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Latest Comments185 Comments
Are the Commercial REITs Now Stabilizing?
moneycentral.msn.com/i...
Are the Commercial REITs Now Stabilizing?
billrempel.com/2008/05.../
"REITs are the biggest gainers in terms of momentum, although as a class they still show negative momentum overall in my timeframe. The biggest gainers in REITs are the retail and industrial/office classes, which (yet again!) shows the confidence that “big money” has in the worst being behind us."
Defining Alternative Asset Classes
Ex; it could be a correlation of 60-minute bars (interval) over the last 22 trading days (timeframe) [yes, a facetious example], it could be daily over the last year, daily over the last two years, etc.
There's nothing to say that what was correlated over the last 22 trading days, year, or two years, has any correlation over the last 10, 15, or 20 years.
If we're talking in general terms about blending non-correlated strategies, it helps to define our terms and get our timeframes of correlation measurement in line with the timeframes over which we execute the strategy ...
4 Things I Just Don't Get
Take a look at Seibels Bruce Group and the South Carolina auto insurance reform as an example of what can happen.
A Simple, Honest Proposition: Housing Data Interpretation First, Conclusions Later
Speaking specifically to the weighting issue, the S&P C-S is value weighted, and the OFHEO is equal-weighted.
Imagine 11 homes, 10 of which are $100K and 1 which is $1mil.
Imagine the $1mil home sells for $800K but several of the $100K homes sell for $100K. A “value weighted index” registers a 10% drop. An “equal weighted index” registers a 1.8% drop. Which is more “accurate?”
Imagine now that all of the $100K homes sell for $90K, but the $1mil home sells for $1.1 mil. The “value weighted index” registers no change. The “equal weighted index” would register a 9.2% drop. Which is more “accurate?”
And what kind of innumerate putz calls a 10-city index "nationwide?"... Hey, where's Houston on the C-S? Isn't Houston the fourth-largest city in the U.S.? It's not even on the 20-city index.
List the largest 10 metros in the U.S., and count how many in are in the Putz's 10-city index. Then do the same for the largest 20 metros. See the (OBVIOUS) flaw?
Now, calculate the percentage of U.S. housing units that in the 10-city and 20-city S&P C-S indices. Calculate the percentage of housing units covered by the OFHEO, which uses Fannie and Freddie data. Compare. Which is broader?
Finally, don't use a trading index for economic analysis. That's the same stupid mistake people use all too often on the dollar, see my post www.billakanodoodahs.c.../
I point out the errors in relying on a flawed metric (S&P C-S) as a FAVOR to those individuals who may be following the fearmongers. Not that OFHEO isn't flawed as well, missing the top end of the market, but I'm honest about presenting both metrics, their pros and cons, and why I prefer one to the other. Which is more than you can say for the fearmongers, who present C-S as if it were fact.
Bottom line: people making economic projections based on S&P C-S are deeply misguided. DEEPLY.
The Housing Problem: What Inning is It?
Blame Seeking Alpha's editorial staff for the lack of citation on the AP-AOL survey. Jeff is VERY good about linking articles, and the citation is clearly linked at the original page -
oldprof.typepad.com/a_...
The Housing Problem: What Inning is It?
I say "Evidently, Johnny boy wants the recession that he predicted for three years to last as long as Hussman had to wait to finally see it - assuming it ever eventually 'officially' gets here."
What Is Diversification Worth?
"Buy and hold this asset class" is a STRATEGY.
One can get a diversification benefit by allocating money to different strategies in the same asset or asset class, i.e. short and long-term market timing techniques, Piotroski value and CANSLIM, etc.
7 Reasons March Was Not the Bottom
Blogonomics: The Seeking Alpha Model
Regarding the idea of taking a cut of that quarterly loss ~ I doubt you're taking any losses without anticipation of future gain, either through selling the site to a larger company (TSCM?) or through eventual profitability. Tell you what, determine how big a share you want to offer me, open up the books for me to evaluate it as an investment, and I'll let you know. Keep in mind that I'm swinging a retail account here, so if you need a big, meaningful investment, that might rule me out.
Regarding the idea of a full time job ~ send a serious offer. I can do several individual-stock posts weekly, from a hard-core value perspective, from a CANSLIM perspective, from a GARP perspective, or from a "examine the hot stock today" perspective. These kind of things don't interest me as much as retail trader system design, market commentary, or politics, but I'd be willing to do them for money. Tell me your requirements in terms of length and frequency of posts, and price per word, and I'll run it by someone to see if it's fair and then see if making the switch meets my budget needs.
