Huge Hilarious Facebook Ad Fail

This ad is gut-splitting hilarious. I went to the NASDAQ site to check on my favorite "stock most likely to go down the crapper" and I saw a couple of funny, ironic things.

First, a full 74% of the public amateur pundits who waste time with an account on NASDAQ, rate Facebook stock a BUY. It is these people who's money is taken when the market whipsaws their positions senseless. It is these people who bought early and are hoping to get their money back.

And it is probably these people to whom the above ad is aimed at. I took this ad directly off the NASDAQ site. For those of you without glasses, the ad says that if you invested in Facebook after the IPO, you were likely too late!!! FAIL !!!!!!!

But if you send this company money, they will tell you also how to get in early at the high price of Facebook, not at the low price that it is two weeks later. And if you act now, they will throw in a set of John-the-Baptist steak knives and Dead Sea Scroll shower curtains added to your order.

It's the John Q. Public way of investing -- buy high and sell low. Now if you were an institutional investor, you would have been tipped off by Morgan Stanley et al, that the earnings, estimates and outlooks were being revised in the general direction of one's sphincter muscle, and you would not have lost money. Or if you were as smart as Warren Buffett, you would have stood aside. But you aren't. Like poor old Abner Snodgrass who will take piano lessons to try and get a date, you will send your money to get in early on other stock market losers.

All this to say, is that PT Barnum had it right about one born every minute -- especially with this ad pictured above.

But never mind the ad, have I got a deal for you. Send me $50 and I will make you happy (limited time offer).

Read More

Guess What Tech Stock is Gonna Tank Today?

It's 8:47 AM. About 13 minutes before the market opens. Guess what famous stock is going to tank again today? (says he gleefully -- he who predicted that Facebook is dead man walking).

Update 2:12 PM EDT. It's at 28.36 down $3.06 and that 9.62%. Now if it loses half of what's its at now, it might be getting near the range of a buy.

Update 4:07 PM Market Close. Facebook closed at 28.75 3.16 9.9% down almost 10%

This downward slide isn't over. The market will ultimately correct.

Read More

MySQL TODAY() Function from TIMESTAMP

MySQL is my database of choice, and its sql query language is part of the package.

In an SQL table, I have a series of transactions that are timestamped. The timestamp column is of type TIMESTAMP NOT NULL so for every transaction insert, the NOW() timestamp is inserted in the format yyyy-MM-dd HH:MM:SS. This is all fine and dandy except a timestamp is not really a date. However one can get a date with the following syntax:

SELECT DATE(timestamp_column) and one will get a date.

MySQL has a NOW() function, but I needed a TODAY() function to select all of the transactions occurring today from a timestamp column. It would work something like this:

SELECT * FROM transaction_table where transaction_timestamp = TODAY();

Of course transaction_timestamp is not a date so it would have to be re-worded to DATE(transaction_timestamp).

The way to get a TODAY() function is to use the following SQL statement:

SELECT * FROM transaction_table WHERE DATE(timestamp_column) = CURDATE();

CURDATE() is current date and it works like a charm.

Read More

Daytrading Facebook ~ Get Your Rectum Handed to you on a platter

(not exactly as illustrated ~ it's the Morgan Stanley version of the truth)

If you are a day trader, and you are in any position with Facebook stock, I am willing to bet you that you are getting your rectum handed to you on a platter.

Regular readers of this blog know that I write technical analysis software. I have been watching Facebook and something is rotten in Denmark.

I am convinced that the stock is being heavily manipulated, the short sellers are largely absent, and when someone wants to liquidate a long position, an automagic counter trade appears to cushion the downward descent.

All of the stock charts say sell. Yet the bloody stock declines by pennies and then it edges upward by pennies.. It is the most amazing stock price pattern, especially the discontinuity and singularities in the price between open and close. But what is happening, is that day traders are being whipsawed out of their positions because of the apparent manipulations going on. There are patterns here that are not seen with stocks in the "free market".

My analysis, which is pretty good, has shown that the stock should have tumbled at many occasions, yet it has not. We all know that this is not due to fundamentals, so the only other explanation is manipulation.

These games that the Wall Street underwriters are playing make investing a mugs game for the rest of us. There oughta be a law.

