Chan's Personal Blog

I was reading the BBC News and I came across this interesting article entitled, "Finger length gives sports clue." It talks about how you can look at a woman's fingers and figure out whether she's good at sports.


There's also a separate article entitled, "Finger Length - Key To Aggression", which is about how finger length in males can affect their aggression levels and cognitive abilities.


I think I'm going to conduct an informal test. Any ladies who read this blog, tell me if your ring finger is longer than your index finger, and tell me how good you are at sports. I'll also use Sarah and Bethany as the control cases. One of them plays floor hockey, tennis, baseball, etc. The other..... ummm....... she keeps score at sporting events.... that's a sport right?

I saw this article today in the Times Colonist entitled, "Anti-Olympics group threatens to boycott Games."


The article goes on to say how some professor supports this anti-olympics group, and how the boycott could work. But seriously, you really think you can boycott the Olympics? Come on! This is a world class event where people from all around the world flock to! If you're not going to go to the Olympics because you're concerned about the economic or environmental costs of holding the Olympics, can I have you tickets?

Everyone that I've talked to are quite excited about the Olympics even with the fact that there are cost overruns in the project.

Masterpiece theater presents "White and Nerdy" by Wierd Al. It's a parody of Chamillionaire's song, Ridin'. Enjoy.


Bravo.

So after a few months of running the International Bank of Chan Fund, we have decided to reset the game. The game became stagnant because people weren't making trades any more. The main shortcomings of this first game was:

• Long timeframe. A game that spans one year is far too long, and if you make a mistake along the way, you're pretty much dead in the water. Although this is realistic, it's not fun.
• Unlevel playing field. The game wasn't exactly fair because you could borrow money to buy stock. However, the interest rate for that borrowed money was far too low. I wanted to boost the interest rate costs as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates (just like in real life), but the game didn't allow it, so it wasn't fair. This gave an unfair disadvantage to investors who didnt borrow money to invest.
• Not enough cash. With $4,000, it was far too difficult to build a diversified portfolio. So, many people (including myself) were taking on way too much risk and developing bad habits.

To address this issue, I've restarted the stock game with new rules which should encourage more activity. Some realism is sacrificed, but it makes the game more fun, and hopefully keep people more interested this time around.

The last game was also super difficult because the summer was absolutely horrible for the stock market. The markets are better right now, so hopefully it'll be a much more enjoyable trading session.

In this new game, you start with $10,000 which does make it possible to build a diversified portfolio. Basically if you pick five stocks in five different sectors, you've got a diversified portfolio. In addition, I've disabled borrowing money in the game, so everyone has exactly the same amount of buying power available. Lastly, the game runs for four months at a time, so the investment timeline is shorter. Hopefully this will generate more trading.

With more money to start with, hopefully people will be more sane about their investing since they have more money to spread around. Although, some bad habits die hard, and I still see some people putting all their eggs in one basket.

If you want to join, simply go to MarketWatch. I offer a quick two-part tutorial about picking stocks, and sources of information, part one and part two. There's a school of thought that believes half the battle in investing is being in the right sector at the right time. What sectors is absolutely sucking right now? Natural resources, manufacturing, industrials! What sectors are rocking right now? Financials, healthcare, retailers, and technology. If you're absolute newbie and want a model diversified portfolio, this is what I would recommend picking up and price targets:

Verizon (VZ) - Low risk, buy it soon as it'll easily go to $40/share easily, maybe even by next week. Verizon is a telecommunications company that works well during a slowing economy. People aren't going to give up their cellphones and telephone services just because the economy gets bad. That's a quick 5% return. This stock should gradually move up.

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) - Low risk, this is the classic defensive stock to own when the economy is slowing down. Hold on to this one and it will gradually move up. This will be your stronghold, and it will weather the storms of the stock market.

Apple Computers (AAPL) - Medium risk. Buy it if the stock ever pulls back in price. This is something worthwhile to keep up until Christmas is possible, but remember, if you have a huge gain, you need to sell some to lock in some of your gains. It's easily going past it's old 52-week high of $86.

Gamestop (GME) - High risk. This is the company that owns EB Games. We have a huge upgrade cycle in the video game arena as we've got the Nintendo Wii coming out, Nintendo DS Lites are selling like hotcakes, PS3 is coming out soon, and Christmas is approaching. In addition, the ever addictive World of Warcraft is coming out with a hugely anticipated expansion pack in November. Gamestop sells all these games, and they are essentially the arms dealers in the game console wars. Get in on this action before the stock exceeds $50/share. This is part of the retailer sector with some exposure to tech.

Darden Restaurants (DRI) - Medium risk. Ahhh, Darden Restaurants, home of the Olive Garden and the Red Lobster. This is a massive restaurant chain and a good long-term investment. It plays off the fact that Americans have less and less time, so they're eating out more.

So, that's the model portfolio for a newbie. It's a relatively low-medium risk portfolio with a little excitement coming from Gamestop and Apple Computers since they both should be high flyers. Please do your homework on these stocks first, and don't buy it all at once. Watch the prices, and buy low, sell high.

Good hunting all.

Standard disclaimer: this does not constitute as financial advice, these are merely the opinions of the author. What we cover here is only suitable for our virtual stock exchange which is merely a game. We are not responsible for any losses or gains you may incur in real life. Please consult a investment professional for investment advice.

Just a heads up, North Douglas Church is throwing a block party on Sunday, September 24 from 3:30pm - 6:30pm. They're technically calling it a "Fall Fair" but block party sounds way cooler. Anyway, I saw the order go in for hundreds of hamburgers and hotdogs, so it's going to be good times. There's going to be free food, inflatable games, live music, and organized games for the kids.

In addition, there will be booths promoting the various things that go on in our church. They'll be promoting the community drop-in center that they'll be having on Tuesday, the children's activities on Saturdays, and other services throughout the week.

Anyway, you'll probably see me close to the sound booth as I'll be running the show for the live bands that are playing. Come out for a tasty burger. The forecast says it's going to be sunny, so it'll be great for the block party. Everyone's welcome.

Here's a Google Map link if you need directions.

After lazing around for most of August, it's time to gear up for the Fall offensive as things are starting to gear up once more.

On the academic front, it's time to put this to an end. The last piece of work will be writing up my Master's technical project report, and preparing for the Master's defence. It's both exciting and scary at the same time. I started gathering my research notes together and began writing the report. I'm filled with cautious optimism because I've been reading other people's project reports, and some of them were really simple applications. I guess it's because professors expect students to work on their project for 8 months. My project is quite a bit bigger since it took about 16 months to write (although not full-time). To put that in perspective, a Master's student can finish their degree in 20 months if they go at a break-neck speed, so a big part of my time has been spent on this project. It's just a matter of documenting it all now.

On the church front, things are getting better. The church recently hired a new youth pastor, and a new children's ministry director. Traditionally, the youth pastor took care of kids, teens, and young adults, and that was a lot of work because that would mean being at the church maybe 5 nights out of 7. A lot of people burn out because of the heavy workload. You end up getting several mediocre ministries that are hanging by a few threads. Anyway, kudos for the board recognizing that there needed to be someone devoted to children's ministries. By having someone to take care of the kids, it lets the youth pastor focus on his ministries.

On the economic front, I cleaned up my portfolio and got rid of some of my worst stocks of the year, and I'm hoping for a big Fall comeback. This is the first year that I have a negative gain in my portfolio, so it has been an interesting learning experience. Previously I had been using the buy and hold strategy which worked out, but in an awful market like this year, I got burned. So, I've become more flexible and nimble. The worst investment I made this year was in JDS Uniphase, where I made -40% on it. It's a momentum stock where there was a lot of hype. The main lesson learned is, when a momentum stock misses its earnings, the thing will come crashing down and it'll never recover. Anyway, I picked up some stock in General Motors (GM) last week as the company is making an incredible turn around. Next on my buy list is more shares in Advanced Micro Systems (AMD). I'm also abandoning all of my natural resource stocks because those prices have come crashing down as well. I'm sticking with technology, financials, and retailers right now. If I had more cash, I'd be looking at Costco (COST), Apple Computers (AAPL), Starbucks (SBUX), Royal Bank (RY), and Google (GOOG).

Finally on the work front, things have been going well. I've been given a project where I have complete freedom in the design which is great. This is because this sort of project has never been attempted at my work before, so a lot of the stuff is experimental, so the design is up to me. Writing new software is always more enjoyable than maintaining old software. The code name for the project is Operation PortalCake™.

All in all, things are going well. Anyway, back to writing that technical report...

This post is brought to you by Chris Mueller who brought this to my attention. It has been months since Battlestar Galactica season 2 ended, and I've been waiting and waiting for season 3. But now, the SciFi channel is releasing new mini episodes of Battlestar Galactica on their website (aka webisodes). This series is entitled Battlestar Galactica - The Resistence. It takes place just after season 2, so I'm going to call it season 2.9999999 episodes. Every Tuesday and Thursday, there's a new webisode available.

Unfortunately, the webisodes will only load on computers that originate from the U.S., so it's tough beans for us Canadians. Apparently season 2 has just begun to air in places like the U.K. and Australia, so they don't want to show this content to those markets. However, the webisodes are available on YouTube, and that's how I've been watching them.

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't watched season 2 yet, do not watch the webisodes. There's lots of spoilers and there's trailers for season 3. You have been warned.

Battlestar Galactica, season 3, October 7th on the Space Channel! Woot! Queue Eton yelling "NEEEERRRRRDDDD!!!!!!"