I went to the local produce market, and locally-picked fresh strawberries are now at $2.69/pound! (locally picked Raspberries were about $4.50/pound, but that is another story). So strawberries increased 35% over the magnitude of a few days. Do produce sellers select day-to-day prices out of a hat or something, or is this just a reflection of high demand for local strawberries?
There has been whispers of class action lawsuits on companies that have been serving high-fat foods. In particular, a lawsuit against McDonalds was attempted but thrown out in court a couple years ago. Thirty years ago, a similar story happened with tobacco lawsuits – the initial volley failed, but the lawyers tried, tried and tried again with slightly different arguments and turned tobacco effectively into a state-owned tax collection machine (after the lawyers got their cut).
Now lawyers are looking to take Starbucks to court on the basis that their drinks “are too fatty”. One of the comments was the following:
They would like Starbucks to list nutrition information — which is currently available online and in store brochures — on its menu boards.
The group knows this is a completely unreasonable demand and so when Starbucks naturally says “no” to it, they can point out that Starbucks is “an evil corporation that corrupts the veins of its very own customers”.
I really think people like the ones that are trying to take places like McDonalds and Starbucks to court really should mind their own business and let people decide whether that Big Mac or latte is appropriate for themselves. They will sue everything around them to ensure that you are only exposed to what they and they only consider to be a “perfectly healthy lifestyle”. Already the threat of lawsuits has forced these corporations to change which I find to be pretty sad since I rather like the high calorie counts embedded in these establishments. If I want something nutritious, I whip out the vegetables and start chopping.
Keep in mind this is has nothing to do with nutrition, just like how anti-tobacco lawsuits had nothing to do with public health – it’s all about money and money alone. Suing corporations with healthy profit margins is a lot easier than actually going out there and running your own business that actually provides value to society.
I think I’m going to get a high-sugar, high-fat Frap tonight before it becomes a regulated drug delivery device. The sad reality is that the implied cost of future lawsuits is already built into the price of the product – we all pay a little fraction extra for our Big Macs and lattes as a form of risk premium that these companies face to do business.
The bond market has been a wild party over the past two months and I haven’t made any bond trades in the time period, mainly because my potential edge hasn’t been large enough for my comfort. Today, however, presents an opportunity on the long side as it appears that long term interest rates will be falling. In my usual scalping efforts comes another high probability play which will unfold in real-time. I also don’t like holding over the weekend, but it appears it is necessary to realize the gain out of this upcoming trade:
My expectation is that my exit price is too low, but I’m keeping to the disciplined program of a 3:2 risk-reward situation.
Fresh locally picked strawberries are now $1.99 per pound at Kin’s Farm Market. It’s good to see that they sell better than the California crap (which sell for $2.69/pound). I have no qualms supporting our local farmers, especially when they can provide superior produce at a smaller price point.
The BC Poly Blog has been writing some interesting (and sometimes amusing) articles. Although their tone is very tongue-in-cheek and very anti-NDP, bias does not necessarily remove the truth in statements. With respect to the upcoming provincial NDP leadership race, I think the poly is dead-on accurate with his analysis. Farnsworth and Corrigan would both be significant rivals to the BC Liberals in the 2009 election.
I still stand by my previous analysis I made in February, 2005 when I stated the following:
The real question, however, is how many seats the NDP can capture in this election campaign. Their campaign must be optimized towards winning at least 25 seats in the Legislature – anything more would be gravy. They will then have four years to rebuild the party and be in a decent position to take the election of 2009 if the BC Liberals screw up. You can be sure that Gordon Campbell will still be running the show for that election. Although Carole James is a shoe-in to win her seat, she will stand zero chance of being the opposition party leader for those four years – she’ll step down for “personal reasons” sometime in 2007. She’ll likely receive a plush government job if the NDP wins in 2009.
So we have the NDP checklist – 25 seats in the legislature? Yup. James gone as party leader? Check that in a year… the last ingredient necessary is a BC Liberal screw-up, which remains to be seen. Campbell has been running a very sharp administration (much sharper that he’s had 5 years to polish his style), but somebody like Farnsworth or Corrigan is going to make him paranoid with respect to what happened to him in the 1996 election. The BC Liberals can be thankful that it is unlikely that there will be a credible right-wing party to split the BC Liberal vote in the upcoming 2009 election.
As usual, I think the barometer issue will be the economy. As long as the economy is in decent shape in 2009, that should be sufficient for the BC Liberals to win the next election. However, if we see the resource market decline along with the construction industry, seen with an increase in the unemployment rate, the BC Liberals could be in bad shape in three years.
