9 Surprising Things Legendary Trader Jesse Livermore Said About Timing

9 Surprising Things Legendary Trader Jesse Livermore Said About Timing

JOSHUA BROWN, THE REFORMED BROKER AUG. 11, 2013, 1:11 PM 5,001 7

There are those who would convince you that it is somehow smart or in your best interest to be manically switching your investments around, back and forth, long and short, on a daily basis. To pay attention to this kind of overstimulation is the height of madness, even for professional traders. The most storied and important trader who ever lived, Jesse Livermore, would be tuning these daily buy and sell calls out were he alive and operating today. Because while he was a trader, he was not of the mindset that there was always some kind of action to be taking. Jesse Livermore’s legacy is a bit of a double-edged sword… On the one hand, he was the first to codify the ancient language of supply and demand that is every bit as relevant 100 years later as it was when he first relayed it to biographer Edwin Lefèvre. Livermore himself sums it up thusly: “I learned early that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again. I’ve never forgotten that.” Read more of this post

It Pays To Be With DC: Co-Creators of Wolverine Say Marvel Gave Them Just $350

It Pays To Be With DC: Co-Creators of Wolverine Say Marvel Gave Them Just $350

TIM MOLLOY, THE WRAP AUG. 11, 2013, 10:11 AM 1,879 2

Marvel doesn’t pay the co-creators of Wolverine for movies where the character’s name isn’t the title — even “X Men Origins: Wolverine” doesn’t make the cut.

What does it pay to create a superhero like Wolverine or the Punisher? Initially, about $350. After that, it kind of depends on whether you’re working with DC (more generous to artists) or Marvel (less so). In interviews with TheWrap on Wednesday, Wolverine co-creator Len Wein and Punisher co-creator Gerry Conway said they only received $15 to $20 for each page they wrote of the comic books that debuted their iconic characters. For years, that was it. Wein said he also recently received a “not unreasonable” check for the new film “The Wolverine.” Conway hasn’t gotten anything for “The Punisher” films, but Marvel has tried over the years to repay him, he said. The “X Men” franchise, anchored by Wolverine, has earned more than $1 billion — about $280 million of which came from the Wolverine films. The two Punisher films earned more than $40 million. Read more of this post

Harry Houdini, Lock Picking, And Entrepreneurship; Developing Expertise Through Focus

Harry Houdini, Lock Picking, And Entrepreneurship

SEMIL SHAH

posted 12 hours ago

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is a contributor to TechCrunch. You can follow him on Twitter at @semil.

It’s summer here in Silicon Valley, and for my column this month, I’ll try to finally polish and publish some of the old posts that have been collecting dust in my “drafts” folder. Usually, I try to make the column timely, but not this time. Almost two years ago now, my wife and I visited a museum in San Francisco to an exhibit called “Art of Magic,” honoring Harry Houdini. I dragged my wife to the museum to see this because I had been watching “Pawn Stars” (favorite show!) on the History Channel and was obsessed with the program. In one episode, a customer came in with original handcuffs and a straightjacket used by Houdini. The show’s characters all marveled at the legend of Houdini, the nostalgia, the myths. While all this information is available onWikipedia, the art exhibit highlighted an interesting theme: Houdini’s masterful command of new mediums and platforms to manipulate and leverage his audience’s deepest hopes and fears. Read more of this post

John Smedley stitches rebound into 200-year-old knitwear brand; Toyota’s ‘kaizen’ philosophy of efficiency has helped Smedley achieve productivity gains of 5 per cent in a year

August 11, 2013 12:53 pm

John Smedley stitches rebound into 200-year-old knitwear brand

By Jonathan Moules, Enterprise Correspondent

Toyota’s ‘kaizen’ philosophy of efficiency has helped Smedley achieve productivity gains of 5 per cent in a year

John Smedley’s descendent has revived the fortunes of his eponymous 229-year-old luxury knitwear brand by embracing the productivity improvement techniques of the Japanese car industry. Ian Maclean, a seventh generation offspring of Smedley’s 18th century founder and namesake, is now its managing director. He was persuaded by an ex-managing director at the Derby factory of Toyota UK to adopt the Japanese company’s “kaizen” philosophy of making multiple incremental efficiency gains along a production line. “Our business is quite like the car industry in that, like the car companies that build different cars on the same chassis, we can make different garments from the same basic body shape,” Mr Maclean says. “What is amazing about manufacturing is that if you squeeze a little bit more profit from each step, the overall profit gain can be very large.” Read more of this post

