<p>I remember my Sony Walkman a long time ago - good product. That’s about all that I’ve had from them. 11 years ago, a coworker bought one of their Vaio laptops because of the name brand. He had a lot of problems with it and was pretty annoyed at their cheapskate service. Back then you bought from Dell or HP if you wanted a quality product. Great companies can lose it. I worked for one of those companies for a long time - having their name on your resume opened doors. Near the end, nobody wanted to be seen with that company on their resume.</p>
<p>BC, i used to swear by Dell, now they stink…HP, terrible…times change way to fast for companies that are leaders to react… I Love Apple, but fear they have 5 years before someone takes away serious market share from one or more of their product lines</p>
<p>Things change quickly today in the technology world because there is so much leverage at play. In the past, there were serious barriers to entry - you might have to write an operating system or application from scratch that could take hundreds to thousands of man-years. Now there is open source code and high-level tools and hardware is so fast that you can use these high-level tools (which have huge performance penalties) to create applications quickly. So everyone has to be on their toes.</p>
<p>But the companies that execute well or have monopolies are always on their toes.</p>
<p>Is anyone out there going to leap-frog Intel? They have a near four-year lead on process technology and their competitors are struggling. They are innovating at a blistering pace.</p>
<p>How about Microsoft? Did you see some of the new Ultrabook designs announced by Asus this morning? One of the models has a detachable screen. It’s a laptop but you can take the screen portion off and then it’s a tablet - running Windows 8 on a Core i7 processor. One of their other new models is an Ultrabook with two screens. One that you can use as a laptop and the other is on the other side so you can close the lid and use it like a tablet. Both screens can run independently of each other so one person could watch a movie on one side while someone was working on the other side. Apple can’t do this sort of thing because they have to separate operating systems for tablets and PCs and they are designed for different hardware architectures.</p>
<p>So yes, you can buy the story but you have to check up on your companies to see if the storyline is still intact and you have to do this on a regular basis.</p>
<p>Everyone is quiet today. I was hoping to get some tips if I should wait to liquidate a small holding in my retirement account.</p>
<p>Anybody know anything about ditto trade, seems a bit bizarre: [Trading</a> Stocks: There’s An App For That - CNBC](<a href=“http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000094436&play=1]Trading”>http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000094436&play=1)</p>
<p>Igloo, it really depends on a number of factors. If you have a personal financial software like Quicken it would be easy for you to figure out the cost basis and determine if you are selling at a loss or gain. As the saying goes, Buy the dips, sell the rips. Wait for a rally. Or just stay put especially if youre happy with the funds performance and its top ten holdings.</p>
<p>The " rip" is here, will be short lived…less then a week…i hope the market recoups 500 points in the next week or so…get a chance to sell some more longs, and add to shorts…</p>
<p>The ‘rip’ may be over,lol…tough to be long into the weekend…oil is slowly approaching 80 dollar level,what should be good news for the consumer…but…</p>
<p>Some notes/observations from my 'hood…
Housing appears to be slowing…houses that would have been snapped up in early spring are patiently waiting for a buyer</p>
<p>Contractors must be very busy, i can’t get even some in to give an estimate, and those that do,sometimes never even bother with the estimate…wonder if it is me,lol…</p>
<p>Good restaurants are still doing well,and those casual fast food places seem to be doing ok as well</p>
<p>Small business owner says she can’t find help…those she hires and trains leave after learning the business,and have no problems find jobs…</p>
<p>Casino business must be off, i get comp offers weekly</p>
<p>The consumer seems to be resiliant in my area. We have a huge new mall opening next week and they’re doing all kinds of promotions (as in bands, contests, …). I think that they ultimately need good prices (they claim to be outlet malls) to get people in as they are expecting customers from Massachusetts to come in to shop.</p>
<p>I personally don’t understand why people from MA would come up here to shop because most of the stores are for clothing and MA has a $175 exemption from sales taxes for clothing.</p>
<p>On the other end of the risk sale I just downloaded the Treasury Direct bond portfolio manager. It calculated the value of the Series EE bonds that we bought when our kids were born. They have tripled in value and yield 5%. They mature in 2020 and I’m not cashing them out until I have to.</p>
<p>I had a look at what they are paying today.</p>
<p>0.00%.</p>
<p>I can get that in my Money Market account too.</p>
<p>I’m getting close to 1% in my money market account from a credit union.</p>
<p>Did you guys catch that selling at the close today? We lost close to a percent in 30 minutes!</p>
<p>“The median family, richer than half of the nation’s families and poorer than the other half, had a net worth of $77,300 in 2010, down from $126,400 in 2007, the Fed said. The crash of housing prices explained three-quarters of the loss.”</p>
<p><a href=“Family Net Worth Drops to Level of Early ’90s, Fed Says - The New York Times”>Family Net Worth Drops to Level of Early ’90s, Fed Says - The New York Times;
<p>Some interesting top-level analysis of US wealth. I’m sure that there will be more digging into the data to produce more detailed analysis in the future.</p>
<p>BCEagle91…</p>
<p>There are so many negatives in that story…</p>
<p>A loss of 20 years of wealth…
Incomes down…
Half the population can’t save anything…</p>
<p>IvyGolfer…what is your theory about the decline?</p>
<p>I heard an interesting rumor today…I don’t know if it is true but what the hell…</p>
<p>One of the largest hft firms laid off 25 percent of its employees…</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>There’s only so much money around for the pros to take from one another. Someone has to lose. A coworker left to join a HFT firm a year or two ago. I wonder how he’s doing. His motivation wasn’t purely money - his girlfriend was going to med school somewhere in NY/NJ.</p>
<p>Retail investing is out of the picture…for awhile,maybe a long while…so cuts are to be expected…oil is getting very close to my 80 dollar price point…the rip is over, 12,000 is a layup…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120602/ISSUE01/306029926/small-traders-in-flux?X-IgnoreUserAgent=1[/url]”>Small traders in flux;
<p>"A number of Chicago trading firms are cutting back, combining or closing, as market volume declines and costs escalate.
Infinium Capital Management LLC and Peak6 Investments Inc. are among those that have cut employees as they shifted strategies and restructured recently. Endeavor Trading LLC sold itself to Sun Holdings LLC in March. And Blue Capital Group, an equity options trading firm, dissolved late last year.</p>
<p>Traders at the firms, many of which are market-makers, say they’re finding it more difficult to manage rising technology costs, new regulatory requirements and the increased risk-taking required to keep revenue up.*If the trend continues, it could change the profile of Chicago’s trading firm industry, which thrived in recent decades with the growth of Chicago’s big exchange companies, CME Group Inc. and CBOE Holdings Inc.
“The market-making environment is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” says Chris Hehmeyer, who runs HTG Capital Partners, a Chicago-based trading firm, and has been in the business for several decades. “It’s very difficult. People are really cutting back.” Mr. Hehmeyer, who is also chairman of the National Futures Association, declines to comment on whether his firm has made reductions."</p>
<p>Yep…it is pros against pros…</p>
<p>Public is broke…we can read about it from your link BCEagle91.</p>
<p>Interesting ancedote about the guy who went to work for a hft firm.</p>
<p>I would choose med school over working for a hft firm…
Better future.</p>
<p>Better yet, have your spouse work. ;)</p>
<p>:)…</p>
<p>Take a look at TAXI, very nice yield, recommended by a friend who is a MM</p>