My life

2012-02-08T17:59:00.000-08:00

Another re-post from reddit:

If you're still in college, it's going to be tough for me to convince you not to work in finance. You probably have your mind set on investment banking, sales & trading or "working at a hedge fund." I'll share with you a few professional observations over my life that might help you change your mind.

Even if you do get a job in finance, the chances that you'll make it anywhere near the point where you'll be making "good money" are pretty small. While banks hire in "big" classes, those classes dwindle pretty quickly. Some people drop out due to disillusionment, but most are simply fired. You'll be lucky if you're fired early, by the way - then you can at least get a job doing something else.

The work isn't all that exciting. As an investment banker, you'll be doing Excel spreadsheets all day, and all night, and all the next day. If you get into the "sales" part of "sales and trading," you'll be a salesman (something you definitely don't need a degree for). Chances are - as a salesman - you'll be sitting next an MBA from a top-10 school business school, who definitely didn't need that degree to be sitting where he is, either.

Most of you don't have what it takes to make "big money" on Wall Street. I've known the entire range of people (disclaimer: I made some 'OK' money for some time) - from those fired early, to one particular friend who is now one of the youngest partners at a major and hated investment bank. He was one in a million...my more "middling" friends were simply lucky, and everyday they worry about losing their jobs.
You had better like New York (banking, some hedge funds) or Connecticut (most hedge funds). I say this because at first - at least the first three years - I didn't care for it very much at all. The area grew on me, and I ended up loving it, but that was not before I had to live through three very depressing years in a high-cost-of-living area with bad traffic and attitudes that (at first) didn't quite dovetail with my "Midwest sensibilities."

Back to luck: It plays a larger role than you think. Hard work isn't enough. Getting placed on the right desk, at the right time, getting to know the right people, finding the right fund, etc. are all crucial "making it" in any way on Wall Street. If one thing fails to align, you're going nowhere, even if you're "unique" and "awesome."

If you're a woman, you'll probably represent 50% of your incoming class, but within two years - if you're still there - you'll go back to representing 10% of your local workforce. It's a male-dominated industry, and it's not because banks don't try incredibly hard to hire women.

The business is highly cyclical. I managed to make it through three rounds of cuts at the first bank I worked at (I started mid 2001) before getting cut in the last round about 3.5 years after I started. I saw one roommate, and well over 2/3 of my class cut within that time. I was lucky in that the financial economy was really picking up steam as my bank made the final round of cuts, and found my first hedge fund position rather quickly. One of my friends called me last week (he was once my roommate; still at the bank). He let me know they cut half his desk that day. It would have been him, but another guy just above him kindof wanted to leave. He was relieved, to say the least.

Finally - and I can't stress this enough. If you're ultimately fired after a mildly successful initial career, you won't leave with any skills you can apply anywhere else. In other words, once you're in the finance business, you're stuck there. Sure, you can go work as a financial adviser, work at a pension or endowment, a financial analyst (if you have the skills), but nobody cares about your computer skills, your work ethic, or your Ivy League degree when your 10 years of experience comes from specialized financial work that lacks application in 95% of the rest of the real economy.

So, that was my quickie list of bullet points for those who are at good schools considering "the business." I doubt what I say here will change anybody's mind, but that won't be because what I've added isn't true, or because "I don't know what I'm talking about."

Good luck to you -

_____________________________________________________________________________________

So for the last few years, I've been thinking about going back to college. And than working in the finance industry. Like the article said investment banking or something similar. And like the post above I talked to some people I met that were already in the industry. Heard the same thing. Long hours, crazy long hours, stress and good pay. It wipes people out. I heard about all of this, even a few months ago when I looking for a job, deciding whether or not to go back to school. I told one of my friends in the banking industry about potential working up in Tahoe for the season and he told me to go for it. That sometimes the work(finance) was not worth it. That it takes years of your life away.

So my current job, is bit similar. 12 hour work days, sometimes longer and good pay. oh and all I do is excel spread sheets and reports. Is it worth it? I don't know yet. I'm wondering how long can I work this much. And what should I do after all this.

Back home

2012-02-03T06:19:00.000-08:00

American military from French perspective

2012-02-01T21:03:00.001-08:00

repost from reddit

So I browsing through reddit when i saw this post, about a French soldier perspective of the American military after he worked with them. Below is the following.

ok, long post. here i go. something i found a long time ago
"We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while - they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that the movies brought to the public as series showing "ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events". Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day ? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become the support company.
They have a terribly strong American accent - from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever state they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other. Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins and creatine (Heh. More like Waffle House and McDonalds) - they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans.
Here we discover America as it is often depicted : their values are taken to their paroxysm, often amplified by promiscuity and the loneliness of this outpost in the middle of that Afghan valley. Honor, motherland - everything here reminds of that : the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location : books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. in such way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission. And that is a first shock to our preconceptions : the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.
And they are impressive warriors ! We have not come across bad ones, as strange at it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seem to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark - only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered - everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump.
And combat ? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all - always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks : they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the enemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting : they just charge ! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later - which cuts any pussyfooting short.
(This is the main area where I'd like to comment. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Kipling knows the lines from Chant Pagan: 'If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white/remember it's ruin to run from a fight./So take open order, lie down, sit tight/And wait for supports like a soldier./ This, in fact, is the basic philosophy of both British and Continental soldiers. 'In the absence of orders, take a defensive position.' Indeed, virtually every army in the world. The American soldier and Marine, however, are imbued from early in their training with the ethos: In the Absence of Orders: Attack! Where other forces, for good or ill, will wait for precise orders and plans to respond to an attack or any other 'incident', the American force will simply go, counting on firepower and SOP to carry the day.
This is one of the great strengths of the American force in combat and it is something that even our closest allies, such as the Brits and Aussies (that latter being closer by the way) find repeatedly surprising. No wonder is surprises the hell out of our enemies.)
We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is - from what we have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.
To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to those who pay the daily tribute of America's army's deployment on Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say that we are all the same band of brothers".
Much of this the various veterans reading will go 'Well, duh. Of course we do our 'camp chores' and stand our posts in good order. There's a reason for them and if we didn't we'd get our heads handed to us eventually. And, yeah, we're in shape. Makes battle easier. The more you sweat, the less you bleed.'
What is hard for most people to comprehend is that that attitude represented only the most elite units of the past. Current everyday conventional boring 'leg infantry' units exceed the PT levels and training levels of most Special Forces during the Vietnam War. They exceed both of those as well as IQ and educational levels of: Waffen SS, WWII Rangers, WWII Airborne and British 'Commando' units during WWII. Their per-unit combat-functionality is essentially unmeasurable because it has to be compared to something and there's nothing comparable in industrial period combat history.
This group is so much better than 'The Greatest Generation' at war that WWII vets who really get a close look at how good these kids are stand in absolute awe.
So much of 'The scum of the earth, enlisted for drink.'
Everyone complains about the quality of 'the new guys.' Don't. The screw-ups of this modern generation are head and shoulders above the 'high-medium' of any past group. Including mine.
This is 'The Greatest Generation' of soldiers.
They may never be equalled.

end

Money

2012-01-26T02:16:00.000-08:00

Francisco's 'Money' Speech from "Atlas Shrugged"

Rearden heard Bertram Scudder, outside the group, say to a girl who made some sound of indignation, "Don't let him disturb you. You know, money is the root of all evil – and he's the typical product of money."

Rearden did not think that Francisco could have heard it, but he saw Francisco turning to them with a gravely courteous smile.

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Aconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made – before it can be looted or mooched – made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except by the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss – the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery – that you must offer them values, not wounds – that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best your money can find. And when men live by trade – with reason, not force, as their final arbiter – it is the best product that wins, the best performance, then man of best judgment and highest ability – and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality – the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth – the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve that mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict which you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is the loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money – and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another – their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride, or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich – will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt – and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the double standard – the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money – the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law – men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims – then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood – money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves – slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers – as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money – and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self-made man – the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide – as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or dollars. Take your choice – there is no other – and your time is running out."

Black Out

2012-01-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

So a few days ago, I hopped on a helo to go scout stuff out for work. Went to another fob. Had a short work day, and went to sleep early. Now this is the cool part. I was sleeping in a tent and I woke up in the middle of the night. Completely pitch black darkness. I was still lying down looking up and than to left and right of the tent. Couldn't see a thing. I thought my eyes were still closed!!! It's a weird thing having your eyes open and can't see a thing. Its like waking up BLIND.

Don't often have that experience where one of your senses is completely gone. Usually in the city the some kind of light leaking through the window, or door. Same thing in tents usually, there's some kind of light leaking through. Anyways later I wondered why is so dark on this fob at night? Why isn't there lights by the porta-poties or other common areas. Find out it's a black out fob. Which mean they try have no lights after dark. Why is this? Apparently a few years ago there as a lot of enemy Taliban snipers able to snipe at people because of the lights at night. The place is lot safer now and I don't think there's been something like that in a while. It was just an old safety thing from a few years ago.

On another related post, back on Kandahar, its been raining quite a bit. And every time it rains the generators for showers goes out about 730 at night. I get off at 7, 715 and try to race back for a shower before the power goes out. It took me a while to figure out that the generators break every time it rains. Been a few times, taking a shower and the lights go out and the water pressure than starts dying. Good thing this is not a black out base, cause there some light leaking in through the windows.

Afghanistan

2012-01-18T18:55:00.000-08:00

Ok, been in country for a few weeks now. Just wanna jot some thoughts down on how this deployment is different from last year so far. Besides the pay, there's been good changes. There's no more fire watch (guard duty) out in the cold for 8 hours. No more random working parties to help set up tents, load this truck up, etc. Which make things a lot more stress free. Don't have to follow military regs, so i can not shave, and put my hands in my pocket when it's cold outside, put on and extra layer and not be worried about uniform standards.

