Posted: September 27th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: politics | No Comments »
I’m not sure what the following graph says about the war. I don’t know if this could be interpreted as “the surge worked” or if it means “the surge failed.” My gut instinct when looking at this graph is to try to extrapolate the future. Obviously, there is no way that the future can be predicted. I just think this topic is interesting.
Also, the war will cost us 190 Billion dollars next year – that is the amount of new funding being requested. The government estimates that we have spent 450 billion dollars to date.
Source: click here
Posted: September 26th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: stuff, technology | No Comments »
I apologize for the lack of news, updates, and the boring stuff I post about on a near-daily basis. I was hit with a triple whammy: my move, my car and problems with my hosting provider.
My move is going relatively smoothly. I received a binding estimate from Allied Van Lines and they are moving my things from Minneapolis to Boston. They load the truck on Saturday, and my things should arrive anywhere between the 9th and the 19th. It probably could have gotten their sooner, but I had to schedule around a wedding I am attending in NYC on Columbus Day. (BTW, I am looking forward to the wedding…it will be fun!)
As for my car…I was in a hurry last weekend so I took it to a car wash to get the grime off of it. It has just been sitting in the garage lately, and it was looking dirty. Well, the car wash I took it to took some paint off of the door and rear panel. I am pretty upset about this because they refused to accept blame and submit it to their insurance company. It is just unethical and I’m pretty frustrated with the situation. I will post more about what I decide to do later.
Lastly, my hosting provider was purchased by another company. At the same time, they said they switched servers because the old server was dying. I suspect that they possibly purchased all our accounts and moved them to a new server. Unfortunately, the new hosting provider did not configure the servers correctly…they misconfigured FTP, forgot to install Sendmail, etc. So, I switched to Dreamhost. I got a great introductory deal ( a year for 9 dollars), and their interface is awesome.
Posted: September 21st, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
The October 2007 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine is devoted to investing in Green companies and ideas. The October issue of the Atlantic also has an article by Henry Blodget on Moral Investing (Ironic, huh?). The idea of “green is good” investing is really catching on in the financial industry, and there are a million mutual funds being launched to take advantage of the idea. Ok, maybe not a million, but a lot.
Another aside: I highly recommend Kiplinger over all of the other personal finance magazines mainly because they earned their credibility.
All these magazine articles and Tracey’s super-secret project (just wait!), are making me think about my own effect on the environment around me. To put it bluntly, I am a walking ecological disaster. My flights to client sites makes me a big (debit) on our carbon balance sheet.
This leads to my belief that carbon offsets could be a significant barrier to globally-integrated enterprises. Although value creation is global, the movement of services between geographies has an increased transportation and travel cost. As most consultants will attest, we often make big sacrifices in the interest of expediency. We live in luxury and waste far too much to achieve our objectives.
Posted: September 18th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business | No Comments »
I have to admit that I was wrong on E*Trade. Specifically I was wrong about their exposure to bad mortgages. The stock has lost some value from the 15-dollar range where it settled and is trading down in the 13.50 dollar range. This is due to the news that E*Trade will be revising their earnings estimates
downwards.
There were a lot of market-rumors (subprime exposure, a run on the bank, etc.) that drove down the price to the 15 dollar level. The mistake I made is that I assumed that their AAA-rated Commercial Mortgage portfolio was safe. It is unfortunate that the rating agencies did not perform their end of the bargain. I read a statistic somewhere that 90% of all the mortgage-backed
securities were rated AAA by the agencies.
Another mistake in my analysis can be summed up by my brother, who pointed out that “FICO scores mean shit.” I should have listened to him. A portion of E*Trade’s portfolio, even though it was backed with high FICO scores and rated AAA, was in secondary mortgages, HELOCs and installment loans. These are expected to have a higher-than-average rate of default.
Despite the bad news their earnings estimates are still expected to come in between $1.05 and $1.15. That would put their trailing P/E right around 12. I still believe that the company is a good buy. Their core businesses in brokerage and banking should continue to thrive. They also continue to be a good suitor for TD Ameritrade. It will just take a lot longer for them to recover to their previous levels.
Posted: September 14th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: stuff | No Comments »
Here is my long-awaited Seiko 5 Wristwatch (SNK809k1) review. I blogged about getting this watch a few posts back. Ed Murphy has been pushing me to write a review and post pictures since I got it.
I received the watch very quickly, though it was shipped from Singapore. I can’t say for sure when it arrived, but it was in my mailbox in 10 days. The watch came without a box and manual but was in perfect condition. As you can see from the picture below, the watch has a black face and really sharp detailing. The days of the week are in Spanish and English, and Sundays are in a red font. It is modeled after German WWII Flieger watches. Of course, an authentic Flieger watch would be very large and would have a hacking mechanism.
The watch itself is a matte silver finish. I like it because it makes it look “substantial” but at the same time isn’t very flashy.
