Non pushup news
Dec. 19th, 2011 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luckycanuckThe market had another shocking day today, but I'm feeling quite calm about it. There is a lot of concern over debt in Europe and I expect that there will be a lot of volatility until it is resolved. This means I'll be selling some stocks that I'm not particularly strong on when I get the chance (i.e. on up days) and taking the opportunity to pick up stocks that present good value. Things will recover eventually, and I would like to look at this as an opportunity to re-evaluate what I hold and what I should be holding. There may be panic here, but not from me.
BOW is almost certainly not going to receive the increased offer that I was hoping for. I voted against the takeover at $1.52 because I still think we're being taken for a ride and manipulated with conflicts of interest still present. But it will probably go ahead, and if it does I will still make a profit. What I take away from the deal will bring the margin loan down a lot and will ensure I've got some living cash and some latitude to take advantage of opportunities in the market. I got a call recently from CommSec (who have been dropping the ball a lot recently and who I am seriously considering replacing) saying that if the takeover goes through I would get a margin call. Since the deal going through would mean a substantial amount of cash coming in I called them today and argued with them until they decided not to enforce any margin call that is made on account of the BOW takeover.
VMG has gone down below the capital raising price, and is nearly trading at a value that represents the cash they've got in the bank. This seems to me to be a case of panic or concern over the lack of an announcement regarding the Cape Crushing sale. I called the CFO today and he said they will make an announcement as soon as they have something to announce, but at the moment negotiations are proceeding and they can't prejudice them. Overall, I am happy to hold it, in large part because I always seem to get answers when I have questions. Not like BOW and NBS.
BBG has been hit by some panic selling, falling over 40% today. A 40% fall for a stock that just announced they are still in profit (albeit a reduced profit.) It may drop further and stay low with margin calls and shattered confidence, but I may still get deeper into it either through a capital raising if it comes to that, or a straight buy if it is still low when the BOW money comes in.
We now have EmPrime in Chez Canuck and Esky is off in Melbourne before moving to Switzerland to have a crack at the next Olympics. Today I found out that there will be more turbnover, as Roxy is leaving to do a PhD in Melbourne. Also her boyfriend lives there and it would make sense for them to live in the same city. In February I will be the only original resident of Chez Canuck.
There have been a couple of high profile deaths recently that I want to call attention to.
First, Vaclav Havel. This was a tragedy. He was someone I admired, what with his sincerity, perspective, and humanity.
So here are some of my preferred quotes of his.
New Years Address, 1990
The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships.
The previous regime — armed with its arrogant and intolerant ideology — reduced man to a force of production, and nature to a tool of production. In this it attacked both their very substance and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people, skillfully working in their own country, to the nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy and stinking machine, whose real meaning was not clear to anyone.
The recent period — and in particular the last six weeks of our peaceful revolution — has shown the enormous human, moral and spiritual potential, and the civic culture that slumbered in our society under the enforced mask of apathy. Whenever someone categorically claimed that we were this or that, I always objected that society is a very mysterious creature and that it is unwise to trust only the face it presents to you. I am happy that I was not mistaken. Everywhere in the world people wonder where those meek, humiliated, skeptical and seemingly cynical citizens of Czechoslovakia found the marvelous strength to shake the totalitarian yoke from their shoulders in several weeks, and in a decent and peaceful way.
Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community.
The Onassis Prize for Man and Mankind, 1993
Many people hardly ever see a politician as a person anymore. Instead, a politician is a shadow they watch on television, not knowing whether he is speaking impromptu or reading a text written for him by anonymous advisers or experts from a screen hidden behind the cameras. Citizens no longer perceive their politician as a living human being, for they never have and will never see him that way. They see only his image, created for them by TV, radio and newspaper commentators.
An ordinary human being, with a personal conscience, personally answering for something to somebody and personally and directly taking responsibility, seems to be receding farther and farther from the realm of politics. Politicians seem to turn into puppets that only look human and move in a giant, rather inhuman theatre; they appear to become merely cogs in a huge machine, objects of a major civilizational automatism which has gotten out of control.
Also, today Kim Jong-Il died. Clearly it's been a bad year for tyrants. Mubarak, gone. Gaddafi, gone. Kim Jong-Il, gone. I know there is always the chance of instability and chaos in a power vaccum in these situations, but what's so great about stability anyway? Eventually, the tyrants must fall unless you want them to be in power indefinitely. I don't know what will happen in North Korea now that the Dear Leader is dead, but the kind of "stability" that Kim represented with his blackmail and threats was not a good thing. Good riddance to him. Good riddance to them all.