It's pretty much the same thing w/o the extra military hassle. And I get to do the same cool things. Yesterday I got to ride in a black hawk. Still get to hang out with soldiers at the motor pool.

It's shaping up to be a good deployment.

2011

2012-01-06T20:40:00.002-08:00

Ok gonna reflect a bit on 2011. 2011 was a year of many ups and downs. I spent the first few months of it in Afghanistan and than spent the remainder of it in San Diego and San Francisco. After the deployment, I took it easy and enjoyed the beach in SD and friends and family in S.F. First part of the year I was 10-15 grand in my portfolio, the second part of the year i was down 30. One big accomplishment I'm proud of was finishing my contract with the Marine Corps. I finished a five year commitment, probably the longest thing I've been doing since school.

Now onto 2012. After many resumes and interviews, I finally got a job. And its a job that I was looking for and actually want. I'm starting this new year year with another deployment and I wonder how different its going to be.

Holidays

2011-11-23T12:17:00.000-08:00

So for last few years, I spent the holidays in different places. The first year in the Corps I remember spending thanksgiving in Camp Pendleton while in training. It was nice got spend thanksgiving with a random family that took Marines in and gave em a thanksgiving dinner. When I was stationed in Japan, our shop NCO would invite us all over for a thanksgiving meal that all the wives would cook. Home cooked meals and video games during the holidays. Also spent a Christmas in training too, ppl used foot powder for snow and radio antennas decorated as Christmas trees. Had duty a few times too during the holidays. Always pretty awesome when the Chaplin or some NCO would swing by the barracks and offer a hot plate of food to the duties. Last Christmas decorated the tent in Afghanistan with Christmas lights( on the inside). Ohh and the gifts and shoe boxes sent from charities and volunteer organizations so we would have something to open in the morning. Awesome! Always had a pretty good time during the holidays even when I'm away from home.

edit:

oh who can forget. Also during training - saving the skittles or m&ms in a MRE. Or trading for them while in training. Ehhh MRE's for holidays...

Civilian

2011-11-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

I'm a Civilian again!!! One of the questions people ask me; is it hard to adjust back to a civilian life. My answer is not really, i just have a lot of free time now, and don't know what to do with it. So I have been looking for jobs and taking online classes, going to the gym and trying to fill that time up. It's pretty awesome that I can wake up late, and have a lot of freedom with my schedule. But then again, I probably just described my unemployment more than anything else.

Well in my 3 and half months of collecting unemployment, going on vacation(went to Cancun in August), I have finally found a job. More details as I try to firm up the offer.

off key- Been following the crisis in Europe lately.(no links for reference, too lazy) It's to be expected that European countries would take forever to come up with some kind of solution. Market expectation would be for them to print euros, (but Germany doesn't want to). or just break up the European Union.

That's the thing about unions. Gotta stick together for it to be a union. The weak and the strong countries. The ECB and whatever political center is too weak and doesn't have enough power to do much in this situation.

Sarcasm- one way to fix all this is for France and Germany to invade Greece and Italy. Than those countries won't have vote about keeping stupid polices and having retirement ages at 50 something. Maybe start collecting taxes from tall the EU countries.

Europe fix yourself...

U.S debt

2011-09-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

Found this on surfing the web

Below are some comments from Reddit that are relevant.

It's a mistake to perceive the "family income" as a real value. To do so misses the point of the analogy, which is the relative values of income, expenditures, and debt.

This artifact of perception can be removed by adding one zero back to all figures, which means we're now talking about a family in which the parent(s) bring in a six-figure income, which is quite sufficient for maintaining a family with a high standard of living.

Annual family income: $217,000

Annual expenditures: $382,000

New debt: $165,000

Outstanding debt: $1,427,100

Total budget cuts: $3,850

Now it becomes obvious that "get a real job or stop feeding the children" is a false dichotomy. We could likely surmise that in this case, the parents are both college-educated with "real jobs" already, and that a sudden 76% increase in annual income is very unlikely. Additionally, while cutting their annual budget by half or more may decrease their current standard of living, it will in no way threaten the availability of life necessities such as food or shelter, and it will lead to long-term stability as opposed to financial ruin.

This analogy holds up when applied back to the US federal government, since federal tax receipts as a percentage of GDP have remained fairly stable over the decades since WWII despite tremendous changes in tax rates over that time period. Drastic increases in tax revenues are simply unrealistic; the only way to achieve long-term financial stability is by making drastic cuts in expenditures.

But there a difference in comparing household finances with the Government.

Let's see here's a few:

1) The government is effectively immortal. It doesn't age or grow old. If it stops growing the national debt, inflation will reduce its real value, year after year.

2) The government's expenses are far more flexible than a households. A household has certain fixed costs. You need food. You need shelter. The Federal government can be everything from Ron Paul's dream - a tiny government that does little more than run a small military, to a huge Norwegian-style cradle-to-grave welfare state.

3) The government can print money.

4) The government can arbitrarily increase its income. Imagine if at your job, you made the same hourly wage, but you could work anywhere from 10 to 100 hours per week, just depending on how hard you want to work. Most people have no where near this flexibility; the government does.

5) The government can plan longer term. The federal government can justify building a giant hydroelectric dam that will take half a century to recoup its construction cost. The same does not apply to a household budget.

6) In most households, during boom times they spend and take on debt; in recessions they save and pay down debt. Ideally, the government should do the exact opposite.

7) If things get really bad, the government can simply renege on all foreign debt. At war with China? Well we declare the bonds held by them to be null and void. Nothing they can do about it. An individual has bankruptcy, but this really isn't the same as you don't get to keep most assets during bankruptcy.

Portfolio Aug/Sept

2011-09-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

Below is commentary for the portfolio I manage at

http://covestor.com/ben-wong/tactical-and-opportunistic

In the month of August, I sold AGNC at 29.62 as it was trading between the range of 27 to 30. It dropped later in the month along with IVR following the SEC announcing that is it was seeking comments on whether it should change rules in regarding REITS exemption to taxes or the amount of leverage they can use. However it seems that the SEC is just trying to clarify on the mREITS current exclusions. Quoting the SEC Chairman:

“As a result, we are taking this opportunity to seek public input on whether Commission guidance, and the few staff interpretations regarding the status of mortgage-related pools under the Investment Company Act, should be updated or made more clear and comprehensive.”

I don’t foresee any big changes coming from the SEC regarding our REIT holding. In the meantime the Fed announced in August that it will keep rates low for the next 2 years another good thing for our REIT holdings. I will look to rebuild my position in AGNC as it drops closer to 27 and possibly averaging down on IVR.

Looking forward in September there is still some risks involved when investing in our REITs. The Fed might announce Operation Twist instead of QE3 which narrows the spread between the long and short term interest rates by selling short term bonds and buying long term on the same day. Not good for businesses that make money on the spread. Up ahead is Obama’s job plan speech on Sept 8 and I’m interested to see if he will also include a mortgage relief plan.

Looking at the other portion of our portfolio, I covered the DELL short too early at 16.32. Also added MSFT at 25. Both trades could have been executed with better timing. As we continue into September, we await government policy and interventions that are currently directing market direction.

Sources:

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2011/2011-176.htm
http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2011/spch083111mls-item2.htm
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904140604576498380497149042.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/03/us-markets-bonds-outlook-idUSTRE78146D20110903
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-usa-obama-housing-idUSTRE77T6DV20110831

market volatility and a rant...

2011-08-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

Portfolio is in the red for the month. But it's times like this where I like to position my portfolio. I have a large position in FTR and ANGC in both my personal account and in my Covestor account. Although the market has been down for the past 2 weeks, it'll go back up. In fact I'm getting more bullish as I except a short term bounce in the next 2 weeks. Also bought some options for Ftr when it was at 6.80. Aug 20 call. Strike price at 7.

There wasn't much of rally as the debt ceiling got raised again, but i guess everyone was expecting it anyways. Going on a slight rant here... Congress needs to stop fooling around. Took them way too long to reach a deal with the debt ceiling. Its a routine thing. During the Bush Administration it was raised 7 times without all the drama. Wrong time to threaten and bluff GOP. Showed the world our politicians are childish and inefficient. Not just blaming the Republicans, blaming all our idiots in congress. This shit is so stupid it could go on MTV, right after 16 and pregnant and Jersey Shore. Yeah they should make a reality show of congress and the bullshit they do.

up and down and in the red

2011-07-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

Stressed out- yeah a little. The market been going crazy with volatility. A lot different from last year heh. Portfolio taking a hit. Look at the Macro picture instead of the short term movements. Quaterly earning are coming out. I think Apple is coming out tmrw. Another blow up for them huh and then low guidance so they can beat estimates again. Actually I expect many of the important earning to be well. Not to much of a surprise wen they earning.

By Aug 2nd debt ceiling needs to be raised. Be following this for a while now. It seems the attitude finally changed for the republicans. At first I thought they were going to use the threat of default,etc to get what they want. It seems like their more willing to compromise as the deadline approaches and they are painted as the bad guys...?

I can see a knee kick reaction when they approve the raise in the debt ceiling. So gonna get rid of my shorts before then. Prob next week. I have a few short in place right now. There not as effective as I want them to be. There like a band aid over a gunshot wound of my gains.

Interview..

