Wake Up!!

I got some ointment, rubbed it all over, (the directions weren't that clear)
and fortunately the illeism went away.

Startled into action this morning. I almost missed the first trade and as you can see had to make the, is the second bar after the signal bar allowed, decision again.

Last time this happened I called it a mut.

This time I'm not calling it a mut.

Hmmmm, a little fuzzy on the logic?

I know, I know.

Anyway it does seem to make sense to give it one more bar so it's in the plan, good or bad.

I exited early on this one as she was going the wrong way in a hurry.

You sit around and wait, give up, wait some more, get mad, think you need to change, grow despondent, write bizarre blog posts, give up again, fall asleep, and then whammo, there she is.

You just never know.

So you better be ready.

Always.

Walk This Way

Intellectuals at play.



This kid is a chess master, a chess virtuoso if you please.

Would you want him running your country?

Maybe?

Maybe not.

Anatomy of a Trade

Solfest has heard the complaints and Solfest is responding.

Solfest has also decided to refer to himself in the third person again.

Solfest has noted the herd is more frightened by Sandy's rants then they are by Solfest's rants.

Solfest has tried to placate thine herd with beautiful music, beautiful scenery, and beautiful women on horses.

Thy herd demands more.

More charts, less rants.

Solfest has no trades.

Solfest shall attempt to explain why.

Brace thyselves.

Solfest has also decided to use Middle Ages English.

Solfest may have run out of meds.

610 Tick Chart

Thy herd looketh at thine chart and sayeth, Solfest why thou trade not thine chart?

Thy herd sayeth Solfest you have a nice move down, beautiful move up, you have blue bars, what has happened to thou.

Solfest weeps at thine ignorance.

Thy chart does show 2 nice trends, trends that could be traded, but Solfest does not trade thine 610 tick chart as the intrabar movement would killeth Solfest.

Solfest reminds thine herd that thou art looking at one day.

Solfest is angry at the lack of spell check for old English.

Let us move on.

2 Minute Chart

Once again thine herd knashes thine teeth at Solfest's lack of trading skill.

Thine herd is prepared to abandon Solfest for a new and shinier trading Swamiguru.

Perhaps Ldubyaaguru?

Again Solfest weeps at thine ignorance.

Solfest implores thine herd to take a close look at the white squiggly line and note thy lack of tautness. Solfest also requests thine herd look at the bar overlap, overlap that causes stops and break evens.

Solfest is growing tired of typing and yells for a serf to attend immediately.

Nothing.

Let us move on.

89 Tick Chart

Solfest is now beginning to doubt Solfest's own trading system and has sent a carrier pigeon to thy Ldubyaaguru's immense castle requesting a séance.

Solfest does concede thine trading opportunities missed and Solfest knows they were missed due to the lack of acceptable range.

Solfest also reminds thine herd that the reason for trading conditions is to stop thine entering into positions that doth not work.

Solfest wishes to repeat, the reason for trading conditions is to stop thine entering into positions that doth not work.

Thine herd often thinks indicators are only to provide an indication of a position that will work.

Many positions will work, unfortunately those that start out looking like a position with a losing probability can ultimately work nicely. (the old English comes and goes)

Let us move on.

89 Tick Chart

Solfest provides thou evidence of historical success.

Very historical.

Solfest notes the taut lines that doth not be squiggly.

Solfest notes the large range in the bars.

Solfest notes the price bars coming out of the 3 non squiggly line convergence.

Solfest can change thy trading parameters to take all of yesterdays missed opportunities.

Solfest shall not do that.

Solfest may go mad, but he will be flat whilst this doth happen.

Let us move on.

89 Tick Chart

Just when Solfest believes all is lost a trade appears. It rises out of the mist like a beautiful woman on horseback.

Solfest earns 1 tick on thine trade with a BE + 1 stop and he roars with laughter at the futility of life.

Solfest demands a serf bring him coffee.

Nothing.

Solfest now realizes that in order to have a séance with Ldubyaaguru one of us would have to be dead.

Solfest also realizes the madness of thine future may already lie in thine present.

Econ 101

This was in 2006.

Listening to Schiff now you have to hear him say I told you so in every paragraph. Which gets a little annoying.

Fact is he did.