I have an interview tomorrow arranged through an agency that had frustrated me, but who have lifted their game. Other larger agencies have lost my trust, but this one seems pretty responsive, and the problems I've had with previous interviews they had arranged are not really their problems, but problems with the public service.
BOW is almost certainly not going to receive the increased offer that I was hoping for. I voted against the takeover at $1.52 because I still think we're being taken for a ride and manipulated with conflicts of interest still present. But it will probably go ahead, and if it does I will still make a profit. What I take away from the deal will bring the margin loan down a lot and will ensure I've got some living cash and some latitude to take advantage of opportunities in the market. I got a call recently from CommSec (who have been dropping the ball a lot recently and who I am seriously considering replacing) saying that if the takeover goes through I would get a margin call. Since the deal going through would mean a substantial amount of cash coming in I called them today and argued with them until they decided not to enforce any margin call that is made on account of the BOW takeover.
VMG has gone down below the capital raising price, and is nearly trading at a value that represents the cash they've got in the bank. This seems to me to be a case of panic or concern over the lack of an announcement regarding the Cape Crushing sale. I called the CFO today and he said they will make an announcement as soon as they have something to announce, but at the moment negotiations are proceeding and they can't prejudice them. Overall, I am happy to hold it, in large part because I always seem to get answers when I have questions. Not like BOW and NBS.
BBG has been hit by some panic selling, falling over 40% today. A 40% fall for a stock that just announced they are still in profit (albeit a reduced profit.) It may drop further and stay low with margin calls and shattered confidence, but I may still get deeper into it either through a capital raising if it comes to that, or a straight buy if it is still low when the BOW money comes in.
We now have EmPrime in Chez Canuck and Esky is off in Melbourne before moving to Switzerland to have a crack at the next Olympics. Today I found out that there will be more turbnover, as Roxy is leaving to do a PhD in Melbourne. Also her boyfriend lives there and it would make sense for them to live in the same city. In February I will be the only original resident of Chez Canuck.
There have been a couple of high profile deaths recently that I want to call attention to.
First, Vaclav Havel. This was a tragedy. He was someone I admired, what with his sincerity, perspective, and humanity.
So here are some of my preferred quotes of his.
New Years Address, 1990
The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships.
The previous regime — armed with its arrogant and intolerant ideology — reduced man to a force of production, and nature to a tool of production. In this it attacked both their very substance and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people, skillfully working in their own country, to the nuts and bolts of some monstrously huge, noisy and stinking machine, whose real meaning was not clear to anyone.
The recent period — and in particular the last six weeks of our peaceful revolution — has shown the enormous human, moral and spiritual potential, and the civic culture that slumbered in our society under the enforced mask of apathy. Whenever someone categorically claimed that we were this or that, I always objected that society is a very mysterious creature and that it is unwise to trust only the face it presents to you. I am happy that I was not mistaken. Everywhere in the world people wonder where those meek, humiliated, skeptical and seemingly cynical citizens of Czechoslovakia found the marvelous strength to shake the totalitarian yoke from their shoulders in several weeks, and in a decent and peaceful way.
Let us teach ourselves and others that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape the community.
The Onassis Prize for Man and Mankind, 1993
Many people hardly ever see a politician as a person anymore. Instead, a politician is a shadow they watch on television, not knowing whether he is speaking impromptu or reading a text written for him by anonymous advisers or experts from a screen hidden behind the cameras. Citizens no longer perceive their politician as a living human being, for they never have and will never see him that way. They see only his image, created for them by TV, radio and newspaper commentators.
An ordinary human being, with a personal conscience, personally answering for something to somebody and personally and directly taking responsibility, seems to be receding farther and farther from the realm of politics. Politicians seem to turn into puppets that only look human and move in a giant, rather inhuman theatre; they appear to become merely cogs in a huge machine, objects of a major civilizational automatism which has gotten out of control.
Also, today Kim Jong-Il died. Clearly it's been a bad year for tyrants. Mubarak, gone. Gaddafi, gone. Kim Jong-Il, gone. I know there is always the chance of instability and chaos in a power vaccum in these situations, but what's so great about stability anyway? Eventually, the tyrants must fall unless you want them to be in power indefinitely. I don't know what will happen in North Korea now that the Dear Leader is dead, but the kind of "stability" that Kim represented with his blackmail and threats was not a good thing. Good riddance to him. Good riddance to them all.
I have an interview tomorrow arranged through an agency that had frustrated me, but who have lifted their game. Other larger agencies have lost my trust, but this one seems pretty responsive, and the problems I've had with previous interviews they had arranged are not really their problems, but problems with the public service.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-20 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-21 01:32 pm (UTC)