2011-06-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

Hey I'm featured in the Manager Spotlight. So check me out in the bottom link

http://blog.covestor.com/2011/06/ben-wong-gained-discipline-for-investing-from-the-marine-corp-agnc

Golf

2011-06-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

Let start by saying I suck horribly at golf. Been going to range for a few weekends now. Trying to get a consistent hit down. The other day went to a charity golf event at the Del Mar Country Club. Had a blast. I think I just got hooked on golf. Didn't make all 18 holes, got to 14 or 15 before I was too drunk to play. Back at the clubhouse I spilled Donnie Edwards beer. This guy. Thankfully he was really cool and didn't beat me up. Didn't know it at the time but met another former Charger when I used his phone to call a friend to pick me up. Had a beer with a badass Medal of Honor recipient And pretty much just golf with some guys from 3/5. Awesome time, gonna see if I can find some pictures of this event.

the start of summer

2011-06-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

Summer

Ok so it looks like bernake not gonna announce QE3. So I guess the market gonna have to drop more. If you don't know already,I started a portfolio on covestor.com

Follow me here

http://covestor.com/ben-wong

Summer official started!!! Spent memorial day at a few bbqs, the beach and the movies.
Last few weeks and already seen the new x-men, hangover and pirates 4. Good movies. Been hitting the driving range for golf, thinking I'm getting a hang of it. Hanged out with friends in SD. It's looking to be a good summer.

back from afghan

2011-05-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

So I have been back for about a month now. Been enjoying my time back with friends and family. Soon to be separating from the military with an honorable discharge. Its gonna be a big transition, but I'm not really thinking about it right now.

What I'm currently thinking about is the markets.

What happens in the next few months? QE2 is ending soon. But Bernanke hasn't announced QE3 yet. The market is too high for QE3. Besides the run up in stock the past few months, there has been a run up in commodities. Its hard to justified QE3 with commodities like oil/gas at it's current price. But right now the market seems to be expecting QE3 with the way stocks are priced.

So QE3 can't happen unless the markets drop...

So if the market drops.

Dollar will rise (because the dollar and stocks are inversely related right!?) Commodities would drop ( because of the rise in the dollar)
S&p at 10,000?

or maybe Bernanke will announce QE3 anytime now and send gold, silver, oil, stocks and everything else higher.

weather

2011-03-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

The weather here is nice. Good time to be in Afghanistan this time of year, mid march. It was super hot when i got out here, and then it got really cold. But now its starting to get back to hot. So the time in between the hot and cold makes really nice weather. Reminds me of socal weather. Sunny but not so hot with a nice breeze.

2011-03-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

Just some random thoughts

been copying hard drives out here and have about 1.5 terabytes of movies and music

tired of work politics, (they part where you have to suck up to everyone)

Ipad 2 is on the list of things I'm going to buy when i get back

probably a home sever too

watch some bootleg movies out here. They latest one was green hornet and due date.
how behind am i?

DADT

2011-01-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

I looked the guidance for blogging in the Marine Corps. below:

http://www.usmc.mil/usmc/Pages/SocialMediaGuidance.aspx

So I got to write the following.

"the postings on this site are my own and don’t represent Marine Corps’ positions or opinions.”

Ok now I'm gonna discuss the following without offending anybody. If you're offend by homosexuality stop reading.

Recently Congress passed the repeal of DADT policy. Wow huh, what a big policy change here. It has to be ok by the chief of staffs and then there's a waiting period before the implement the changes. I'm getting out in Aug, so I won't see all the implemented changes and how this is all gonna turn out.

Anyways when this got passed a few weeks ago, they held a all hands formation to explain this all to us. Part of the time they were trying to reassure people that things will be ok. That they won't get rape by a gay roommate or anything absurd like that.

anyways here some questions and thoughts on the subject.

How are they going to arrange living quarters?

Well appartenly there's not going to any separation of barracks quarters or squad bays or training. However the Command can move personel around depending on the circumstances. ex: to accommodate personnel request. With this policy people were slightly uncomfortable with this. " I don't wanna be roomed with a gay roommate, etc etc.." People were worried there was gonna be gay sex in the brrks. But sex is not allowed in the brrks anyways. Many brrks have 2 rooms share a set of showers. Nothing gonna change there ethier.

Another trouble i see in the far future is gay marriage. Right not it's not allowed in many states and it's not allowed in the Marine Corps. But the way things are, gay people would are going to say "why can't we get married, we should have the same rights". Lets say gay marriage gets allowed on a federal level. In the military, married people get housing allowance to live off base or to provide housing for their spouses and children. I don't see how the military can afford to pay a housing allowance for everyone. If they legalize gay marriage, I can see Marines marrying each other to get out of the barracks and to get their own place. One things leads to another. And this might not lead to a good place.

A thought that I think lot of people are wondering. How does policy change affect the military culture. Usually when people think of the military, they think of conservative, macho, discipline, physical fit, etc. Gay is not really in it. (unless you think of the navy). Marine Corps culture is especially, for a lack of a better word macho. From what I see it reaction and opinion varies from unit to unit.

To better understand the Marines Cultured is varied. An example the culture in the air wing is usually more lax, Okinawa Marines are strict, Division have puts more responsibility on Nco's, and the list goes on

So this policy seems to affect people very differently. I'm sure grunts are not to pleased about this. Then again a lot gay things happens on ships. Some units everybody already knows who the gay guy is. Yeah he's the guy who's get everyone into cool parties and hooks his buddies up with girls. Other units just gay bash the hell outta a slightly feminine Marine. On ship there's lots of gay things that happen. People pretend to act game and play games like gay chicken. So it gonna be different from place to place. Overall in general, some officer said this and I agree. He said the Marine Corps attract a certain type of person. These are the type of person joining the Corps. And a Marine is a Marine regardless.

Last thought. Have not been in the Corps to long, but compared to the stories I hear about how things used to be; I can only say the Corps is changing to be more corporate like. What I mean by this that there is complaints and forms and procedure, politics, political correctness, in issues like equal opportunity, sexual harassment, no hazing. Things like I'm a female and a minority I have lots of rights.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this stuff is bad. It's just this stuff has a lot of redtape, and a lot of people just use the system to get what they want or to cause trouble.

With the policy repealed, I can see a lot of complaints come up. If someone SNCO says an off remark, I can see people reporting it, blowing out it out of proportion. People will do this, use the system. I can see a Marine who doesn't like his boss, and gets him removed by making complaints when someone slips up and says the word faggot or something.

I mean in the military how effective is the chain of command, following orders and authority, if i can in a lack of better term, blackmail or have something i can hold to my chain of command. Ex: Ssgt is giving a negative counseling and making me do work details that I don't want to do. So I complain and report that I heard him say "thats gay" or "faggot". (which in the workplace is pretty common). Now Ssgt is no longer in charge of me (temporarily) and is under investigation that could be career ending. Now who is going to risk all that trouble or rather just appease the complaining guy. This already happens with equal opportunity issuses. Not it's just going to happen more.

Hope this works in the military and that they can integrate this somewhat smoothly.

It's a long post. Feel free to comment.

Note: there hasn't been anybody coming out of the closet in my unit.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

Had a great christmas over here in afghanistan. Starting with christmas eve there was a talent show for our battalion. It was actually pretty good. The first place winner was a stand up, the 2nd place was a singer and 3rd was a dance group. They did they talant show outside and it was really cold. Then stayed up all night and played board games. Taught a lot of ppl in the platoon how to play risk and it was really fun. Got the next day, christmas off and slept in till about 1 in the afternoon. Got some gym time in and went back to playing more risk and then monopoly.

Good times

i'm back

2010-12-20T07:54:00.000-08:00

ok i'm back to blogging now. Had to stop temporarily because of Internet connection problems and rules about how I'm not supposed to blog about current operations, because it supposed to be opsec and stuff. Don't wanna reveal anything to them terrorist haji hackers. So everything in this blog won't violate that opsec rule.

Anyways. Today was one of those days that i wished that i bought a camera. So my story begins in the morning. I was making my regular trip back down to my fob from camp leatherneck. and i was really tired from staying up late all night from trading stocks. So i got on the plane and went to sleep almost immediately. Ussually the plane takes a while to load because there's lots of gear, or the tracks and rollers on the plane doesn't work right. Plane took off and i was still asleep, halfway thru the flight the guy next to me wakes up and gives me a stack of itunes gift certificates. I take a few and pass em them down.

Now in a c-130 military plane, it's really loud. So this guys shouts at me, and says "this is a christmas present from mark wahlberg." Again it was really loud in the plane and i wasn't sure what he said. I was kinda confused. I thought he was that it was a gift from mark wahlberg. So i yelled to him thanks for the gift cards man. And i went back to sleep.

Few minutes later, the guy across from me kicks me awake. I wake up and and stare at him with a wtf i'm sleeping look. he points at the cockpit entrance and i see this guy's back wearing a leather jack. I was pretty angry that he woke me up to point this out to me. Then the guy turns around and it mark wahlberg!!! mark wahlberg went around the plane and shook hands with people, signed autographs and posed for pictures.

I rode a c-130 in afghanistan with mike wahlberg. pretty cool huh

Anyways his was out here promoting some new moive called the fighter or something. Free screening and all that.

Back to the opsec thing. This isn't a isn't a violation of opsec or somekind of wikileaks, me leaking that mark is in afghanistan. Because this stuff already on the internent. Yeah it's in the newspapers already. it's in the boston herald. http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view/20101220mark_wahlberg_on_a_mission/srvc=home&position=recent

see this post not illegal or anything.

anyways meet some other intresting people, but i'll blog about it later.

update

2010-12-17T08:32:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I updated. Can't write about what i'm doing over here. So I'm just gonna write about other stuff. It gets pretty cold out here. Gets below freezing some nights i think. Losing a some weight, I look at lot skinner. Gotta find some time to hit the gym. Growing out my hair havn't cut the top for about 3 months, but it still sticks up straight.

