Capitalogix

Capitalogix Commentary 02/20/09

When America voted for Hope and Change - I don't think they expected to be hoping for a dollar and settling for two dimes, a nickel and a penny.

Market Hits New Crisis Low:

It has been ugly.  One sign that the Markets are having trouble is that Gold touched $1,000 for first time in a year.

Another sign the markets are having trouble? The Dow Jones Industrial Average now has lost nearly half its value, breaking to a new six-year low.

On one hand this seems to confirm people's fears that  stock declines aren't over, and dashes hope for a quick market recovery.  On the other hand, things don't bounce till they hit bottom.

Will dry powder ignite the stock market? One bullish argument rests on the piles of cash sitting in bank accounts and money-market funds earning next to no interest.  As deal-maker's fingers get itchy and companies get more desperate for cash, many expect a flurry of deals.

This Week's Chart:

Unlike the Dow, the S&P 500 has not made new lows.  It did, however, just break a clear trend-line.

Most major US equity indices have been in a "Triangle" consolidation pattern (like the one shown in the chart above).

You can think of the Triangle as a well-contested battle between the bulls and the bears.  Neither side has given-up much ground, yet.  Soon, though, one side will have had enough and the market will surge again. If it is a move up, then we get the relief rally people were looking for.  Even if you get a minor move down in the short-term, it can be constructive.  Here is why.

The bear-swing down, from October through November, had a lot of momentum.  The consolidation worked-off a lot of that.  Consequently, another move down would result in many positive divergences - and would likely be strong support for the next rally.

That doesn't mean the Bear Market would be over.  But an intermediate term rally would not surprise me here.  Especially as an OOPs trade.

Here Are A Few Of The Business Posts I Found Interesting This Week:

• Can This Be True? Federal Obligations Exceed GDP of Entire Planet. (WorldNet)
• Pledge of $275 Billion to Cut Mortgage Payments & curb foreclosures. (Bloomberg)
• Soros Sees No Bottom For World Financial Collapse, And Volcker Agrees. (Reuters)
• Economists' Droopy Outlook for the US. (WSJ & Bloomberg)
• Harvard Prof’s Plan for Saving the Financial System. (Creative Capital)
• Is Starbucks a Leading Indicator of the Economy? (Inquirer)
• Be Leery of Dow Theory - Does It Still Mean What It Used To? (Barrons)

And, A Little Bit Extra:

• Nature Versus Nurture: The Dynamics of Success. (TraderFeed)
• Clever E-Cards For Many Occasions - Very Funny Stuff. (Someecards.com)
• The Biology of Dating: Why Him, Why Her? (Time)
• Psychologists' Worry: Medication May Erase Bad Memories. (MSNBC)
• "Deliciously Gross" Heart-Attack Inducing Food. (This Is Why You're Fat)
• Vintage Tobacco Ads; Apparently They'd Do Anything To Sell You Cigarettes. (Click)

Is Genius Something You Have or Something You Are?

Some of my greatest accomplishments seemed almost effortless when they happened.

Some people call it "Flow" while others call it "Being-In-The-Zone". You've probably experienced the same thing.

Genius may be related to that. As I think of it, some of my best ideas seemingly came to me fully-formed.

For example, in 2003 I had a breakthrough discovery resulting in an algorithm now used in a series of trading systems. Leading up to that point, I had spent quite a long time thinking about every little aspect in detail; and the progress had come slowly and painfully. Then, whoosh, it's like the whole thing came all at once.  I say (and I believe) that it came to me, through me, and from me.  But I still don't know how or why it happened.  It is almost like I was television or radio receiver that somehow got turned into a channel broadcasting something worthwhile.

Since then, I've tried to re-create the environment, my work process, anything to bring back that feeling of inspiration, innovation and progress.  And I have had moments like that from time-to-time.

The Ted Talk Video on Genius:

This video is about the process I described above.  It is about "Genius" and whether it's something you "Have" or something you "Are".

While this video does not provide answers, hopefully it will stimulate a thought process and provoke some ideas and discussions that you find helpful and enjoyable. I know it did for me.

Here is the direct link.

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses -- and shares the idea that, instead of the rare person "being" a genius, all of us "have" a genius.

