Idiologies

To create a successful investment process you’re bound to have competing ideologies at times depending on where we are in the investment cycle.

Buy and hold strategy only works if you’re able to both buy and hold when markets crash. And while it can be difficult to follow your plan during a market crash you have to have a completely different mindset during a bull market.

To practice buy and hold you have to be a practicing contrarian when stocks are going down and a practicing trend-follower when stocks are going up. You have to be willing to use two competing schools of thought at different times. That’s not always so easy to pull off.

In many ways this is similar to the two most well-known quantitative investing strategies value and momentum. Each of these strategies seeks to take advantage of over- and under-reactions made in the market, but in very different ways. With a value strategy, stocks that have performed poorly for one reason or another become cheap as investors over-react by selling first and asking questions later. With a momentum strategy, stocks that have done well recently tend to continue doing well for short periods of time because investors initially under-react. Value and momentum each rely on mean reversion, but in different ways and over different time frames.

Both Value and Momentum have historically been shown to work well as stand-alone strategies. But these two contrasting ideas actually work very well when you pair them together because they can make up for each other’s deficiencies during certain market environments. Therefore, diversifying these two return streams helps increase risk-adjusted returns.

But the implementation of a value/momentum combination will never work if the investor isn’t willing to accept that there are two schools of thought that can complement one another.  Really this idea of dealing with competing ideologies will be true of any successful long-term investment strategy.

At certain times you will have to be willing to take an uncomfortable stance. Sometimes that means going against the crowd. Other times it’s going to mean going along with the crowd.

I think an actual contrarian strategy can be one in which an investor is willing to combine different approaches and consistently follow them throughout various points in the market cycle to manage risk and improve long-term performance.   [Ben Carlson]

Sad Gathering

One Pilot...

 







A lawsuit filed relates to a New York-to-Las Vegas JetBlue flight on March 27, 2012, in which the pilot, Clayton Osbon, told his co-pilot that “we need to take a leap of faith” and that “we’re not going to Vegas,” among other bizarre actions, according to federal investigators.

The co-pilot locked Mr. Osbon out of the cockpit and diverted the flight to Texas, where federal authorities charged Mr. Osbon with interfering with the flight crew.
A federal judge in Texas found Mr. Osbon, 52 y.o., not guilty by reason of insanity.

The suit claims breach of contract and negligence by JetBlue for allowing him to fly on the day of the incident despite evidence that he was suffering from mental-health issues. He is seeking more than $14 million from JetBlue.

Mr. Osbon said in the filing that he suffered from a “complex partial brain seizure” and that his actions before the flight—including missing the preflight meeting and struggling to complete the preflight checklist—should have made clear he was mentally unfit to fly.

Mr. Osbon was one of JetBlue’s first pilots, hired shortly after the airline formed in 2000. Shortly after the incident, then-JetBlue CEO Dave Barger said that he knew him “personally for a long period of time and there’s been no indication of this at all in the past.”

Good Luck with that.!!!!!!   Just a thought.

Anna Cross- Ebola

A British army reservist who contracted Ebola while working as a volunteer nurse in Sierra Leone has fully recovered after becoming the first patient in the world to receive an experimental new treatment.

Anna Cross, 25, was discharged from the Royal Free Hospital in London where she was taken earlier after being evacuated from west Africa on a military plane. "

"Anna is the first patient in the world to have received a new special treatment for Ebola, MIL 77,"  "The treatment went very well, it caused no side effects that we could elicit."

The new treatment was produced in China and was similar to ZMapp, a cocktail of three antibodies that cling to the virus and inhibit its reproduction.

Cross, who works as a nurse in the state-run National Health Service, was exposed to the virus while treating patients but said she did not know exactly when this might have happened.

 

Just a thought.

Spies everywhere.

When blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States he was given a fellowship at New York University, use of a Greenwich Village apartment, and a pile of gifts from supporters, including smartphones and an iPad, at least two were bugged.

Chen accused NYU of bowing to pressure from China by ending the fellowship. The allegations are vigorously denied by NYU.

Bob Fu runs the Christian group ChinaAid, which supports underground churches and victims of forced abortions,  and his wife presented the I-Pad gifts. 

"These people supposedly were out to help him and they give him a kind of Trojan horse that would have enabled them to monitor his communications secretly,".

The spyware issue was not publicized at the time and has only surfaced because of the recent scrutiny of NYU's arrangement with Chen. 

So, it's unclear if the software was added by ChinaAid, spies infiltrated NYU's tech department, or the entire incident was made up. The bugged Apple equipment certainly isn't as exciting, but what it lacks in innovation it makes up in intrigue.

I think it is a habit.  Just a thought.

Officials' ...

Senior DEA agents working overseas allegedly participated in “sex parties” with prostitutes funded by drug cartels, according to DOJ Inspector General report.

The conduct occurred over a period of years. In addition to soliciting prostitutes, the foreign officers interviewed for the report allege three DEA supervisory special agents were “provided money, expensive gifts, and weapons from drug cartel members."