Investment portfolio, bought some puts for nflx. Made 20% of them then sold them. I was suprise ntflx didn't go much higher after being listed in the s&p500. Bout some more etfs to hedge. Also bout some visa after their 10% drop due to news about the fed limmiting fees for debit cards.

pre-deploymnet

2010-09-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

Wrapping up my summer and about to deploy pretty soon. Update from my last post; the rest of the summer, i took some leave and went up and down California. Enjoyed the beaches in socal, went camping up in norcal, snorkeling in Catalina Island. Hung out with old friend and new ones. It has been one of my best summers.

Got back to base and things were hectic. Everybody's rushing around to get last minute things done. Formations everywhere, gear inspections, last minute paperwork(authorization for computers),packing, storage, moving, checking out of places. Definitely a change of pace from chilling at the beach and took a few days to get use to waking up early and being so busy.

Almost ready to leave.

summer break

2010-07-31T13:07:00.000-07:00

So i finished all my training before deployment, leaving just few minor task before i ship out(moving and gear accountability) The warrant officer and the SNCOS are all on leave, so no one really to report to and a lot of free time.

My summer days been filled with fun at the beach. Been working with Wounded Warriors and Freedom is not Free as they sponsor a surf camp with Surf Divas. Its a surf camp for children of wounded military parents. Got lucky and got to work security for the autograph line at comic con on it's opening day thurs. It was really cool, got to be security for Stan Lee. Went to the primere of Expendables that was on Camp Pendleton. Good action movie, story sucked tho. Explored San Diego a little bit. Went on the Combat lifesavers course, skip the classes but passed the test.

Investment side, i made up for most of my losses from the beginning of the year. I think 2010 prob gonna be one of my less profitable years. Probably leaving money in stable stocks and commodities, save a portion of cash, with a little hedge on the downside, before i deploy to afghan. Will start another account with Covestor when i come back.

Awesome summer!

2010-07-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

Been a pretty good summer so far. Been out a lot, but now i'm sitting back in the barracks chillin. Seems that i've been up and down California the past few weekends. Been up to S.F and San Jose and hit up a few parties and visited family. Went to the SD fair for the second time. Been up to orange county and Irvine. Also went to disneyland for a day. Went to the beach a few times to work on surfing, even tho the weather been pretty bad. Bootleg and watched a few movies and hung out with new friends and old high school buddies that came down to visit. I'm glad that i get to enjoy my time down here, before I deploy.

summer days!!

2010-06-21T19:19:00.000-07:00

Summer is starting! And even though i don't go to school anymore or get summer break, i got a lot of downtime during the prep time for deployment. So i got a lot of time this summer. gonna be catching up on my sleep with lots a naps. Also going to the beach more and try to get this surfing thing down.

Put a ring on it

2010-06-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

at the end of group discussion during deployment meeting

Sgt Olmedo:

How is it that half our group suddenly finds the love of their lives 3 months away from deployment?!!

(Five of the group recently got engaged or married to someone they meet in the last several months)

That's gonna be our motto: Put a ring on it. 10-2 (Afghanistan)

I'm gonna get that printed on a shirt. It'll be better than any other unit shirt out there.

Lowes: I feel left out. turns to ramirez

will you marry me?

Memorial Day Weekend

2010-05-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

take some time this weekend...

this week on the range

2010-05-25T18:15:00.000-07:00

So this week, I'm actually on the range. It's been pretty cool so far, except for waking up a 315 everyday. Shooting the M16A4 (see above) with the ACOG (the scope). It's a first for me, shooting long distance with the ACOG. It's a lot easier to shoot at 200yds and closer. Sight picture and Sight Alignment is about automatic. If u can't see thru the scope than something in the latter is wrong.

However it gets harder as you go back to the 300 and the 500 yard line. Yep Marines get to shoot at 500 yards, 5 football fields. But since we using the ACOG, I'm not supposed to adjust for wind, I'm suppose to offset aim and Wilcox range has a lot of wind in the afternoon. At one full value at the 5oo yard line, I am aiming almost to the left side edge of my target. Dats a lot of adjustment.

Anyways I shoot for qualification tomorrow. Hopefully there isn't to much wind.

o, and u gotta make sure to keep dat ACOG a decent distance from ur eye. Cause the recoil will send it back and hit you on ur face.

wongfu vid

2010-05-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

back in the day

2010-05-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

So back in the day before i joined the military. I did some construction work, during summer while in high school. I was the electrician dude. It was pretty cool and was one of the best summers i had. What i like about construction is that u could always visit ur work site after its completed and say "yeah i'd built dat." So above is a picture of this bar/lounge i worked on. look at the cool lighting... there's even dim light panels on the underside of the bar. Anyways its located somewhere in the outer mission. It's called bottom's up. gonna have to visit next time i'm back in s.f

u.s like greece?

2010-05-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

A lot of ppl are comparing the u.s to greece. the amount of debt both governments own, bailouts. From cnbc..

but then again the u.s is not as corrupt as greece. here's another side of the story.

excerpt from digg

I'm living in Athens for the last two years and doing business here.

What you don't see on the news is:
- Massive amount of black money changing hands in private sector.
- Schemes in almost every private business to avoid taxation.
- Pointless jobs that are being done in the public sector made specially to accommodate relatives of those in higher positions.
- Laziness: during 4 months of summer you cannot find ANYONE working, most offices are closed or in "wait till Autumn to do business" mode.
- Perfect job for any Greek (until recently) was to find a job in the public sector, because it was considered that the pay is good and once you get in, they cannot throw you out.
- Most of young Greeks (under 35) are living with their parents, or are living in a place rented by their parents. There is absolutely no sense of self-sustainability.
- Bribes! Try doing business here which involves getting a license from the government for anything and you will understand why this country is failing.
- Idiotic taxation: in addition to normal taxes, you are taxed an additional 17% up front from the amount of money you are PROJECTED to make in the next year.

Some concerns of people rioting are valid... Others are just angry that they cannot earn 2500 Euro/month for 5hours of daily work in a public office which is putting A SINGLE STAMP AND PASSING YOU ON TO ANOTHER LINE. That and playing solitaire.

Having said that... US is in much better situation.

end excerpt.

My opinion U.S is not going to default or fail anytime soon.

found something new

2010-04-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

Awesome. So I was taking a shower. And i found Suave 3 in 1 in the head. It can be used as a shampoo, conditioner and body wash!!! I gotta get my own bottle. Never got y soap had to be in different bottles, bout time they had a 3 in 1 soap. maybe next they should try having dishwasher soap and laundry detergent in the same bottle.

soap is soap.

future

2010-04-26T21:18:00.001-07:00

man, been thinking a lot bout the future lately.

The thing that irks me is that I'll be moving again in about a year. Probably back to San Francisco. For the past 4-5 years I lived in San Francisco, 29 Palms, Okinawa Japan and now Oceanside San Diego. When I ended up in the fleet, I ended up doing OPs all over the place, mostly Asia.

Its fun. It's really fun seeing new places and meeting new people. Doing things like driving 7tons, scuba diving, working with recon and eating weird foods. On the flip side, i never stay in one place to long, and friends i meet...i probably won't see them again. Sucks cause people in my new unit are cool, people i met in here in socal are cool. And i'll be leaving all this in a few months to go to afghan. then few months after afghan, i'm getting out and head back to s. f

It's hard for me to imagine how life is going to be back in San Francisco. Will i be going to back to my old life? (one of the reasons i left). I don't think will. I changed to much. But going back means seeing a lot of old faces. family. Going into some kind of routine. School blah.

Maybe i'm afraid of change. Is it even change?.... going back home... after 5 years

gotta get better

2010-04-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

Getting a bit fat. So gonna add more cardio to my workouts. More swimming at the pool and beach on the weekends. and probably a little less eating. 5 meals a day max or maybe 4.

Losing money in that stock market now. Everybody else is making money off the rally right now and my stocks are sitting at their support levels!?! Gotta wait it out. I noe I have a good strategy, it just takes some time. Although it'll be a while before i recover the 10% loss in jan in my cv.im account.

so yeah gotta get better.

good new got B's on both my online classes. 2 more classes before i get an AA degree. But i gotta wait till i get back from afghan.

training

2010-04-20T21:52:00.000-07:00

k, been training lately for deployment to Afghanistan!! A lot of it is water down compared to some of the training friends get in other units. I guess because they're in 2nd echelon shops and in grunt units vs me in a 3 echelon shop. Definitely pogue. Other ppl spend weeks and months in Mojave viper in 29 palms or in yuma, while i get to spend a week in the field on base!

So far went thru CMP(combat marksmanship) shoot. And last week went to the field for ECS (essential combat skills). ECS was pretty easy. Hiked a steep hill with some gear on. Went thru several classes and prac app on IEDs, towing vehicles, map reading, rear area security, and radios. This week going thru the SEARS class (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape.) Again it's water down and it's probably not the same as wat the grunts get.

weekends been busy too. Recently played in a football tournament with Harvest Church down in
UCSD. Lost all 3 games. But had some good play/highlights and overall fun time.

Rambling post

2010-03-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. Finished up the snowboarding season this month. Maybe I'll go one more time at the end of march. Found out I might deploy to Afghanistan sometime late aug early sept. Found out I'm getting promoted in April to CPL.

So more good news, the market been going up nonstop. Had to let go of my shorts. 2010 is not looking to profitable right now. On the upside, recovered my loss in NOK, thx to the constant uptrend. Gonna keep it for now, really like the dividend. Going to go more for dividend stock and maybe some more gold and silver. It'll be easier to manage, while I go get some training.

