Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M
Tuesday February 21, 2012
I have asked both Intermed classes to post comments on the Dodd Frank legislation. It is linked im a recent post here to an Economist magazine article. This morning the front page of the WSJ carries the article
FED Writes Sweeping Rules From Behind Closed Doors.
The article notes that the FED has accelerated its rule writing, and increasingly done so out of public view. I suggest you locate and read the article as a follow up to Dodd Frank.
Monday February 20, 2012
Barney Frank and Chris Dodd have passed the truly horredous Dodd Frank Finance Regulatory bill. Already big banks have laid off thousands of employees.Click the hyperlink to read what a tangled web has been created.
Here is a J P Morgan depiction of this mess.
Sunday Feb 19, 2012
Once again, Kirk Tuck with the answer.
Sunday February 19, 2012
Bruce Howard is Operatoins Director with FHK CPAs, is a good friend of TAMUSA and on our advisory board. He has made several visits to campus and delivered his fine talk on how to get your career in gear. One of his recommendations is to 'develop your own brand.' He introduces that segment by holding up a can of, you guessed it, Coke, the world's most famous brand.
One student on staurday fretted on her lack of seriousness at an earlier age. The result was poor grades the first two eyears of college, what to do now? Bruce has good advice here. Develop your brand as a one who has seen the light and focused on becoming a Professional Accountant.
We have numerous flourishing industries in San Antonio. Refineries like Valero, a burgeoning bio medical industry, a cyber security industry, transportation via truck and rail, retail is flourishing, you name it. Pick one, study it, become an expert in it. Write your papers on that industry. Study the major players, follow their stock prices, p/es, management, learn it all.
Develop your portfolio of expertise. Start a blog on it, take photographs, write papers…
Get in the water, it's the only way you can get wet…..develop your brand. That kind of expertise, and passing the exams the first time, trumps earlier academic indiscretions. And if that does not appeal to the first employer you encounter, there are lots of fish in the sea, kep prospecting for someone who appreciates your ability at self improvement.
and if they don't simply remember the famous observation of Groucho Marx
"I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member!'
Sat Feb 18, 2012
Arthur Miller's classic (now who was he married to…..) Death of a Salesman is playing at
the Rose Theater. Yep right here in River City San Antonio for a mere $10-12. This is a deal on one of the all time classics of American Theater.
College should include a reflection on who we are, were and want to become. Marketing majors, are you listening?
I would be very interested in hearing from a group of students who attend this play.
Sat February 18, 2012
We are in the midst of a transition to new mediums of communication. Now you can rent movies on the internet. New networks are springing up
Hulu offers a variety of shows.
Pajama TV offers right wing commentary with a twist, I of course enjoy Kalavan on the Culture, a socionomic treat in my opinion
Oprah and Discovery since Oprah bought a previous Health oriented chanel have reportedly spent $250 M trying to get things right. LIke his philosophy or not, Glenn Beck, I would guess, has not spent one tenth that to being
An example of a new show for this new medium is the HULU production of The Confession.. This iars in five to six minute segments for a total span of about a half hour. The reason I recommend this one is 
that you whould study just how tightly written the script really is. How do you pull your viewer in five minutes, lay out a story line, intro the characters, lead to a conclusion, and have the viewer wanting to come back for more? Studying such tight scripting will make you a better writer. In Ethics today I mentioned that one head hunter goes through 150 resumes and interviews a year. What will you do to make an impression? Start learning by reading great short stories ( I recommend Jeffrey Deaver) or perhaps The confession.
Now college courses routinely require papers. I can envision videos, power points with music, and other media becoming mainstream. I mean how recent is it that accounting professors began blogging?
Get on board the new media.
Friday Feb 17, 2012
A reader asks if this is the top or if we are experiencing the breakout I discussed – toward and over 1370 taking the main indices to new highs. I would guess the latter, it looks like the markets want to go higher.
TMP exited positions last Friday, earlier that week might have been better. GM popped yesterday. Rackspace RAX, a San Antonio based success tech story has also soared. This is typical of funds hunting for stocks that have not moved, and then, well, late in the cycle, moving them.