Rich And Poor People Have Different Toxins In Their Bodies

Rich And Poor People Have Different Toxins In Their Bodies

JOHN JOHNSON, NEWSER AUG. 11, 2013, 11:08 AM 6,240 6

It might be the weirdest indicator of wealth, or lack thereof, yet: Generally speaking, rich people and poor people have different toxins in their bodies, according to a new study spotted by Quartz. For example, rich people tend to have greater levels of things such as mercury and arsenic, probably because they eat more sushi and fancy shellfish. They also show higher levels of the main ingredient in sunscreen, oxybenzone, perhaps because they’re more likely to slather it on and spend time at the beach or on their boats. But researchers at the University of Exeter found that lower-income people have the market on toxins of their own. The worst are lead and cadmium, which the study chalked up to higher levels of smoking among the poor, reports the Daily Mail. They also have higher levels of BPA, the toxin sometimes found in plastic food containers and cans. The clear difference in income groups surprised even the researchers, notes Salon, which has a chart. Read more of this post

The right kind of resilience: The Aberdeen Asset Management chief has an outsider’s determination

August 11, 2013 1:58 pm

The right kind of resilience

By David Oakley

Dressing down: Martin Gilbert was once accused by UK MPs of acting like a ‘sophisticated snake oil salesman’

Martin Gilbert nearly quit just over 10 years ago. Surrounded by government ministers, civil servants and journalists, he was publicly dressed down by one of Britain’s most senior politicians, accused of acting like a “sophisticated snake oil salesman” at a parliamentary hearing into one of the City of London’s biggest financial scandals. He remembers that summer day in 2002 as if it was yesterday, he says, a grim expression spreading across his face. “It was undoubtedly the most difficult moment for me,” he says. “There was nothing else ever that has rivalled it in any degree, and I hope nothing does in the future.” His career as head and co-founder of Aberdeen Asset Management looked like it was about to end in disgrace amid the ruins of the split capital investment trust (or split caps) scandal, when a number of the company’s investment trusts folded and wiped millions of pounds off its share price. Read more of this post

The US president is weaker than you think; Joseph Nye’s ranking of American leaders finds that a low-key approach is most successful

August 11, 2013 6:34 pm

The US president is weaker than you think

Review by Edward Luce

Joseph Nye’s ranking of American leaders finds that a low-key approach is most successful

Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era, by Joseph Nye, Princeton RRP£19.95/$27.95

Having failed to convince the US of the need to prepare for war with Adolf Hitler’s Germany, Franklin Roosevelt quipped: “It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead – and to find no one there.” The US presidency sounds far more powerful than it usually is. Scholars, journalists and presidents routinely exaggerate its potency. In spite of his many wiles, FDR failed to cure America of its isolationism. It was Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that eventually snapped it out of its reverie. Read more of this post

Averting a mid-life crisis

Averting a mid-life crisis

In two years’ time, Singapore will be 50 years old. We have progressed far as a country but we seem to be trapped in a mid-life crisis. I say this because, according to some surveys, Singaporeans are amongst the world’s wealthiest but are also the most pessimistic.

BY GOH CHOK TONG –

5 HOURS 36 MIN AGO

In two years’ time, Singapore will be 50 years old. We have progressed far as a country but we seem to be trapped in a mid-life crisis. I say this because, according to some surveys, Singaporeans are amongst the world’s wealthiest but are also the most pessimistic. We are now at an inflexion point of our development as a society. I dare say that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his Cabinet are having a tougher time governing Singapore than Mr Lee Kuan Yew and I had. And it is not going to get easier. Read more of this post

Norway PM turns secret cabbie in election drive

Norway PM turns secret cabbie in election drive

3:30pm EDT

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway’s prime minister worked secretly as a taxi driver in central Oslo for a day in June, leaving his passengers wondering whether their elected leader had quit the day job. Wearing a taxi driver’s uniform and sunglasses, Jens Stoltenberg drove passengers around the streets of the Norwegian capital for several hours, confirming his identity only after his passengers realized who he was. The stunt, dreamed up by an ad agency as part of Stoltenberg’s campaign for re-election, was filmed on hidden cameras. A video of the event was published on Sunday by daily newspaper VG and on the PM’s Facebook page. Stoltenberg told the newspaper he had wanted to hear people’s honest views on politics. “If there is one place where people say what they really mean about most things, it is in a taxi. Right from the gut,” he told VG. Read more of this post

Singapore’s cabby donates liver to stranger after reading Facebook appeal

Cabby donates liver to stranger after reading Facebook appeal

Sunday, August 11, 2013 – 09:10

Radha Basu, The Straits Times

Mr Tong Ming Ming, 34, was on a tea break during reservist training in early March when an SMS and a Facebook post by his secondary school friend Regina Lim caught his eye.