Finished with the Combat Marksmanship this week. It was really fun. It was the first time I ever shot with night vision goggles. And WOW there is a big difference with them on. It's not like those movies you see and everything green and kinda fuzzy, murky, (can't really see too much detail). I saw everything at night. There was even a invisible (infrared) laser at the end of my rifle, so could aim in and shoot. It was Awesome.

Funny thing at work:

Sgt Go: Is that it? Does anyone else have any non-availability they want to submit for April.
(non-availability for duty/watch)

Lcpl Rose: I'm busy on the 10th and the 11th.

Sgt Go: Busy doing what?

Lcpl Rose: There's a porn convention in L.A that weekend.

silence...

Lcpl Mac: um sgt... I'm gonna be busy that weekend too.

Lcpl Lowes: yeah put me down for non-availability for that weekend too.

Lcpl Saldana: you guys need rides to L.A?

Sgt Go: sigh... Does anyone else want to go to the porn convention.

winter time

2010-01-25T18:47:00.000-08:00

Dec and Jan are becoming very expensive months. Been snowboarding 6 times already, mostly at big bear. Getting my jumps down. A least the landings. No awesome tricks yet. But slowly building confidence with higher and higher jumps. Can go off a mid size jump with some air time now. Started school too. gonna be a busy winter.

Iono bout the market. Gonna see how 2010 plays. Buy on the dip? iono yet.

The Holidays.

2010-01-04T18:34:00.000-08:00

Recap on my holidays. Christmas break was spent in Vegas. Pretty expensive. I suck at gambling. But lots of free drinks. New years went to big bear mountain and snowboarded for 4 days. No fresh powder, but no crowds. Getting my jumps and landings a lot better. Still sore from that trip.

In the market... what a gain today. wow. Totally not expecting that. Scared out of shorting. But iono how the market gonna keep on going up like this. Well starting school soon, so going to hit the books pretty soon.

option play

2009-12-22T18:28:00.000-08:00

Holidays are here meaning no volume in the markets. Everybody is taking it easy. Bout to spend the break in Vegas with family. Anyways trying to close some positions and take some profits before the new year. Hopefully hit some limit orders tomorrow with BAK, and AAPl.

Thinking about an options trade right now. The s&p 500 has been trading in somewhat of a range, with the ceiling a 1121. Thinking about making a straddle option play on SPY, hoping for some volatility at the start of the new year. Everyone's been saying once we break out of the trading ranges, whatever direction we go in, it should be a big move. So I'm gonna position myself with a Feb straddle. Somewat cheap and should be enough time for the markets to chose wat direction to go in.

happy holidays.

the holidays

2009-12-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

Got a new game last week. Dragon age origins. Haven't stop playing since. Have a spell caster, warrior and rogue on it. Beat the story with the rogue so far. Haven't played a fun rpg since the last final fantasy. Getting save some money, cause all I do is play that game.

Got a lot of days off in Dec. Got half days 3 day weekends. Battalion, company, plt Christmas parties. Vegas for Christmas, and big bear for new years!!

Market Commentary/rant

2009-11-16T20:55:00.000-08:00

Seems like everybody's a genius nowadays with the stock market only going up. Every pick seems to go up. Whether it tech, financials, autos, etc. No seems to be wrong. This sharp rally getting be a little worried. The new lows of the dollar is getting me worried.

I'm not a genius. But this probably can't go on too much longer. I know, I know... Bernake printing press is flooding the world with dollars. But the way I see it is: The dollar can't fall that much more. There's a lot off commodities that go off it, other countries exports, world reserve currency. The dollar droping so low is bad for the global economy. Also looking at the chart for the dow. The rally been really sharp. The rate it's going it make new highs sometime in 2010. Yeah right.. with 10% unemployment. It doesn't make any sense.

I'm slowly closing my positions. It's an uneasy position. Thinking about opening into commodities more in the coming months. Along with the usual metals, I was thinking agriculture too. Also closing more short position.

Holidays coming up again. Usually bullish month too.

strange weekend

2009-10-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

Got my car fixed. And went down to San Diego for the weekend. Went to visit a friend who's now stationed on Mirmar. Got together with some other people from our old unit and went out to pacific beach. This is the weird part. One of the Marines from my old unit was my old Sgt. Sgt Gentry. Man, da was really akward. Didn't really get along with dat guy back in oki. He was always yelling at me, and I was always embrassing or pissing him off. I would have never thought I would see him again

But we ended up drinking together. Different person off duty. Had a pretty good time. He trying go cougar hunting, and I was winging for him. It didn't work out that good, he was acting pretty stupid drunk, (I wasn't acting that good ethier tho.) But it was some pretty funny stuff that night.

Woke up on Sunday at someone's house. A friend of a friend, i guess. Went to play some flag football down at ucsd with some harvest kids. had a good time. legs are feeling sore from all the sprinting. Also hurt my shoulder somehow during the weekend. But yeah, next weekend halloween.

weekend

2009-10-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

Had a mixed weekend. Went down to pacific beach on friday night. Then down to Imperial beach the same night. Woke up on Sat and my car wouldn't start. Had it towed to the nearest dealer and went to enterprise to rent something to drive for the rest of the week. Enterprise ran out of cars and I got a truck. Nisan Frontier truck.

It's really fun to drive. Never knew trucks could go that fast. I think it might even be an V8. Sucks a turning, but rumbles pretty deep, and acclerates pretty fast. Anyways hopefully I get my car fixed pretty soon.

update

2009-10-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Haven't been really keeping up with the blog as much as I want. Don't have a steady internet connection. Stocks doing great so far. Blew past s&p 1080 and dow 10000. I think i might wait a while then get some puts on those indexes later on. Out of the money of course. Need to hedge myself better. Very unprotected against a down slide. Check out my portfolio and progress on Covestor.com, my user name is wong55.

Wonder how much more can the dollar drop?

Still trying to win the mcdonald's monopoly got 36 pieces so far and won 50 cokereward points in the online game. Odds of wining are pretty bad. But I like eating their angus burgers.

On another note it doesn't look like I'll be deploying anytime soon. I was sick and missed the signups for afganistan, the last time they were asking for volunteers... talk about bad luck. I think my only hope for deploying is if there is a troop surge. But that doesn't seem likely ethier, Obama just won the nobel peace prize. And I don't think he'll want Afghanistan to like like bush's Iraq. It's bad for re-elections. Common Obama.... troop surge!!

2009-10-12T20:58:00.001-07:00

Saved some money this weekend. Stayed around the barracks. Had duty on sunday. Anyways been eating a lot of mcdonalds and playing the monopoly game there. Anybody has tennesse ave?

2009-09-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

Turning point in the market? Guess everybody waiting to see if resistance would hold up at 1040. Earnings should be coming around the corner. Should be easy for companies to meet lowered expectations. Don't really have a plan yet. Just having a wait and see stance. Trying to look for points to sell as the market seem to dip this week. Want a bigger cash position and maybe start hedging for a reversal.

Anyways weekend going pretty good. got sunburned already. Thinking about continuing with the college thing. Time to get busy

payday weekend

2009-09-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

suposdly got off the long working hours. I'll see next week. Having a pretty good weekend so far, sat went to the Dodgers vs Giants game. Giants lost big time 12-1. Pretty ugly game. Visiting friend and family in La for the rest of the weekend.

being very complacent with the stock portfolio. Easy to do wen the market just goes up. Should have covered my short on CLF while it was still profitable. Thinking about getting puts on the s&p 500 etf or something. Also keeping a lookout for companies doing bad on this rally. I mean if you rally with everybody in this market, something must be really messed up with your company.

slacking

2009-09-12T12:11:00.001-07:00

Been slacking since I took leave. Gained about 10lbs. Gotta get back to the gym get down to 155 or 150. Haven't updated this blog in a while or keep up the markets as much as I wanted too. Good thing the market has been going straight up the last few weeks. Gonna look to sell soon and start hedging on the eventually downturn.

I actually have 3 portfolios. 1 is on interactive brokers with someone else manging it. The other 2 are on Schwab. The ones on Schwab.com show up on Covestor.com as 1 big portfolio even though they are split. Using slightly different strategies on both portfolios on Schwab. But it seems like the portfolio where I been using my own ideas and holding long term is doing better than the other ones.

Been spending too much money too, not on leave anymore gotta cut back on it. Settling into my new unit already. Very busy place. Long work hours, but I'm glad I'm back in the states.

vacation

2009-08-24T08:21:00.000-07:00

Been on vacation since the 17th. Had a pretty good time in hk, now in taipei somewhere. Gonna post some pics later, either here of on facebook. Anyways good to a rally while I've been away.

AAV

2009-08-07T19:50:00.000-07:00

index

2009-08-07T19:37:00.000-07:00

It's almost hard to believe that the S&P is above 1000. Haven't seen that number in a long time. Wondering how long the rally going to go. Up to 1200? A bit uncertain of what to do. It seems like Wall Street is recovering well, however Main Street and the average American, seems to be still going through a hard time. A lot college buddies just graduated recently, and according to them, the job market is pretty low.

Riding the wave up, but I don't have any hedges for the downside right now. I'm getting a little uneasy as we go higher and higher. ehh... let goo!!!!!!! rally!!!!!

Let rally....hahaha

2009-08-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

We been rallying for a few days nows. haha nice to make some money. Here's some of the reasons we're rallying.

