100% completely OT - Trailing stops

geniusintraining said:
If they work and only if they work...I have had stop orders in and lost my a$$, they are not full proof and don't think for one min. that they are, if there is no one to by them you can loose...if you man on the floor is slow you can loose, etc..
Yes, you can lose if trader are slow but more likely because the market closed and the stock fell overnight and opened lower.

Still, except for some extreme cases they work. My example is back in the 80s when TI announced they would stop making their personal computers. The stock dropped from about $160 a share to about $110. I got out a just over $160. Since the stock dropped straight to about $110 I would have been SOL if the stop loss was at $158.

TimothyMoulder said:
Where there is no logic to guide decisions, there must be regulation.
Yes, there is logic. The problem is the average Joe does not have the information on which to make logical decisions. You can bet your a$$ that those that have the info make the big bucks and since it is a zero sum game you are like the newbie and professional ***** player table. Things are happening too fast on the floor to the guys in the pits to do any calculations. He just gets his cut.

The key is that a good economy can make everyone a winner at that is what keeps people playing. If the economy never grew things would be quite different.

I have seen some of the math that traders use to evaluate options, future and stocks. Much of it is brilliant and I take my hat off to those economic majors that can do this math. I understand the math or at least could use it if I had the information to plug into the formulas. The problem is, as an average Joe, I don't have the info to plug into the formulas. Even then there is the emotional factor that makes stocks swing on the short term that the formulas can't handle.

TimothyMoulder said:
Peter - say you could only set a stop-loss order for a loss of 10% value from pervious day's closing. If you're in for a $1000, you stand to lose a $100. Painful, but would it prompt you to choose your investments more carefully?
Yes, but the stock market makes 10% 'corrections' all the time. At least it used to. I think that the economists and traders are using computers to predict the future and keep prices more stable. The computers can take advantage of emotional swings.

Tark, I agree.

Terry, so what am I to do when I want to invest money? Is there something wrong with buying energy stocks or mutual funds?
I agree you that one should be willing to leave their money in a stock for a year or more but I reserve the right to sell at any time. Stuff happens. There should be no minimum holding time.

I see programs offered on TV that computerize day trading with green buy and red sell signals. I wonder how well they work.
 
Terry -

Your statement about the political parties is even more marked tan you might realize. In fact, if you look at the platforms of the parties from a century ago, what you discover is - they've reversed!

A few decades ago, a Democrat congress took our national taxes to record highs and ran up huge deficits funding social programs of dubious value. But today, Bill Clinton balanced the budget and kept the economy strong, whatever you might have thought of his personality.

Almost a century ago, Republican Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to entertain a black guest in the White House, for which southern democrats attacked him with vicious and hateful rhetoric and calls for lynchings.

Today, GWB catches flack (deservedly so) for his political assassination of Colin Powell and for ignoring the Katrina survivors on the rooftops of New Orleans. And Democrats are seen as the party of diversity.

A century ago, Roosevelt founded the park service and instituted coservation law. Today, Republicans are interest in nature only if there is oil beneath it, and democrats are so enamored of the environment, they must be boinking the bears.

Now there I go again - is it possible to hijack your own thread?

TM
 
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TimothyMoulder said:
for ignoring the Katrina survivors on the rooftops of New Orleans.
Where does it say in the constitution that there must be a FEMA and everyone should be bailed out because they are stupid and incompetent? Read the 10th admendment. I will make it easy, I cut and pasted this.

Amendment X - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to he States respectively, or to the people.

CAN YOU READ? DO YOU UNDERSTAND? Most people can read, understand or don't care.

I can't find the words FEMA in the constitution. The powers of FEMA are the responsiblity of the states not the feds.
 
Sorry, but he simpoly doesn't get off the hook that easily.

There are certain rules of conduct that "we hold to be self evident", and while not enshrined in the constitution, (a valuable document, but not holy writ, people) one is, "those with the power to act, must".

Kudos truly belongs to that coast guard commander who started pulling people off roof-tops without anybody's approval, politics be damned.

Sorry Peter, but I'm in the "don't care" column here. He had the power to act. He didn't. He failed miserably.

TM
 
TimothyMoulder said:
"those with the power to act, must"

OK, I'll buy that, it makes sense, but what about all the local officials? Surely they don't get off the hook if you're going to apply the "those with the power to act, must" comment above.

What exactly do you think Bush should have done differently other than have the power to accurately predict the future?

At what point are the people of New Orleans responsible for their own actions or non-actions? They were warned to get out, transportation was provided for them to get out, yet lots of them stayed.

Who has more "power to act", the president of the US sitting in DC with his resources (people & hardware) spread literally across the globe or the governors, mayors, police chiefs, etc in the affected areas?