The question then is, should one still be playing this market, or if out, get back in. Before you call your croupier at Merrill or Schwab, consider this
SPX Bullish Percent of stocks over respective Moving Averages
Indicator %
50 84.2%
150 87.4
200 82.8
Now consider that in the last two years of trading the 50 day MA has only managed to get over 90% three times, and then it stayed there for, about a week. Wow! (New readers, this is TMP being sarcastic.)
Our point is that this is not a low risk entry point. Oh, conversely the same indicator ony dropped below 10% on two occasions, the summer of 2010 and August 2011. We recommended buying both times and were well rewarded. So the market does not linger long at either extreme. Social mod reaches an extreme at both points. Sue Herrera on CNBC was positively ebullient yesterday announcing the stock advances. No doubt CNBC's ad income advances at such times. If we could get that indicator it might make a fine reverse indicator. Sell at advertising extremes and buy at advertising lows…
Moving right along the NYSE Summation Index weekly basis is the highest it has been in the last two years zooming from the August low of -600 to a new two year record of 1281.47. It did record one higher high just below 1500 in late 2009. So we know that optimism is at a positive extreme. We know that there is very little left for BP to statistically move higher. We know that NYSI has already done so, moved to historic highs.
Tell you what, let's go all the way back to the top in March 2000 and see what this indicator tell us.
NYSI Summation Index Monthly
Ulysses had is crew tie him to the mast to hear the Sirens but be restrained from leaving the safety of the boat. If you listen to bloomberg or CNBC or Fox Business today, do likewise, do nto leave the safety of CASH.
I can only count four times since the March 2000 top that NYSI topped 1250. So, we may have a higher high in the popular indices in February March or April. I don't know and neither does Jim Cramer. But we can know one thing with a high probability. Once the eventual high is in, we can expect a dramatic sell off. As Mark Hulbert points out, insiders are selling, not buying, Hulbert predicted lower prices ahead.
If this analysis is correct we should be able to verify it perhaps with an indicator functioning in the opposite direction, How about the Dollar?
UUP the Dollar
The zig zag indicator on the monthly UUP chart is also an indicator. It is inversely correlated to stocks, oil and gold. I believe it hit an important low last year. It has made significant higher lows since. The brief pullback, remember this is a monthly, this month has allowed stocks to move higher, luring small investors back in the market at the worst time.
Daily UUP
The recent pattern of higher lows in UUP is more clear on this daily chart.
At bottom we ran the correlation coefficient with the SPX. As one can see the UUP has a very very high inverse correlation. The Coefficient is in black and the SPX in blue.
While not precise in the timing sense social mood indicators of flaunting wealth with McMansions, emergence of exotic car offerings like the Aston 1-77, and even the President's high approval rating all point to a coming peak in social mood, and stock prices.
We have had two big drops in stocks in the last decade. A third much more severe drop lies ahead. This can be verified by examing 1930-48 or 1966-84.
The preferred strategy is to wait forinternal indicators to peak. TLT still needs to drop, the VIX has already hit new lows, the dollar is pulling back from its 50 day MA but that will not last long.
So, using the same indicators that got us
longs stocks late summer 2010
long TLT early 2011
long stocks August and October 2011
out of stocks last week
should serve us well now.
Turn the sound down on CNBC and just watch Jim Cramer, he is hitting new highs just like the NYSI.
More this weekend.
Wednesday February 15, 2012
Send me an e mal for the applicaiton. The application indicates it is a combination of need, peformance, and yes writing ability.
Monday Feb 13, 2012
Dan Glaser had a rep from the Association of Oeprations Managmeent by today. This group offers certifications in
Certified in Production and Inventory Managment CPIM
Certified Supply Chain Professional CSCP
Check it oput at http://www.apics.org
Monday Feb 13, 2012
Marketing Lecturer Lisa Siegal notes that the annual AMA Student Day is February 22. Click to go to the website, events are planned all day nad into the evening.
For those that cannot make it on a Wednesday, I note that there is a social media workshop featured notables from Linked In and other sites the very next day.
Professor Elam 