Taken from Zero hedge.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/new-wall-street-reality

GM chapter 11 = PRICED IN
125K+ jobs lost from GM chapter 11 = PRICED IN
unemployment @ 9% = BETTER THAN EXPECTED
unemployment @ 10% = DOW SOARS
unemployment @ 11% = GREEN SHOOT RALLY
unemployment @ 12% = ALREADY FACTORED IN
unemployment = 35% = DOW DROPS 100 POINTS
housing price =1% = RECESSION ENDING
housing collapses = GREEN SHOOT
Housing falls 20% = STABILIZATION
Government spends 1 trillion of OUR dollars = STIMULUS
North Korea fires nuke = RALLY
Israel bombs Iran = 30 MINUTE END OF DAY RALLY
world explodes = ASIA RALLIES
PMI crashes = HUGE RALLY
No jobs are created = RECESSION ALMOST OVER
U.S. debt overwhelming = TOO BUSY RALLYING TO CARE
Consumer stops spending = RETAIL RALLY
Banks are insolvent = SIGNS OF STABILIZATION
American auto industry BK = GOOD THING
Banks pass scam stress tests = HUUUUUUUUGE RALLY
Banks "only need 75 billion = OUT OF THE WOODS
Banks pass a real stress test = NEVER WOULD HAPPEN
Banks pay back tarp = LATE DAY SURGE
Banks can't pay back TARP = EARLY MORNING SURGE
12% mortgage delinquency = GOOD FOR STOCKS
Hundreds of thousands of mortgages underwater = HOUSING BOTTOMED
Dollar rises = RALLY
Dollar crashes = RALLY
Inflation = BULL MARKET
Deflation = BULL MARKET CONTINUES
REFLATION = MASSIVE SHORT COVERING RALLY
Gold rises = STOCKS RALLY
Gold falls STOCKS RALLY BIG
Banks' fake earnings = SIGNS OF STABILIZATION
CRE stabilizing= 1000 POINT RALLY
CRE CRASHING = STOCKS SHAKE IT OFF TO RALLY
CONSUMER INSOVENT = CONSUMER IS SPENDING
OIL @ 50 = BULL RALLY
OIL @ 60 = GREEN SHOOT
OIL @ 100 = IMPORTANT RECOVERY SIGN
OIL @ 20 = TAX BREAK

And the one we should all interpret correctly:
NO ONE IS BUYING STOCKS = BILLIONS ON THE SIDELINES

engineers

2009-07-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

Funny story I think.

So I was talking to one of the engineers in Service Company. They got their first female Marine in their platoon. So before she arrived, the Staff NCO's had a platoon meeting with the troops. During this meeting, they told all the male Marines; don't look at her, don't touch her, don't talk to her, don't date her, don't make any sexist jokes anymore, in fact don't even joke when your around her.

I though this was hilarious. The reason the higher ups said that (for u non military ppl) because females in the Marine Corps are very rare. Whenever they go somewhere, complaints suddenly pop up, about sexual harassment, rape, etc. While it's a bad stereotype, but it happens enough so that the higher ups are sacred what will happen.

charts for everbody

2009-07-24T19:55:00.000-07:00

http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/10896_piechartsgraphsjuly21.jpg

spam email

2009-07-24T04:39:00.000-07:00

Got some spam email, but actually like what it says:

Written by an Australian Dentist

To Kill an American
You probably missed this in the rush of news, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper, an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.

So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . So they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)

'An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish , Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.

An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.

An American is Christian , or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan . The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.

An American is also free to believe in no religion...... For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.

The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence , which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.........

When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!

As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan ..

The national symbol of America , The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America

Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11 , 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.

So you can try to kill an American if you must.. Hitler did. So did General Tojo , and Stalin , and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself .. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

cash and trouble

2009-07-20T00:14:00.001-07:00

Why does it seem that every time I get in trouble, my portfolio goes well?

I rather be stressed about my portfolio, then worrying about problems at work.

gym time

2009-07-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

Looking back, I think I have to eat about an extra 2 meals a day, when I want any kind of effect from going to the gym. Like building mass or strength. Thats a lot of food for me. 5 meals a day. It's hard to do. I have to go buy more food, or take home a few trays from the chow hall.

Anyways I'm as big as I want to be. Gonna start cutting back on eating so much

funny pic

2009-07-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_eIdymrCtdbg/SlDTxmgi3JI/AAAAAAAAIOU/mS3vSTQg4uI/s1600-h/1.JPG

lesson to learn

2009-06-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

"Knowing that no stock will
go up forever, we must have
a process in place that
allows us to recognize when
the gains have reached our
targets and it is time to
head to the sidelines."

-epic

wow, i think thats one of the things that hardest to do. Sell a stock for that gain and not be to greedy to keep cheering for it to go up.

english is weird

2009-06-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

"Though the rough cough and hiccough plough me through, I ought to cross the lough

Thorough Enough

Posted in Language by Greg Ross on May 22nd, 2009

Seven ways to pronounce ough:

dough
tough
hiccough
bough
ought
cough
through

"If the English language made any sense," wrote Doug Larson, "lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers."

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England .
We take English for granted,
but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly,
boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig
is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham.
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make
amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and
get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables,
what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking
English should be committed to an
asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play
and play at a recital? We ship by truck but send
cargo by ship. We have noses that
run and feet that smell. And how can a slim
chance and a fat chance
be the same, while a wise man and a
wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of
a language in which your house can burn up as
it burns down, in which you fill in a form by
filling it out, and in which an
alarm goes off by going on.

So if Father is Pop, how come Mother isn't Mop?

And that is just the beginning--
even though this is the end!

satcom op

2009-06-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

This week I'm on a satellite op with the Lmst terminal and the Smart T. Also sometime this week is the Commanding Generals Inspection (CGI). Glad I'm not there for that. So far the op has been pretty bad. Usually things go wrong, but not this bad. The operators started by pointing the dish the wrong way, then somehow broke 2 cables, but didn't find that out till later. Not enough water and salt for the grounds. All that and the other site that we're pulling services from haven't even set up yet. Wow talk about bad planing.

I usually like ops too, because as techs we don't have to do much. It's the operators job to set up everything. And I get to catch up on my sleep. Hopefully things will get better.

Anyways I'll see if I can get some pics of the satcom gear..

wow i just notice there's spell check on blogger.

hahahaha, Peter Griffin

2009-06-22T01:35:00.001-07:00

http://www.sloshspot.com/blog/03-30-2009/Peter-Griffin-Motivational-Posters-139

after that

2009-06-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

Done with the range. Think I shot sharpshooter if the pits didn't mess up the score. Its been a long week, waking up at 2am and getting done at 2 in the afternoon. Commanding General Inspection (cgi) is coming up so people are going crazy at work. Hopefully get to avoid all that when I'm the backyard op.

Anyway so the market still seems undecided on which way to go. Another 3 banks failed this week. Here's the total count so far: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

Waterfalls

2009-06-09T23:28:00.000-07:00

Went up to the waterfalls up north. Had to hike up there, Pretty cool even got to swim around the place. heres some pics

Range Week.

2009-06-08T03:58:00.001-07:00

Gonna post up some pictures of the weekends pretty soon. Went to the waterfalls and did a little biking. Finally started the range today. I think I'm shooting a lot better. No more bad habits!! Been such a long time since I last shot, I forgot those bad habits, like anticipating, bad trigger control, etc. Hopefully I'll continue to shoot good.

Get to wake up a 2am this whole week too, but a least I'll be able to see the market when it's actually open in U.S time. Thinking we'll won't break resistance of s&p 500 - 950 and then head down a little lower this week, maybe to 920.

2009-05-31T05:33:00.000-07:00

Might have to cover some of my short positions. I guess sometimes your theories might be right but the timing is wrong. We'll see Monday gap up or gap down.

Anyways, bout to go on grass week this upcoming 2weeks. Gotta learn how to shoot a rifle again. didn't get to shoot a m16 for almost 2 yrs. shessh pretty crazy huh. Pt is getting pretty crazy, a lot of running and a lot of fast running. I noe Marines are supposed to be tough and all that, but wasn't really enjoying dat freezing rain shower last thurs and Friday morning at 0530, but warmed up quick enough on that run. It was raining like this.

well...

2009-05-23T22:35:00.000-07:00

Memorial day

Finished with 2 of my classes. Got a B in speech and a C in math. Taking 3 classes was crazy this semester. Too much work. Memorial weekend, got a 96. Already went to schwab fest yesterday. Dunno wat i'm gonna do the other days. A bit out of shape. Prob try to lose some weight get back at 150.

Dunno where's the market going. Gonna have to wait.

Hooah

2009-05-11T03:17:00.000-07:00

So at work today, some army guys came over to observe. They were from Fort Buckner.(somewhere south of Hansen). They were actually the guys usually on the other side of the satellite wen we set up the dish, i think they're called controllers.

Anyways talked to them for a while, confirmed that the army does a lot of the same bs the Marines do. But there still some differences. Like they're E-4 has 2 different positions. Specialist and CPL. Specialist is not an NCO. CPL is an NCO. The cpl is put in a leadership position too. They said that grunts e-4s are usually cpls. Thats weird huh. In the Marine Corps all cpl are ncos. Makes sense a little bit.

Markets been going up for the last 2 months. Come on pullback. come on. Started some small short position last week. might restart some this week.

Finals

2009-05-10T04:25:00.000-07:00

AHHh it's finals week for me. Working on a group presentation for spch 101. Need to write an essay for writ 101 and study for my math test on tues. I'm so tired of school. I'll be glad that it'll be over in a week. Just in time to enjoy the Okinawan summer. Time to get back in shape and hit the beach. Do a little snorking, or scuba and some volleyball.

oh yeah , happy mother's day back in the states

100th post

2009-05-01T03:22:00.000-07:00

Started this blog a little over a year ago. (04/14/08). A lot has change since then. This past year, sometimes things seems dull and routine in the rear. Other times usually during operations, things seem hectic and ever changing. It was the last year I saw my grandma. I miss her a lot already. It was hard being back home during leave, watching someone so sick. Being in a different country for so long gives you new perspectives, and its really been eye opening. Happy to move back to the states in a few months. 08 hasn't been the greatest year, but I think it's been a year where I learned a lot.

