<p>Aside from GS $84 price target for TSLA or worst case, $58 causing a waterfall drop today, will BMW’s i3 be a threat to Tesla?</p>
<p>[BMW</a> embarks on risky electric revolution - FT.com](<a href=“Subscribe to read | Financial Times”>Subscribe to read | Financial Times)</p>
<p>[Obamacare</a> does little to affect factory employment ? but that could change, survey finds - Health Exchange - MarketWatch](<a href=“Opinion and Commentary - MarketWatch”>http://blogs.marketwatch.com/health-exchange/2013/07/15/obamacare-does-little-to-affect-factory-employment-but-that-could-change-survey-finds/)</p>
<p>Interesting stats from the Empire State manufacturing survey on Northeast factory plans for next year. Most companies plan to continue coverage and a small percentage plan to expand coverage. There number of companies looking at cuts and the percentage is about a third. Note that these are manufacturing companies and not retail/food service jobs. In modern high-tech manufacturing, I think that you want more experienced workers - not a bunch of part-timers.</p>
<p>Trades today: added a little NEM. I’m up 2+% on NEM. I’m down 0.53% on FCX. The miners technical picture improved today with many crossing over downtrending resistance lines or fibonacci retracement (resistance) lines. The miners, overall, feel jittery and prone to react to interest rates, oil prices, inflation data and Ben Bernanke. This is why I’m keeping my position size low. FCX is somewhat underperforming and that may be due to its copper holdings and it’s location in Indonesia and focus on supply China with copper and gold when China is slowing. I will evaluate these two every couple of days and may sell one to move into the other so that I only have to watch one.</p>
<p>Didnt pay attention to the market today. It feels good not to pay attention.</p>
<p>I did hear about the tesla drop on the radio. </p>
<p>I guess I will check out the BMW news. </p>
<p>If the gold stocks have improving charts I guess that isnt good for my short gold position.</p>
<p>I was sent info on muni BBB paper yielding a little more than 5 percent for 20 years callable in 10. The munis sound ok if rates stay down here but I doubt they will be this low for 10 years. I think I want to see rates a point higher before I play there in any size. On the other hand, if I buy those and other similar issues…I would never trade again. </p>
<p>I think if 10 year treasuires yield 4 percent…then everything else falls in line…right now…I am in limbo…</p>
<p>I’m getting buried in work. This is the busiest summer that I’ve seen in perhaps ten years in regards to new projects. I am trying to find some time this summer to take a week off at a beach. Unfortunately I’d want good weather too (80s not 90s). I guess I should be happy that we have too much work and not enough people.</p>
<p>““Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate,” said the Chamber business survey provided to Secrets.”</p>
<p>[74%</a> of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under Obamacare | WashingtonExaminer.com](<a href=“http://washingtonexaminer.com/74-of-small-businesses-will-fire-workers-cut-hours-under-obamacare/article/2533131]74%”>74% of small businesses will fire workers, cut hours under Obamacare | Washington Examiner)</p>
<p>Those in high-value-added jobs won’t be affected by this - it’s more entry-level jobs.</p>
<hr>
<p>Gold looks to be turning and there’s no news about it. I guess that gold is old news which may be a good thing. I’m not really watching the metals prices during the day - just the miners. I’d say that the miners’ tape is tentative. Decent movement, okay volume - what you’d expect in a bottoming process.</p>
<p>Where did you short gold from?</p>
<p>People are afraid of the unknown. </p>
<p>Used to be the decicit was the big issue. </p>
<p>Once Obamacare is up and running, people will relax. </p>
<p>Unless you are one of those self starters, a college education helps.</p>
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<p>I fear that we’re in continual big legislation/budget mode. The jobs market can’t catch a break if something is always coming around the corner. As it is the uncertainty is extended through 2014 and maybe 2015. Well, that timing might not be bad for us if the legislators can sit on their hands for a few years.</p>
<p>[940,000</a> may quit jobs because of Obamacare](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/reason-not-130747610.html]940,000”>A New Reason Not To Work)</p>
<p>I’m not sure I buy this, because I think it is still an unknown as to how affordable insurance will be.</p>
<p>Well… I dont know where gold is but I think I sold it around here. 