Transcript from RazorTV:

Liver donor, Mr Tong Ming Ming, 34:

I’m a taxi driver. I used to be a police officer for 10 years. I decided to drive a taxi because I needed the free time. I need to juggle between earning a decent income and also to do my volunteer work. So what I do, when I have the time, is to pick and send amputees to Tan Tock Seng Hospital. I would send and pick retirees to and from church, and I also organise meet-ups, as I mentor a group of boys who are ex-probationers. When I cover my (taxi) rental and my petrol, I would go and do my volunteer work. Read more of this post

Of changing seasons and challenges in life; The seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter also reflect the seasons of life

Updated: Sunday August 11, 2013 MYT 7:18:12 AM

Of changing seasons and challenges in life

BY SOO EWE JIN

The seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter also reflect the seasons of life.

I FIND it quite amusing when department stores here have spring or winter sales. Having just come back from Sydney where winter sales are common as the season comes to an end, I do wonder how we can relate to such seasonal sales when it is hot and wet the whole year through. But weather aside, all of us do go through the seasons of life. And I have been thinking much about this lately. I am reminded that I have passed the halftime stage of life. And as I head into the second half, it is important that I rejuvenate body, mind and soul to take on the challenges that will come my way. The seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter also reflect the seasons of life. Read more of this post

How the Great Depression Spawned Literary Masterworks

How the Great Depression Spawned Literary Masterworks

The Great Depression was one of the most desperate periods in U.S. history, and one of the most important in American literature.

When the stock market crashed in October 1929 and the hectic prosperity of the 1920s gave way to mass unemployment, the crisis energized American writers. After a decade in which the literary experiments of the Modernists — Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot — dominated the scene, a new wave of writers began to look to politics and economics for inspiration. At a time when the Communist Party was presenting itself as the strongest force for progress, these writers saw capitalist America as a dying society in need of revolutionary changes. Never before or since have so many of America’s best writers focused on the lives of the poor and the working class or written with such a furious sense of political engagement. In 2008, the U.S. suffered the most severe economic crisis since 1929. This was followed by a deep recession characterized by high unemployment, financial instability and government deadlock — an echo of the problems that plagued the country during the Depression, though in much less virulent form. Read more of this post

Inventor Greg Lambrecht uses the Coravin wine preservation device to serve rare, expensive Italian wines by the glass

Wine Loving Inventor Solves Red or White By Glass Battle

Inventor Greg Lambrecht, founder of medical device company Intrinsic Therapeutics, Inc., after showing off his Coravin wine preservation system at Del Posto. The restaurant’s wine director, Jeff Porter, has been using the device to serve rare, expensive Italian wines by the glass since last November. A cartridge of Argon gas, used to keep wine fresh within the Coravin wine preservation device. A hollow needle is pushed into the cork, then a button releases argon gas into the wine. Coravin of white Burgundy 2010 Alex Gambal Meursault Clos du Cromin. The Coravin is an ingenious wine preservation system that allows you to access wine without pulling the cork and keeps the wine inside the bottle fresh for years. Photographer: Elin McCoy/Bloomberg

Hankering for a taste of 1979 Il Colle Brunello di Montalcino with your dry-aged steak? At New York’s Del Posto restaurant, a three-ounce pour is $169, six ounces, $338. The by-the-glass list includes hard-to-obtain 2000 Giacomo Conterno Barolo Monfortino for $100 and $200, and last month, rare Italian stunner 2002 Masseto. All this is thanks to a new wine preservation device, the Coravin 1000. “It’s a wine populist’s dream, giving more people access to the world’s great wines,” says Del Posto wine director Jeff Porter. He’s been offering them “alla Coravin” since last November. The ingenious $299 device went on public sale two weeks ago. Though most new wine gadgets bring out my inner skeptic, this one will revolutionize how we drink wine at restaurants — and at home. One of my pet peeves has always been the boring selection of wines at most restaurants offered by the glass. Usually it includes only current vintages, yet they frequently taste dull, cooked and lifeless, signs they’re oxidized from being open too long. Once you pull a cork, contact with air causes the wine to start deteriorating. The Coravin prevents that by allowing you to access the wine without actually pulling the cork. Really. Read more of this post