Lithium (again)

Last Fall I got interested in Lithium stocks. This one in particular. I even bought a few shares, realizing it'd take a while for gains to materialize. Indeed, the stock has dropped from $2.19 (when I bought some) to $1.38. SO I was delighted to see that somebody has raised their price target to $4.40. Now I'm happy.

 

Silly Pic

See my new avatar? Lori insisted I use this ridiculous photo ... and I always do what I'm told.

 

Next month

Yesterday, one of my favourite stocks closed at $6.12. It's up about 20% in the past week. I can't wait to see what happens next. When I get that feeling, I whip out one of my spreadsheets. It's the one that comes with a money-back guarantee. It'll tell me what happens next ... over the next month: Did I mention the money-back guarantee? For looking deeper into future, this is handy: For I dipp'd into the future Far as human eye could see Saw coal stocks on the rise A portfolio full with glee.

 

Up X%

After returning from our week in Mexico, I was surprised to find that one of my coal stocks increased by 20% during the week. So I whip out a spreadsheet and count the number of times (over the past year) that one of them thar penny stocks increased by 10%, 15%, 20% ... in a week. Does that happen often? (Click to enlarge the chart.) Note that WTN and GCE are right up there! 'course, they may very well decrease by 15%, too ... right? So I check that. GCE did decrease by 15% (or more) about 2% of the time (over the past year). WTN never did. Maybe it's more frequent with penny stocks, eh? For DOW stocks, only AIG had a weekly decrease of 15%. How about increasing by 15%? (Click to enlarge the chart.) Fascinating ... Wanna play? click!

 

in Mexico, eh?

We got us Internet access in the villa, so ... Mexican Diary

 

Playa del Carmen

Guess where we'll be? March 20-27.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Surprise

On March 6, a day after Heidi & I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary, there was a small dinner planned ... just a few, at a nice restaurant. Heidi & I arrived, expecting about six people. There were thirty-six! Heidi's reaction ?

 

East Side Story

I read the latest U.N. missive re Israel and East Jerusalem. I stare intently at this map. I wonder where Israel plans to build. Where is Ramat Shlomo? Is it in the Green Zone, which (for decades) has been set aside for environmental and recreational purposes? Is it in the Green Zone, where (for decades) Palestinian construction has been denied? Is it in the Green Zone, where (for decades) Palestinian homes have been torn down? Click on the map to enlarge. What do the Palestinians say - in print? What do the Israelis say - in print? I don't understand ...

 

Gurus

I enjoy articles/books where the guru says he's got the perfect scheme for making money. I was thinking of doing likewise. The magic scheme? Put a BUY order 1% below the Open when the stock opens lower. (You may or may not get the stock ... depends upon how low is Low.) Put a SELL order 3% above the Open when the stock opens higher. (You may or may not sell the stock ... depends upon how high is High.) Recognize the scheme? We talked about it in the last few posts. Then (in my book) I show you as neat chart: See? The scheme almost doubled your money in a single year! Then you buy my book and change things a mite and get this: or mebbe this: But I sold a copy of my book, right? Wanna play? ------------------------------------------ As Danyon noted, Bernie bought my book:

 

Opening UP

I was staring at that Opening DOWN spreadsheet and felt uneasy about the lack of symmetry, so I added a 2-way switch* so I could get Opening UP as well. For example: Now I'm happy. * I know! I know! It's called a radio button. However, after polling 1000 visitors I find that 99 44/100 % understand "2-way switch" whereas only 47% understand "radio button". This poll had a margin of error of 3.1% at the 95% confidence level.

 

BLOGs is nice

For years (and years) I stuck things on gummy-stuff whenever I thought others may be interested. There, I talked only to my sidekick. >Hey!That's me! Visitors to gummy-stuff were bystanders, listening to the banter. The neat thing about a BLOG? I'm talking to visitors! Another neat thing is that I can test some spreadsheet here before I stick it on my web site. Now THAT is cool!

