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I had the same failure in IB datafeed for charts earlier on - Owntrade told me the HMDS server wasn't connecting. Now it charts fine, but I'm getting a strange problem - some of the backfill is missing! I just fired up a 5 minute bar chart for the australian SPI contract, and it has the...

Actually there is a good explanation why so many lottery winners have trouble holding on to their money. Lotteries are strongly negative expectation (state vig is like 30 to 45%). So only two kinds of people buy lotteries Those who 1) have no interest in finding out how much...

You are all missing the biggest point of all. Lottery is a state tax on the numerically challenged. The vig on the lottery will make a Las Vegas casino blush. It will put the dog track and the horse track to shame. It's state monopolized gambling with the worse possible odds. The real...

I've mentioned it before, rising global temperatures have caused a re-selection in flies. Those better adapted for higher temperatures are winning out over those adapted for lower temperatures, so if you think of each genetic strain as a tribe - it's a new tribe taking over as top dog...

The UK successfully got all its sailors back without any possibility of war, hurray. Their reward for this endeavour is to put the world on alert that Britons are now on the "capture and release" species list for the next hunting season. Although Iran got some PR out of it, I think the...

I thought thats why we have markets for - the price mechanism is tells us (mostly true) stories of the world. If bees are dropping like flies and we can't come up with an alternative way to get plants to have sex, then the price of watermelons should creep up. (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AA091)...

Ironically the reverse may be the case. With the S&P 500, replicators often do not buy and sell all 500 stocks. Instead they might buy and sell a basket of stocks that is less than 500 but tracks the 500 closely enough within risk tolerances. This reduces friction costs(increases profits) and...

Thanks to "crusading" do gooders looking to protect the public, another valuable piece of infomation about the way things work is whitewashed from the annals of history. And one wonders why the general public always knows so much less than it should. Let's just keep feeding the public the...

Cramer might be many things, but he is no dummy. I'm pretty sure he would have done his homework on the relevant Statute of Limitations before opening his mouth. I would expect he has finessed the culpability/juicy tidbit sharing borderline. People at that level usually think a few steps...

Look, we want markets to be as fair as possible, so once in a while (usually after a bust when politicians get out their lynch mob gear) we pass laws to require players in the market to play fair. Most of these laws are great in the sense that they are good for the market's long term dynamism...

OK, first a little history. Most stock markets of countries in the developed world have over the past 100 years gone up. In the less developed world circa 1900 stock markets in a handful of countries have gone to zero (either by losing wars or adopting communism), most have gone up...

Lots of people who trade have encountered this I think ... the "going broke" trade turns up in a lot of the Wizard books. Soros had the benefit of seeing survival skills at work in Hungary and he has talked about the sensation of losing a great deal of money in his personal trading while...

The science behind "global warming" is non-conclusive ....... that's why the environmentalists keep reminding all of us that there is a "consensus". If something is a fact, you don't need a consensus. We don't go around saying there is a scientific consensus that the sun will rise tomorrow or...

Nitro getting people to do his work for him is what's really clever :)

Be interesting to see which funds have suffered a rout. Jim Roger's prediction of more blow ups is a safe bet. What we've had over the past 6 years is many more hedge funds. More hedge funds = more hedge fund blow ups, systemic risk notwithstanding.

The nice thing about the market is that it's a place where you get rewarded for casting a correct vote about the future. If you believe what you say so strongly, then just short credits up the wazoo. You don't need anyones applause and approval, just back up the truck when you're done.

The "so expensive" Tokyo that everyone has on their minds is also an outdated impression. Rents, meals and real estate in Tokyo are now all extremely reasonable. Japan has gone almost full circle, from being one of the most expensive countries in the world - where the land on which the...

Is there any way to use a Tradestation front end to execute trades on European and Asian futures like the DAX and the N225? I've become quite used to the ease of use of the charts and the alerts you can put into Tradestation - however they don't execute in the DAX and N225. I've been...

A nice project would be to show how simple binomial trees can come up with good estimates for the price of short maturity options on stocks. You don't need anything more than the math necessary to figure out coin flips. Simple, effective and practical.

Thanks for the kudos, Cutten. One other book I would like to mention is the work put out by Gavekal Research, which reminded me that economics is still a field of study in the making. Economic thought has changed so much over the years, and we should expect that in 20 years (ie one...