Talking stocks, trading, and investing in general

[SkinnyGoomba]

Weird day when COP, RDSA, BP end down and CVX XOM end up...

 

[OmniscientCause]



Jesus this pain seems to never end. I mean even my Canadian index, like the entire market is down 3-4% in a single day. So many companies down hard wow.

Constellation software might be worth a buy on this little blip of a month. They have been on a tear otherwise.

 

[chogall]

When I had to actually learn to manipulate data sets for grad school back in the 90s it seemed there was only SAP and SAS. Has that changed?

SAP? I think you must be thinking of something different. SAP makes enterprise software, customized to your needs--since you are in healthcare, I'd compare them to something like Epic Systems (maker of hospital/healthcare backend software) but for normal businesses. They will build your company a full enterprise IT solution that includes HR, Billing, Customer Management, logistics, etc. Oracle's enterprise business is probably their primary competitor (with products like PeopleSoft).

SAS is a stats package/programming language. They have some more integrated analytics solutions, but nothing like SAP does.
Perhaps you are thinking of Stata or SPSS (or S+) which have been around for a long time and would most definitely have been what you used in grad school. SPSS leans a little more toward the social sciences/survey data and might have been popular in your program.

Nowadays, SAS is still huge, but R is taking over in teaching academic settings (SAS costs $$$$$, R is free). Stata's still big, although I don't foresee them holding on unless they make some changes, especially in the "big data" future.
R is a cool project...but a ****** programming language. It can do a lot and has a great community, but as someone who is familiar with other languages, R always bothers me (though I can't claim to be an expert, I am primarily a SAS user).

SAS and SPSS for the old schoolers. Matlab for engineers doing signals/systems. Newer folks learning R. Python is coming around with the numpy and the others.

Python > all.

 

[chogall]

My friends in finance keep saying that we made it through 2008 and we're still vertical. Granted, I was 25 back then and I'm not exactly getting younger. I'm not planning to add to TSLA or change anything in how my non-fun money is managed. I'd prolly suggest more duh things like fixed yield stuff, but I'm assuming that's going to be the de-facto case anyway. I have a meeting with the local office on Monday - my lazy ass's first since moving to California, so we'll see what they say.

Ask about total asset swap and see what they can offer you.

p.s., surprised your friends in finance r saying we are still vertical after a flat 2015. are they in banking or investments? banking side its all rosy with the late cycle deal flows...

 

[ramuman]



Ask about total asset swap and see what they can offer you.

p.s., surprised your friends in finance r saying we are still vertical after a flat 2015.  are they in banking or investments? banking side its all rosy with the late cycle deal flows...

Vertical in the not physically dead sense/we still have a roof over our heads after what was (hopefully) a far worse 2008/9, not as in 2015 was awesome return wise.

 

[otc]

We could all just buy powerball tickets...

By my estimation, we are looking at an expected value of $1.80 on a ticket that costs $2. That's for lump sum, minus taxes, minus a chance that you might have to split the prize, plus the expected value of non-jackpot prizes.

-10% returns don't look so bad right now.

 

[MSchapiro]

We could all just buy powerball tickets...

By my estimation, we are looking at an expected value of $1.80 on a ticket that costs $2. That's for lump sum, minus taxes, minus a chance that you might have to split the prize, plus the expected value of non-jackpot prizes.

-10% returns don't look so bad right now.

I found some change in my drawer and bought two tickets.

Expecting roughly the same kind of return as my oil stocks lol.

 

[amerikajinda]

Down -6.64% since Jan. 1 in my all-stock 401k. :foo:

 

[chrisjr]



Weird day when COP, RDSA, BP end down and CVX XOM end up...

Another up day for XOM and down day for RDS.A. Had sold RDS to harvest tax losses in December and bought XOM to maintain my long oil exposure. Made the switch back today at $39.30.

 

[MSchapiro]

Another up day for XOM and down day for RDS.A. Had sold RDS to harvest tax losses in December and bought XOM to maintain my long oil exposure. Made the switch back today at $39.30.

Good move.

 

[chrisjr]



Good move. 

Sold Vale for BHP at the same time (cash would've been the wiser move). Now trying to determine when / if to make the switch back into Vale.

 

[chogall]

Taking a very small position in Powerball. Its going to be the next Unicorn. Another fool stumbled into a gold mine strategy like many companies in the Valley.

 

[ramuman]



Taking a very small position in Powerball.  Its going to be the next Unicorn.  Another fool stumbled into a gold mine strategy like many companies in the Valley.

If you take the pay-out, after taxes, you'd come out ahead if you picked every combination unless more than 1 other person did as well. Given an estimated 1 billion ticket sales, we can assume ~3 different tickets will win (assuming it's truly random).

Now, if the three of you all chose the annuity, and accounting for taxes, all of you would still come out ahead. Better than this, no?:

 

[lawyerdad]



If you take the pay-out, after taxes, you'd come out ahead if you picked every combination unless more than 1 other person won. Given an estimated 1 billion ticket sales, we can assume ~3 different tickets will win (assuming it's truly random).

Now, if the three of you all chose the annuity, and accounting for taxes, all of you would still come out ahead. Better than this, no?:

Dude, have you not been paying attention to FB? It doesn't matter who wins, we're all getting $4.33 million and a mule.

 

[ramuman]



Dude, have you not been paying attention to FB? It doesn't matter who wins, we're all getting $4.33 million and a mule.