 

Opening DOWN

Yesterday I bought some stock at the Open (which was a drop from the previous day's Close) and (surprise!) that turned out to be the Low for the day. So I lay in bed thinking: Does that happen often? If the Open is down from the previous Close, can we expect a further decrease from Open to Close? How much of an additional drop will there be ... on average? If I buy at the Open (after a drop), should I have waited for an additional drop? What if ... ? Anyway, to make a long story short(er), I hopped out of bed and whipped out an Excel spreadsheet. I downloaded 10 years worth of daily price data. I identified days where the stock Opened down. I checked out the subsequent Low for the day. I plotted average decrease: Open-to-Low versus Previous Close-to-Open. I stared intently at the chart, expecting to see something exciting. Not too exciting ... so I went back to bed. Wanna play? Click! Alas, when stocks split, the change from previous Close to Open can be screwy *$%#@!? Here are a few more: Huh? Is that "additional" drop, Open to Close, (almost) always close to 1.0%-1.5%? ------------------------------------ I should mention that them percentages are: (previousClose - Open)/previousClose and (Open - Low)/Open so they come out as (positive) "drops". ------------------------------------ I also noted that, sometimes, the larger the drop the larger the drop: ------------------------------------ P.S. Because of nico's remark, I now count the numbers: and I even got me a tutorial, too.

 

Good bye Suzie

Pets: Devoted, helpless, trusting, fragile. No malice, no anger and no guile. How can we not cry for just a while. --------------------------------------------- Sandy is now numero uno

 

Gender equality!

Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for All

 

50 years

Last night was a special night. Our kids had organized a very small dinner at a fabulous restaurant to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Heidi & I showed up and found dozens of friends and relatives had been invited ... hosted by our four children ... and Jay. In addition to a thousand pictures (or more) that decorated the reserved room at the restaurant and a "bingo" game that involved questions about our lives, there was - can I call it a congratulatory "diploma"? - from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Did I mention all the people who were there? I think most of these guys came ... including some who flew in from Boston, New York, Bermuda and Japan !! Mamma mia!

Sexist language

After a few years as Chairman of the Applied Math Dept. at U of Waterloo, they changed the name to "Chairperson". That was a good idea. Now, the "powers that be" were thinking of changing the words of the Canadian National Anthem. It now includes the phrase In all thy sons command. That's sexist, right? How about In all thy sons and daughters command? And while were at it, we should consider these changes: Fatherland to PersonLand Mankind to Personkind. Manpower to Personpower Freshman to Freshperson Statesman to Statesperson Human to Huperson and maybe manual to man-amd-woman-ual. And how about mail? It even sounds sexist, right? I understand, too, that referring to the great painters of the past as Old Masters is sexist. When Canada went metric, I assumed that mileage would change to ... uh ... kilometre-age. Fortunately (for me, at least), we still talk of "mileage". I guess I'm just too old for this newSpeak.

Where's the snow

We have two kids and six grand kids living in Texas. They write to tell us of all the snow they have down there. I write back to say that, here in the Great White North, we hardly got any. From our balcony by the Lake, we can see Toronto (and the CN Tower)... but little of the white stuff: Now that's proof-positive of Global Warming, eh? At least up here. I had e-mail from a fella in Israel who said: "Snow in Texas and none in Canada? Crazy world." My sentiments exactly!

 

Delayed correlations

Once upon a time I looked at pairs of stocks that moved in a similar manner. That is, they tended to move up and/or down together. For example sister stocks and pairs trading. Recently, I've become more interested in a stock ABC that moves ahead of stock XYZ. That is, ABC reacts to market forces (I love that phrase!) before XYZ. Then, when ABC moves, look carefully at ABC. So I have this spreadsheet that downloads daily prices for a couple of stocks and calculates the correlation ... with one of the stock prices shifted by a day or three. One might expect that many pairs move together. When the price of gold goes up (down), you'd expect gold stocks to go up (down) together, without delay. Goldcorp and Barrick Gold, for instance: I play and play but can't find no neat pairs ... yet! Wanna play?

 

2010 Gold Rush

USA Today poll: Click to see latest poll numbers I can hardly wait for this: