chk999's Blog

LED bulbs get better

chk999 — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 08:41:46 GMT

So, I keep looking for better LED lights, because I hate the mercury in CFLs. Yesterday I bought two different ones and the state of the art is definitely improving.

I have 6 fixtures in the house that need the 40 watt candalbra style bulbs with the narrow base. I've tried some other LED brands, but they either died quickly, or have a harsh unpleasant light that just isn't suitable. But the one I got yesterday...

When Will The Markets Be Open 24/7?

chk999 — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:15:50 GMT

The stock market trading day is largely an artifact of how stock exchanges functioned when all the trades were done in person by market makers and specialists. But as the major bourses have gone more and more to automating the matching of buyers and sellers, there is no great reason for this to continue. Likewise, the three day settling period for trades dates back to when the stock certificates were manually transported between brokerage houses...

Congress Insider Trading

chk999 — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:45:20 GMT

The market is acting like the fiscal cliff fix is a done deal. Am I alone in wondering what trades the congress critters are making here? Or in wishing that they had to report in a 13F?

Chrysler 200

chk999 — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:00:48 GMT

So I was on vacation over the holiday and since we were in a nice place with nice weather, we rented a convertible. A Chrysler 200 to be precise. It was a blast. It drove very well and whoever did the wind tunnel work gets an "A", because wind noise was almost non-existant. You could drive at 40 and have a converstion at normal volume with no problem whatsoever. I won't buy one, too few days here where it would be fun, but will rent on...

Hope everyone is ok

chk999 — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 13:24:43 GMT

I hope all the fools, bulls and bears alike rode Sandy out ok and didn't take much damage.

I should have paid more attention to USG this spring, the story had to be getting better and now it popped 5% today.

Tesla May Be Doing Something Smart

chk999 — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 08:33:59 GMT

I still think that TSLA the stock is ultimately worthless because I think the company goes bankrupt as they find out they can't get enough scale to be profitable, but that's not what I'm interested in today.

The smart thing that Tesla is doing is cutting out the dealership network altogether. They have no dealers, only showrooms. To buy a vehicle, you have to buy it directly from the factory. And I think this ...

Replacement For Bluegrass Lawns

chk999 — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 19:44:27 GMT

The current drought has popped a thought up to the top of my mind that has occured to me before. Lawns are awfully water hungry. But most xeriscape looks like $(#(*$@. So anyone that finds something that looks and feels ok, but doesn't use much water should do pretty well on it. Over the long run, drinking water has to get scarcer, so something that cut water usage would be a winner. Especially for commercial and municipal landscaping, where rea...

I don't think used bookstores are going to do too good

chk999 — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 12:50:43 GMT

So I got this Kindle Fire just before Christmas. And I've really come to like it, the reading experience is very pleasant and the Wifi download is very fast. And with Amazon Prime, there is a lot of stuff to read for free. And yesterday as I drove past the used bookstore that I have an account at, it hit me that I hadn't been in it since I got the Kindle. And realized that I probably won't be going back anytime soon. And that got me to thi...

New LED Light

chk999 — Thu, 17 May 2012 09:22:29 GMT

So in my quest to find an efficient light that doesn't contain mercury, I tried another LED light. This one is made by Feit Electric and is a dimmable PAR30 flood designed to go in a ceiling canister. It has LEDs made by Cree. The part number is BPCE13PAR30/DIM/LED.

So far I like it. The light is a warm 3000K light and quite pleasant. I put it in the kitchen directly over the sink and it is noticeably brighter...

Channel, Channel, Who's Got The Channel?

chk999 — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:25:10 GMT

Thinking back on the last fifty years, something popped out at me. The big changes in an industry come when there is a change in the type of distribution channel. As long as the channel stays the same, there is competition within it, but the big disruptions come when a different channel appears.

The classic story here is from Peter Lynch and is of course L'Eggs panty hose. Before that, stockings were sold in d...

Train From Victorville, Now Leaving On Track 1

chk999 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:21:56 GMT

I hear a lot of stupid ideas, there is never any dearth of them. But this one is new and really stupid.

A high speed train from Victorville to Las Vegas.

For those of you that don't live in the LA metro area, Victorville is a small, dying town a long way from anywhere. It looks like it is about 140 driving miles from where I grew up in The Valley. The theory is that people ...

Fragmented Industries

chk999 — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:22:49 GMT

One place where some excellent profits can be made is when a fragmented industry with a lot of small companies has someone figure out how to consolidate it. The consolidator tends to do very well. McDonalds is an example of this in that most hamburger stands were owned by small business men with no more than a few locations before it changed the hamburger world.

I was reading Professor Damodaran's blog a few d...

Facebook IPO: Short immediately or wait?

chk999 — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:47:46 GMT

The rumors are that Facebook will be IPOing in the very near future. Looking at how fast MySpace went from Must Have to Must Avoid, I think that Facebook stock will be worthless in the long run. But, things can run up higher on sentiment that you can believe possible. So the question:

Will Facebook stock have a run up after the IPO, or will it start to sag immediately...

Another Caps Feature Request

chk999 — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:25:05 GMT

In a blog today, rofgile asked for a longer time horizon for displaying CAPS scores. I think this is an excellent idea.

There is also another feature that would be really spiffy. And that would be to have a graph on the individual stock page showing your score on that call going back about six months or so. The stock price data and the S&P data are already the...

I Think The UK Just Did Something Very Smart

chk999 — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:17:46 GMT

The UK did something very smart when they refused to join the Euro. While the decision was widely derided at the time, in retrospect it was brilliant. Keeping their own currency let them set monetary policy rather than having it imposed on them.

I think they just did it again. By refusing to join the Euro rescue plan that would have cost them much control of their own country I think they remain their ow...

Declining businesses, cash cows or value traps?

chk999 — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:29:31 GMT

Most companies don't last forever. At some point, a company doesn't have attractive places to put earnings, so it should start returning them to shareholders either via dividends or stock repurchases. Later in the process the business will actually start to decline. At this point the business can be a great cash cow because there isn't any real capex and all the profits beyond normal maintenance can be returned to shareholders. But not that many...

Up or Down?

chk999 — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:02:25 GMT

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I'm really don't trust this market. It isn't cheap enough to buy and the macro factors look pretty bad. I hope not too many more companies go under as the European contaigion spreads. But just on an instantaneous profits level, it isn't that expensive either. The question is, are the profits maintainable, or do they revert to the mean?

So I'm still mostly in cash, wait...

#1

chk999 — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:59:12 GMT

Woot!

Cheap Is Good

chk999 — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 23:04:43 GMT

Now, if there's one think I love, it's a bargain. And I've found an interesting source of them lately.

There are a number of thrift shops/Goodwill/Salvation Army stores in the area. And I've noticed that it is worth browsing the books area for financial books. Usually five minutes spent looking at the hard covers will find something good, and at a dollar or two ...

An Area Ripe For Automation

chk999 — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:59:07 GMT

So I was at the local Kroger, and was buying some things at the deli and had time to think. (Cue anxious music.) What I was noticing was how long it took to do a pretty simple order, two sliced meats and one sliced cheese. Nothing fancy. Watching the people behind the counter, there were at least 6, in an area that can't have that high hourly sales. Plus there was a lot of wasted food, as small ends and the first slice were thrown out while adju...