Also, here's a link to a website that lists the daily routines and work process that various famous people have used. I found some interesting things there.

Things Aren't Always What They Appear To Be

This series of photographs is interesting to me because it so clearly gives us the wrong impression. Deep down you know that your mind created a story about what it means; and, yet, you know it didn't happen.

Obviously I picked this series of photos to illustrate a point. Just because we perceive something, doesn't mean it's true.

That point is even more true during emotionally trying times, when we're looking for confirmation of our worst fears. In this market environment, it's not hard to find data to scare you.

We don't just make things up, though, we also notice things and infer meaning from them. I suppose there was an evolutionary benefit to our ancestors who were able to infer danger before it ate them. Nowadays, it's probably better if we temper those instincts a little.

Why Do We See Patterns In Random Data?

The human mind is especially good at finding patterns in data. 

Often, I believe that I see a pattern in random data.  OK, I understand that I don't really see patterns in random data; but to me it seems to me like there are patterns in the random data. 

This happens because we don't look at data neutrally.  That means when the human eye scans a chart, not all data points get equal weight.  Instead we tend to focus on outstanding cases, and we tend to form our opinions on the basis of these special cases. 

In other words, it is human nature to pick up the stunning successes (or failures) of the method and to overlook the more common performances.

So, for example, when I am investigating a new pattern, I see many instances where that pattern works.  And that is precisely the reason that we use a computer; because it will find every instance of the pattern and confirm how often it truly works, and whether it provides a reliable edge.

I suspect that the desire to find patterns is the same element of human nature that leads people to become superstitious, read their horoscope, or go to a fortuneteller.  It is also the reason so many authors and speakers sell access to their chart patterns that supposedly work. The successes are much more startling than the failures.  So the successes stand out.

The Last Time I Felt This Bearish:

Here is a picture of my S&P chart analysis from August 2003.

I was painfully bearish, and wrong. Yes there was a giant downtrend, and many of the technical trading chart patterns that I knew indicated that the market was likely to plunge yet again.  But it didn't.

That points out a very interesting aspect of trading; every trade happens because of a disagreement. The buyer thinks prices likely to go up. The seller thinks it's likely go down. If that wasn't true, neither one would take their side of the trade.

The point is that it's important to see each trade from both sides of the fence. In order to remove some bias, learn to visualize the trade from the other perspective. Then you can re-evaluate and decide if you still want to take that trade.

The OOPs Trade:  When a well-known pattern fails, the response is often dynamic. In fact there's a name for this, it's called an "OOPs Trade". This often happens with obvious, high profile, situations like a "Head-and-Shoulders" pattern, the break of long-standing Trend-Line, violation of a clear Price Channel, crossing the 200-Day Moving Average, at big Round Numbers (like Dow 10,000), or even at key Support and Resistance Levels (like these recent lows). The violent reversal happens when the crowd realizes that it was wrong and has to get out of the trade. This is very similar to a short squeeze; and the move is often violent and prolonged.

The markets are oversold here, lots of people know that we just made new lows, and we have been bombarded with bad news recently.  So, I'm not predicting that the market will reverse here. I am just suggesting that it is possible.  OOPs.

Capitalogix Commentary 02/13/09

Did the Government blink?  By that I'm asking whether you think they passed a Stimulus Plan because it was well-considered and the right thing to do ... or because we were about to make new market lows and key decision-makers believed that preserving confidence, at any cost, was the move to make?

Last week I said I was more interested in how the Market reacted to the Stimulus Plan, than in the plan itself. Well, the Market sent a pretty strong message this week.  It sold-off and is sitting just above the support areas set by the October and November lows.

The Stimulus Plan is hard for me to understand on several levels.  My sense is that it is work-in-progress and should be looked at only as a first-step to figure-out what it is going to take to get things moving in a positive direction. 

Here is a different (and more fun) explanation that is worth watching.

Here is a direct link to the video on Uncle Jay's site.

Smart Money - Dumb Money Confidence Index.

This chart compares the bets made by small traders (a.k.a. the "Dumb Money"), to those of large commercial hedgers (a.k.a. the "Smart Money").