Some DEA agents denied knowing about cartel involvement, but the IG report says “information in the case files suggested they should have known the prostitutes in attendance were paid with cartel funds.”

The sex parties occurred in government leased living quarters where “agents’ laptops, BlackBerry and other government- equipment were present,” posing a security risk and “potentially exposing them to extortion, blackmail, or coercion.”

In another instance, two DEA special agents allegedly solicited prostitutes for a farewell party for a senior DEA official.

An official allegedly had “sexual relations with prostitutes” and there were “ operational funds may have used as Payment”.   One prostitute [allegedly] was assaulted following a payment dispute. 

One case of alleged sexual harassment involved an FBI “Supervisory Management and Program Analyst’s repeated unprofessional behavior, including cornering his subordinates in their cubicles and displaying the size of his genitals by tightening his pants,”.  The analyst was eventually suspended, demoted and reassigned to another office.

Prostitution in these countries are legal business and the violations here is relating to the provider of the services and the funds used. Just a thought.

Sow and reap

Adam Smith, 37, was the CFO of a medical device manufacturer in Arizona. Then in 2012 he started protesting against Chick-Fil-A for the fast-food chain’s anti-gay stance.

He went through the drive-thru at his local Chick-Fil-A, where he ordered a free water, the fast food chain offers customers, and videotaped himself telling the drive-thru attendant how much he despised Chick-Fil-A.

“Chick-Fil-A is a hateful corporation,” Smith said, in part, to the drive-thru attendant. “I don’t know how you live with yourself and work here. I don’t understand it. This is a horrible corporation with horrible values. You deserve better.”

Smith then posted the video on his personal YouTube channel, but when he got back to work, he received a major shock. “I got into work and the receptionist said ‘Adam, what did you do?’ ... she said, ‘The voicemail is completely full, and it’s full of bomb threats."

Smith was fired that same day. He  was earning $200,000 annually and had over $1 million in stock options. “It was taken when I lost my employment,” he said.

After losing his job, Smith, his wife and their four children also lost their home. They were forced to sell and give away their possessions and move into an RV.

A few months later, Smith found a new CFO job in Portland, Oregon. It was the fresh start he needed. “I felt like, ‘Yeah, I got it. I am back,".

About two weeks later, Smith was fired from that job after his new boss discovered he was the guy from the Chick-Fil-A video. 

 ........   Just a thought.

Fake Abduction.

Huskins, 29, was reported missing on Monday by a 30-year-old and Boy friend Aaron Quinn who called to report the alleged kidnapping and claimed he witnessed it. Police previously said she was abducted from the home where she was staying in Vallejo, California.

"The Vallejo Police Department would like to ensure the public that there is no indication that this was a random act of violence,".

The San Francisco Chronicle  reported the contents of an email it received from an "anonymous person claiming to be holding Huskins."

Denise Huskins was found in Huntington Beach, California, Wednesday morning, Her father told ABC News that his daughter called him from Huntington Beach to say she was safe. Huskins had promised to speak with investigators but  they were unable to contact her or her family. She retained an attorney.

 "There is no evidence to support the claims that this was a stranger abduction or an abduction at all,"  Vallejo Police Department. "Given the facts that have been presented thus far, this event appears to be an orchestrated event and not a kidnapping

Just a confusing thought.

Blah blah blah... Cruz

Texas Senator Ted Cruz's wife Heidi is taking a leave to help her husband's campaign for the president. The Cruzes are leaving the $20,000 per year coverage she enjoyed at Goldman.

"We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care " Cruz. 

 

Heidi Cruz's coverage became the subject of a small media tempest in 2013, after Cruz and House conservatives insisted on de-funding the ACA through the appropriations process. After the resultant government shutdown ended, Heidi Cruz confirmed that she was covered, and her husband benefited from Goldman's generous plan. 

 

Cruz is deftly using the oddly-enough angle of this news—Obama care-hating senator forced into Obama-care for a populist cause. He's not the first Republican to do so. 

 

One day after announcing himself as presidential candidate, Texas Senator Ted Cruz fired a few shots across the bow of Wall Street, and the firm that employs his wife as managing director. 

 

He promise to repeal Obama care by 2017. After my wife goes back to work.

After five years of the Affordable Care Act, more than 16 million uninsured Americans have gained the security of health insurance.

 

Just a thought. 

Lorena Bobbitt again

Image is not related.

Investigators determined that the appendage of a 32-year-old man had "completely disappeared" following December attacks in the central province of Henan, government-owned media outlet HNR said.

Fan's wife took the radical step of chopping off his .... after she found out he was in a relationship with a 21-year-old woman.

Fan "rushed to a hospital" after the incident, and doctors re-attached his penis.

But his wife crept into a ward as he slept to claim the organ again.
The two subsequently clashed outside the facility, with a naked and bleeding Fan repeatedly beating his wife, until police arrived.

The double attacks appeared to have strengthened the romance between Fan and his mistress, with the two deciding to marry.
She was quoted as saying: "It doesn't matter if he turns out to be infertile, he has five children anyway."

The story may be, as reported, is fake. Just a thought.