Moomin Valley

Personal Finance, Investing, and Economics

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Optimally Using Multiple Indicators

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I've tried estimating a single model for both the NDX and SPX. The rationale was that taking itno account the correlation between the in...
Friday, October 26, 2007

Sold Half My IBKR

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In after hours following the earnings release. I've long wanted to reduce my position for a decent price. I may buy back later if the pr...
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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Trading Update and Travel Finance

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Fifteen minutes is a tricky thing. It caused me to miss Apple's spectacular post earnings rise yesterday. But I still captured some of ...
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Monday, October 22, 2007

Fifteen Minutes

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Not of fame but of volatility. Something that I am gradually (and painfully) learning is it often pays to wait 15 minutes after news is anno...
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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Choosing a Superannuation Asset Allocation

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I checked out the "product disclosure statement" a.k.a. prospectus for Snork Maiden's superannuation fund a.k.a retirement ac...

Payment Difficulties

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We got our Australian credit cards (credit limit $A3,000) and immediately put $A1,550 of the outstanding balance for the car onto it. We nee...
Friday, October 19, 2007

Biggest Purchase Ever

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After some more to-ing and fro-ing and a couple of car inspections we bought the red car . It was either that one or the next model up from ...
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Pro Forma Earnings :(

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I got messed up by this again today. I decided to play the Google earnings announcement. Up pops the EPS number on the Dow Jones newswire: $...
Thursday, October 18, 2007

Couple of Trades

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Did an NQ trade tonight (Wednesday morning in the US) that got back what I lost last Friday. This was an "overnight trade" though ...
Wednesday, October 17, 2007

More Test Driving

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Today, Snork Maiden got to drive a Holden Commodore (employer's car), a Ford Taurus (1997 model), a Holden Vectra, and a Ford Falcon (20...
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Trading Strategies

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I'm putting together a suite of several different trading strategies. Diversification is good as it leads to more stable returns. Here a...
1 comment:
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Accounting for a Car

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I've been thinking some more about how to account for a car in net worth and spending following my discussion with commenters on this po...
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The Secret of Technical Analysis

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I understand technical analysis to be any method that attempts to predict market moves based on past price and volume action rather than fun...
Sunday, October 14, 2007

Test Drive

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We almost bought this car. As I write we have a 24 hour deposit on it. But after reviewing lots of websites we decided against it. We were ...
Saturday, October 13, 2007

Made a Trade

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And promptly lost. But everything wasn't bad about this trade. The model was short and I went short. I waited for the index to rise to w...
Friday, October 12, 2007

Can't Pull the Trigger

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Or press the button, or whatever. I've been tracking the market closely for a few days now, keeping the model updated etc. Last night in...
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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Buying a Car?

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Looks like some of the cash I discussed yesterday will go towards buying a car. We've been debating how much needs to be spent on a car....
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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Allocating Cash

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We are about to receive a refund from Snork Maiden's employer of moving expenses. They've agreed to pay more than originally propose...
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Monday, October 08, 2007

I Didn't Hear it on the Grapevine

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This morning I couldn't access the internet at all. After playing with all kinds of hardware and software settings for maybe an hour I p...
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Thursday, October 04, 2007

September 2007 Report

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All figures are in US Dollars (USD) unless otherwise stated. This month saw very positive investment performance in USD terms, due to the sh...
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

A More Realistic PPP for Australia

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PPP means purchasing power parity. At least that's what it means in economics. There are the regular market based exchange rates between...
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Monday, October 01, 2007

Two Weeks in Australia

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We've been here more than two weeks now and the frenzied phase of getting a household set up is winding down. We returned the hired car ...
Friday, September 28, 2007

Dot AU

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We got into our apartment today, spent a huge amount of money on appliances, furniture, etc. and got the phone and internet running. The las...
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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Do You Have a Chequebook?