In practice, Confidence Index readings rarely get below 30% or above 70% (they usually stay between 40% and 60%). When they move outside of those bands, it's time to pay attention.

Even more noteworthy is when there is a wide confidence spread with bearish bets by the Dumb Money and bullish bets by the Smart Money. This type of sentiment spread only happens a few times a year. The chart below shows that we often get substantial bullish reversals when that happens. 

I marked those occurrences with Yellow Arrows and marked the corresponding rallies in the S&P 500 using Orange Boxes.  As you can see, this has been a valuable indicator to follow.  So, what is it telling us now?

Conventional trading wisdom says that Crowds are usually wrong at turning-points.  That doesn't mean they are wrong all the time (especially when the Smart Money agrees).  So, perhaps this chart whispers "wait for the edge to get stronger".  I don't like how weak the Smart Money confidence is given all the intervention help the Markets received and how long Market lows have held.

Here Are A Few Of The Business Posts I Found Interesting This Week:

• Stimulus Battle Has Just Begun ... Both Fiscally And Politically. (WP)
• The Stimulus Plans: Comparison of what the House and Senate Proposed. (WSJ)
• More Tech Start-Ups Call It Quits. (WSJ & Silicon Alley Insider)
• Twitter to begin charging brands for commercial use. (Brand Republic)
• Mark Cuban will fund Entrepreneurs using Open Source Funding. (Macroaxis)
• Dubai becoming a Ghost-Town.  Economy chases away foreign workers. (Daily Beast)
• Microsoft Opening Retail Stores.  When did copying Apple ever work for them? (FT)

And, A Little Bit Extra:

• CIA Director: Top Ten Terror Threats. (National Terror Alert)
• Are you getting bored of Facebook.  Apparently some are ... (Brand Republic)
• Facebook had over 68 million unique visitors and 1 billion visits last month. (CNet)
• How AmEx Uses Data-Mining to Monitor Your Credit Card Spending. (NYTimes)
• Seth Godin's top posts from the past year. Lots of good ideas. (Seth Godin's Blog)
• Professional Sports Teams are Forced To Get Creative About Selling Tickets. (NYTimes)

Best Practices For These Uncertain Times

I spent part of the week in Chicago, and had had the privilege of spending some quality time discussing the current situation with a group of experienced traders and industry professionals. A couple of things struck me immediately.

• First, even these pros were rattled by the state of the economy and the prospect of recovery taking longer than expected or wanted.
  
  
• Second, even for those in the room who had well-crafted theories about why they were expecting an intermediate-term rally, it didn't take much discussion for them to admit the same sense of uncertainty that others have expressed.
  
  
• Finally, and most importantly, once the obligatory fear, uncertainty, and doubt talk was on the table - the conversation quickly turned to the best ways to make money in this environment.

Are Times Uncertain - Or Is It You?

I also went to a Strategic Coach quarterly planning session this week. Not surprisingly, the topic was primarily about best practices during uncertain times. Dan Sullivan recounted that many of his clients expected a tough year, but still expected a recovery to follow that. Then, he posed these questions.

• How long will this turmoil last? 
• What if the recovery doesn't come as quickly or as fully as you hope or expect?
• What if things stay like this?
• Who do I have to become for this to be okay?

Good questions, and it made me think:

Mastery isn't measured by the number of bad things you eliminate ...
but by the number of times you eliminate calling them bad.

Many of our biggest innovations or course corrections took place after a seemingly disastrous occurrence or bad thing happened. That's why lots of psychologists and self-help gurus encourage people to focus on the hidden gift that many of these experiences provide.

Examining several instances from my past, I came up with this list of the seven steps I use to transform almost any situation.

Seven Best Practices for Uncertain Times.

