Moomin Valley

Finally today I got the key to my office and Snork Maiden and I moved some of my books and files in there this evening. My computer should b...

Continuing the http://moominhouse.blogspot.com/2009/03/2006-7-income-and-tax-for-act-and.html">series on income and tax in the ACT a...

Most of last week we were on a trip to Sydney together with the "Snorkparents". The picture is the view from Watson's Bay of t...

Following up on Friday's post I've calculated the per capita breakdown of different income sources for all ACT postcodes and Austra...

The annual report on Australian tax collections has just been published by the ATO. It's just crazy that "the vast majority of peop...

The final Credit Suisse/Tremont numbers are in for February with the index losing 0.88%. In a replay of the Madoff scandal , equity market ...

Snork-Maiden somehow convinced her employer to buy this book for their library :) I have mixed reactions. It's not one of these books th...

The chairman told me that I interviewed very well and he doesn't have any feedback in that regard and if I find somewhere more matching ...

I just heard that I didn't get the Senior Lectureship (Associate Prof in the U.S. system) position at the University down the street fro...

Chart at Peter Martin's blog .

Snork Maiden yesterday got a rejection e-mail for the paper she submitted to a conference in Slovenia. Having organized an international con...

I read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. While it is a good read I found it rather frustrating. I agree totally with the tone of the http://en.wiki...

New York, March 9, 2009 Early estimates indicate the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund Index will finish down 0.45% in February (based on 59...

I paid down $A1000 of my Australian margin loan to reduce the risk of a margin call. It's one thing I can do to reduce anxiety. Still wa...

Today I'm supposed to get my contract for the one year job and hear the outcome on the permanent job. Well, they said on both: "By ...

The HFRX (daily small sample) index lost 0.38% for February . As you know stock market indices fell sharply with the MSCI World Index down 9...

I don't feel like writing my standard monthly report this month - too depressing. The market keeps going down with the MSCI down 9.73% a...

Snork Maiden brought home borrowed copies of Ziliak and McCloskey's "Cult of Statistical Signficance" and Taleb's "T...

All the universities I've studied or worked at are on this list . There's some luck in that. I've interviewed for jobs at some t...

The interview went smoothly but I think my chances are 50:50 on getting the job. Some people seem enthusiastic about hiring me while others ...

I completed my presentation slides on Thursday and today went over to a colleague's house to run the presentation by him. I was meant to...

Moominmama's portfolio saw another loss this month of 3.66% in USD terms. The MSCI World Index was down 9.73% and the S&P 500 close ...

While the HFRX index saw a gain for January , HFRI * had a loss of -.04% . That's still great compared to the equity markets. Credit Sui...

Apparently momentum is growing to abolish Australia's system of dividend imputation . In Australia companies pass on tax credits attache...

Yesterday, I went to a meeting at the government department that is funding my research project . One person left early and the most relevan...

As is the case for non-US crude oil prices there's been a bit of a bounce in the Baltic Dry Index of shipping costs. Of course, it cou...

Some progress on the job front. A computer is being ordered for me from the project funds and a meeting being set up with the funders to d...

I just joined LinkedIn . I don't really understand how it works or whether it is useful, but figured it is yet another portal to channel...

I went along to my local TransACT office to ask about changing our broadband/phone plan into one that includes cable TV. Snork Maiden's...

Great report from Credit Suisse on global equity returns.

I've noticed that petrol (gasoline) has gone up in price from a low of $A0.99 a litre ($US2.41 a gallon) to around $A1.25 a litre ($US3....

After ranting yesterday about Ford , today it's Commonwealth Securities turn. I don't like putting down companies but I feel that c...

We got the major part of our car repairs done cheaply . Today we finally picked up from the Ford dealer the silver trim that goes on the bum...

I signed up for a trip to Kuranda - a small town or village about 30km from Cairns. They pick you up by bus and take you to the terminal of...

I'm on my first business trip of my new job at a conference in Cairns, which is on the coast of northern Queensland deep in the tropics....

In USD terms we pretty much matched the MSCI index this month. Of course, this was its worst January ever. In Australian Dollar terms perfor...

According to an article in the Australian Financial Review today, I won't be eligible for the Australian government's $A950 stimulus...

While stock indices had their worst January in history, globally, hedge funds did fine . The return of uncorrelated returns :)

The deal to take NDS private finally passed its last hurdle today. I last bought back into the stock on 19th December at $49. The takeover ...

http://woodwardhall.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/venture-capital-in-the-recession/">Interesting comparison of the outcomes for venture c...

The Australian government announced its second stimulus package today . Included is a bonus payment of "up to $A950" for every wor...

In the end 27% of shareholders (including 6000 of my own shares) opted to participate in the new unlisted hedge fund of funds EAIT . The rem...

Moominmama lost 1.39% in January. That's not bad considering the MSCI World Index lost 8.51% for the month. This is the portfolio breakd...

The Future Fund reported its results for the last quarter of 2008

Following up on my post about EFTPOS policies Steven Levitt is commenting on credit cards . Nothing much new there, but one of the commente...

Now that I am going to have a job I'm setting up a regular savings plan of $A500 a month from my salary to match the plan we already ha...

Any chance Man Financial will do this for its clients who suffered losses (if relatively small) in RMF ?

Buffalo sounds better than Ox :) We should celebrate with mozzarella cheese :P

This morning I met my colleague who helped me with the grant application and began to work out the details. It'll take a little while to...

At least I was dressed smarter than my interviewers. I had my shirt tucked in :) Not sure how well it went, I should hear early next week if...

Christopher Joye in an article in the Business Spectator today performs a retirement portfolio optimization using historical Australian dat...

I just heard that my research proposal was approved. We haven't got any details yet but we proposed that I work on the project for one ...

On our way back from the Ford dealer where we put in an order for the missing bit of silver trim , we stopped off in the suburb of Dickson ...

The back of our car got run into a stone wall - like most car accidents it happened close to home - in the driveway of our apartment buildi...

This is the other bond fund in my Mom's portfolio. It has done very well in recent years, though it didn't do much just after we bou...

Investors in TFS Capital's Market Neutral Fund continued to buy high and sell low as a group in the four months ended October 31st, as I...

Here are the HFRI hedge fund indices for December and 2008 which differ quite a bit from the HFRX results I posted before. HFRI tracks arou...

This is my Mom's largest single investment at 12.6% of the portfolio. It wasn't planned this way. I instructed Citibank to buy a giv...

Man Investments will sue over its Madoff related losses . Don't know if it will do any good but that's better than nothing .

This is a graphic of this blog created using Wordle . I posted a couple of these created by Paul Kedrosky earlier .

A discussion of Bernanke's speech yesterday argues that it was the impact of the Lehman collapse on the Reserve Money Market Fund and...

A comment I posted on " Graceful Retirement " as part of the ongoing discussion about Meg's blogposts : "I'm not too ...

When I tried to optimize the performance of the asset mix used for the portfolios in my post about endowment style portfolios by maximizing...

Yesterday I reported on HFRI's indices for December 2008 . Today Credit Suisse/Tremont released preliminary results for the month. Credi...

By comparison the MSCI All Country World Index rose 3.67% in December but lost 41.85% for 2008. Macro - the strategy made famous by the like...

Superfund is now offering a fund in Australia. This company, which originated in Austria, offers managed futures products to retail investo...

CALPERS (the California state retirement fund) provides detailed information on their asset allocation. CALPERS has much more of a traditio...