard fan of instrumentals.

As much as I love Bruce Spriingsteen, there's no doubt that he's not singing to me or about anything that I know or can identify with. I'm just a big fan of unbridled sweat stains.

"I see you walking down the street, pushing that baby carriage at your feet'" is a line that I can play back in my head for hours at a time, yet it means nothing to me.

"My father said right before he died that true true love was just a lie."

Again. Nothing.

Simon and Garfunkel come as close as anyone that I could identify with other than the fact that I can't sing and I never had any friends to disharmonize with on the streets of the city.

Garfunkel on the other hand did have a couple of solo hits that seemed to speak to me, but more than likely it was the hair that I idenitfied with.

Now that he's old and has male pattern baldness, I won't look nor listen in his direction.

For me, volatility is far from the "darkness" that the original duo known as "Tom and Jerry" sang about, except that I do think of it as my friend.

Friendship is a strange thing, because even arch nemeses somehow perversely become friends, if only because of the years upon years of battling with one another, and the mutual understanding and respect that ensues. At least that's the image that's painted in "The Fugitive," and "The Pink Panther."

Personally, I think that years of battling would only deepen the anger and hatred.

The recent friend, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Starbucks just had a falling out and then just as quickly had a reconciliation, just yesterday.

Friendship is great and quantifiable, as Green Mountain went up about 13% after Starbucks announced yet another initiative with their insipid coffee making friends.

But then, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was on air after the annual meeting and despite saying nothing but good and warm things about his friends in Vermont, discounted it all as he quickly changed his tone and cadence with the perfect use of the word "however," as he transitioned to a more bubbly discussion of Starbuck's upcoming venture into coffee hardware.

Whatever happened to Simon and Garfunkel, anyway?

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Apple Embraces Chinese Communism

We all know that corporations are people. The United States Supreme Court made that abundantly clear and the equally abundant political ads, courtesy of the Super-PACS are testament to the privilege of being a person.

Best of all, the beneficiaries of corporate largesse can wash their hands of all responsibility, as they must have an arm's length relationship with their friend, the Super-PAC.

It's so nice to be able to keep a straight face while totally disowning some egregious allegation or claim.

It may not seem as if its a privilege to be a viewer, but someone has to pay the price for someone else to have rights.

Apple is a person among persons. WIth a market capitilization is large as it is, it definitely warrants attention when it does anything.

Today it shook the ground enough to even get the attention of its co-founder, Steve Jobs.

The singular issue of the day was the Apple decision to offer a meaningful dividend and purchase back some $10 Billion in shares, which at its current rate of climb would be about 12 shares.

The certainly not something that Mao Tse Tung or his successor Mao Zedong, would have done in his lifetime.

In fact, the announced dividend, if paid in $1 bills that were laid end to end would circle the globe six times. If paid in Chinese Yuan it would also circle the globe sx times, but only because the size of their note is artificially pegged to our dollar's dimensions.

The truly amazing thing is that if you followed that trail of singles around the globe again and again, you'd likely never run into a single Research in Motion Playbook owner.

That fantasized fact may be somehow related to Apple's incredible recent success.

But how do you deal with such success, especially when the underlings get restless?

Just thrown a curveball, Apple has emerged unscathed as it turns out that the Chinese FOXConn controversy may have also been a fantasy. Apple has never been accustomed to being scrutinized or criticized.

In size, impact and imperiality, Apple is China.

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Is 2012 the new 2011?

I've never been one to follow fads. I probably wouldn't even recognize the most outrageous of  fads even when at its full height.

The New Kids on the Block will be collecting social security before it dawns on me that they have come and gone.

I do recall occassionally having wondered why women weren't wearing lime green jump suits as much as they used to, but would never have noticed in real time that orange had become the new lime green.

Or maybe it was the other way around and lately, as it is, I haven't been seeing quite as many of those orange jumpsuits, either.

For the most part social trends escape me from a cognitive perspective as well as from an application perspective. My inability to fathom the basic tenets that belie chart analyses are consistent with the fact that I'm "trend challenged."

But I am looking pretty sharp in my new Nehru jacket and that has to be worth something, especially in 1968 dollars.

I did notice, however, that on Monday we were poised for a triple digit loss, which would have been a first for 2012. As it would turn out, all bout 15 points of that loss were erased and 2012 just kept right on being 2012.

I had also noticed that the smartest of the smart had been calling for a return of the 2012 gains for the past 3 weeks. They did so based on the well known statistical model based on the spins of a roulette wheel, that demonstrably indicate a string of reds are highly likely to be followed by a black.

You can bet the house on that one.

But it was hard not to notice that Tuesday's open was going to be something new and harken back to something old.

2011.

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Weekend Update

This has been a busy week, but not so much for me.

It figures that on the week that the blog begins its apperance as an offerng by Amazon Kindle Subscription services that I would miss two days worth of blogging.

But only in America can you choose to pay for a subscription service to have a blog delivered directly to your Kindle when you could just as easily opt to not read the blog online.

And for free.

What really doesn't figure is that there are actual subscribers.

First of all, special thanks to Tony Vahl of The Original Daily Skew for authoring a guest blog this week. I had enough foresight to arrange for that, but not enough to consider the fact that I might be somewhat under the weather. So much so, that I barely even made trades for two days and when I did, I think they were through the lens of a Percocet fueled analyst.

As if I ever practiced any form of analysis.