1. Accept Reality: We are where we are. Focus on being complete with what happened before this; and think about this as a new beginning with an even bigger future.
2. Do Something Positive: Take action and build momentum and confidence. Big wins are great. Yet, in scary times, even small items are worth noting and building upon.
3. Take Care of Yourself: Increase your physical activity, meditation and massage. This is the time to eat and sleep well. Many studies show decision-making suffers when you're stressed. Taking care of yourself goes a long way to making a lot of other things better.
4. Communicate More: The natural tendency is to hide or to recuperate in private. Instead, be open and receptive to help and ideas from friends, partners, or wherever it comes from.
5. Creative Destruction: The old game and the old ways of thinking are over.  Shift energies to what is working.
6. Increase Your Options: It often takes a different level of thinking to solve a problem than the level of thinking that got you into the problem. So, be open to new opportunities and new possibilities.
7. Choose a Bigger Future: Instead of resigning yourself to playing small and doing with less, recognize that the clearing creates the space for something even better. Choose what you want, plan it and stick to your process.

They say everything happens for a reason. The secret is that you get to choose the reason, what it means to you, and what you're going to about it. Choose well, and someday you could look back on this time as one of the best things that ever happened to you.

Getting More Out of Outlook

Here is a great tool I use to manage e-mail better.  It works along-side of Outlook.  It is called Nelson E-Mail Organizer.  It works great for me. 

An Easy Way to Save Time.  I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of time managing and dealing with e-mail during a normal business day. So, on one hand, it's something that I take for granted. While, on the other hand, it's an area where I'm most likely able to save time or benefit from improvements in the tools or process that I use.

Over the years, I've tried many different tools to help me search and organize information better. The Nelson E-Mail Organizer (or "NEO Pro") is the best I've found so far. By that, I mean that it's a complete whole product solution (not just a utility) and I use it every day.

Rather than just listing all the things I like about it, I put together a two-minute video that highlights the features I value most.

Here is the direct link to the demo video.

Finding A Needle In A Haystack.  Nowadays, it is easy to suffer from information overload.  For example, I keep my mail in different files. 

• My corporate mail resides on a server.
• I also use personal e-mail accounts that are web-based from services like Google and Hotmail.
• And I archive old mail separately in files that I keep on my computer.

That makes finding what I'm looking for more difficult than simply using Outlook's built-in search capability. Luckily, NEO Pro works just fine under these conditions. It gives me a unified view into all my e-mail.

It's Not Just A Search Tool - It's A Better Way to Organize Your Information. 

There's a difference between a simple search utility and a tool to allow you to organize and filter what you're looking at in useful ways. An easy way to understand this capability is based on time. For example, show me all mail I got today, or this week, or this month. That's useful, but there are so many other ways that I may choose to interact with my mail.

Distinguish and Deal With Direct Mail Differently Than Bulk Mail.  One of the most useful filters, for me, is to see direct mail from people I care about - separately from the bulk mail and subscriptions that make up most of my message traffic. NEO Pro makes this effortless, and this feature alone would be enough for me to use it every day. What this means is that I can come back in from a meeting and instantly see the things that are important for me.

Use Categories.  Another way to filter information is to categorize mail in ways that make sense to you. So, I use categories like Technology Newsletters, Hedge Fund News, and Market Commentary.  Of course, you can create categories that make sense to you; so you can read what you want, when you want.

Find Everything To or From a Person.  Another feature I really appreciate is the ability to see all mail to or from a particular person in one place (even if they have multiple e-mail addresses). In NEO Pro, there is a view lets me do exactly that. Even better, I can access it in one click from any other view.

In addition, here's a link to their tutorial page where you can investigate other features and benefits.

Another tool worth looking at is Xobni (which is Inbox spelled backwards).  Learn more here.

Attitude

I got the following story in an e-mail, several times this year.  It has a nice message.  The thing that interested me, though, was that I got it in several different forms. 

Jerry is the hero in this version.  It was Mike in another.  Sometimes he got shot, and was allergic to bullets ... other times he fell off a tower and was allergic to gravity.  Sometimes it was a plain text mail, other times it was in a PowerPoint attachment.

Made to Stick:  Clearly it is a "sticky" story that people like to re-shape and re-tell.  So, with no further ado, here it is for you to read for yourself.

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone asked him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood.

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business.

We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination.

The robbers panicked and shot him.

Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.

"The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

It's Really About Resilience: 

Lots of articles stress that how we react to challenges can dramatically affect the outcome, influence our health and the quality and length of our lives.

