<p>He was working for us as a software engineer. We hired him out of MIT. He was studying something to do with medicine on the side. Very smart kid.</p>
<p>Maybe she’s expecting him to fund her school …</p>
<p>Yeah…looks like the kid has a great future…</p>
<p>The girl friend looks like she has a great future too…</p>
<p>[EMG.L</a> Basic Chart | MAN GROUP Stock - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“EMG.L Interactive Stock Chart | Man Group Plc Stock - Yahoo Finance”>EMG.L Interactive Stock Chart | Man Group Plc Stock - Yahoo Finance)</p>
<p>[Special</a> Report: The algorithmic arms race | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/21/us-trading-blackbox-idUSBRE84K07320120521]Special”>http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/21/us-trading-blackbox-idUSBRE84K07320120521)</p>
<p>What a crush…</p>
<p>Asia looking weak…</p>
<p>The overall share of families with any stock holdings declined 2.8 percentage points from 2007 to 2010, to 15.1%; the peak was 21.3% in the 2001 survey.</p>
<p>Direct ownership of pooled investment funds (mostly mutual funds) fell by 2.7 percentage points to 8.7% of families in 2010. </p>
<p>[Recession</a> crushed middle-class wealth: Fed survey - MarketWatch](<a href=“http://www.marketwatch.com/story/recession-crushed-middle-class-wealth-fed-survey-2012-06-11]Recession”>Recession crushed middle-class wealth: Fed survey - MarketWatch)</p>
<p>I bought TAXI about a year ago. It has a nice yield and very low default rate. The co. lends to people buying the medallions on NYC taxi cabs. They cost close to a million dollars.</p>
<p>I bought GLNG today. It’s dividend growth looks good and it is in a growing industry I hope.</p>
<p>From the diet and exercise thread:</p>
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<p>I work with a guy from Germany and he’s basically said that Europe is a no-win situation. The problems that they have are structural and they either support the rest of Europe (it’s not clear that they can do this much less not wanting to do this) or countries start leaving or Germany leaves. That would create a huge banking mess - maybe even bigger than the mess that’s coming our way now.</p>
<p>So what’s going to happen to Europe??</p>
<p>(I know, I know – if you knew that, you’d be very rich.)</p>
<p>It’s probably going to be a mess for a long time, or at least until the end of the year which is a relatively long time in market-speak.</p>
<p>As well as Planning-for-Retirement-Speak. Which is the mode I am in.</p>
<p>WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Lower costs for food and energy pulled the U.S. producer price index down 1.0% in May, the Labor Department reported Wednesday, in the biggest one-month drop in close to three years. </p>
<p>[U.S</a>. producer prices plummet 1% in May - Economic Report - MarketWatch](<a href=“U.S. producer prices plummet 1% in May - MarketWatch”>U.S. producer prices plummet 1% in May - MarketWatch)</p>
<p>My feeling on the deflationary scenario looks like it’s being validated by economic data. I’m seeing our household expenses go down; there are seasonal reasons for that but gasoline, natural gas, electricity and food prices are certainly helping.</p>
<p>Take a look at Japan’s problems over the last 20 years…then you will see where we are headed,maybe not as severe,but it will and is similar</p>
<p>In the past, the Fed has been aggressive about fighting deflation. This year, they’ve taken a wait-and-see attitude - they typically don’t like to do much before a presidential election for fear of accusations of favoritism.</p>
<p>Its a bit surprising that with the market really getting interesting that there is not much discussion here.</p>
<p>From my perspective, the market has just been moving sideways.</p>
<p>That will change next week</p>
<p>I guess that you’re referring to the vote in Greece this weekend.</p>
<p>Nokia announced 10K layoffs. One of my BILs works for them in Boston and they have a lot of employees in the area though they typically aren’t affected by the mass layoffs - I guess that they are more on the development side. I wouldn’t really blame the mass layoffs on the economy - Nokia has not been executing well.</p>
<p>The call options premiums on AAPL are starting to look juicy again. They report after OEX in July. I’m looking forward to selling calls but need a high enough strike in case there’s a runup into earnings. AAPL can move $60 in either direction after earnings.</p>
<p>Unemployment claims up 6K, trade deficit quite beefy and CPI down. US is in deflation and the places that we import from are in heavier deflation.</p>
<p>Just got an email about an aquaintance who was laid off yesterday,16+ years on job,executive,60 years old±… 1 st person i know who has been laid off in last several years, economy is teetering,deflation is happening here and in CHINA, employment numbers continue to be unimpressive,stagnant wages for many…on the plus side, i know a few small business owners that are doing very well, but very they are very,very small…</p>