7 Habits of Highly Successful People.

1. Skiing


2. Yachting


3. Snorkeling


4. Golf


5. Polo


6. Dinner parties


7. Shopping

Ha ha ha …..

Via Typhoon Ahlwoon:

Here is a choice quote from WSJ on California attorney general Bill Lockyer!

Mr. Lockyer was aggressive in a probe into price manipulation in California’s energy market. (In a 2001 interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said he would “love to personally escort [Enron Chairman Kenneth] Lay to an 8×10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says ‘Hi my name is Spike, honey.’”

I’m posting it in the humor section. You get the drift. Seth Godin speaks at Google

Two faux training videos for Microsoft UK employees featuring Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant in their roles from the BBC version of The Office.

Via Fortune:

Could this be indicative of a hedge fund bubble? Last year 1,000 or so funds went belly-up. But around 2,100 new ones started, bringing the grand total to over 8,000, up from 600 ten years ago. (At presstime there were 6,010 Taco Bells in the US. Just FYI.)

...

Then there was Henry. He ran an astrology mutual fund. If, say, the moon was eclipsing Uranus, I’m guessing that might mean switching from stocks to pork bellies. He was going to use the same strategy for his hedge fund, which would – duh! – be easier to market than a boring mutual fund.

Then I chatted with Mark, a gung-ho kid in his early 20s who was starting a “complex derivatives fund” with “a friend from MIT”. He says that after reading George Soros’s book The Alchemy Of Finance, “I was hooked on trading!” He then admits he hasn’t traded anything. Ever.

..

“Do what you love and the money will follow,” the life coaches say. But I, hedgie, know better. Follow the money and you’ll love what you do. For sure.

Via Long or Short Capital:

Some of you may have heard that working at a hedge fund you can make “a lot of money”. Well it’s true. Now some of you might be saying to yourself: “Wow, how am I going to get a job at a hedge fund so I can make all that money?” which is a good question. But, there are a few of you who are more foresighted that are saying “Wow, how am I going to SPEND all that money?” And that’s really the more important question, because let me tell you, it’s not easy.

I am a great fan of The Economist magazine. I’ve been a long-time reader. I love their writing style and economic views. I was amused by a quick summary of its journalists’ style in a comment on Barry’s blog The Big Picture. It is reproduced below verbatim.

“.....I suspect that you are not used to dealing with the enigmatic English… Most people at the Economist are not just enigmatic Englishmen, they also are mostly impenetrable Oxbridge mandarins.

These people are trained to express themselves subtly and hypocritically according to a a set of conventional dissembling techniques. Here is the decoder ring:

• Always argue both sides of an argument.


• Make sure the side you prefer subtly looks better.


• Make sure that the side you don’t prefer is first.


• Ostensibly, always endorse the official line.


• You can sneak in a bit of subversion too.

So the article reads like ‘’we gotta say that inflation ex-inflation ex-inflation is all fine and good, because that’s the official line, but then we suavely add what we actually think, that things are not looking good’‘.

My understanding of the yankee way is instead:

• Only argue your side of the argument.


• Exaggerate wildly that side of the argument that benefits your wallet most.


• Put the wildest exaggeration first, and the weakest last, unlike Oxbridge dons no real yankees read to the end.

Now you can see a great potential for misunderstanding… “

Long or Short Capital » Investing in Public Equities is Like Dating

Relationships, despite what your girlfriend just told you, aren’t supposed to be “work.” “Work” is supposed to be “work,” hence the name. When a relationship is right there won’t be a lot of analyzing, discussing, and dissecting every aspect of the relationship as if it’s a third, independent entity.

In fact, finding a promising investment thesis is similar to meeting a new girl who might be dating material. Examine the similarities:

Dating:

Is she truly interesting? Can she take a joke? Does she come from a decent family (i.e., just how crazy will she be later in life)? Is she good looking all the time or only in dark bars? What do your friends think of her?

Investing:

Does the management team know what they’re doing? Does the company have sustainable barriers to entry in their key businesses? Is the company well positioned for the next 3-5 years? What do the company’s customers and suppliers say?

Sometimes — ok, a lot of times in Mr. Juggle’s case — things just won’t feel right even when the answers to most of these questions are positive. Just as a relationship can lack chemistry, a stock can look promising in theory but fail to perform. You will find yourself constantly justifying the stock to your friends, talking about how great the company is and how the chart is smiling at you. And much like your first relationship that you dragged on far too long, you’ll be tempted to “work through it” and stick around. Again, examine the similarities:

Dating:

I’ll put more effort in our relationship… Ok, I’ll try to change… I’m sorry…

Investing:

There was no operating leverage but we’ll see it next quarter for sure… They’ve assured me they have the financing in place…. The investment period is almost over…Management has a lot of “skin in the game”….

Listen to Juggles: Don’t do it.

Now the reason I think relationships are a particularly good analogy for investing is that it’s just as tough to know when you should cut your losses in a stock as it is when things go south with your girlfriend. You’ve been through a lot and there’s a shared history; is there something fundamentally wrong or are you just being impatient/unreasonable/(insert common male or investor characteristic here)? Finding an investment thesis is at least as hard as going back to dating, and you never want to bail on a good idea early. So ask yourself: the stock isn’t working but is this a healthy argument with your future wife or maybe you and the stock are fighting again because things just aren’t right between the two of you. Does the stock want you to “work on it” or “pay attention to its needs” more often? These are probably signs you should set cut that stock loose.

But don’t think it’ll be easy. The day you finally give up on that stock – it’ll go up 5%, just like your ex-girlfriend will wear a short skirt and slut herself around showing you how many other boys like her. But your better off man, you are way better off.

Recommendation: Long book writing, short dating.

Rule #1: If you have to mention how much you make, you don’t make that much.

La la Hedge Fund land…

Money, Money, Money
A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money. The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said, “Well, son, it was 1932. The depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel. I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents. The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I’d accumulated a fortune of $1.37. Then my wife’s father died and left us two million dollars.”

I met Philip way back in the year 2000 when he gave a talk in India. I remember conversing with him later. Here is a insightful post by him on Early Retirement!

Ask a wage slave what he’d like to accomplish. Chances are the response will be something like “I’d start every day at the gym and work out for two hours until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I’d practice the piano for three hours. I’d become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the largest transformation of our time. I’d really learn how to handle a polo pony. I’d learn to fly a helicopter. I’d finish the screenplay that I’ve been writing and direct a production of it in HDTV.”

Why hasn’t he accomplished all of those things? “Because I’m chained to this desk 50 hours per week at this horrible [insurance|programming|government|administrative|whatever] job.

So he has no doubt that he would get all these things done if he didn’t have to work? “Absolutely none. If I didn’t have the job, I would be out there living the dream.”