Most/Least Educated Cities in America

Reuters: Madison, WI is #1...Miami #100


And that doesn't factor in the greatness of the Wisconsin Badger football team!  Go Bucky!!!

Market-wise...it's been a tough week following the market.  Lots of things going on and tomorrow won't be much different with final prep of the course in the morning and hosting the races in the afternoon.  All I know is the market is showing great strength heading into options expiration tomorrow and is moving towards that all important 50 day MA.  Some chinks in the armor from what I saw today.  Great up movement, but quite a few stocks I follow were in the red today that typically participate in moves like today.  Solar stocks were off, and the momentum stock of the summer were mixed.  Likely didn't help that NFLX dropped 19% after announcing subscribers were down after their ill-advised price hike.  I understand long term this could be a great move for the company, but at the same time, its a business in it's infancy and was growing nicely....get people to keep signing up, keep them hooked, and raise the price a $1/year and their will be little backlash.  I mean this could turn out to be one of those infamous turning points of the company...it sure has with the stock:



With options expiration tomorrow and my work on the course, i likely won't touch the market...if see it much at all.  Although the last few days have been tough with my largely short bias, I do have BWLD and my long term positons doing well....and frankly, don't expect this party to last much longer...at least without some short term pullback.  Add in RIMM getting slammed after hours and it could weigh on the tech sector, but I feel like that will be an isolated case since RIMM is no longer considered a big player and just shows how Apple and other competitors are beating it up.  I'm looking for a choppy day tomorrow, and as always, hoping that my shorts are the one's chopping down, and my longs on the way up.

Wednesday, Sept. 14th

After looking through charts and the market today in earnest for the first time since last Thursday, I can say right now I'm not sure what to do.  I still have a bearish bias and positions that reflect that, but the market is looking good.  Today's rally throughout the day looks strong and could signal another 5-10% move to the upside before a break in the action.  But I just don't trust this market on the upside.  I feel like a crushing 2-4 days on the downside could happen at any time now.

It's very odd following the market right now...since I have my trading account short, but all my retirement an long term accounts on a long basis.  So as much as the up days are good for my overall account, it's painful for my short term trading.  So, we'll see how things close today and go from there!

Apple in Bullish Pennant Fight -- The move back to $400 looks to be on
3 Keys of Small Success Lead to Big Success

Mark Cuban Blog & NCAA

You may love or dislike the guy, but Mark Cuban is no doubt a great businessman and knows how to get what he wants out of life.  He may look like a fool at times on the sidelines of the Mavericks games, but I'd rather have an owner all over the action than one sitting in a private box a few games a year just checking over his investment.  He's been posting to his blog much more recently and a few have stuck out.  With all the talk of the college conference shifting and developing into super conferences, it could spell trouble to the NCAA as a whole.

What should Big 12 schools do?

The scene is shifting, and over time the NCAA Division 1 landscape is going to change from what we see today.  There are rumblings out there about separating the Division into a BCS division with their own championships, with all the mid-major schools and non-BCS universities with their own championships.  As a coach at a mid-major program, I think going that route is bad for the NCAA.  While more money will pour in to the BCS school division, making it practically a semi-pro division, the other schools will be dropped into the dark and lose exposure similar to a D2 or D3 school.  Leading to less revenue to schools and more power to the top level division.  What I dislike about it the most about this idea is the opportunities that will be lost by mid-level D1 schools to compete against the "big dogs" at the NCAA championships.  Not only will it dilute the meaning of being an NCAA All-American at the smaller schools, but it will mean less competition for the top division also, demeaning that accomplishment for those athletes as well.  Besides, many of the top athletes in the country in non-revenue sports come from schools that are not BCS schools may.  So again, each division would actually be weaker and make the championships less competitive.  I realize that the money is in the big time sports, but I think some of the true appeal of the college game will wear off the more it turns into a semi-professional league

Back to Cuban, he re-posted in August one of his posts from a few years back that is a great read: How to get Rich.that I think is good for everyone to read.  The only exception I make is his post to get rid of credit cards.  I use my credit cards for everything I can and rarely use cash.  I never carry a balance and don't treat it like free money....but I do get cash back on every purchase from 1-5%, and it adds up big time and I typically use my points as credit on later statements.  They key is to view everything you purchase as cash spent...and can you afford it NOW.  If you can't, you don't buy it, it's that simple.

Quick Update

Not intentional on the lack of posting.  Gone all weekend for meet and headed over to Madison for the Ironman and other festivities.  Busy week ahead coming back today, 6am practice, marking the course for the home meet, and afternoon practice.

Didn't pay too much attention to the market today as it was pretty boring.  OPEN hit a new low intraday which was great to see.

Also of note, Pandora mentioned in a previous post hit a new post IPO low today on shrinking listeners and closed at $9.87 today:



There's really not much I see that I like long or short right now since I'm going to be away from my computer tomorrow most likely.  Although if LNKD gets back over 84 I'm going to check all my brokers to see if I can find some shares to short.  What a stupid stock.  I gotta look into some options plays to get in on the action when this things starts to melt down.  Hope to have something more insightful later tomorrow, but for now, I'm happy with my short bias.