*Disappearing casino gambling ship off the coast of MA. (Boston) Spooky.Observations:
- One-Week factor persistence for very few factors in the past, but persistence is now realized for all 5 factor categories!
- Four-Week and Eight-Week factor persistence was positive in the past, but now they are negative!
- Improving Financials is expected to have longer-period persistence, which it consistently had at four-week and eight-week, but not recently.
- Momentum does not have persistence over long periods, and wouldn't expect it to.
- Value is expected to have persistence over long periods, and did so in the past, but not recently.
Conclusions:
Quantitative weighting schemes need to look back at the past to help forecast the future, with the assumption that persistence exists. With negative persistence recently, the better plan is to weight factors opposite what has performed well by incorporating the persistence information above into the process. Based on the results above, shorter-term trading models would have performed well since June 2007, while longer-term models would have performed better previously.
China has been hoarding gold lately. China claims that it has been holding on to just as many US Dollars. It's just holding on to more gold. Don't believe it!
Casino revenue at the two MGM locations in Detroit dropped 3% in March. (Detroit News)
*Yesterday the Dow plunged 290 as investors worry. (Associated Press)
Rankings:
1.
Lakers
2.
Cavs
3.
Rockets
4. Celtics, Magic,
Blazers
7. Jazz
8. Pistons, Hawks,
Nuggets, Hornets, Mavs
14. 76ers
15. Bulls, Heats
Somebody recently lost $400 bucks and they were feeling down and needed cheering up. One thing people just can't grasp is that even if you have an advantage, you can still lose in gambling. The variance dramatically affects short term results. Only in the long run can success be guaranteed. The long run can be a long time coming. 
Barbara, 46, and Kevin Lowe, 52, Grand Rapids, Mich.
Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs
After the recent announcement of making over $2 billion betting on interest rates and other wagers, Time is asking if Goldman Sachs is gambling with taxpayers' money. (TIME) How much do you want to punch this guy in the face?
Who better to answer this question right?
Uh, yea they're gambling with taxpayer money.
They borrowed 10 billion in TARP funds to shore up their books. If not, Goldman Sachs might have missed debt obligations and might have bankruptcy problems. Was their recent gamble a good bet? I don't have enough information to reach that kind of conclusion. Either way, they borrowed money from the American taxpayer. Despite their assertions that no TARP funds were used in their recent bets, the fact that taxpayer funds were used to prop them up is more than enough to say they were gambling with our money. Without the TARP funds they wouldn't have enough money to run their day-to-day operations and certainly not enough money to gamble with.
I really
want to punch this guy in the face.
No pictures. Nothing cute. Please excuse my rather
serious post.
Recently somebody asked whether gambling is a good or bad thing?
I don't have the slightest hesitation in saying gambling is a bad thing. Gambling creates psychological dependency issues for many people. It's really tragic what some of the degenerates would do to get their fix. Many critics would argue that it's their own fault. I can imagine many, where if it was not possible to gamble, wouldn't transfer this dependency problem onto anything else. For these people, it's really the gambling that's causing the problems.
What compounds the situation is that the gambling
industry money literally crowds out any other type of investments. Without
gambling,
The worst part about gambling is the level of
fraud and chicanery. Casinos will coax, lie, and deceive people to take all of
their money. That's their business. They wrap this 'fraud' under the pretext of
job creation, but hiring people to dig holes and bury them has about the same
benefits of job creation.
They further wrap this fraud under the pretext of
entertainment, but the gamblers I've sat down with all look miserable. They're
absolutely devastated when they lose more money than they should. Where's the
entertainment in that? I've seen a lot of gamblers and most of them look
miserable. The only people that look like they're having a good time are
the drunks and party-ers. I'd rather the gamblers get loaded and party
their hearts out, because they'll at least crack a smile.
Finally, gambling proponents claim gambling
creates positive externalities such as hotels, food industries, and whatever.
Any slight externality is quickly erased by the higher thefts, crime, and
dependency treatments.
Gambling is not a zero sum game of transferring
money from the lesser intelligent to the corporations. It's a net loss
game for everyone.
Momentum to save CityCenter. Dubai World offers plan proposal to save CityCenter. The "proposal" hasn't been finalized and would only preserve CityCenter in the case of an MGM bankruptcy. (REUTERS)
I was only one letter off, but an American corporation is facing bankruptcy on June 1st. Not MGM but GM. (TheStreet). 
Jim Murren
Under a new employment contract effective Dec. 1, MGM Mirage Chief Executive Jim Murren will receive a salary increase of $500,000 and will be eligible for additional performance-based cash awards of up to $4.25 million.
Murren's new base salary of $2 million reflects the fact that he took on additional responsibilities when he was appointed to lead the company, MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman said. (LVSUN)
*The first cheerleader is doing his best to rally the economy. Obama has to always put a positive spin. He is the president. LATIMES
What a great deal for customers.... investors from betting on a stock's decline at specific times. NYTIMESRecovery hopes begin to blossom
A growing number of economists say they see signs that the battered U.S. economy could start to recover as soon as this summer.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Unemployment at a 25-year high. Housing prices continuing to fall. Corporate titans such as General Motors on the brink of bankruptcy. There's no lack of bad economic news.
And yet, amid the gloom, there are a growing number of economists that see a recovery on the horizon -- perhaps even a strong rebound.
They say that a number of indicators appear to have bottomed out in recent months. Job losses may have peaked in January. Home sales are starting to pick up. Stocks are enjoying a strong rally.
And because the economy has experienced such a steep decline in the current downturn, some economists are hopeful the recovery ahead will be much stronger than the anemic gains that came about after the end of the previous two recessions.
....continue...
I disagree with these economists. Everything is relative. It's true that the the rate at which we're bleeding has decreased as shown by last month's ISM numbers. All that means is that we're not bleeding as much, meaning everything is sideways. Our growth is still negative. It's just that things aren't sucking as much, so people are taking that as a good sign. In bad markets, things not sucking as much is good news.
The direction it goes from there is anybody's guess. Nobody really knows, especially not these "experts". All else equal, the only thing that can be said for the next few months is that the economy might be bleeding less and our rate of decline (hopefully) is getting smaller.