Also keep in mind that the president's responsibility is the entire nation, not one region, one state, or one city. Each state has an elected person who is responsible for their state, each city has an elected person who is responsible for their city.

I would submit that from the local beat cop all the way up to president of the US that the "power to act" (at least in a timely manner when speaking of natural disaster) is actually reduced as you climb up the political ladder.

A couple of months back we had some fires in this part of the country, it didn't really make any major national headlines, and we sure didn't get much in the way of federal aid, but yet things are already getting back to normal. I don't attribute this to some great actions from GW, nor even from great actions by Rick Perry (TX gov), but to the great actions of the people who live out here. Please understand I'm not trying to say these fires caused anywhere near the destruction of Katrina, but it was still several million acres burned to the ground, many lives lost, and complete utter destruction to many, many, many people's homes and livelihoods.

The point I'm trying to make here is that people need to be responsible for themselves. If you spend all your time waiting for someone to help you then you're just not going to get very far.
 
I'm with Peter on the New Orleans thing.
I see the actions of the elected officials of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana much like a man standing on the railroad tracks and then crying that no one pulled him off before the train hit him. Why not just get off the tracks himself? Because he ASSUMED someone would pull him off, even though he didn't ask to get pulled off in the first place.

You can fault George II for alot of things. But to specifically say that he didn't micromanage this disaster to the appropriate level seems a bit off. You can easily say he didn't put the right people in place up front to take care of it. But to say he personally should have thrown physical resources into the area without forethought would have just made a jumbled situation worse. The die was cast many months before the hurricane. When the disaster happened he didn't have much choice but to ride out the plan in place and hope it was right. In this case the plan wasn't right.

Back to the original point. Who better to know what is needed in an area than the people who live and work there? In these situations one might expect the Federal government to throw money at the situation. But the people in the fight SHOULD be the most qualified to organize the solution.

By the way, nice hijack. This is far enough from the action of the stock market to be a truly impressive leap.

Keith
 
We did it....we took a very (good) non-relating topic and turned it into a (bad) non-relating topic...

Terry you have a excuse you’re a democrat...typical, but the rest...

Can we at least work on the gas/mileage/electric/car thread and get some benefit out of this, I thought that we may get deep into position trading or day trading
 
I'm not sure if we need to regulate everything to protect ourselves from ourselves, however, I do believe there should be some protection from catastrophic collapse, some of which is done by limiting how far the stock market can drop before it is closed for the business day.

The more protection we feel we need, the more the government will gleefully take. I still think it is ridiculous that I am forced by law to wear a seatbelt in my car.

If we are required to hold on to a stock for a year, no matter what bad financial or other news discloses, should I be restricted from purchasing a stock for a year after good news is released? There are investments you can make to remove 99% of the risk (and reward), or you can buy penny stocks, the choice on where you want to play on that spectrum is yours.

My 2 cents on Katrina is it became way too political, way too early. The Dems couldn't afford to have GW standing on a fire engine with a bullhorn, so the finger pointing started before the hurricane even hit land. Could GW have done more? Absolutely. Could Nagin have done more? Absolutely. Could Blanco have done more? Absolutely. Could the people of New Orleans have done more? Absolutely. But here we are 9 months later talking about how the federal government failed, not how it was one of the largest natural disasters ever to hit this country. In 1995 over 700 people died in Chicago as the result of a HEAT WAVE, and we weren't sitting around talking about how the federal government failed us.

The mentality 'The Federal Government Failed Us' will surely result in a newly structured, bigger, better government agency that will take care of us next time. In other words, it will spend more taxpayer money, have more control, and it still won't be able to stop a hurricane.
 
Mark, you are correct that there is plenty of blame to go around. But that still doesn't excuse GW's failure to act.

I live in Florida. We had four hurricanes last year. No private insurance company will insure houses in my county any more - period.

When evacuations are called, I have the option to stay or go. I stayed. Why?

Because leaving is scary. Where do I go? What do I do? Where do I put my dogs? What about my wife's medications? What if we get stranded somewhere?

Now suppose you're a 60-year old woman living alone in a bad part of New Orleans - and you don't own a car.

So don't be too harsh on the citizens. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, has a tendency to freeze when they see the headlights coming at them.

Now, consider the city itself. Local government? What local government? When the city was destroyed, Ray Nagen became the only government they had. What should he have done? Hopped in a boat and started rowing?

The state is a little more culpable. They did drop the ball on this one, and the excuse that New Orleans never asked for help is as phony as it sounds. They did have some power to act, and hopefully in the next election cycle, their legislature will suffer commensurate with their failure.