This speech is fascinating as he nailed what was going to happen exactly. Then the PhD dude, who spoke before Peter, comes on and they take questions together.

I'm sure the "doctor" is now in hiding.

All that plus the speech was made to "Mortgage Bankers".

Too funny.

I Live Here

and here



I'm proud of both.

Without this there is no money to make videos of pretty girls on horses.

You Can't Put a Price on Love

It was Valentines Day.

Is it just me, or did we not just celebrate this last year?

Anyway I had the perfect gift picked out for Mrs. Solfest, Elton John tickets, ya baby. Why Elton John is coming to Red Deer is beyond me, but hey we'll take it.

Tickets went on sale a few days before Valentines, at 10:00 am sharp. Since I just sit here all day I can do that, be ready, ready to pounce.

Pounce I did, and.....nothing, sold out in seconds.

Now what? Not flowers again, she said she wanted an iPad, so let's have a look.

$519!!!!, what the .....

Hmmmmm how bout a Kindle Fire, ya a Kindle Fire, I hear they're just as good and they only cost $199.

Ya baby.

Amazon makes 1 cent on every dollar of revenue.

Apple makes 24 cents on every dollar of revenue.

Amazon obviously hates their shareholders and loves their customers.

Since I own shares in neither let's go with Amazon.

I know I know she bore your children, she's married to you, you cheap bastard.

Hey trades are scarce and I think the Kindle Fire is just as good if not better than the iPad. And, I found a review to prove it. Ok I ignored a few other reviews as well.

Anyway she'll be happy I'm sure.

One click at Amazon and I'm outa here.

Hey wait a tick, where is it? It's not here?

"The Kindle Fire is not yet available in Canada".

Come on man!

Valentines is today, not flowers again.

Now I'm desperate, the desperate middle aged dude that retailers love. The desperate middle aged dude that can pretty much buy anything, plastic required or not.

Ok, iPad it is.

You can't put a price on love?

Sure you can, $519 bucks.

"Image is Everything"

A tennis player once said this in an ad, and regretted it afterwards. He was just reading script, but somehow it stuck to him and not the product. (a camera I think)

I think that quote may be right. If you think of the world we live in, the 24 hours news cycle, image is everything.

Or at least if you project the wrong image you stand to lose alot.

What on earth are you talking about Solfest? You are the guy who trades occasionally and rants constantly.


Is that my image?

The Ranting Trader?

I need an agency.

What got me thinking about this was an IPad on it's way to Alberta. The IPad starts it's journey in Chengdu, China, and right now it's in Shanghai where I suppose it's being loaded on a container ship.

The IPad as we all know is an Apple product. Everyone loves Apple.

There is another American company that imports stuff from China.

Wal-Mart.

Everyone hates Wal-Mart.

Why the difference?

Image is everything.

Apple builds products in China that nobody needs. We want them, most certainly, but nobody needs them. Not only do we not need them but I have found their actual performance rather wanting.

The Apple operating system is not user friendly and I find it very annoying to use. That said I don't use it much and I am used to Windows so maybe it's my problem and not theirs.

My daughter bought an IPhone a few months back and it's performance in 2 critical areas is also sub par. One being battery life, what's the point of a mobile device if it has to be continually plugged into the wall. The other is phone quality. Phone as in actually using the phone to talk to someone, yes people still do that.

I have a cheap cell phone and my daughter and I both use the same carrier, my phone never drops calls and you can understand what I'm saying on the phone. With the IPhone if the call doesn't drop completely I can't understand anything she is saying as the call quality is terrible.

It does have apps though.

In spite of all this Apple is the most successful company on earth right now. They make gobs of money and everyone loves them.

Banks used to make gobs of money and everyone hates them.

Wal-mart provides goods that we all need and use everyday. They provide them cheaper than most other retailers mainly because they buy in enormous quantities, have immaculate inventory control, and most of the products are produced in China.

Yet everyone hates Wal-Mart.

Why?

Image is everything.

Steve Jobs, as we have found out lately, was not a very nice man. What he was was a marketing genius. His company gouges us for things we don't need, things that are all built in China, and we all worship him for it.

Steve Jobs made Apple cool, and he either knew, or found out that people are willing to pay up for cool.

Image is everything.

Steve Jobs knew that and that was his real genius.