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Hello, My Name is Bernanke

The CNBC morning show, Squawk on the Street, has a daily Tweet prompt asking viewers for their opinion on a wide range of topics.

Most of the time it's an attempt to inject a little bit of humor into the news of the day.

Today's thought surrounded yet another appearance by Ben Bernanke, this time in front of an august collection of elected officials far more genteel than those Philestine Congressman.

Senators. They're the higher and more refined form of elected official. They are usually less likely to be involved in petty scandals or felonies. They very often have better hair than their counterparts, as well.

What if you were Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, what parting words would you like to leave with the Senate committee that you were appearing in front of today?

You just know that he can't always have the highest regard for the questions coming his way and probably even less regard for the lengthy and rambling preambles to each question.

I'm sure there's a cottage industry somewhere that has Cambodian laborers painting thought bubbles over Bernanke's image as some clever humorist then finds the words to make the photo chuckle provoking.

Since I have lots of time on my hands, especially given the boring nature of the markets for the first two days of this week, I responded to the prompt, as I do a couple of times each week and ultimately had my Tweet glow in its 3 seconds of fame.

I guess they won't accept two "winners" on the same day, because I sent a second one while listening to the testimony, questioning and answering:

"Hello, my name is Bernanke. How do you thank me?" I think was actually better than the "winning" submission.

I think that most everything in life can have a parallel drawn to something Johnny Cash sang.

Maybe they just have something against homages to Johnny Cash, who has also inspired my investing philosophy.

Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe the drugs, not likely the adultery, but there's certainly an anti-Cash agenda.

Bernanke himself seems to have an anti-cash agenda, at least as it comes to personal savings.

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A Test of Faith

You often hear stories about deathbed conversions or returns to faith near the moment when there's not much left to lose by professing one's faith.

So what if an unexpected profession of faith leaves your followers and fans behind in a world of even greater uncertainty?

Screw them. When you see the white light, it's every man for himself and the adoption of the Captain Schettino rules applies, whereby woman and children have to fend for themselves while the captain of the ship trips his way past those pearly gates ahead of the rest.

Who knows, there may be limited seating.

Many famous and infamous people have purportedly had deathbed conversions, including Darwin and Stalin, but the reports of other such conversions may just be wishful thinking or generated for proganda purposes alone.

Based on the appearance of the term "ProShares UltraShort Silver ETF" in the word cloud that accompanies this blog you might be lead to believe that I worship at the feet of some silver idol.

Not really, but you would be right to have that suspicion, as it does seem to appear with great frequency.

By the same token, the constant "God Damn" refrain doesn't necessarily reflect belief in a diety.

I'm not particularly religious, although I don't know if I'll be one of those undergoing the end of life "seeing of the light" experience.

At the moment, there is a 24 hour "Yahrtzeit" candle burning in our household, as is the Jewish tradition to mark the anniversary of a close relative's passing. Still, nothing really religious, just adherence to tradition and maybe trying to keep my options open in case "The Big Man" chooses to exercise an option over whether those last minute attempts to enter the Kingdom will be honored.

Szelhamos, who wasn't particularly religious would probably be pleased that he's remembered. In the slight chance that such a possibility exists, then "why not?"

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Stunning Reversals

I've never made any secret of the fact that I don't read very much.

My daily ritual of reading DIlbert and The New York Times Obituaries was recently complemented with James Altucher's blog. I actually thought long and hard about whether to refer to it as being in "complement" to or in "supplement" of my daily activities and realized that there really wasn't a word to convey both impacts.

I've linked to it a couple of times and bored readers of this blog have clicked on that link, which has also activated a small hidden webcam near their laptops, in addition to any resident webcams you they already have.

I like my fuzzy clandestine streaming to be in 3-D.

For those who read this blog on a regular basis it doesn't come as a surprise that I don't read much. In fact, there's really not a strong body of evidence that I even read my own blog, much less proof-read it.

And forget about reading for the sake of getting my information right.

When I was younger, I was horrified to find some ham in our refrigerator since it's not Kosher, as you may be aware.

My mother, in response to my pointing this out to her, said "if it tastes good, it's Kosher."

What a great philosophy.

I use that philosophy with my supportive facts. If I believe them to be true and accurate, then they're true and accurate.

A "Kosher pig" is an example of an "oxymoron" until some moron ruined it about a decade ago with the discovery of a species of pig in some god-foresaken rainforest that might just satisfy all of the criteria necessary to be considered Kosher.

I wrote about Oxymorons a few months ago, but with an emphasis on the "moron." The thought was rekindled a few days ago reading one of Altucher's blog entries.

He was asking whether there could really be anything such as an amicable divorce.

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What's your Opinion?

There's a saying that if you put 2 Jewish people together in a room you'll get 3 different opinions.

I'm allowed to say that. Sometimes you get a free pass.

The same has probably been said for other ethnicities, cultures and religions, but other than Hungarian, I'd be ill at ease to use that saying for any other group. Years ago, when I was still in grade school, there was a funny joke book called "Race Riots." It was a collection of ethnic and religious jokes and was really pretty funny.

So funny and so popular, that there was even a Race Riots II, focusing on the lesser known and under-stereotyped groups, such as Angolans.

I didn't mind telling those jokes and others didn't mind laughing, although subconsciously I may have tailored the joke set for the audience, just like when Jeff Foxworthy performs for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

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