Now we come to the one person who was far enough removed from the crisis to have an objective view, with the resources of the US armed forces at his disposal, and the power of Executive Order to simply step in and take charge. But he didn't. He treated it like a genocide in a Third-World country, ignoring it and hoping it would go away.

A day's delay might have been understandable. Two might have been forgivable - if Wal-Mart hadn't already been passing out food and water. A week was criminally culpable.

Sorry again, but there is no way to get GW off the hook on this. This was a moment that demanded someone step up and take the role of the hero. He failed utterly.

The sad part is, I personally don't think the man has the sense to be ashamed of himself.

TM
 
Okay, we agree on this one thing - it is possible to hijack your own thread :)

That said -

>>I have seen some of the math that traders use to evaluate options, future and stocks. Much of it is brilliant and I take my hat off to those economic majors that can do this math. I understand the math or at least could use it if I had the information to plug into the formulas. The problem is, as an average Joe, I don't have the info to plug into the formulas. Even then there is the emotional factor that makes stocks swing on the short term that the formulas can't handle.<<

I guess what I'm driving at is, we need to reduce some of this irrgeularity. When someone above said, "If the stock does well, should I have to wait a year to buy it?", the answer is, no. But if you do buy it, you have to be prepared to stick it out a while, and not cash in 48 hours later.

My company stock does a strange thing. We're doing very well here, and every quarter for several years we've had tremendous gains. We're healthy and strong.

Yet as soon as our quarterly report comes out, our stock price DROPS! Why? Because it's driven by demand, the speculators have made their 2-4k on the deal, and they cash out.

It's irrational and irresponsible, and we need a measure to curb it.

TM
 
TimothyMoulder said:
I live in Florida. We had four hurricanes last year. No private insurance company will insure houses in my county any more - period.

When evacuations are called, I have the option to stay or go. I stayed. Why?

Because leaving is scary.
That's all fine and dandy, but please realize that you are making a choice to live where you can't insure your house; if your house is destroyed in a storm please don't expect me to pay for your choice.

By the same token I understand that leaving is scary, but so is staying. Again you are making a choice, be it a good choice or a bad choice is always something for hind-sight. I am more than willing to help where I can, but don't expect me to fix a problem that arises from your choices, be prepaid to live with your choices.

TimothyMoulder said:
Local government? What local government? When the city was destroyed, Ray Nagen became the only government they had. What should he have done? Hopped in a boat and started rowing?
How about starting pulling citizens out before the storm hit? How about your first communication after the storm being "Please HELP" instead of "Its not my fault"...

TimothyMoulder said:
The state is a little more culpable. They did drop the ball on this one, and the excuse that New Orleans never asked for help is as phony as it sounds.
We almost agree here, the state is culpable, but not "a little more", they are a whole heck of a lot more culpable... Its their state!

TimothyMoulder said:
Now we come to the one person who was far enough removed from the crisis to have an objective view, with the resources of the US armed forces at his disposal, and the power of Executive Order to simply step in and take charge.
I'm going to claim ignorance a bit and ask a question that directly relates... What resources did GW have available and under normal training type circumstances how long does it take to assemble and move those resources from where they are to where they need to be?
 
Hi Mark,

>>That's all fine and dandy, but please realize that you are making a choice to live where you can't insure your house; if your house is destroyed in a storm please don't expect me to pay for your choice.<<

In fact, I do have insurance, but it's socialized - Citizens is the insurer of last resort, backed by the Florida government and our tax dollars. It's a necessary evil - banks won't mortgage homes that aren't insured, but insurance companies won't cover florida homes any more. Citizens was created to prevent the housing market from collapsing altogether.

Interestingly enough, legislation began getting processed when our state senator found out HIS insurance company was dropping him, and he was going to have to get Citizens - comparable coverage at double the price.

But that's a Florida issue. As for bailing my butt out, I am insured, but if I did wind up on a rooftop for any reason, I'd still hope someone would happen by with a boat. So would you.

>>How about starting pulling citizens out before the storm hit? How about your first communication after the storm being "Please HELP" instead of "Its not my fault"...<<

Last year, one of the storms was supposed to come waltzing straight up Tampa Bay. It was predicted we'd have a twenty-foot wall of water roaring right up Kennedy Blvd in downtown. And lots of people left.

Then the storm took a sudden veer eastward and clobbered our southen neighbors. They didn't evacuate - it wasn't supposed to hit them. Alot of people died.

When dealing with these things, it's a complete ****-shoot. Tampa was less than 24 hours from promised destruction before we were spared. Alot of Orleanians were hoping for the same, but they were wrong.

>>We almost agree here, the state is culpable, but not "a little more", they are a whole heck of a lot more culpable... Its their state!<<

My position remains the same.