What was the high? I was short it all the way up to the high and back down again…</p>
<p>Really…gold doesnt matter to me. It can go to 10000 an ounce or zero. I am long derivatives. I wont get screwed. </p>
<p>I have the trade on so I would rather win…</p>
<p>So I guess I am a loser on paper today…</p>
<p>Doesnt sound like gold is. Big deal to you either. I am sure you would rather make money.</p>
<p>The high was something like $1,900.</p>
<p>On that 940,000 - it seems to me that that article is saying that people will do what they want to do if insurance isn’t a consideration. So one person in a couple might stop working as healthcare is no longer an issue. Or someone may quit a job so that they can get a job doing what they really want to do or work for the employer that they really want to work for. So the workforce could and probably will shrink.</p>
<p>But I guarantee you that there are millions of people out there that will want to take their place.</p>
<p>Notrichenough… Great link. I buy it because I know it is true that people are going to quit their jobs. This will open things up. I dont know the magnitude though. That is what we are going to find out.</p>
<p>I bought DFRG several months ago at about 19. It went to about 22 but is now a little over 21. It dropped because the co will issue more stock. Bummer. But I am thinking of buying some more before it goes up. I am betting oil comes down. If it does not, then gasoline will stay high and restaurants will suffer.</p>
<p>That’s an incredibly interesting chart in that it’s saying a lot of things to me. Very, very expressive. It would take me about 30 minutes to do an analysis of the chart and the company. It might be fun to do just for the art aspect. I don’t really have time for this though.</p>
<p>I guess I am not the only one taking a break…</p>
<p>[NYSE</a> volume at lowest of year, and that’s not saying much - The Tell - MarketWatch](<a href=“Opinion and Commentary - MarketWatch”>Opinion and Commentary - MarketWatch)</p>
<p>A cool job:</p>
<p>[Associate</a> Computational Biologist - Jobs - Careers - Massachusetts Biotechnology Council](<a href=“http://www.massbio.org/careers/search_jobs/27282-associate_computational_biologist/job_detail]Associate”>http://www.massbio.org/careers/search_jobs/27282-associate_computational_biologist/job_detail)</p>
<p>There are lots of jobs like this where the education, research level and skills desired are pretty high.</p>
<p>"Layoffs announced by U.S. employees in the technology sector more than doubled in the second quarter, reaching the highest level in a year, according to new data from consulting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. "</p>
<p>[Expected</a> U.S. tech layoffs soared in 2nd quarter - MarketWatch](<a href=“http://www.marketwatch.com/story/expected-us-tech-layoffs-soared-in-2nd-quarter-2013-07-16]Expected”>Expected U.S. tech layoffs soared in 2nd quarter - MarketWatch)</p>
<p>I hope that this doesn’t hit us anytime soon.</p>
<p>Anything new with your daughter?</p>
<p>No. I’m not putting as much effort into looking. We’re moving towards her enrollment and she’s self-studying A+ Certification and one or two other things that I gave her to learn. I’m more looking for gigs (short contracts) right now so that we can take a week off somewhere.</p>
<p>Ok…</p>
<p>Good luck…</p>
<p>Intc isn’t looking too good at the moment.</p>
<p>Daughter is trying to get a gig doing Windows 7 upgrades second-shift. It’s one of those standard corporate upgrade jobs where you do it while employees aren’t there. You go in and upgrade their machines and then they need extra staff during the day to help employees iron out any problems with the upgrades. This is happening all over the place this summer and fall. This may provide some benefit to Intel next year when companies have to decide to upgrade or replace.</p>
<p>I’ve been looking at this decision for my wife’s desktop. It’s a circa-2007 desktop with adequate CPU performance but it’s running Windows XP and the disk is slow. An upgrade to Windows 8 would cost me about $100 an SSD would cost me about $120 (the disk on her machine is fairly small). It would be a great exercise for my daughter to do the work too. The work would be imaging the existing HDD to the SSD, physically replacing the HDD with the SSD and then doing the upgrade. This would make my wife’s machine much faster for $200. A new machine would cost me about $400, and then I’d have to add another $100 for an SSD. At the moment, this would seem to be a pretty easy choice.</p>
<p>I think that most companies are making the same choice - upgrade the OS or upgrade the OS and either add memory (dirt cheap) or go with an SSD. Most corporate desktops don’t really need an SSD as they are always on. They are nice for consumer systems because they get turned on and off daily. The SSD make booting and launching applications much faster but once you’ve booted and launched, the OS and applications stay in memory so you don’t incur startup times again.</p>
<p>Google appears to be launching the second generation of the Nexus 7 in a week or two. I don’t really need another tablet though the rumored upgrades, mainly HD, would be very, very nice. I’m considering an SSD upgrade to my home desktop. CPU and Memory are fine - an SSD would just decrease boot time.</p>
<p>Maybe I should post this in the healthcare thread but I’m very busy so I’ll post it here. I bought some UNH yesterday because I like the technical picture. It has been in a nice channel for five months and moved to the bottom of the channel yesterday so I figured that it would be a low-risk buy with a stop under the channel. They reported earnings this morning where they reported some nice subscriber growth. They handily beat estimates but their guidance range median was slightly below consensus estimates. Their revenue was a smidgen light too. Their stock price is up 2.67% pre-market.</p>
<p>UNH which seems to be one of the better insurers but it only has margins of 4.7% - that’s a lot of revenue and not much profit. I’m used to tech stocks with much higher margins, on the order of 6-10 times that. Part of UNH’s growth is that they are expanding internationally. They bought an insurance company in Brazil that added a lot of subscribers. I find that you learn a lot about a company and industry if you own it - at least for a little while. I’m just in this one for a trade so far.</p>
<p>
6 years is starting to get up there. it’s getting to the age where motherboard/CPU failures become much more likely.</p>
<p>Windows 8 on a 6 year old CPU could be a problem performance-wise. Not sure how much of a performance boost an SSD will provide on a system this old.</p>
<p>Rather than invest 40% of the cost of a new system in an old system, I think I’d put the money toward a new system.</p>