A new branch of medicine – psychoneuroimmunology - studies the relationship between mental attitude and health. Physicians have found that a positive attitude can result in faster recovery from surgery and burns, more resistance to arthritis and cancer and improved immune function.

For example, Yale University researchers conducted a 23-year-long study which showed that those who had a positive attitude towards aging lived roughly seven and a half years longer than participants who were dreading reaching their twilight years.

In "The Survivor Personality," Al Siebert has some interesting insights into why some people are stronger and more skillful at handling life’s difficulties. Interestingly Dr. Siebert says that survivor qualities can be learned, but they can't be taught.

Are life's best survivors different from other people?  No; they survive, cope, and thrive better because they are better at using the inborn abilities possessed by all humans.

Will it be easy to think positively and look for the good when things are going bad? Not always; yet cost-benefit analysis indicates that the rewards are well worth the effort.  I have two choices: I could choose to focus on what makes me strong, or I could focus on what makes me weak. I choose to focus on what makes me strong.  I hope you do too.

Capitalogix Commentary 02/06/09

Humor usually has its base in truth.

Perhaps that is why this cartoon caught my eye; it pokes at a sore spot.

It has been weeks since many people figured things changed.  Not much seems better, yet, does it?

Emotions are not logical.  So even though I might consciously understand that we are going through a long process, I want instant gratification.  It is human nature.  And that explains a lot about the market in-and-of-itself.

I once heard that a Recession is when your neighbor loses his job, and a Depression is when you lose yours. With unemployment spiking, a lot more people are feeling "depressed".

Market Commentary: The good news is that the lows held, and it looks like there's decent support at these levels. It is worth noting that we saw a strong rally anticipating the Senate's Stimulus Plan.

Déjà vu, though; didn't we see this pattern before?  Last October the markets rallied off the lows in anticipation of the bailout deal, only to move down again once it passed. It will be interesting to see what happens to the market when the Stimulus Plan actually passes. Will confidence spur a further rally, or will speculators have to switch back to bear-mode?

In a bear market, it's common to see large rallies. So, it wouldn't surprise me to see a rally off these lows. However, it would surprise me if we didn't actually make new lows. Here is a chart comparing the market action from the 1929 crash to what's happening currently.

The January Barometer Predicts a Down Year:  I talked about this a few weeks ago; research published by Yale Hirsch in the "Stock Trader's Almanac" suggests that market performance during the month of January often predicts market performance for the entire year. This January Barometer has worked especially well in odd years (the first year of a new Congress), with only two misses in 69 years. While the January barometer has a good record of prediction, StockCharts.com still puts it in the "for what it's worth" column because, while it is interesting to note, it might simply be coincidental.

It is hard to imagine 2009 being a positive year.  As I talk to business owners, I sense a weariness and fear. The economy is catching up with them, directly or indirectly. An interesting side effect is that some of the more successful entrepreneurs I talk with are starting to get excited about the new opportunities in front of them.  In contrast, several expressed feeling a little guilty and sad about their success in the face of what's happening around them. This is what happens during periods like this. Old models fall away and new leadership emerges.

Here Are A Few Of The Posts I Found Interesting This Week:

• Was All The Doom And Gloom At Davos A Contrary Indicator Of Better Times Ahead? (Slate)
• Obama's Wall Street Initiative: Getting beyond slapping the hand that feeds you. (Daily Beast)
• Doesn't Everything Use Flash Memory? SanDisk reports $1.8BB loss amid demand slump. (CNet)
• More tech troubles, Motorola Q4 loss of $3.6BB with sales falling 26%. (CNet)
• Are Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs showing new leadership? Price says "Yes". (Bespoke)
• Is Stronger Medicine Needed To Fix The Banking Crisis? (Barrons)
• Facebook growing 7X faster than LinkedIn, but that's not the whole story. (Silicon Alley Insider)
• Necessity is the Mother of Invention. A new class of start-up ventures (BusinessWeek).

