Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monologues About Forex.
Let's take a look at a potential billionaire with European roots, currently working as a humble IT tech. Let's say his name is John Smith. With every fibre of his existence, John feels that he is catastrophically underpaid. He lives in a one bedroom apartment, he eats $1 cheeseburgers from McDouble, and he dresses at Target, where you can buy a bag of clothes for $40. On top of all that, John's wife turns away from so-hardly-earned Toyota Corolla, and passionately whispers the name of some Lexus amid hot midnight kisses.
To add to the horror of his situation, John does not see any difference in the paycheck whether he worked eight hours a day, or eighteen. He always gets "Satisfactory" in his reviews and enviously looks at his teammates who write six lines of code a year (in Power Point, no less), and do nothing more than chat in the hallways, leaving ass imprints in the conference room chairs and receive excellent reviews, promotions and bonuses.
Here, John and the likes take two different approaches. Half of them discover a sacrament of, pardon my French, Ebay. They remain in such state for about two months, buying old toilets on yard sales and publicly promote them, "L@@K!!! MINT CONDITION, NO RESERVE!" After that, their ardor usually diminishes and toilets are being carried away to the dump under the veil of night. They pronounce Ebay a "lair of fraud, cheap Chinese junk, where people are getting swindled on shipping, and in general, their interface sucks". Then, John goes back to his computer, where he continues to write his usual two hundred and thirty six lines of code a week.
The second half discovers Forex. By the way, if you write word FOREX backwards, you will get "nonsense" in French. Get it? Nonsense. Hilarious! Nonsense. Funny... mmm. Sorry, I got distracted. Anyway... In his possession, John has seven thousand dollars of his credit line in FirstTech at 7% and four and a half grand in Chase Manhattan at 14%. Accordingly, John goes to the broker and learns that the cost of one lot on Forex is $1oo,000. After the initial shock, John is relieved to hear that everything will be alright. He, the broker, will give him, John, a margin of one to two hundred. Having invested his $11,500, John can open positions of up to $2.3 million dollars!!! And if his position goes up by a mere one percent, John will get his $11,500 back, plus another $23,000 in profits!!! (Additional terms and conditions apply, activation fees, registration fees, annual fees, convenience fees, and automatic deduction fees will be charged, must be 18 years or older,void in DC, AK, AL, CA and other 47 states and Canada and where prohibited by law). Thrilled John invests his $11,500 and opens a position. At that exact moment, he is slightly surprised that broker's microscopic commission, a so called "five points spread", of 0.05% is being calculated not from $11,500, but from $2.3 million dollars and makes up (holy shit!) $1,150. Next, something strange happens. Japanese Yen, despite all assumption, strengthens. Accordingly, position against Yen is not going up, but falls by 1%. It's all peachy though, and unlike a certain male pride, it will rise back up again. As long as John waits a bit. Plus, Reuters says that it's just someone in their Japanese central bank flushed some week-old Asahi in the electronic bidet, which damped their computers, all six thousand eight hundred and fifty two of them. As soon as they clean everything up, Yen will go down again. John pours himself some coffee from the drip machine and stares at the TV screen, waiting for Yen reputation to dry out and shine again. Instead, he receives a polite letter from his broker asking whether Mr. Smith wouldn't be willing to invest additional capital, whatever amount he can afford, since invested earlier $11,500 were requisitioned by the broker to cover up the rotten long position against Yen. Otherwise, the position will be closed immediately at a loss and all capital will be passed to the broker's ownership. John runs to the office and borrows $5,000 from James Williams, which he then invests in the account, waiting for Yen to come back up. Meanwhile, Reuters impassively announces that the water in the Japanese Central Bank dampened a digital lock as well, which short-circuited all their connections, and the systems cannot be opened and there's no way to fix them in the short term. 'Tis the end, as my grandmother says. The position drops by another percent, and John, with a typical browser crackle, is getting redirected to www.fool.com, where he is maliciously offered a free credit report. Completely destroyed, John walks out of his top-floor office and, with yearning in his eyes, promises himself that never, ever again, will he get engaged in currency machinations, not in yen, not in won, not in francs. At this precise moment, he recalls about the borrowed $5,000 and the maxed out credit cards. With the heart-rending scream, just like the best representatives of Wall Street, John steps out of the window into the abyss. But such an ill luck - the top floor turns out to be the second, and John, resembling a potato sack, topples down on the grass.
James stops respecting John and calls him dirty names. John's wife leaves him, and, what's most insulting, leaves him for Bob who all this time played sudoku on his Mercedes navigation system...
Strictly speaking, closed course, professional drivers. Don't try this at home. Instead, buckle up and obey all speed laws.
