Capitalogix

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

As the Olympics unfold in Sochi, countries continue to compete in the global economy.  This chart, by the Economist, shows how ‘thin’ the Emerging markets really are.  For example, the market cap of Google equals the market cap of all 379 Brazilian stocks.
 
 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• Is Your To-Do List Actually Just A Productivity-Killing "List Of Shame"? (FastCompany)
• It's All in Your Head: 9 Reasons You Can't Resist a List. (Hubspot)
• Multi-Vitamins Won't Boost Health, Waste of Money. Research finds no health benefits. (CBS)
• The Scientifically Best Times to Drink Coffee During the Day. (PopSci)
• Why Did Russia Choose Sochi? (NYReview)

 

Trading Links:

• China Surpasses US as World's Largest Trading Nation. (Wilmott)
• How Much Value Does The Financial Industry Create? (The Week)
• Can Robots Manage Your Money Better Than You? These Startups Think So. (NPR)
• Decoding the Myths of Managed Futures. (Voices)
• Big Commodity Trading Advisers were profitable in 2013 after two straight years in the red. (Institutional Investor's Alpha)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

If you can read this, you are spending too much time at the computer.

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 10 Powerful Online Business Tools for a Productive 2014. (MichaelHyatt)
• Amazon Best-Selling Books of the Year. (BusinessInsider)
• 52 Places to Go in 2014. (NYTimes)
• The Weirdest Photos Of 2013. (Huffington Post)
• Man vs. Beast: Is a Dog's Mouth Really Cleaner Than a Human's? (Mental Floss)

 

Trading Links:

• Is This Economic Momentum for Real? (CNBC)
• Rising Riches: 1 in 5 in US Reaches Affluence. (BigStory)
• 20 Things the Rich Do Every Day. (Dave Ramsey)
• How Real Income Stacks Up Around the World. (WSJ)
• The New Face of Communism: Russia's National Startup Competition. (Yahoo Finance)

Do You Believe the U.S. Deficit Has Been Cut By More than Half Since 2009?

The markets continue rising despite what you hear about the economy and government gridlock.

Meanwhile, the monstrous budget deficit might actually be dropping at record rates too.

The White House released a chart showing it has cut the deficit in half.

 

Source: White House

 

Remember, the deficit refers to an annual number — how much outlays exceed revenues in a given year. The national debt refers to the total amount a nation has borrowed, over time, to finance these deficits.

What do you think it means, and how will it affect your trading plans?

Related articles

Why don't Americans realize the deficit is falling?

Remember the deficit? It's melting

The National Debt and Federal Budget Deficit Deconstructed - Tony Robbins

Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• $292 Million Down The Drain: White House Fires Main Obamacare IT Contractor. (ZeroHedge)
• Consumer Electronic Show 2014 ‘Best Of’ Awards Lists Roundup. A list of lists. (TIME)
• Awesome: A New York Times bot is second-guessing NFL coaches on Twitter. (GigaOM)
• 2013's Most Striking Fine Art Photography. (HuffingtonPost)
• The 40 Most Viral YouTube Videos of 2013. (Mashable)

 

Trading Links:

• Confessions of an Institutional Investor. (Big Picture)
• Hugh Hendry Throws In the Bearish Towel: His Full Must-Read Letter. (Zerohedge)
• Rasmussen Investor Index Reaches Six-Year High. (RasmussenReports)
• Here Is a List of Market Predictions for 2014. (StockTwits)
• The Probability Problem. "Unlikely" happens with surprising frequency. (PragCap)

Related articles

Inside "the richest niche there is" -- StockTwits announces new CEO, funding - pando.com

Sunday links: an irrational state of mind

A Data Scientist Explains What Makes A Viral Reddit Post

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• Obvious: FBI can secretly turn on laptop cameras without the indicator light. (Dvorak)
• The Top 10 Tech 'Fails' of 2013. (CNN)
• How Heart Rate Is Related to Fitness and Longevity. (Huffingtonpost)
• Spotify Year in Review 2013. (Spotify)
• 55 Louis C.K. Quotes That Will Make You Laugh And Think. (ThoughtCatalog)

 

Trading Links:

• BlackRock Is Now the Biggest Investor in the World. (Insider)
• World's Best Economies in 2013. (CNNMoney)
• Wall Street Market Predictions For 2014. (BusinessInsider)
• Whitney Tilson: Lessons From A Dozen Years Of Short Selling. (ValueWalk)
• Algorithms Get Smarter. Speed is giving way to instrumentation and fine-tuning. (CME Group)

Here is a Yearly Market Performance Comparison, Back to 2007

The chart shows the top-and-bottom performing markets, ranked by yearly performance.