Freshly picked strawberries from Richmond, BC are currently trading… err, selling at $2.49/pound at the local farm market. I took the plunge and they taste substantially better than the crap that gets shipped from California. Strawberry sundaes, here we come!
The only trick is that you’ve got to eat them within a day or two since they will get mouldy in a short period of time compared to other fruits.
Right now is a rather turbulent point in the markets and it is important to step back and see what’s happening. Implied volatility of the S&P 500 has risen considerably over the past month:
What this means is that option markets are more uncertain as to the magnitude of future price changes. Note that volatility could mean in either direction (up or down), but typically markets inch up, but melt down.
The other chief observation is that gold has been heavily sold off over the same time period:
This is unusual since it is rare to see these two charts anti-correlated. Typically when markets are volatile, people typically shift demand to gold since it is presumably a stable store of value. Not this time – as volatility increases, people are pushing their supply into the marketplace, causing the price of gold to drop.
I’m not sure what this all means, but I am watching things closely. There’s unusual activity going on right now and this usually means opportunities in terms of getting good prices. I would certainly avoid gold or anything directly correlated to the fortunes of natural resources or real estate as I think their goose is pretty much cooked at this point.
South Korea beat Togo in today’s World Cup game, and the market subsequently sent their odds to win the World Cup up from 0.3% to 0.5%. While this incredible upsurge in South Korea’s value isn’t quite enough for my retirement, it has boosted my morale somewhat despite the fact that they were favoured to win (50% chance to win, 30% chance to tie).
Since France and Switzerland tied (which was a minor surprise since France was favoured to win the game at 58%), this means if South Korea can beat one of Switzerland or France they can automatically advance to the next round.
Tomorrow Ukraine vs. Spain should be an interesting game. I had an open order on Ukraine to win the World Cup, but it was not filled at my desired price. Currently I only have a financial interest in South Korea.
The USA got slaughtered by the Czechs and I managed to dump my “USA to win the World Cup” contracts for 0.9%, which is 0.1% more than what I bought them for. When you factor in liquidity fees, it made for a net loss of $1. I additionally had a bet which was filled before the USA vs. Czech game that there would be more than 2.5 goals scored in the game. I received 41% and I sold the bet for 66% in-game (I wanted to liquidate the bet to limit my risk). This resulted in a net profit of $4.92 which includes the $0.08 liquidity fee.
A summary of the betting (gambling) so far:
Loss on Poland: -$5
Loss on the USA: -$1
Gain on 2.5 goals scored: +$4.92
Total so far of all betting: -$0.08
Time wasted: More than the 8 cents I’ve lost so far.
Remaining so far is the South Korea to win the World Cup bet and any other strategic opportunities I can identify between now and the final. I won’t be pulling out my hair and as usual will be keeping things micro-sized considering my (in)competence displayed so far.
I actually had open orders on three countries for the World Cup. When I wrote my previous post about having money on USA and Poland, those two orders were filled, but nobody had filled in my order for the third country. Now that Poland has effectively been eliminated from the tournament (barring a major upset against Germany), I thought this would only leave one country for me to root for during the tournament.
Now I received some emails saying that my third country’s order has now been filled… and that country is South Korea! I believe they have the strongest team out of all the East Asian countries, including Japan. They had an impressive showing in the 2002 World Cup, perhaps because of having home field advantage, but I think it takes more than home field advantage to win the tournament. They could make the top 8, we’ll see. Their current division of 4 is France, Switzerland, and Togo, which are not three overpowering teams. You can actually bet on whether they will qualify directly, and the market has their probability of doing this at 36%.
The price I received on the South Korea to win the World Cup was a probability of 0.3%, which means that I spent $3 for a potential gain of $996 if South Korea does win the World Cup, and a risk down of -$4 if they don’t win the World Cup. Of course, I don’t intend to hold this bet until the end of the World Cup – I have a liquidation strategy as the team makes it through successive rounds (it’s not terribly complicated – sell 1/3rd if they advance to the top 16, 8 and 4, respectively).
I should also give you the warning that all of these bets are pure gambling. Some people like to put a few bucks on the 6/49 or the Super 7, I like to do it on things that involve just a little more brainpower. But still, I make no promises that any of the research that I’ve done here is something that other people haven’t done already. My information is most certainly not better than what is necessary to beat the market, but putting a few bucks (literally) on the line makes it a little more entertaining. If I actually win a pizza or two out of it, all the better. I write about it not to brag if I win or pout if I lose, but rather because it’s interesting to write about it!
My investment methodologies are much more stringent when dealing with anything above 10 dollars.