One really cool feature is the see-through back. Most people aren’t interested in watches, and roll their eyes when I tell them I bought a new watch. People start paying attention when I show them the back and they can see the beautiful movement (Seiko 7S26a) on the inside.
The watch keeps remarkably good time. My Blackberry is unreliable when compared to this watch since it deviates from the server time. I haven’t been able to tell if the watch is fast or slow over the two weeks I have worn it. The only comment on quality I have is that the links on the watch are made up of multiple pieces and are not milled. The upside is that the links are very easy to remove to resize the bracelet.
Here is the obligatory wristshot.
The absolute best feature of this watch is the fact that I bought it for $56 dollars off of Ebay. What a great value.
Posted: September 12th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: business, technology | No Comments »
One key ingredient of market efficiency is the availability of information. The degree of efficiency is based on the availability and dissemination of public information. If public information carries a price and takes time to be disseminated, then this detracts from overall market efficiency.
Two recent developments on the Internet may have a significant impact on market efficiency. The first is the
rise of PRWeb.com. The company provides a lower-cost PR service that will rival the incumbants.
PR Newswire and BusinessWire are the Big Two of press release land, and together they still control roughly 70% of the market in the U.S. It’s this quasi-monopoly position position that no doubt attracted Warren Buffett to the market: his Berkshire Hathaway (Charts) acquired Business Wire in March of 2006.
The second development was the
release of earnings data directly onto the web by Sun Microsystems. Forgoing the traditional wire services, Sun released its data to the public immediately and without cost.
“If it’s a non-password-protected Web site where any person off the street can find it, what’s more public than that?” said Keir Gumbs, a securities lawyer with Covington & Burling LLP.
Clearly, the Internet will improve the distribution of financial information and that a radical shift is beginning to take hold. I believe that this is a wide-open market opportunity and that it is possible that rapid innovation and evolution will take place in that market. The wire services and Reuters/Bloomberg will maintain control of the sources for now. However, the method of distribution has become (nearly) free, but the open question is who will be able to find a way to organize and capture the sources.
Posted: September 12th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: travel | No Comments »
I had some issues with my travel laptop and things are getting very busy with my quickly-approaching move date. Here is my light travel schedule for this month. In October I will be flying out of BOS which does not have direct flights to XNA.
Thursday, September 13
Northwest Airlines Flight 2838 Coach
From: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
4:15 pm, Thursday, September 13
To: Memphis Int’l Airport, TN
5:22 pm, Thursday, September 13
Thursday, September 13
Northwest Airlines Flight 445 Coach
From: Memphis Int’l Airport, TN
7:35 pm, Thursday, September 13
To: Minneapolis St. Paul Int’l Airport, MN
9:41 pm, Thursday, September 13
Sunday, September 16
Northwest Airlines Flight 5616 Economy
From: Minneapolis St. Paul Int’l Airport, MN
9:51 pm, Sunday, September 16
To: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
11:55 pm, Sunday, September 16
Thursday, September 20
Northwest Airlines Flight 2838 Economy
From: Fayetteville – NW Arkansas Regional Airport, AR
4:15 pm, Thursday, September 20
To: Memphis Int’l Airport, TN
5:22 pm, Thursday, September 20
Thursday, September 20
Northwest Airlines Flight 445 Economy
From: Memphis Int’l Airport, TN
7:35 pm, Thursday, September 20
To: Minneapolis St. Paul Int’l Airport, MN
9:41 pm, Thursday, September 20
Posted: September 8th, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: photography | 1 Comment »
I took the following picture while in Bruges earlier this year. I managed to get my scanner hooked up to my home laptop, since my work laptop’s USB ports are not working correctly. I hope to have some time after I move to scan more Holga photographs. Also, follow this link to see a picture I took of a carrousel in Paris.
Posted: September 3rd, 2007 | Author: saldarji | Filed under: stuff | No Comments »
I was in Harvard Square last night to have dinner with one of Tracey’s clients. We had really nice dinner out. Afterwards, we went for a walk and I re-discovered the Harvard Book Store. That store is open late and has some great values in used and remainder books.
I’ve been reading a lot of books lately because of my commute to Arkansas. I hate working on an airplane because I dread screen crunch. Also, airplane-time is disconnected-time, so it is very hard to actually work on anything besides emails and documentation.
I just finished re-reading Moby Dick. Right now I am in the middle of
Conspiracy of Fools, which is about the Enron meltdown. After stopping into the Harvard Book Store, I ended up leaving with three books:
- The U.S. Income Tax (Used) – $ 8.00
- Seize the Daylight (Hardcover Remainder) – 4.99
- The Land That Never Was (Hardcover Remainder) – $5.99
As you can see from that list I am currently reading books that give a history on obscure topics. My brother has suggested that I read
Salt: A World History, so I have that on my reading list.
I know, I’m supposed to be reading Blink / The Tipping Point / The Long Tail / Freakonomics / The World Is Flat / (SELECT * from BusinessBookDuJour). I will probably read those books. Maybe in a few years when they have shelves of them for a buck a piece at a used book store.
