fr0sty

It is the popular imagination conflates them...

1. High-Frequency trading, by definition, done by algorithms.

2. We hear rumors or storyies of Algorithms gone wild.

3. This report blames and 'Algorithmic Trade' as the cause.

People are tempted to 'connect-the-dots' and would likely end up with an erroneous conclusion.

An additional problem with an FSA (you can only get an HSA if you have a high-deductable policy) is that the list of acceptable expeditures is limited and the funds expire every year.

I would love to have some tax-free healthcare money to spend, but I cannot guarantee that I will need penicillin, surgery, etc. this year.

I don't want to consign $5,000 to an account with a significant chance that I will simply have to forfeit the money at year's end.

The title of this post (and the WSJ article) is potentially misleading.

The 'Algorithm Trade' referenced was a Mutual Fund company executing a very large sell order in E-mini Futures. The sell order was executed through a trading algorithm which attempted to participate in 9% of market volume.

Many people associate 'Algorithmic Trading' with 'High-Frequency Trading' but there is no link made by the report.

ETA: An equally correct headline could be "Large Institutional Seller set off May 6 flash crash.

This is one of the worst 'features' I have been fighting recently (along with most of the other beefs around here). I am trying to find an appliance review for a stove prone to breaking so I search:

"Brand Model 1234 broken control panel"

And get an aggregate review page with a mention of broken control panels for another model and brand on which my model and brand are not listed....

I'm glad that my search term is in a link pointing to this page, but that is worth less than nothing to me...

I found this article quite interesting...

http://www.slate.com/id/2250793/pagenum/all

It covers the history of tuning systems and how many different definitions there are of 'in tune'.

If the core assumption is: 'each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites' why should disregarding the research produced by the such elites be an issue?

as a homeschool/unschool parent, yes. As a classroom teacher with liability concerns, not so much.

This is just as unfair a characterization of home-schoolers as the GP.

> children don't have the experience and exposure to make optimal decisions.

The argument here is, I believe:

"What is the best way to get children experience and exposure?

A. Experience and exposure

B. Lectures about A.

The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

Do you ask every non-awkward person you meet whether they were home-schooled? Do you ask every awkward person you meet whether they were home-schooled? Do you keep a running count?

Sounds like sample and/or confirmation bias.

Should have said Px size (given that we're talking bitmapped fonts)...

I work on Linux(Redhat) with bitmapped fonts.

ClearType screenshots (from my memory at least) have all still been fuzzy around the edges (at least for my taste).

What pt size do people use for their Anti-Aliased programming fonts? I currently use a 10pt bitmapped font and everytime I try a font that is 'smoothed' it ends up looking like out of focus dreck at that size.

I'm curious whether I'm odd for using such a small typeface, noticing the effect of AA on such a small typeface, or caring about it. I can't decide which.

But the speed of RAM is still at least one order of magnitude faster than the SSD so there is still an advantage even with a faster fixed disk.

Having lots of memory can serve as a poor-man's SSD. At least on a Linux system files are read from the disk and left in memory until that memory is needed for something else. This can increase responsiveness by reducing the need to go to disk for frequently used filesystem data.

More info: http://www.linuxatemyram.com/index.html

Sparing that, why not use fseek() and do a binary search to get to where you wanted to go? Even better, save the prior offset somewhere and jump there immediately on T+1?

> Typical members of an age group are by definition not immature relative to the average member of their age group.

I think the argument is: "what happens to the average of a distribution when you throw out one tail?"

> there will be serious inflation in the next 20 years - I have no idea when, but bond yields will drop or become negative at some point.

These two statements are contradictory. Bond yields will skyrocket in the face of inflation. If you meant bond prices (which move inversely to yields) then you would be correct but your assertion, as presented, is false.

Also, please pick a 20-30 year timeframe in the last century where investment in bonds (for the entire period) would have underperformed (be destroyed, in your words) the S&P 500 for the same period.

only if there is an audio recording being made.

This analysis ignores the possibility of a cyclic-nature to such claims. I'm sure you could find a citation for a 'kids these days' rant in every decade of the last 200 years but such simple analysis ignores the evidence presented for the claim and the overall popularity of the sentiment.

in other words: curmudgeons are universal and constant, societal apathy is cyclical.

They do, in theory. The Blow-Out-Preventer, basically an automatic cap, it installed in-line on every well currently being drilled.

Yes, it failed but there is no guarantee that "this cap" will succeed in the case of another BOP failure.

I'm pretty sure that was hyperbolic language on the part of the OP.

True, the IPO price was $17.

you said: "The rule is:if you can buy it, then you don't want to."

All I'm pointing out is that you could have bought TSLA at $18 yesterday if you wanted to which appears to violate your 'rule'.

But you could have bought at $18 and made %33 which isn't bad for a day's work.

Not quite: If you have a retail brokerage account you could have put an order in to purchase TSLA anytime this morning when the price was between $18-$20.

If you are charging more than an apartment is WORTH, then no one will pay.

I think you mean it is illegal to sublet for a profit (receiving more from the tenant than you owe to the landlord) which is not the same thing.

A few things: (and it seems lots of folks here know just enough to be dangerous)

1. Naked Short Selling is illegal. There is an exception for market makers that allows them to trade naked shorts but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.

2. All short selling done by retail customers, hedge-funds, etc. is all 'covered short selling'. This means that the stock being sold is first 'borrowed' from a third party. The third party is paid interest on their loan of stock which is their incentive for loaning it out.

3. There is no absolute time limit on the duration of a short position, but long-term short positions are difficult to hold because you still have to pay interest on the stock your borrowed which eats into potential profits.

The investment is only good if the actuarial tables prove to be correct. For a counter example see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

In 1965, aged 90 years and with no heirs, Calment signed a deal to sell her former apartment to lawyer André-François Raffray, on a contingency contract. Raffray, then aged 47 years, agreed to pay her a monthly sum of 2,500 francs until she died, an agreement sometimes called a "reverse mortgage". Raffray ended up paying Calment the equivalent of more than $180,000, which was more than double the apartment's value. After Raffray's death from cancer at the age of 77, in 1995, his widow continued the payments until Calment's death.

I am not familiar enough with the details of the Colt firing pin safety, but I believe 'dropped from a height' is not necessarily equivalent to 'pulled from 3ft into a 1.5T magnet'.

This would have massive impact on 'real' investors.

If people could not profitably take on short term positions most of the liquidity in markets would dry up. Market Makers and HFT trading groups comprise the great majority of displayed liquidity (and this is precisely the liqudity accessed by 'real' investors when they wish to buy or sell).

If that liquidity is removed spreads would widen and 'real' investors would take the hit.

On a larger scale imagine a state pension fund or a large mutual fund that has $X billion which it needs to invest in the newly illiquid markets how much price impact will their 2M share order for Ford have now?

It is still bash because bash is more universal than Python+Ruby+Lua.

The only place bash doesn't exist is on Windows and installing Cygwin is the least of your worries in that case.