Learned a lot about dealing with people. I guess if in the Marine Corps if you can somehow get thru all the bs and hassles, you can pretty much get thru all the bs life throws at you. I mean look at all the paper and bs just to get a gold card here, or Humvee license, Tuition Assistance, etc. Some Marines actually get denied some of these benefits , and you really gotta fight for just basic privileges. I guess if you learn to navigate thru all this, civilian life would be easy to get what you want.

That and May 4th...is everyone waiting to short that day? (stress test results).

update

2009-04-26T04:49:00.000-07:00

So here's a overdue update

Plead guilty on the njp. Got 15 days of restriction and 45 days of extra punitive duties. Already done with my 15 days. Glad the major let me continue to go to school, while on restriction. Some good actually came out of this. Moved sections. Moved to SHF and SATCOM. Its abbreviated from super high frequencies and satellite communications. I'm pretty eager to learn about new gear. Especially the SATCOM gear.

I mean think about it. My old job was being close to obsolete. I mean who cares if a radio breaks down on the field. They're relatively cheap (compared to other comm gear) , so easily swapped out. Rarely did I have to fix anything. Just do the paperwork and get a new one from EL MACO.

If u think about it, radios are usually the last line of communications. Theres cellphones, internet, intra net, web cams, phones, satellites, gps, texting, and other data stuff from alpha. If all those goes down, then people will use the radios. I remember, the last opt I was on and someone got seriously hurt. First thing that came out was cell phones. They didn't even bother with the radios. Current updated news came from the internet. And all the other comm services were used.

Don't get me wrong, radios are useful. If the was a nuclear attack and the emp fried the servers and cell towers. Our radios should still work. Radios are pretty mobile too, so they are also good for convoys, and comm with helos. But usually a walkie talkie works just as good, except without the encryptions.

but yeah enough with dat rant. Glad to be in my new section. Military relies on satellites pretty heavily.

Got my positions in smp back. But lost my spot in MARSOC. They won't accept anyone with njp in the last 12months. New orders to go to Camp Lejune in Sept. Planing to go vacation in Asia this summer. dang life is always changing so fast.

njp njp

2009-04-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

Seems the same case anywhere you go. They have already decided if your guilty or not. They already decided the punishment. I guess njp is more of a formality than anything else. I mean the Co is your judge, jury and executioner. Well I don't think I'll get lucky twice, they prob got me this time. Again I kinda calm about all this. I don't noe y.

I'll be standing in front of him tomorrow...

End of the week.

2009-04-05T04:45:00.000-07:00

This week been pretty bad for me. It's kinda weird, cause it doesn't feel dat way. Not really angry, pissed off, sad or anything. Just kinda hopeful, that this next week will be better. Or maybe when I move back to CA it'll better. yeah i noe the week usually starts with a Sunday, but I don't really count them, I like thinking that Monday is the beginning of the week.

To wrap up this week, got fired from 2 positions at SMP. Moved sections twice. Now working in the tool room. (don't really want to be in there, get to count how many screws and stuff we have in the bins) Getting njp, actually on Monday. I'll update on how that went tomorrow. And wrecked a golf cart today, gonna be expecting a big bill pretty soon next week.

hmm.. so maybe the future doesn't look to bright either.

Well a least I made a few hundred this week in the market.

ahhh

2009-03-31T05:45:00.000-07:00

complaining here.

Man... sometimes the Marine Corps can be so gay.

stupid stuff done this week:

wake up at 5am to pt at 630

friend got court martial for minor stealing over a year ago (yeah, he might had been wrong, but its hard to see a friend go thru that)

put up with a sgt,who's watch is in a different time zone. Get to work early, leave late. 20 min chows. It's 1420 on everybody's else's watch,on the computer, all the clocks in the building, online, but he thinks its 1440 or something.

playing silly games at work, (there's no gear to fix, so we do stupid stuff like inventory how many washers and nuts we have in the pre extended bin.)

marching everywhere (yeah inoe its the military, but seriously, no marches anywhere since bootcamp, it takes to long to get anywhere.)

sitting around doing nothing, cause there's no gear to fix,
then we get in trouble because we're sitting around with nothing to fix

stupid busy work. ex: count how many washers, nuts and screws in that bin. Are u serious?!?!?
theres prob a few thousand in there all mixed up. i could make up a #, and no one would be able to find out if it's true or not

and its only a tues

who's reading...

2009-03-30T05:40:00.000-07:00

Tracking all the people reading this blog with google analytics. 71 visits since Feb. Not that bad i guess. Surprised that 4 ppl from Romania hit the site. I wonder how people stumble on this blog. Hey feel free to comment or ask questions on any of the blogs.

These fatcats

2009-03-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

taken from redplanet

busy busy busy

2009-03-21T22:15:00.000-07:00

Gonna be very busy in the next few months. Starting school again. Classes on tues, thurs and sat. Gonna be taking Math 012 intermediate algebra, writing 101 and speech. Some hard classes! Dragon boat practices start this week too. Then next month add martial arts classes. Trying to get a green belt in Marine Corps. Good thing the pace at work is at a standstill.

Never thought I'll be so busy in the rear...

Para OPs

2009-03-20T05:56:00.000-07:00

Heres a video of the para ops. Helped participate as the safety crew and uh unofficial camera/picture man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uNmbCcTZQY

Theres other parts to cobra gold too, but this and the evac was the only things i participated in.

work!??

2009-03-18T23:21:00.000-07:00

Can't really say I've been working. Went down to volunteer at the thrift shop today. Pretty cool place. Lotta old things. Had to rack up the clothes, toys and blankets there for a few hours. And got a free lunch!! Also got a pretty cool tie for .50 cents. yeah!!!!

Finally got my last classs aproved for tution assistance. Taking 3 this summer, mabye 4. trying to get an aa degree before i get out of okinawa.

Tommorow going golfing!

working on ship

2009-03-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

Worked on the U.S.S PLESS for a few weeks. Here some pics of it.

Inside the hulls with the gear.

The outside deck. Thats a crane

upclose

outta da markets

2009-03-12T02:59:00.000-07:00

Missed the uptrend. Especially in the finacials. Was looking at FAS. Made a mistake, instead of putting a market call on monday, i put a limit order. It didn't execute and now its too late. I not gonna chase this uptrend, just going to wait to short again.

A large portion of my position is in cash now, just waiting for the right time. Iono if I'll be trading actively in the next several months as I will work and go to college full time. Still have a small position in BAC.

Bangkok

2009-03-07T19:08:00.000-08:00

near the the royal place i think

kid monks.... and lin
monkey smoking weed, its in a temple

cool looking monument

this picture is on the one baht coin.

Bangkok- big city
got lost so many times

Thailand

2009-03-06T04:38:00.000-08:00

Got back from Thailand. Here some pics. Pretty cool things. tigers, snakes, and elephants, alligators.

baby tiger tore up my shorts. check those claws out! they don't cut em.

Big tigers. They roared at lot. they seemed kinda hungry too.

This guy is crazy playing with the alligator
baby elephant
elephants dancing

python i think

got a lot more photos, I'll upload them on here and facebook as the week go on. The internet is kinda slow, so its kinda hard to load em.

Money

2009-03-03T23:51:00.000-08:00

bbl

2009-01-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

In Thailand right now. Don't have the time to keep up with the market. Be back in march.

Holding positions in DXD, JPM, BAC and a small position in USO. Separated BAC into its own account. So the losses are easier manage and offset with the other account. Might set a few stop limits on DXD and USO. Anybody else think there be a rally once Obama starts his stimulus plan?
bah- market sentiment changes to fast.

Back in Okinawa

2009-01-06T01:52:00.000-08:00

Alright back in Japan. But I don't think I'm ready for vacation being over. Going to be going to Thailand in about 2 weeks. So maybe this is going to be an extended break. hahaha. dunno if i want keep looking at my portfolio.

Have a huge position in cash. A long position in BAC. An awkward position with DXD. Don''t really know what to do with dxd. It logical that I keep as a hedge against the recession. But the size of the positions puts me at a bad spot. Compared to the rest of my portfolio is about the same size of my position in BAC and JPM. I think my position is too big. And with Obama inguaration in Jan, might be some rallies.

My long postion in BAC will prob continue to decline in 2009. But hopefully if that happens DXD or other short exposures will offset it. Missed the rally in commodities. but mabye it go down again, and I'll see if i can fish for a price. Overall out look in 2009 is not good, and predict that market fluctuates as it goes between rising on "hope" and falling on "reality".

update

2008-12-31T23:44:00.000-08:00

Been a long time since I updated. Been on leave back to states in San Francisco, Reno, and Tahoe. Been leaving my portfolio alone. Its pretty much at a stand still. Not making anything, and not losing anything. Although, it caught me off guard that dxd gave out dividends. The run up to the end year was expected.

Here comes 2009!!

whoooo!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-24T04:56:00.000-08:00

yeah another bailout!!!!!

wonder how long the rally will last this time

/sarcarsm

...

2008-11-19T03:50:00.000-08:00

Lot of charts I've been looking at broke through supports and resistances, going downward.
I like how I buy stuff, then it goes down 20% or something. Yeah BAC, u suck.