So Solfest if you're so smart why on earth are you buying a IPad?

Good question.

Since this post is too long I'll answer it tomorrow.

America

Is there anyone who can change the present course of action in America?

Yes.

Except he's not running for President.



With the economic power shift that is happening with America and China, Canada has to hedge her bets.

Cenovus Ships First Crude Oil to China

Harper Touts Canada's Energy Capibilities

No Surrender

The fight must continue.

Ok, perhaps I need a Days Without Government Spending Rants counter to run along side the MUT counter.

I'm sorry, I just can't help myself.

Terence Corcoran: Keynesian meltdown

Terence Corcoran, National Post Feb 13, 2012

How Ontario’s ‘stimulus’ spending led to disaster

The fiscal mess in Ontario is now common knowledge across the country, thanks in part to a sensational report from the Conference Board of Canada demonstrating that unless the government slashes spending and/or raises taxes, health care and education will have to be decimated. The report was no surprise to people who tracked Premier Dalton McGuinty’s march into Keynesian fiscal stimulus spending. The surprise was the appearance of the Conference Board as the harbinger of doom.

Is this the same Conference Board that only two years ago, in March, 2010, awarded Ontario “a gold star for stimulus” spending, according to ReNew Canada magazine? The province’s massive deficit spending, announced in 2009, would be creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and adding to the provincial growth rate. According to the Conference Board’s 2010 report — commissioned by the Ontario government to document the impact of its multi-billion dollar Keynesian stimulus effort — the deficit spending on infrastructure would also boost productivity, offset the recession, and set the stage for recovery.

Two years later, the Conference Board returned to the scene of the crime to report that Ontario is in rough fiscal shape, growth isn’t happening, spending will have to be cut, taxes raised and the province needs “transformative changes.” Missing from the Conference Board report was any acknowledgement that Ontario might be sinking under the weight of the stimulus gold star the board had awarded the province.

Like most other economists who are now issuing alarming reports and projections that Ontario faces a future of perpetual deficits, slow growth and rising taxes, the Conference Board appears to be wilfully blind to the dead corpus of Keynesian economic policy that is behind Ontario’s plight — policy that they all endorsed as the province’s economic salvation.

The McGuinty Liberals cannot be expected to admit that the massive stimulus balloon — which began with a $19-billion deficit in 2009-10 and has since expanded to an $80-billion-and-climbing monster that appears to be beyond control — has been a misguided disaster carried out under the influence of the finest economic minds in the country, if not the world. If a U.S. President can go crazy with US$1.5-trillion deficits, why shouldn’t the Premier of Canada’s largest province ring up $100-billion in deficits?

At the Toronto Economic Club on Monday, Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan was towing his Keynesian gold star around. “The McGuinty government, like many others, invested heavily in stimulus — building roads, bridges and other important infrastructure.” This spending allegedly protected and created jobs, and will make Ontario “more competitive.”

Nobody really expects politicians to know what impact their actions have on the economy. They do what the economists, the Bay Street and in-house variety, tell them will work. And what the economists told them, via the Conference Board, bank reports and other outlets, is that running up billions in deficits is the ethanol that will keep the engine of growth going.

That the forecasters and theorists turned out to be dead wrong comes back to haunt no one. In Ontario’s 2009 budget, the province predicted that its total debt would rise gently to just over 30% of the province’s gross domestic product before beginning a decline. GDP growth, according to a consensus of Keynesian private-sector economic modellers, would rise to 3.3%, in part under the stimulus helium provided by the deficits. As it turned out, within two years forecasts had turned sour. The new debt-to-GDP ratio looked set to top 40% (see graph above). What happened is (a) the deficits kept growing and (b) the forecast growth rates began to look a little rosy. Rates of 3% and 3.5% were expected, presumably the result of all the infrastructure spending and productivity gains. Now, however, the forecast average growth rate is said to be unlikely to exceed 2%.

If we can’t expect politicians to take the blame for following the Keynesian deficit-spending policies advocated by their economic advisors, shouldn’t we turn to the economic experts to get them to explain themselves? The same people who supported and advised the McGuinty Liberals — and the Obama Democrats, the Greek and Portuguese politicians, the French and Canadian governments — to run up spending to rescue the economy will spend the next decade telling governments how to get out of the mess they helped create.