And, A Little Bit Extra:

• Jennifer Hudson lip-synced the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. (ABC)
• Interactive Data Visualization of Twitter Chatter During the Super Bowl. (NYTimes)
• Crowd Behavior Explained; the herding instinct is chemical. (New Scientist)
• Mating Season Is Over for the Alpha Males of Banking. Wallet-size matters. (Bloomberg)
• Professor Uses Math to Decode What Makes The Beatles Music Special. (WSJ)
• Teleportation Is Now Real – Just Don't Try It at Home Yet. (Time)
• Verne Harnish Rockefeller Habits one-page strategic planning tool. (Classic & New Version)

So Bad, It's Good

Microsoft has a new product that people use to create a new genre of really bad music.  I have to admit that I enjoy it, even though it's like watching a train wreck.

Microsoft just released Songsmith, a product where you sing the words as best you can, and its software supplies computer-matched musical accompaniment. The truth is that it probably has some pretty advanced technology.

It has become trendy to take a vintage rock video, strip out the instruments, and then let Songsmith process the classic song in "unexpected" ways.  So, if you want to hear the Police's song, Roxanne, differently than you had before ... Songsmith is the right tool for that job.

To make things worse (or better) Microsoft's promotional video for Songsmith is so bad that it is painful to watch.  It is so campy I suspect it was done intentionally to generate buzz. You've got to see it to believe it.

Here is the direct link. 

For the record, I'm a fan of Microsoft.  It may not be a popular position to take, but I like and use lots of their software.  They come up with many innovative things.  The ad, above, may not be their best effort. So watch and listen for yourself?

Here is the result of Songsmith processing the classic Police song, Roxanne.

Remember, you get to choose lots of options, like tempo, style, and instruments.  So, someone wanted it to sound like this.  Still, it speaks for itself, doesn't it?  Here is the direct link.

Here's one with a slightly better result ... Oasis' Wonderwall.

Here is the direct link.

Here are a few other links worth checking.  Remember, real music sounds better when this stops.

• Here is a link to a Techcrunch article about Songsmith and its ad.
• Here is a link to a collection of other horrific Songsmith versions of Billy Idol, The Cars, etc.
• Here is a link to more strange re-mixes.
• Here is a link to a spoof of the ad that isn't politically correct, but you may find funny.
• Here is a link to Microsoft's product page for Songsmith.
• And if you still want more, search for "Classic Hits by Microsoft Songsmith" on YouTube.

Are We There Yet? Some Changes Happen In Slow-Motion.

Change is a constant. Yet it's often hard to see the forest for the trees. 

It seems like just yesterday that my son, Zach, was making sand castles on the beach. This week he turned 16 and is driving.  It reminds me of line from a song in the show, Fiddler On The Roof: "Sunrise, Sunset; Sunrise, Sunset ... Swiftly Go the days."

                    

On a day-by-day basis, I rarely noticed the change. However, looking at old pictures makes it obvious that there was growth and progress. 

So, what did I notice?  Sometimes it was what a great kid, or how loving, he has been.  Other times I noticed that he didn't eat his vegetables, or that he drives passionately with a very heavy foot.  In any case, what I focused on is what my life seemed filled with, to me. 

Unfortunately, that is what has been happening in the markets as well.  There is a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt because people are focusing on what is wrong or what is missing.  And frankly, the world has given us a lot of opportunities to focus on that lately.

But that isn't all there is to focus on in the market.  I was talking to an old trader friend of mine, this week, and said he is "cautiously optimistic" because the lows have held even though everything but the kitchen sink has been thrown at the markets recently.

It is all about perspective, isn't it?

Here is a series of photos starting with Bush and ending with Obama. In the series, the differences from picture to picture are subtle.

This is also a metaphor for what I expect to happen over time. We are where we are. It doesn't really matter how or why we got there. We are here. And little-by-little we won't be here anymore.

If you are looking at the country or the economy, realize that it took years to get here. Simply changing a regime won't flip a switch.  Some changes happen in slow-motion.  Or, perhaps from our perspective, some changes appear to happen in slow-motion.  From a different vantage point, the rate of change might seem very different.

The same can be said for changes in a person are changes in the business. It's easy to see the gap between where you are and where you'd like to be. Regardless, you will probably get there faster by building momentum and confidence by focusing on the improvements and progress you're making.

Tough times are great opportunities to discover character.  I'm often amazed at the innovation and insight that occurs at times like these.