Read More

Linux Bash How to show line numbers in vi

This is more of a reminder to myself than anything else. When I am working directly on the Linux server (Centos is my flavor of choice), I often need to find a line number. I have used vi and other editors for a long long time (since the days when unicorns wandered the earth), but I still forget some things. Like today, I had to look up how to turn on line numbers in vi.

It really is simple.

Hit the "Esc" escape key and type:

:set number

On some flavors of Linux:

:set nu

also works.

Easy peasy, now if I can just remember this.

Read More

Microsoft Turning into Spamming National Enquirer

(click on image for larger picture)

During World War II, intelligence agencies used something called content analysis to determine conditions and morale in war-time Germany. They did this with soft information. They would get regional and small town weekly newspapers, go through them with a fine tooth comb.

Typically, these papers would have lists of local people that died. From that, they could create overall casualty estimates. The local papers would have notices that the butchery was closed due to lack of supplies. That would tell the Allies of food shortages. An article telling folks how many ration coupons was required for a liter of gasoline was a good window into fuel.

Essentially, content analysis is taking innocuous bits of information, making inference about them and coming up with a bit of knowledge. It is the process of integrating facts into knowledge about a situation.

Analysts on Wall Street do this by looking at balance sheets. However analysts miss the big picture very often. I am still irked that Arvind Bhatia was all over the media, pumping up Facebook saying that it was the best thing since sliced bread. He should be fired or resign in disgrace.

That aside, let's put Microsoft under the lens. I could not believe that my Hotmail inbox had spam from Microsoft. And to top it all off, it was salacious spam of the National Enquirer ilk.

My own content analysis tells me that their search engine Bing is suffering. Of course I don't have to cogitate hard to come to that fact. I have several websites, and I can see what search engines are the referrers, and Bing shows up once in a blue moon.

However this latest spam from Microsoft trying to encourage me to use Bing is pretty much a sign of Seattle desperation. The spam says: "We can't make this stuff up. Scary disease is turning cats into living robots !!!!!!". THe fine print says that you are seeing some of the hottest Bing searches.

I suppose that their reasoning, is that if they spam their entire hotmail userbase, and get a few clicks, then their numbers will improve. But this strategy is just as lame as those used by the spammers of malware and the Twitter spammers who say: Click here because I saw a funny picture of you on the Internet.

How the mighty have fallen. Microsoft used to be so supercilious that they didn't need to advertise at all. Now after begging didn't work, they tried scaring. After logging out of hotmail, they re-directed to a page that tried to tell me that my secure Chrome browser was a 2.5 out of 5 and that I should upgrade to the virus haven Internet Explorer. When the scare tactic didn't work, they sunk even lower and tried the tabloid effect with the kitty robots.

So, chalk up another dead man walking. Microsoft has had its day. And I am a geek but I oughta be a stock analyst. And if I was, I would advise my clients to short the living crap out of Microsoft stock. You will make a ton of money. (Fine Print: This by no means constitutes investment advice. You should consult a professional to be properly advised on how to lose money in the stock market. It is their job to mislead the ordinary investor and give inside information to institutional clients.)

Read More

I oughta be a stock analyst instead of a geek

Instead of rising with a bullet, Facebook stock is deflating like a bullet wound in a balloon. I ought to be a stock analyst instead of a geek. I can pick them better than widely reported analyst Arvind Bhatia. His total paeans of praise for Facebook is either due to lack of objectivity (through payment or self-delusion) or simply that he made a huge mistake, and really isn't that smart when it comes to the stock market. It reminds me of the time where a kindergarten class outperformed a bunch of Wall Street analysts by picking stocks that they knew and loved (McDonalds, ToysRUs etc).

This Facebook IPO price was so wrong on so many levels, and yet greed made the underwriters do it anyway. It is now 18 percent below IPO price. The hedgefunds who bought the stock are not going to have a good year. Warren Buffet was vindicated.

Now two days on the market doesn't mean much in the long term, but it means a lot to the optics of the deal. The market is waking up after a 2:00 am orgy and finding itself in bed with a ugly woman, a male midget and Doberman (with all due respect to plainer women, smaller men and angrier dogs).

The correction is taking place. My bold prediction is that it WILL reach the $14 per share mark where it belongs. Actually it belongs lower than that, but lets see if they are made of sterner stuff.

Read More