Ontario’s current circumstances create a perfect opportunity to confront the economic establishment and lay blame for the fiscal disaster that is Ontario. Government spending has been soaring for years. It all looks good if growth rates stay strong. Where were the dire economic warnings through the last decade that the expansion in government activity cannot continue without hitting a wall?

A table on Ontario’s spending habits (above) captures the disconnect between the government and the people. While the personal income of the people dragged at 26% growth, government spending soared more than 60%.

On Wednesday, former TD Bank economist Don Drummond will deliver a set of tax and spending options to the McGuinty government, a road map on how the province can resolve its fiscal problems. It would be nice if Mr. Drummond also charted the Keynesian fallacies that got Ontario into this mess.

I was doing so good with my cold turkey no government rants allowed, then DT came by with a bottle and boom, I'm face down in the gutter.

Me, Myself, and I

People in this world can do amazing things. They can sing, they can ski, they can ride a bike, etc.

Me, I can make 89 tick bars turn blue when 28 conditions are met on 3 different charts.

Hmmmm

Perhaps I should have aimed higher.




THE MAN WHO LIVED ON HIS BIKE from Guillaume Blanchet on Vimeo.

Perpetuum Jazzile

Please accept this small token as my humble apology for too many government spending rants.

Do turn it up, to a wake the neighbours kind of loud.





Perpetuum Jazzile

I Surrender

I guess the fight is over. I'm wasting my time and yours.

I do apologise.

Now I just need to find my place in the trough and wait for the government to feed me.

She bribed the unionized teachers to get elected as leader and is now making the payment.

Sigh.

Oh, sorry, I forgot I surrendered.

I do apologise, again.

National Post Editorial Board: Alberta’s first NDP budget
National Post Editorial Board Feb 10, 2012 – 2:27 PM ET

One thing is obvious from Thursday’s Alberta budget: When the provincial Tories chose Alison Redford to lead their party and government last October, they were effectively selecting Alberta’s first NDP premier. The outrageously spendthrift 2012 budget could just as easily have been brought down by any left-wing government in the country.

The province’s fiscal plan throws money at every pet project Ms. Redford gave voice to during her campaign to succeed former premier Ed Stelmach. (And we thought Mr. Stelmach was too loose with a dollar.) Not only will recent years’ cuts in education spending be restored — and then some — to fulfill a promise Ms. Redford made in order to convince unionized teachers to take up Tory memberships in great numbers so they could vote for her leadership, the provincial daycare budget will be greatly expanded and some welfare payments will jump by a full third every month, at a combined cost to the provincial treasury of nearly half-a-billion dollars per year.

In a province with virtually no unemployment (indeed, thousands of job openings go begging each year) and the highest per capita income in the land by a wide margin, the Alberta government will nonetheless ramp up its spending by nearly 7% in the coming year to a record $41.1-billion. That works out to a whopping $10,800 for each of Alberta’s 3.8 million men, women and children. By comparison, Ontario spends just $9,000 per resident and Quebec just $8,400. Even Ottawa, which Albertans often complain is bloated and wasteful, spends just $7,800 per Canadian — 28% less per capita than Alberta. Neighbouring B.C. with nearly a million more residents and a reputation for lefty extravagance, has an annual budget with roughly the same level of expenditures as the budget delivered Thursday by Alberta Finance Minister Ron Liepert.

Alberta’s budget projects a deficit of nearly $900-million. If Mr. Liepert and Ms. Redford had managed to keep their cheque-writing pens in their pockets, and kept expenditures at 2011 levels, they could have recorded a $400-million surplus this year, rather than run up more red ink.

The province will take on no public debt as a result of its unbalanced budget — the fifth in a row — but it will drain its rainy-day Sustainability Fund. After this free-spending fiscal year, the reserve fund, which stood at $15-billion just three years ago, will be down to just $3.7-billion. If the province’s oversize projections for natural resource revenues — based on a long-term price for oil of $100 a barrel or more — prove overly optimistic, the fund could disappear entirely. Over the next two budget years, the government plans to increase total spending to over $44-billion.

