Food for thought

If you lack the discipline to control your eating habits, it's unfair to yell at a dog for following it's instinct by foraging for food in the trash.

Blackberry - Market Manipulation

I'm a Blackberry fan.  Not the raving fanboy type that has to have the latest berry, and that defends them no matter what.  No, I'm more the fan who silently roots for the underdog, and who watches their move with a mind both hopeful and critical.
I've rooted for BB10, bought, wanted to like, and then reluctantly sold the Q10.
I've examined the Priv, marvelled at it's UI and build quality, and reluctantly and silently put it back after concluding that the high price,inferior front camera, and substandard (by Blackberry standards) hardware keyboard were showstoppers.
But the shorts have forced me to break my silence.
By shorts I'm of course not referring to those of the Bermuda variety.  I'm talking about those market participants who grab hold of a given stock, sell it short, and proceed to manipulate the market for that stock to artificially constrain its price and range.
Since the second week of January, BBRY has been constrained within a very narrow ~3% trading range.  This is in spite of significant general market movements, and significant positive news about the stock (increased stock buyback, adoption of Android & abandonment of BBOS).  The stock has failed to participate in any of the market upticks (and conversely, in any of the market downticks) since week 2 of January.
Now broaching my silence is not out of a sense of disgruntlement - but rather of fascination that a subset of the market participants is able to exact such remarkable control of a security that it's trading range can so severely ignore rational reasons for movement and stay firmly still, in the face of multiple reasons for not doing so.
Can't wait to see what the month of February brings!

A drop in the well - an alternate theory for the current market decline

There's an interesting take on the reason for the market turmoil in 247wallst.com.  The basic premise is that as oil prices rise, exporters amass sovereign wealth portfolios to invest the surplus, and presumably as oil prices drop, those countries begin to liquidate their portfolios, resulting in a preponderance (love that word) of liquidity in the markets.  The lack of demand and excess of supply drives the market lower. It's an interesting theory, and makes a good bit of sense.  Certainly it sounds more reasonable than the idea that the market is so severely spooked by the glut of oil that it keeps pushing the market past correction and toward recession.
On the other hand, the movements in market prices seem strongly correlated with the price of oil, whereas if the impact was caused by these massive portfolios, I'd expect to see more volume, and less correlation.  Nevertheless, still food for thought...

Quick flip on NA.TO calls + Musings on the future of Blackberry

Yesterday's market meltdown was a nice opportunity to buy some calls on NA for a quick flip.  It wasn't much money (Canada doesn't have the most liquid of option markets) but hey, I'll take it.
I now turn my attention back to Blackberry.  This stock is like an itchy scab that you just can't stop picking at.  Not really a good thing.  But I'm really tempted to buy some calls.  Here's my reasoning why;
1. The stock has gotten the shit kicked out of it lately. Not without good reason, mind you - since the hardware side continues to disappoint, and software revenue is a bit skewed by the Good acquisition... But it's so cheap that it looks attractive.
2. The PRIV effect.  It's an awesome phone.  Absolutely beautiful.  And it's actually been selling.  I'm not talking Iphone or Samsung volumes, here, but still - it's selling.  I don't access to any real stats - so I've resorted to walking into wireless retail establishments, who all tell me that it's been selling well, and also to looking at Amazon reviews as a proxy for sell through rates (e.g. lots of reviews for the Priv and associated accessories means good sell through).  Based on that unscientific-but-hey-I-have-access-to-no-other-metrics approach, I'm thinking that the hardware estimate could be a surprise to the upside.
3. What have they got to lose?  What I mean by that is, they've publicly stated that the Priv is make or break.  If they don't make their numbers, they get out of the hardware business and focus on services - value gets unlocked and the stock goes up.  If they make their numbers - everyone is appropriately surprised - stock goes up.
Those are my quick thoughts. Of course, there are lots of other fundamentals to consider - but then, when was the last time a stock traded on fundamentals...
What do you think?

Hotline Bling and the N Word

This post is a bit late to the game, but still...
Drake dropped yet another crowd pleasing hit with "hotline bling".  The cool thing about this track is that he does it all without inserting the " N word".  An impressive accomplishment for a rapper who's made the word such an integral part of his music.

A gust of Wind, but stuck with Rogers

After yet another frustrating and irritating battle with Rogers, I walked into a Wind store with all intent of jumping ship. The sales lady was very helpful, and we were off to a good start:
- device selection - yup - Wind has made some inroads here, and offers a decent selection of (Android) devices. There's also a light smattering of BB10 and mention of Windows OS (no devices). Apparently iPhone users need not apply (unless they have their own unlocked devices).   Since Android is my favourite OS, the lack of IOS / Windows phone devices was not a showstopper for me though.
- Price - hands down, Wind has the best pricing for a global texting, data consuming fiend like myself. Ergo my trip to the Wind store.  $40 for all that texting and data! Awesome!
- Rogers cancellation fee: $300. Steep, but no problem, Wind has great pricing on their phones, I'll just sign up and away we go.
But no, fast forward a year later, and I'm still stuck with Rogers. Why?
Well here's the thing. Like most Canadians, I have a love / hate relationship with the major telcos.  Pricing is not competitive with the smaller players. Customer service is often poor, with some reps giving out false info which the company will not pull past calls to validate, and plans are often complex beasts that result in the average Canadian being nickel and dimed.
But in spite of this, there are a couple of things that Rogers has going for it over the small players.  An LTE network, and good service coverage. As a data hog with a grandfathered 6Gb plan, I'm very reluctant to give up these benefits for less coverage. 
That said - Wind, I'm keeping my eye on you, and I'm hoping that transition point is not too far in the future. 

Living the dream

The modern social rule of thumb is that we're supposed to be passionate about what we do for a living. Gone are the good old days when Charles and Caroline Ingalls tended their farm on the prairies to feed their family and help em become positive, contributing members of society. In the modern world, having a career is good, but the modern ideal is to have a career that you're passionate about. Now I can't argue with that - it's as good a rule as any for a motivated person to live by. The problem that arises is - what if you are motivated, but not passionate about anything?

Now, by "not passionate about anything" - I don't mean the unmentionables. Most of us are not that interested in converting our late night horizontal exertions into a career. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm not talking about you.

I'm also excluding spouses and kids. Hopefully you're passionate about your spouse, but pimping out your better half is a poor career choice. And you SHOULD be passionate about your kids - but regrettably, unless you're the parents of the Gary Coleman types, you can't really make a career out of that either. Not that they were exactly stellar examples of parental love, considering how that all turned out. Note: if you don't know who Gary Coleman is, 1. You've just made me feel really old, and 2. Watch some episodes of "Different Strokes" - it's an interesting view of the 80s.

No, gentle reader, by passion I'm referring to a career choice that stays within the guidelines of socially acceptable norms. Take myself, for example. I've worked in financial services for over 15 years. I've had some fun roles, but I'd hardly say I'm passionate about the industry. I hardly think I'm alone in this - in fact, show me someone who says they are passionate about banking and 99% of the time I'll show you a good spin doctor.

So what's the point of this spiel? Well, it's just this; I believe everyone should have a passion. Something to live for. In a perfect world, we are able to live our passion through our career. But the reality is that most of us are not fortunate enough to make our passion our career. In these cases, its enough that work is fun and rewarding.  And when the work day ends, you have your passion to look forward to.