<p>[Pioneering</a> High-Speed Trading Executives Shut Firm - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/pioneering-high-speed-trading-executives-shut-firm/]Pioneering”>High-Speed Trading Executives Shut Firm - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Things are not so easy for hft firms.</p>
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<p>I couldn’t agree more. In the extreme, we could revert to an aristocratic society with the economy skewed to serve top 0.1%. Scary prospect.</p>
<p>I haven’t been reading for a few days.</p>
<p>MA lost $1 billion in FY 2012 NIH funding. I’ve been watching the rental rates at my son’s apartment as he has to renew his lease in a few months. The rental rates have been dropping through 2012 with the peak in early 2012. I think that the funding cuts have had an effect in rental rates with a lag. Assuming further cuts to come (fiscal cliff, reducing the deficit, etc.), rents might further decline. This is a Boston-specific thing because the state gets so much NIH research funding.</p>
<p>Intel’s report was not good and the forecast uncertain. It is clear that mobile devices are taking a chunk out of PC sales. My office desktop is 4-years-old, my laptop 5 and my home desktop 2. I don’t plan on replacing any of them in the next year. They all currently exceed my computing needs. My computing budget in 2012 was for mobile devices, two phones and a tablet. That’s actually pretty modest for my level of tech spending. I am considering getting an iPod Mini when it comes out. I like the form-factor better than the iPad for most things.</p>
<p>Intel also said that server sales were soft (6% increase). Intel was doing well in servers because you have to run all of those Apps somewhere. The drop in spending growth is a concern that large companies are pulling back. It might be due to the uncertainty of the fiscal cliff. IBM’s earnings may be confirming what Intel is seeing.</p>
<p>Leavitt Brothers posted a piece on sector analysis. Risk on = technology, financials and energy doing well. Risk off = healthcare and two other defensive sectors. At the moment it’s a wash as you would expect given the market the last week.</p>
<p>Risk off = healthcare - Really?</p>
<p>It’s apparently considered defensive.</p>
<p>". In the extreme, we could revert to an aristocratic society with the economy skewed to serve top 0.1%. Scary prospect."</p>
<p>I think it is scary. One percent of the people receive 93 percent of the income gains in a year. Amazing number.</p>
<p>The Leavitt Brothers trade and give trade ideas. Kind of bugs me. Do they front run their ideas?</p>
<p>For two days, one of the spreads I want to do in fb is lined up. If i sell one side, I can buy the other side and trade the spread at the price I want. But, the volume has dried up. </p>
<p>I can’t get the damn spread off. :)</p>
<p>I should have bought AIG instead of selling the puts. That was a mistake.</p>
<p>I don’t consider it defensive when it correlates with the S&P and tech for that matter. Take a look at xlv and compare it with a true defensive sector like utilities - xlu.</p>
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<p>Leavitt Brothers is run by one guy in Colorado doing his website fulltime. He provides his articles to the public at the same time that he provides to subscribers. His service provides picks and timing information along with a market recap after the market closes.</p>
<p>His max pain information on OEX is widely copied to other websites.</p>
<p>I received value from his public posts for many years. I decided to subscribe because he was providing me with a benefit which helped my trading and I decided to pay for it. The value of the subscription to me is that there are several sharp traders in the trading room that chat during the day and I get ideas and information from the place though most traders I can’t follow because of their timeframe.</p>
<p>That’s fine, but it still bugs me.</p>
<p>Good day to lighten up a little… hmmm… what to sell. It is so painful to sell calls and watch the stock keep going up, like LLY 50 calls… but on the other hand, nice to unload some things at great levels, like IBM 105 calls a couple of weeks ago and T 38 calls. Some work, others don’t, but trying to maintain the discipline of selling high, buying low… I think that’s how it’s supposed to work.</p>
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<p>Are we in some sort of hybrid Banana Republic? Idk. My chest tightens to hear about those numbers. But what can you do so we just go on and do our jobs or watch our streaming quotes staring at the RSI and watch Revenge or football or baseball or DWTS (ok, I don’t really watch this show but the ratings is high).</p>
<p>krlilies, You support policies that help the masses and you don’t support policies that add to more inequality.</p>
<p>And you watch dwts, revenge, football, and the sf giants.</p>
<p>This tax, however, is excessive.</p>
<p>Paris sure is an expensive place.</p>
<p>[France’s</a> ‘Rich’ Tax = Deals on Paris Mansions - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/frances-rich-tax-deals-paris-183845732.html;_ylt=At2Bk7E26xHeZPiwcB2WoKiiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQ4djlka24zBG1pdANDTkJDIFRvcCBTdG9yaWVzBHBrZwNlMzIzNWM5ZS00N2VhLTNkZTctYjk3Ny05YTkwY2FhNDFmZDEEcG9zAzEEc2VjA01lZGlhQkxpc3RNaXhlZExQQ0FUZW1wBHZlcgNlYTVhMjMwOC0xODhjLTExZTItOWY0Zi00YTFjNzk4ZWE2NDQ-;_ylg=X3oDMTFpNzk0NjhtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3]France’s”>http://finance.yahoo.com/news/frances-rich-tax-deals-paris-183845732.html;_ylt=At2Bk7E26xHeZPiwcB2WoKiiuYdG;_ylu=X3oDMTQ4djlka24zBG1pdANDTkJDIFRvcCBTdG9yaWVzBHBrZwNlMzIzNWM5ZS00N2VhLTNkZTctYjk3Ny05YTkwY2FhNDFmZDEEcG9zAzEEc2VjA01lZGlhQkxpc3RNaXhlZExQQ0FUZW1wBHZlcgNlYTVhMjMwOC0xODhjLTExZTItOWY0Zi00YTFjNzk4ZWE2NDQ-;_ylg=X3oDMTFpNzk0NjhtBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANob21lBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25z;_ylv=3)</p>
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<p>Cool.</p>
<p>France chases out taxpayers replacing them with people that don’t pay income taxes.</p>
<p>Money flows to where it is treated well.</p>
<p>I guess Hollande found the breaking point.</p>
<p>I heard a talking head on CNBC say that France has the highest labor costs in Europe. I guess foxcon won’t be opening a shop there any time soon.</p>
<p>First-time claims at 388,000.</p>
<p>Last week was a statistical quirk. This week the quirk was fixed and it looks like some additional damage was done.</p>
<p>There was some new news on the fiscal cliff front.</p>
<p>Negative of course.</p>
<p>What the *##% happened??? Goog was suppose to report earnings after the close, reported early, results sucked and the stock tanked 70 points while CNBC at noon is touting buying it into earnings!</p>
<p>I think that its going to take a little time to look through the report and maybe get the conference call reactions. The revenue miss was pretty small but the earnings miss was big - it sounds like their hiring is still pretty strong and perhaps labor costs dinged the bottom line. I saw an article yesterday on Google being the most generous employer in software and perhaps that’s a problem.</p>
<p>I closed out my tech positions either last week or the week before on fiscal cliff concerns.</p>
<p>Today may very well make for a good buying opportunity.</p>
<p>Why was this put out so early???</p>