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Tracking Twitter

Tracking Twitter's I.P.O. - NYTimes.com: "Twitter investors may want to sign up for an account on the micro-blogging service to keep tabs on the company.

In its prospectus, Twitter noted, “We also intend to announce information regarding us and our business, operating results, financial condition and other matters through Tweets on the following Twitter accounts: @dickc, @twitter and @twitterIR.”

The first one, @dickc, is the account of Mr. Costolo, the company’s chief executive. The second is Twitter’s main account. The last one is a special investor relations account"




Jobs Report is Still a Bummer

Despite Mixed Headlines, Today’s Jobs Report is Still a Bummer | TIME.com: " . . . . when you take a step back and look at the long-term trends employment trends in the economy, we’re simply not adding enough jobs to get the economy back to full strength any time soon. So far this year, we’ve seen an average of roughly 186,000 new jobs per month. We averaged 175,000 and 182,000 jobs per month in 2011 and 2012 respectively. If the pace of job growth is accelerating at all, it’s doing so only very slightly. Four years into the recovery, we’re sill more than 1.5 million jobs short of peak jobs in 2008, and that’s after years of population growth. Adding more than 200,000 jobs in any given month is pretty good news, but any sober look at the bigger picture says it’s nowhere near good enough. . . ."




Fed Has to Taper says Calstrs Ailman (video)



Fed `Absolutely’ Has to Taper: Calstrs's Ailman: Video - Bloomberg: "Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Christopher Ailman, chief investment officer of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, talks about investment strategy and Federal Reserve policy. Ailman speaks with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle Bloomberg Television's Market Makers. (Source: Bloomberg)"




Nassim Nicholas Taleb Says Debt Raises Risk of Catastrophe (video)



NYU's Taleb Says Debt Raises Risk of `Catastrophe': Video - Bloomberg: "Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a professor at New York University and author of "The Black Swan" and "Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder," talks about risks created by government debt and Federal Reserve monetary policy. He speaks with John Dawson on Bloomberg Television's "First Up" on the sidelines of Barclays Asia Forum in Hong Kong. (Source: Bloomberg)"




Huszar Says Fed Should Have Stopped After QE 1 (video)



Fed Should Have Stopped After QE 1, Huszar Says: Video - Bloomberg: "Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Andrew Huszar, a senior fellow at Rutgers Business School and former official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, talks about the Fed’s policy of quantitative easing and his role in the first phase of the program. Huszar speaks with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg Television's “Market Makers.” (Source: Bloomberg)"




Choose a Charity Carefully and Wisely

How to Choose a Charity Wisely - NYTimes.com: " . . . . donating to the most effective charity has never been more challenging. If you are a discriminating giver, you will need a set of guidelines that can tell you if your donation will mostly be spent on a charity’s mission and not peripheral activities. These days you have to use your head far more than your heart to see that your charitable dollars are well spent on causes you care about. There are services and strategies that you can use to make an informed decision. Most of them can help you determine if your dollars will reach the charity’s “mission” — and whether a nonprofit organization is effective in what it is striving to do. . . ." (read more at link above)




EU Following Path of Japan

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: ECB Following Path of Japan, Including Similarly Ridiculous Statements: "Rather than writeoff bad loans at European banks, the ECB has chosen the bury your head in the sand, extend-and-pretend path of Japan. This is despite the fact the Japanese plan has taken multiple decades without producing meaningful results. . . ." (read more at link above)




New Normal, Consequential Morphing, Tapering

The ‘New Normal,’ And Its Consequential Morphing - JOI Articles: " . . . Absent comprehensive and coordinated policy responses, it is only a matter of time until the surface stability is overcome by the meaningful set of underlying disequilibria, resulting in a set of highly contrasting potential outcomes—all of which would constitute an eventual departure from the low-level equilibrium of the new normal. This morphing warrants equally consequential adaptation in investment approaches. Time is running short for the strategy of simply riding the wave of central banks committed to disconnecting market pricing from fundamentals. A much-less-certain investment outlook is ahead, and one that requires change not only in what investors do, but also in how they think about their overall investment positioning." (read more at link above)



QE Bubblicious Markets

Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere | The Big Picture: " . . . Then, from Jolly Olde London, comes one Toby Nangle, of Threadneedle Investments (you gotta love that name), who found the following chart, created a few years ago at the Bank of England. At least when Mervyn King was there they knew what they were doing. In looking at the chart, pay attention to the red line, which depicts real asset prices. As in they know they are creating a bubble in asset prices and are very aware of how it ends and proceed full speed ahead anyway. Damn those pesky torpedoes. Toby remarks: This is the only chart that I’ve found that outlines how an instigator of QE believes QE’s end will impact asset prices. The Bank of England published it in Q3 2011, and it tells the story of their expectation that while QE was in operation there would be a massive rise in real asset prices, but that this would dissipate and unwind over time, starting at the point at which the asset purchases were complete. . . ." (read more at link above)





Invest Like a Psychopath for Success

Some crazy ideas turn out to be the truth --

Investing Like a Psychopath: " . . . In 2005, a team of researchers from Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Iowa gave a group of participants $20 each. They were then made an offer: You can flip a coin up to 20 times. If you lose the coin toss, you owe $1. If you win, you get $2.50. Everyone in this situation should make as many tosses as possible, since there's a 50/50 chance of accurately guessing a coin toss, and the reward for winning is far larger than the penalty of losing. But the researchers found only one group of participants willing to make large numbers of tosses: Those with a lesion in the area of their brains that controls emotion. Participants with normal brains threw in the towel after flipping a few losses in a row. People don't like losing money, and even if you know the odds are in your favor, a couple losses will turn you off. But those whose brains suppressed emotions kept on betting, regardless of past losses. Not surprising, given the odds and payoffs of the coin-toss game, they ended up with more money. One of the co-authors of the study called these coin-flippers "functional psychopaths," since their damaged brains prevented them from being affected by emotions. The non-psychopaths with normal brains remembered how losing felt and became twice bitten, once shy. Their memories blocked rational behavior. . . . "




Apple's iPad Shot at Microsoft (video)


Gene Munster: Apple's iPad Is a Shot at Microsoft: "Evernote CEO Phil Libin and Piper Jaffray's Eugene Munster comment on Apple's new products unveiled today. They speak with Jon Erlichman on Bloomberg Television's "Bloomberg West." (Source: 10/22/2013 Bloomberg)




Three Generations of Buffett video


Together on set for a Bloomberg First, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett, his son Howard Buffett and grandson Howard W. Buffett join Bloomberg's Betty Liu to discuss philanthropy, their plans for Berkshire Hathaway, and their new book "40 Chances." They speak on Bloomberg Television's "In The Loop." (Oct. 23, 2013 Bloomberg) Three Generations of Buffett: We're the Lucky Ones

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