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Met up with a second friend (T) last night. He brought with him all my mail - I've been using his address as my address in Australia unt...
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Follow Up

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My friend sent me an e-mail today. He starts: "this isn't meant to put any more pressure on you".... "but we have a tempo...
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Get a Job

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Yesterday lunchtime, we met with one of my friends here at the "Labor Club". In the "old days" we used to hang out at th...
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Monday, September 24, 2007

Beginning to Relax

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After the first week here we are beginning to be able to relax a little. We saw Parliament House, Floriade (and annual Spring flower festiv...
Sunday, September 23, 2007

Optimism and Pessimism About Finances

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It is easy to be optimistic about your financial situation when you are looking at projections of future finances. Well, as long as that is ...
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Saturday, September 22, 2007

Friday

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We got all our utilities ordered, though to actually get phone/internet service a guy needs to come out to the unit. Likely we won't hav...
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Friday, September 21, 2007

Rented Apartment Moving On To Next Steps

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We signed the lease on an apartment yesterday but can't move in till next Friday. They approved our application without even apparently ...
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Not Very Frugal

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We looked at 4 apartments today ranging in rent from $A290 to $A450 per week. We only looked at the $A290 one to see what you could get for ...
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Monday, September 17, 2007

Househunting

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Today we saw one apartment and one house. The apartment was in a brand new luxury building. Rent $A450 per week ($US1666 per month). It was ...
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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road

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We rented a car to help with our first week of looking for somewhere to live. Snork Maiden's first experience of driving on the lefthand...
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An Economist From Birth

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Once I told my father's cousin-in-law (is there such a relationship?) in Israel that I liked to visit stores when I travel and see what ...
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Terra Australis Incognita

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For me it is a very familiar country. But Snork Maiden hasn't been here before. Both of us have done this before - move to a country on ...
Thursday, September 13, 2007

New Beginning

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Today is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. It is traditionally the day the world was created. I know this is far from a traditional way to ...
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Back To Square One

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At least I can say I followed the model today more or less. But I still lost money. Looking back at the last 2 1/2 months I lost $3140 in Ju...
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Snork Maiden Got Her Visa!

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Everything is ready, only final preparations to go. Now I feel like the countdown for one of those moon or shuttle missions is on :)
Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Symbion Health - Healthscope Merger Scheme Defeated

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This evening (US time still) was the shareholder meeting to approve, or as it turns out reject the Symbion Health-Healthscope merger scheme ...

Last Minute Craziness

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Snork Maiden got the e-mail this morning granting her Australia visa. But it said that the visa needs to be "evidenced" at the Aus...
Saturday, September 08, 2007

Weekly Trading Report and Goals

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This isn't a regular feature of any sort, just an update on my trading one week into the month. The model is still short but I closed al...
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Friday, September 07, 2007

Another Great Bear Picture

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Thursday, September 06, 2007

Stock Market Participants' Returns are Lower than Index Returns

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Just read a very interesting paper in the American Economic Review ( here is an earlier version). The author demonstrates that the average ...
Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Bears in the Road

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Poor bears . I'm still suffering from bearish wishful thinking.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007

The Rich Have Capital Gains the Middle Class Capital Losses

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This table which I derived from a spreadsheet I downloaded from the IRS website * contains stunning data. You have probably heard that most ...
6 comments:

August 2007 Report

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All figures are in US Dollars unless otherwise stated. This month again saw negative investment performance in USD terms, though this was d...
Monday, September 03, 2007

Retirement Account Beneficiaries

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Here's a more serious post :) Following on from the "merger" I am updating the beneficiaries on my retirement accounts. This ...
Saturday, September 01, 2007

Merger of Moomin Valley and Snorkdale

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The merger of Moomin Valley and Snorkdale was announced today. In a stock for stock transaction, Moomin Valley, as the larger of the two ent...
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Congratulations to Snork Maiden a.k.a Dr Yoyo!

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Snork Maiden a.k.a. Yoyo successfully defended her PhD dissertation on Friday. You can read all about it here .
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Trading Report for August

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I gained $1028 in trading in my US accounts. That's 5.6% of the capital allocated to trading. The month started well and then things go...
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Thursday, August 30, 2007

New Computer, Google Analytics, Market Direction

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The finance person in my former department told me yesterday they want my laptop back (not sure what they plan on doing with a Mac laptop in...
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Covered Real Estate Shorts

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Kept the Beazer puts though. Thought about putting a hedge on the US portfolio (BRKB, FLIP, HCBK, IBKR, NCT, RICK, SAFT) for the rest of the...
Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Golden Bear Day

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Today was a great day for being a bear. However, I closed all my index shorts towards the end of the day. The market closed at the low of th...
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About Me

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mOOm
I'm an economist and an active investor and currently live in Australia. I'm a global investor though I focus on investments in the Anglophone world and particularly in Australia. This blog tracks investment performance and discusses personal finance, investing, and trading from an economic perspective. In the picture, Moomin is looking for treasure.
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