The irony in the budget is that Finance Minister Liepert seemed to understand that this level of spending is unsustainable, even as he proudly announced more and more new programs and expansions to existing ones. “For too long, we have used all our resource revenues to pay our day-to-day expenses,” he said. “These revenues rise and fall with global economic fluctuations that we cannot predict and we sure can’t control.” And yet his promises of a balanced budget next year and a surplus of over $5-billion in 2014 were based almost exclusively on the assumption of a rise in resource revenues of 43% over the next two years.

Or perhaps Mr. Liepert and his boss, Premier Redford, know something they are not telling Albertans, who are expected to go to the polls within the next two or three months. The Finance Minister broadly hinted that higher taxes are in Albertans’ future when he insisted Alberta must “move away from volatile resource revenues to fund ongoing programs, and move toward a more sustainable revenue base.” Could he mean a provincial sales tax or even an HST, something Alberta has never had and which remains hugely unpopular with voters?

Alberta does not have a revenue problem. Even given the volatility of oil and natural gas revenues over time, the province already has more than enough annual income for it to sustain, say, Ontario-level spending, and still have plenty left over every year to store away for the day when its energy revenues dry up. The trick to fiscal sustainability in Alberta is not convincing the province’s taxpayers to cough up more, but convincing its decidedly left-of-centre Tory government to stop dropping billions on every funding request that crosses its desks.

National Post

Perspective

We are all rich, very, very, rich. (Western world)

How did we get here?

We borrowed.

We now have mucho debt.

We also have assets. (businesses, real estate, precious metals)

If you think anything other than businesses, real estate, and precious metals qualify as assets you are in for a rude awakening.

Even if your assets are made up of those three you and I may still be in for a rude awakening.

The assets can change in value, the debt doesn't.

Oh contraire you say, countries just write off, or write down the debt.

Voila you don't have to pay it back.

Some are doing that, but how many can do that before the debt holders get a little cranky.

Cranky as in no more new debt for you.

Cranky as in your new interest rate is now 21%.

The USA requires 1.6 trillion in new debt every year to keep the ponzi scheme afloat.

You know what happens to a ponzi scheme when the new money stops coming in.

It collapses and Bernie goes to jail.

Who's in charge of this ponzi scheme?

Presidents?

Prime Ministers?

No.

You and I.

We elect those who promise to spend more and tax less.

You would think that we the ponzi schemers would want to come clean now. Admit our mistakes, go to our collective debtors prison so to speak.

You would think that, but you would be wrong.

That would be painful. We don't like pain. We like IPhones.

So now the masses have hit the streets, not to demand debt repayment start immediately. No, no, to demand government take more money from someone else and give it to them. That and borrow forever, as the government must take care of us.

Make rich people and big companies pay for it all.

How did we turn into this blubbering mass of pathetic spineless humanity?

The Keynesians tell us that we need to borrow more when we have an economic downturn. I assume Keynes also suggested we save (?) or pay it back during the economic boom times?

Look at the top three charts again. The boom was nuclear. Did we take that opportunity to pay back debt?

No.

We borrowed more during the boom and now we are supposed to borrow even more?

That is my issue with Keynes. He assumes, like many economists, that humans and governments will do the rational thing.

They don't.

Ever see a 2 year old throw a tantrum in a supermarket when Mom says no to the candy placed at the 2 year old's eye level at the check out counter?

That's us.

Only we can vote.

Fortune Where Are You

I need range.

Lots and lots of range.

Under sunny skies above.

Currently I am fenced in.

Although I do have time to better myself through some fine instructional video.



Or this.



The world has gone completely mad.

I want to get off the spinning little globe.

You Don't Say

Yes I do see that rather large chunk of change in the middle of the chart that I did not get.

Thank you for noticing.

I'll just tell myself I'm a unicorn and be happy with my meager profit.

Qatar

As long as you have the right dictator, plenty of oil and gas, and you share the wealth you can find paradise on earth.

The question that was not asked is, are they doing any of this with debt?

Dubai looked like paradise on earth too, then the note came due.

An embarrassing oversight by 60 Minutes.

Who Cares About Trading

Haven't been to an Oilers game in 15 years or so.

We picked the right one to go to.

What a night. :)

Gagner records NHL's first eight-point game since 1989

I Don't Want to Talk About It

In This Corner

And the winner is......Hayek by KO!

In case you missed round 1.