Regarding your current unprofitability, I have several suggestions:
~ You could stop paying your editors. Tell them that participation in SA is a platform to get their editing skill noticed, and people like Jim Cramer troll the boards looking for editing talent.
~ You could stop paying your conference call transcribers. Tell them that participation in SA is a platform to get their transcribing skill noticed, and people like Jim Cramer troll the boards transcribing for editing talent.
~ You could stop paying your web hosting service. Tell them that participation in SA is a platform to get their web hosting skill noticed, and people like Jim Cramer troll the boards looking for web hosting talent.
~ You could stop paying your programmers. Tell them that participation in SA is a platform to get their programming skill noticed, and people like Jim Cramer troll the boards looking for programming talent.
Those four steps would be assured to bring SA to profitability, and then the editors, transcribers, web hosts, and programmers would all be on a par with the contributors. After all, if the content of a media company dealing with financial markets is so unimportant as to not pay the content providers, how important can editing, transcribing, web hosting, and programming be?
Don't get me wrong, Seeking Alpha is a great site from a reader perspective, with a clean look and lots of bells, whistles, and doodads (not to be confused with DooDahs), and there's demand for the content. David, your marketing of the site, and dealmaking regarding its promotion, are absolutely top-drawer, and you're to be commended for those accomplishments.
The flaw is and has always been the content acquisition part of the model. Maybe it's just not possible to pay writers on this scale and make a viable business out of it? Maybe it is? Dunno. But as long as the content providers aren't paid directly, you've got a core market of providers for whom the deal makes sense: those monetizing expensive services, those auditioning for paid writing gigs, and those who are willing to forgo payment for "exposure."
Blogonomics: The Seeking Alpha Model
I invite the readers to judge the tone and content of my previous posts about SA's business model for themselves, and not from your, or my, comments about them, or your remembrance of them.
www.billakanodoodahs.c...
www.billakanodoodahs.c...
www.billakanodoodahs.c...
Please, feel free to expound upon the investment required! Revenues per page view, page view totals, clickthru to authors' homepages, income, expenses, etc. I'm all ears! Then we might have a discussion about what level of revenue-sharing was possible, or whether contributors might instead get options on percentage ownership of the site, so they might profit if it is bought out.
I am not campaigning against the option existing. Far from it! If I were monetizing content well enough to be happy with one page view for the many dozens I gave you as a contributor; if I were auditioning for a paid writing job; if I just wanted a lot more people to read my work; you, David, would be the first person I would email. There's no antipathy, it's just that I saw y'all getting money off of my work, and I wanted a cut.
As it is, if you offered revenue share and some tracking for readership and clickthru rates, or a salary, I would probably come back! I'm DEAD serious there.
Ask your editor who emailed me during your last recruitment drive, what was my FIRST question? Revenue share. My SECOND questions (left unanswered) were precisely about the dollars and cents of the business model, so if I've underestimated the investment required, it wasn't because I didn't ask y'all.
Stocks Are the Place to Be - Google and Apple in Particular
:-)
Mark has 10 months of posts on Seeking Alpha, and a market blog at www.vestopia.com/Blogs... that goes back about a year.
I suggest you do some "due diligence" by reading his material and judging the quality of the content for yourself, without regards to his pedigree.
Blogonomics: The Seeking Alpha Model
www.billakanodoodahs.c.../
www.billakanodoodahs.c.../
www.billakanodoodahs.c.../
It's a good business model for some writers; for example, if they can monetize the exposure through a very expensive service (newsletters, managing money), if they're auditioning for a writing job, or if they just like being made famous while others make money from it.
Obviously, it's not a good business model for writers that don't fit those categories.
US Ranked 102 in Total Tax Rate Survey
The flaw in the WB/PWC study is similar, because they look at the taxes "paid" by a corporation. Listen to me now and believe me later, corporations DON'T PAY TAXES. They COLLECT TAXES and pass them on to their customers. Only INDIVIDUALS pay taxes. Therefore, a country with a scheme that is "better" from the POV of their "modest-sized firm" may actually be a worse abuser, tax-wise, than some other country that didn't do well on this study. They are looking at only PART of the picture.
I believe the only aggregate method that would work for evaluating tax regimes, from a logistical and equitable standpoint, is to measure SPENDING by total government (including local municipalities), in relation to total income for the population. That captures all the taxation, including the inflation/deficit taxation, and captures all the population that is taxed.
Market Bottom Already? I Don't Think So