Glad I kept a lot in cash, but it looks like I'll prob cost average down from my initial position.

stupid market...

stupid broker

2008-11-13T14:32:00.000-08:00

So I'm pretty upset with my broker. I ended up buying some dxd to hedge a little against my portfolio. I had about 36% against my current holdings (excluding cash). I it bought in the premarket on weds. Anyways I put a trailing stop on of 3 pts on 80% of my dxd.

On thursday dxd went all the up to 93 then fell before market close to 74. My stop loss didn't get executed!! ahhhh.

Market Commentary

2008-11-11T23:58:00.001-08:00

1 or 2 things are happening. We are forming a bottom. Or we are going down some more to retest the lows. Probably the 2nd. If we don't break resistance, then I'm going to take as a bullish sign. But we probably going to retest the low with the following events coming up.

Thursday 11/13 Initial Jobless Claims

Friday 11/14 Retail Sales
Consumer Sentiment

Along with other important earnings report (WMT , JWN).

But a lot of things are really cheap, right now. It's hard holding back, and not buy as much as I can. A funny post from blogging stocks. Yeah theres a lot things cheap right now, but things can always get lower. Current position is about 20% long in bac. The rest is in cash. But if there is a short rally, I sell a percentage of my gains. Thinking about hedging with DXD. Also waiting for entry point for Jpm is a 34.80.

Feel free to comment.

oh yeah, Happy belated birthday Marine Corp!

Week of trading

2008-11-07T18:07:00.000-08:00

Whoa, wsup with this weeks market? It's still a traders market with all these crazy swings. Still trading etfs. But hold no positions over the weekend. (hmm, seems during the weekend, there's always some kind of surprise announcement from the gov or some company. Bet u Obama prob gonna make some kind of big announcement about the economy) But who knows what will happen?

So don't know what to do yet. The market is still volatile. Overall bear market. but bulls wanna rally on everything that beats expectations. Unemployment looks horrible. Lighter than normal volume in the markets. Guess everyones still to scared to put money in. Waiting to buy JPM and BAC.

Update Nov09: See something happened over the weekend! China Stimulus plan!

track my progress

http://www.covestor.com/mbr/wong55

Random commentary.

2008-10-31T17:08:00.000-07:00

whoa, whats going on with the markets in the last 15-30 min, this week. I wake up in Japan and look at the charts, and usually there's some kind of reversal (up, down) during that time frame. Like on Friday it seems like some decided to drop some big buys at the end of the day. The volume too is crazy in the last few minutes of trading. Still using small positions on etfs and trading ups and downs.

quote of the day:

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

George Bernard Shaw

Weekend

2008-10-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

Had a pretty good weekend. Friday went to the gym and got a good workout. Also watched some Korean movies. Starting to enjoy a lot of foreign films.

Saturday woke up early at 730 and woke up the rest of my softball team. lol, one of my teammates had a hard time to getting up said "man I'm breathing vodka right now". Did horribly in the tournament, but it was fun. Ojeda recorded some of it. I'll see if I can post a vid up later. Did some hw and slept the rest of the day

Sunday went to a friends open house out in town. He had a pretty cool place, a lot better than the barracks!!! Meet a bunch of older ppl who brought their kids and babies. It was cool anyways meeting other people. Played cards; phase 10 and watch some old movies. yeah never saw Goonies before.

Been trading lately

2008-10-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

The last week in the market have been crazy. Swinging up and down wildly.
It seems the Dow been hits it daily low midday then rallies back the last hour of trading.
I've currently stationed in Okinawa which makes stock trading a bit weird. The U.S market opens at 1030 in Japan. I usually don't day trade, but it seems the only way to make money is to take advantage of the intra day volatility the market is offering. lol, unfortunately I get really tired around 11 and I got pt at 0530 in the morning. So I look at the futures, and the news, then make some limit orders. Then go to sleep Been trading etfs lately. DXD, DBA, and others. Also set some limit orders for stocks, I want to pick up in long term. My limit orders hit for GE, and JPM.

For the ETFs. I'm using 12% of my portfolio. My limit orders for stocks hit 20%.
The rest of my position is cash about 70%. I'm trying to take small bites when buying stocks.

JPM:7.5% of portfolio
GE: 12% of portfolio

I'm comfortable with my position in JPM at 34.70. I believe this is a good price and will cost average down from there. I'm a bit uncomfortable with my GE position and will hedge, or develop an exit strategy. I think 12% of my portfolio of GE is not good and a 20% of stock in portfolio is a little to much.

For the next week, I plan to hedge against losses by continuing trading etfs, and looking for more opportunities to take small chunks of good stocks. Hopefully over the weekend, traders and investors will take time to calm down and think.

Market Analysis

2008-10-14T00:44:00.000-07:00

So whats been happening lately in the markets?I would like to write tons of stuff about it.
but this guy already has.. ( below taken from google forums). Anyways bit upset that I missed the bounce back on Monday, but I think chasing this rally is a bad idea. Have a lot of cash ready to buy, but I guess I gotta be patience, hopefully we'll visit lows. Crystal ball says when the Dow rallies to 10000 it'll fall rite back down. hahahaha.

Market Commentary:

Basically what is happening here is a fight between Deflationary
forces and Inflationary forces.

Credit Freeze, Banks weary to lend, consumers tapped out, business not
investing, De-leveraging of real estate and other assets is all
causing massive Deflationary pressures.. what happens in deflationary
periods.. ALL assets to include stocks, gold, bread butter and beer go
down in price. Jobs go down the drain, layoffs increase. BUT... one
good thing happens.. the DOLLAR STRENGTHENS. Which is what we were
starting to see. Its good if you don't have debt, and your positioned
in cash because your purchasing power goes up. Its bad if you have
debt because it makes dollars harder to come by and there for harder
for you to repay creditors.. and thats the last thing most Americans
need because they are up to their ears in debt. BUT its good for the
extremely wealthy, they don't mind either way im sure, because they
probably have already sold everything including you baby boomers
stocks at DOW 14000 causing them to tank and re-positioning in dollars
to buy up assets during the brief window of opportunity if and when it
presents itself.

AND of coarse the Feds are pumping up inflation to combat the
deflationary pressures on the US.. I am pretty sure China is on board
with helping us inflate our currency as well for the benefit of their
own economy. Inflation isn't as bad as deflation since we get to keep
our jobs, and it prevents civil unrest.. but our dollar value goes
down more, so the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in real
terms meaning, your labor per hour of time becomes worth less and your
standard of living goes down... but you get to keep working your ass
off so the blood and sweat keeps the gears of the conveyor belt that
transfers wealth from the working class to the jet class well lubed.

Basically i think what happened today signified the first minor battle
the Feds have won against increasingly strong deflationary pressures
by extreme inflation and attempting to ease the fear banks have of
lending. So deflation may be on the way down but Inflation is on the
way up.. I wonder how banks are planning to position themselves in
this scenario to maintain profitability with the future risks being
both inflationary and deflationary? Maybe both the banks and the Feds
hope with all this money saturating the financial world will give way
to a new bubble somewhere.. anywhere.. I say they should give any
business 0% loans to invest in green energy.. bet that could create
some jobs, spur a lil economic growth and maybe get us off oil.. why
give it all to the banks.. their just going to try to make more money
for themselves, we may as well give it to a sector of our economy that
would make use of it..

All in all I think Its an oscillating process on Inflation and
Deflation. the two will meet somewhere in the middle OR one may win
entirely, but the cycles will probably reverberate faster than most
would imagine as time goes on... Who would have guest it was so hard
to maintain a fiat currency so long?.. I guess the prices in Gold and
the prices in the stock market will help tell us if Inflation or
Deflation is currently winning.. but if you notice prices continuing
to go down in commodities thats bad news, deflation could spiral out
of control... people spend less, business layoff workers, more people
are un-employed so they buy less, more business fail and the cycle
continues down as a depression emerges out of our current recession.
It could be a good reset, albeit a very difficult one, but in the long
term.. inflation will eventually come back full force with all the
current spending, Trillions of dollars chasing few assets around the
world.. prices will have to go up or the feds will need to have sky
high interest rates to remove excess dollars.. Although current the
money supply is increasing as the feds try to free up liquidity the
Velocity of money basically the rate at which it exchanges hands is
decreasing as economic activity is grinding to a halt. So we will see
if their actions are enough to prevent Deflation.. I say, mid-term
moderate deflation, long term, inflation possibly hyper inflation..

I really don't know to what extent holders of foreign debt holders
will play in all this.. also with so much consolidation among large
companies going on with this down turn, I think when inflation does
hit, it will hit hard and fast as there will be less barriers the
dollars flows through before reaching the hands of the public. But we
will see, maybe the two forces will cancel out.. but i doubt it,
because the momentum behind the two seem quite drastic which is why I
believe they will oscillate instead.

BUT the 10 Trillion dollar question is, will we have deflation? if so
when and for how long, and if not, will we have inflation or Hyper
inflation..Its really all up to the feds and how they deal with this
problem. This should clear up some things for some of you traders
wondering why golds going down, why the dollar is going up, and why
the stock market is so crazy.. ... ... it took a few hours of reading,
but i think this conclusion I have arrived at is pretty close to whats
going on... if someone knows the "When" i would love to hear it, as
they same timing is everything.

sa...@xtensiv.net

Trading

2008-10-09T01:34:00.000-07:00

In the midst of all this craziness, Buy low sell high. This chart made me laugh

Daily life

2008-10-08T05:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes its cool being in the military. I get to see Humvees, fight planes and helicopters on a daily basis. HAha, still don't they actual names of the things flying by. It just be like "cool there's a helicopter flying by, whats that called again?.. Chinook, Cobra?!?"

Yeah, I was in my room today, and my window started rattling really badly, I looked outside and it was a helicopter (Chinook) fly really low outside, right by the barracks.