The data is color coded based on sector. The first column shows 2013 performance, followed by six columns of the most recent yearly market performances.

 

 

Click this link to view weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly views of this data.

So, how does that compare to other markets around the world? Here is an interactive chart to answer that question.

Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 100 Top Inspirational Quotes. (Forbes)
• 23 Signs You're Secretly An Introvert. (HuffingtonPost)
• 99 Life Hacks That Could Make Your Life Easier. (AG)
• 40 Useful Sites to Learn New Skills. (Marc&Angel)
• 30 Inspirational Songs to Keep You Motivated. (Lifehack)

 

Trading Links:

• U.S. Rethinks How to Release Sensitive Economic Data. (Wall Street Journal)
• Which of These 11 American Nations Do You Live In? (WashingtonPost)
• Mapping Investor Behavior. (AllAboutAlpha)
• A Twitter User Is Worth $110; Facebook's $98; LinkedIn's $93. (Forbes)
• A Proposal To Limit Swiss Executive Pay To 12 Times That Of Low-Paid Employees Has Some Worried. (BusinessInsider)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Taking a break from your holiday mail-merge?  Here are some of the posts that caught my eye.

Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 8 Common Mistakes in How We Think and How to Prevent Them. (Bufferapp)
• How to Become an Expert on Something (or Anything). (Bakadesuyo)
• 25+ Resources for Holiday eCards. (Mindjet)
• Caffeine Quantified: Your Favorite Coffee Chains Ranked, Weakest to Strongest. (FastCocreate)
• What's Your 'Fitness Age'? (NYTimes)

 

Trading Links:

• Morgan Stanley's 10 Big Macro Investment Ideas for 2014. (BusinessInsider)
• Greenspan: Recession is ‘small price to pay’ to fix debt. (Money)
• Paul Brodsky: "The Fed Is Holding A Burning Match". (ZeroHedge)
• Economists Are Different From You and Me. (Economix)
• Congress Uses Cartoon Video to Explain the Problems with Patent Trolls and “Legalized Extortion”. (GigaOM)

A Jobs Chart That Means Something

The unemployment rate dropped to 7.0% (from 7.3%) while the U.S. economy added 203,000 jobs in November.  In addition, the labor force participation rate rose to 63.0% (from 62.8%).  These numbers were stronger than expected.

Nonetheless, the U.S. labor market remains below its pre-recession employment numbers.

Calculated Risk posts a monthly chart that puts the current jobs recovery into perspective. It is often referred to as the "Scariest Chart Ever".  It shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms, compared to previous post WWII recessions.

 

  via CalculatedRisk.

This chart shows the depth of the recent employment recession — worse than any other post-war recession — and the relatively slow recovery due to the lingering effects of the housing bust and financial crisis.

If things continue as they have been, it appears payrolls will exceed the pre-recession peak in mid-2014.

Currently, there are about 1.3 million fewer payroll jobs than before the recession started; and at the recent pace of job growth it will take about 7 months to reach the previous peak.

Given the circumstances, I think the chart shows we've made good progress.  Talk about Qualitative Easing, coordinated actions by global Central Banks ... or a pretty visible 'unseen hand' all you want ... but the Economy and Market seem to have adapted well to change.

 

Related articles

Chad Stone: The November Jobs Report in Pictures

The Labor Force Participation Rate Tanked - Here's The Not-So-Scary Reason Why

Structural vs Cyclical causes for a declining LFPR

10 Uncomfortable Truths About The Growing Unemployment Crisis In America

Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week

You can learn a lot by watching puppies.  Barley, here, is sporting the "Cone of Shame" ... which was our attempt to stop him from licking his nether-region till it was swollen and raw.

 

 

Despite our best efforts, Barley has figured-out how to contort his body and use his prehensile tongue to get the job done anyway.

I guess Charles Darwin was right ... "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."

 

 

 

Most find a way to get what they must have.

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• How Visionaries See the Future. (PandoDaily)
• Reframing Failure as Intentional Iteration. The secret to success may be trying more stuff. (IAC)
• This Quick Trick Can Vastly Improve The iPhone's Fingerprint Scanner. (HuffPost)
• Top Spotify Playlists for Your Every Mood. (Mashable)
• The Top Five Vitamins You Should Not Take. (Forbes)

 

Trading Links:

• Goldman Expects More Banks To Be Like Goldman Next Year. (Quartz)
• Palantir, a Big Data Tech Company, Raises $100MM at a $9 Billion Valuation. (NYTimes)
• 12 Smart Money Moves to Make Before the End of 2013. (Forbes)
• 15 Highest Paid CEOs in America. (BusinessInsider)
• Minimum Wage Was Once Enough To Keep a Family of 3 Out of Poverty. How much do you think is now needed? - (The Atlantic)