(c) 242
To add to the horror of his situation, John does not see any difference in the paycheck whether he worked eight hours a day, or eighteen. He always gets "Satisfactory" in his reviews and enviously looks at his teammates who write six lines of code a year (in Power Point, no less), and do nothing more than chat in the hallways, leaving ass imprints in the conference room chairs and receive excellent reviews, promotions and bonuses.
Here, John and the likes take two different approaches. Half of them discover a sacrament of, pardon my French, Ebay. They remain in such state for about two months, buying old toilets on yard sales and publicly promote them, "L@@K!!! MINT CONDITION, NO RESERVE!" After that, their ardor usually diminishes and toilets are being carried away to the dump under the veil of night. They pronounce Ebay a "lair of fraud, cheap Chinese junk, where people are getting swindled on shipping, and in general, their interface sucks". Then, John goes back to his computer, where he continues to write his usual two hundred and thirty six lines of code a week.
The second half discovers Forex. By the way, if you write word FOREX backwards, you will get "nonsense" in French. Get it? Nonsense. Hilarious! Nonsense. Funny... mmm. Sorry, I got distracted. Anyway... In his possession, John has seven thousand dollars of his credit line in FirstTech at 7% and four and a half grand in Chase Manhattan at 14%. Accordingly, John goes to the broker and learns that the cost of one lot on Forex is $1oo,000. After the initial shock, John is relieved to hear that everything will be alright. He, the broker, will give him, John, a margin of one to two hundred. Having invested his $11,500, John can open positions of up to $2.3 million dollars!!! And if his position goes up by a mere one percent, John will get his $11,500 back, plus another $23,000 in profits!!! (Additional terms and conditions apply, activation fees, registration fees, annual fees, convenience fees, and automatic deduction fees will be charged, must be 18 years or older,void in DC, AK, AL, CA and other 47 states and Canada and where prohibited by law). Thrilled John invests his $11,500 and opens a position. At that exact moment, he is slightly surprised that broker's microscopic commission, a so called "five points spread", of 0.05% is being calculated not from $11,500, but from $2.3 million dollars and makes up (holy shit!) $1,150. Next, something strange happens. Japanese Yen, despite all assumption, strengthens. Accordingly, position against Yen is not going up, but falls by 1%. It's all peachy though, and unlike a certain male pride, it will rise back up again. As long as John waits a bit. Plus, Reuters says that it's just someone in their Japanese central bank flushed some week-old Asahi in the electronic bidet, which damped their computers, all six thousand eight hundred and fifty two of them. As soon as they clean everything up, Yen will go down again. John pours himself some coffee from the drip machine and stares at the TV screen, waiting for Yen reputation to dry out and shine again. Instead, he receives a polite letter from his broker asking whether Mr. Smith wouldn't be willing to invest additional capital, whatever amount he can afford, since invested earlier $11,500 were requisitioned by the broker to cover up the rotten long position against Yen. Otherwise, the position will be closed immediately at a loss and all capital will be passed to the broker's ownership. John runs to the office and borrows $5,000 from James Williams, which he then invests in the account, waiting for Yen to come back up. Meanwhile, Reuters impassively announces that the water in the Japanese Central Bank dampened a digital lock as well, which short-circuited all their connections, and the systems cannot be opened and there's no way to fix them in the short term. 'Tis the end, as my grandmother says. The position drops by another percent, and John, with a typical browser crackle, is getting redirected to www.fool.com, where he is maliciously offered a free credit report. Completely destroyed, John walks out of his top-floor office and, with yearning in his eyes, promises himself that never, ever again, will he get engaged in currency machinations, not in yen, not in won, not in francs. At this precise moment, he recalls about the borrowed $5,000 and the maxed out credit cards. With the heart-rending scream, just like the best representatives of Wall Street, John steps out of the window into the abyss. But such an ill luck - the top floor turns out to be the second, and John, resembling a potato sack, topples down on the grass.
James stops respecting John and calls him dirty names. John's wife leaves him, and, what's most insulting, leaves him for Bob who all this time played sudoku on his Mercedes navigation system...
Strictly speaking, closed course, professional drivers. Don't try this at home. Instead, buckle up and obey all speed laws.
(c) 242
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Take-Off.
I figured I'd start off with some of my favorite music. Regardless of the future content, nothing constitute a better beginning than some nice music, it is perhaps the only thing you can't go wrong with. After all, there are two things one yearns for the most in life - hot guys and nice music. Or is it nice guys and hot music? Hmm... surprisingly for me, it is still the former. I am assuming I'll start liking the latter once I finally grow up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
