Ashish's Niti

Virtual Gold Rush

 Via the Division of Labour, This BussinessWeek article, Innovation in the Age of Mass Collaboration, describes how a conservative mining company discovered gold by opening up its proprietary database on the Internet and offering a prize:

The contestants identified 110 targets on the Red Lake property, more than 80% of which yielded substantial quantities of gold. In fact, since the challenge was initiated, an astounding 8 million ounces of gold have been found—worth well over $3 billion. Not a bad return on a half million dollar investment.

Steve Jobs blames teacher unions

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions Friday, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers.

Source: Cafe Hayek

Does change in exchange rates affect international trade?

If yesterday one dollar bought 100 yen, and today one dollar buys 120 yen, each dollar today buys 20 percent more Japanese goods than it bought yesterday.

Source: Cafe Hayek: Hooray for a Strong Dollar

Really! So, presumably, this 20% more japanese products came out of nowhere in a day?

Or did he meant to say that purchasing power has shifted from holders of Japanese Yen to holders of US dollars. But how can we conclude that merely from the fact that exchange ratio between dollars and Yen has changed.

If say, Japanese govt. has printed more Yen. It will simply inflate the prices of all products in Yen. US dollars will also appreciate compared to Yen but (may) not appreciate compared to Japanese products.

So, why would US dollars be able to buy more Japanese products?

If amount of US dollars and Japanese products in the market haven't changed in a day, why would their ratio (prices) change?

Bay Area and House Prices

Burbed.com, is my favorite blog when it comes to housing market. It is witty, sarcastic and informative. This post is just too good to pass!.

If you ask ask most people in the Bay Area “Why did homes get so expensive in the last few years?” you’ll probably here these reasons:

1. It’s not a bubble: They’re not making any more land. It’s special here. (Who knew that land suddenly decreased?)
2. It’s not a bubble: Weather. It’s special here. (Who knew that the weather suddenly got so much better?)
3. It’s not a bubble: Everyone wants to live here. It’s special here. (But why so much so in the last few years?)
4. It’s not a bubble: Web 2.0, Google, The Valley is BACK! Oh, and it’s special here.

The last one is distinctly possible. Google IPOed in 2004, instantly creating thousands of millionaires/billionaires. The job market has picked back up. Traffic is back with a vengeance.

Ok, so maybe that explains these two graphs:

Source: How the Bay Area caused home prices to go up nationally… -- Burbed.com: Your Silicon Valley Home and Mortgage Insanity Blog

Festival of Stocks - February 5, 2007

Welcome to the February 5, 2007 edition of festival of stocks.

Sean Hackbarth says AirTran is Trying to Get Midwest for Cheap.

Paul Smith analyzes "the effect of Magazine tips when used in combination with Fundamental Analysis."

makingourway tackles the challenge of all bad choices in selecting 401k options with Merrill Lynch.

Larry Russell says Most individuals are poor investment portfolio managers

For all the time and effort that many individuals put into stock picking, you would hope that their economic wages would be very high for this activity. Sadly, the opposite seems to be true for most individual investors.

TJP analyzes the investment potential of Crocs (CROX), the hottest footwear company in the U.S in, Crocs: Own A Pair and Buy Some Shares.

wcsinvestor explains, in Reasoning about Two Sub-prime Lenders, how Sub-Prime Lenders can be a good investment.

"Not all sub-prime lenders are doomed. I go through a reasoning exercise to explain why Nicholas Financial and CompuCredit are good investments."

Paul Smith presents Quick Analysis of 0 -10c stocks with PE under 10.

Matthew Paulson presents The Ultimate Guide to Choosing Mutual Funds.

Scott Lee presents Become a Rock Star of Business.

TJP presents 3 Australian Uranium Stocks You Should Know.

H.S. Ayoub presents biotech stocks, news, commentary - BioHealth Investor.

H.S. Ayoub presents Government Contract Could Set Hollis-Eden Stock Soaring.

Travis Johnson presents Doubly Pinky Promise from Blackboard (BBBB):

"Blackboard (BBBB) angered a lot of its customers by trying to enforce a surprisingly broad patent ... now its promising to let open source competition move forward. What does that mean for this near-monopoly software provider?"

Bryan C. Fleming presents Million Dollar Savings Club Update: Week 5.

Brian Schumacher presents Charts of the Week - CLRT and AZL.

George presents Sally Beauty Holdings Question:

"Some thoughts on whether Sally Beauty will be added to a major index and whether the stock has already been dumped by the Big money."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of festival of stocks using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: festival of stocks, blog carnival.