Portland Ignites

Check out Ignite Portland on June 18th at the Bagdad Theather on SE 37th and Hawthorne. It should ignite ideas or passion in all who attend.

The idea is that a presenter gets 5 minutes and 20 slides which rotate automatically. They can present on topics ranging from 'Why Deutschland Loves David Hasselhoff,' 'How to Live Like a Japanese in Portland,' and 'The Complete and Utter History of the Numa Numa Dance.'

There is also a chance to win great swag. At Ignite 2 I won a pull over golf jacket, a UBS flash drive and a computer bag. It made the wait out in the cold worth it.

The organizers have set it up so that it is possible to register, download and print out tickets. So only those who haven't pre-register have to stand outside and wait. I wouldn't advise this, as they had a really good spread of hors d'oeuvres set up last time, and I suspect there will be some goodies set out for those of us who show.

Doors open at 5:30pm. Those without pre-printed tickets get in after 6:15pm until there are no more seats. The presentations start around 7pm. See you there.

Traditional Chinese Music and Instruments

Check out traditional Chinese music and instruments. Here in Oregon you can go to the Portland Classical Chinese Garden. They have an ensemble on Thursdays from 11am till 2 pm, as well as, on Sundays from 2:30pm till 4:30pm. Listen to a luiqin-a small guitar like instrument shaped like a tennis racket. One of my favorites is the er hu-a two string instrument which i thing sounds very sad.

While there enjoy traditional Chinese tea or cha as it is known in China. If they have Tie Guan Yin give it a try. It is a green tea but light and refreshing.

Winning against Wall Street's New Weapon Part I

If anyone wants to handle their own investing, I suggest they learn the term BEHAVIORAL FINANCE. It is also known as behavioral econ or quant trading or neuro investing. It has been around awhile but as Paul Farrell points in his article Weapons of Mass Manipulation

there is a new component to this study of investor behavior and the "irrationality" behind investor's buying, holding and selling.

The science of this had been "dominated by psychologists studying irrational human behavior" However, Farrell says the the field is now becoming dominated by mathematicians chiefly, "University of Chicago finance professor Richard Thaler."

In this article Farrell explains that "unlike the psychologists Thaler and the quant mathematicians are NOT interested in WHY investors are irrational" Instead they assume ". . . . financial markets and investors are irrational and always will be." [emphasis mine].

According to Farrell the quants-as he terms them-want to take advantage of investors' irrationality as the market goes through its up and down cycles, through use of "sophisticated quant math programs." Of course only those institutions and wealthy individuals with the resources can afford to implement these programs. And so most of us smaller investors are once again left out in the investment hinterlands.

Part II I look at "Lazy Portfolios" Farrell's solution to the game being rigged.

UPDATE: The link in this posting doesn't work so I reposted the posting with a working link.

Technorati Tags: behavioral finance, investing, farrell