>>I'm going to claim ignorance a bit and ask a question that directly relates... What resources did GW have available and under normal training type circumstances how long does it take to assemble and move those resources from where they are to where they need to be?<<

The armed forces. We had military rescue to the tidal wave victims in Sri Lanka quicker than we were picking survivors off rooftops in New Orleans. How asinine is that?

TM
 
TimothyMoulder said:
Sorry, but he simpoly doesn't get off the hook that easily.

There are certain rules of conduct that "we hold to be self evident", and while not enshrined in the constitution, (a valuable document, but not holy writ, people) one is, "those with the power to act, must".

Kudos truly belongs to that coast guard commander who started pulling people off roof-tops without anybody's approval, politics be damned.

Sorry Peter, but I'm in the "don't care" column here. He had the power to act. He didn't. He failed miserably.

TM
I do not understand how we went from stocks to FEMA and really do not understand the comments about the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard has standing orders that involves Search and Rescue, if there is a known situation they will be doing something.

WHO had the power to act and failed? FEMA has been dealing with disaster situations for many years, they are a "response" unit developed to assist state and local governments to try and restore what was. It is not an army and does not have the authority to arbitraily take charge within any state without the express request of the Governor of that State, which at no point was given after Katrina in the State of Louisiana.

When Katrina hit I volunteered to deliver supplies to the coast. Mississippi suffered to a great extent too but the Governor and local authorities were prepared and handled the situation as well as they could.

New Orleans is pretty much surrounded by water anyway, the authorities in Louisiana etc knew the levies had weaknesses, knew the approximate size of the hurricaine, and when/where, approximately, it was going to hit. They waited till the last minute to issue an evacuation order, did not prepare to assist for the evacuation...technically all they did was wait till the storm was over and start crying the FEDS have done nothing.

I have listened to people constantly talk about FEMA, the feds etc not doing anything. I was there, there were supplies but NO was pretty much inacessible from the north and east. FEMA can obtain and supply things like water, blankets, and some food stuffs but the STATE must also be capable of organizing a way to dispense the supplies to the people that need it.

As for STOCKS etc we are suppose to be a Capitalist and democratic nation. Many of the thoughts and concepts presented in this thread are of a socialistic nature.

In the capitalist concept you have the right to invest your time and money in your own way. Personally I do not think that the "joe blows" could affect stock "drifts" enough to make a difference.

What is being proposed is attach socialistic rules upon a capitalist system i.e. I will invest my money but I want guarantees that I can not lose my money.

Terry mentions "We the People" which is what made the US a great nation. We the People were involved in many things but alas that is no longer true. We have become a nation of "I" as in I want. We use schools as day care and do not care if the kids learn anything or worry about who it is that teaches them. It is "I want to make more money but do less" or "I want to have the same money that others have, why should they make more then me"?

It was stated "I don't care", that is the main problem, noone cares about their children, the country, the future, they just want everything for "I" in the NOW.
 
Popular Mechanics did an interesting piece on Katrina, with a quote below.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2315076.html?page=1&c=y

MYTH: "The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history."--Aaron Broussard, president, Jefferson Parish, La., Meet the Press, NBC, Sept. 4, 2005


REALITY: Bumbling by top disaster-management officials fueled a perception of general inaction, one that was compounded by impassioned news anchors. In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall.

Dozens of National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters flew rescue operations that first day--some just 2 hours after Katrina hit the coast. Hoistless Army helicopters improvised rescues, carefully hovering on rooftops to pick up survivors. On the ground, "guardsmen had to chop their way through, moving trees and recreating roadways," says Jack Harrison of the National Guard. By the end of the week, 50,000 National Guard troops in the Gulf Coast region had saved 17,000 people; 4000 Coast Guard personnel saved more than 33,000....

There, I'm done. Back to PLC's and perpetual motion vehicles.
 
We are each responsible for ourselves. I cringe at the number of US citizens that now expect the government to take care of them from cradle to grave, even to protect them from natural disasters.

In my youth, most people expected to endure storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes, but they did not expect to be able to blame their misfortunes on the government!

For you youngsters, what do you think people did, back before FEMA was created? The answer is that they did the same as they have to do NOW when the chips are down: they took care of their own. In the worst cases, no government, no agency, no organization, can protect you. You must plan for, provide for, and carry out your own protection as best you can.

There is a lot of ignorance about the stock market. It is NOT a "zero-sum game". You are confusing the stock market with the commodities market, where for every winner there is a loser. That is NOT true for the stock market. The time period for "Long-Term" capital gains has been changed many times over the years, from 6 months up to 18 months.
 

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