Replying to myself. The end of my post got truncated by html parser thingy. Slashdot has to be the bulletin board where you need to write < to get a < sign..
The end of the post should have:
< 1ms). I assume it must be from packet loss, but it very well might be a bandwidth issue too.
WiFi itself is enough to completely kill a gaming session. When I'm at home on my laptop, I like to remotely login to my desktop. Allows me the horse power of my desktop, along with access to all the files (read: pr0n).
Works flawlessly really, but the difference between ethernet and wifi is perceptible. But as soon you try gaming over it, it becomes unusable (for any action game at least). Even simple games like kasteroids or kbounce are not worth using (I get routine 1 second freezes). On the other hand, doing the same thing over ethernet is perfect and you couldn't tell the difference.
In fact, connecting from university (where the latency is around 60-80ms) is a lot smoother than wifi (where the latency is
As for C/C++ IDEs I've tried and disliked both KDevelop
Yeah, it feels like a clunky shell around Kate, but I've been playing with KDevelop4 from SVN and they've done some really nice work. Hopefully they're nearing a release.
and Anjuta
Yeah, it's trashy. If you want something very minimalistic, geany is quite nice. I use it on my laptop.
Eclipse/CDE and Sun's netbeans based stuff are quite nice, but my poor little laptop doesn't like them.
Yeah, even my Pentium 4 doesn't like it. Netbeans has to be the most intensive application. In fact, it seems to use more resources than running another OS in a virtual machine. Which is telling you something.
I ended up settling with Code::Blocks, it's lightweight and native (C++/wxWidgets) and supports all the de-factor features.
Code Blocks is pretty decent. I do wish they made releases more often though.
In certain situations, syntax errors in interpreted languages can be pretty hard to track down. If you don't test absolutely every code path, you're bound for trouble.
Every since dealing with that crap, I've vowed to never use a language unless it's a) Compiled. b) Strongly typed.
Are C/C++ really fast? Have you got figures to back it up?
Give me a break. Of course it is. And no, I'm not going to provide figures for an accepted fact.
I'm not just talking about using C directly, but using C with some heavyweight library like Gtk which does its own
very inefficient implementation of objects (glib), uses reference counting, and adds tons of asserts (which in a true HLL could be eliminated by the compiler).
Jesus Christ. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? You think if the detail is hidden from you, it doesn't exist. As for removing asserts and debug stuff, I can't think of an easier way than with C. You can even just use the preprocessor (#IFDEFINE) to remove the body of the function. Then let the compiler optimize out any use of it. Try that with Python/Ruby.
No, and due to the lack of momentum, I doubt it ever will be. But you can add C++ to the Gnome. Gtkmm is quite complete, or you can call Gtk+ methods fine.
C/C++ are the languages you'd want to go for. They can do *everything*, have great support, are fast etc.
Take a look at Qt and Gtk. They're the two big GUI toolkits. I personally like Qt more, it's better documented and much easier to get running in Windows (and macs). As for the python, there's nothing wrong with its indenting. The problems of the language are much deeper. No language is going to be perfect, it's a tool.. just use it.
As for IDE's, if you're coming from a MS background take a look at the latest netbeans. It's a little slow (fine on new hardware though) and a bit better than Eclipse for C/C++ support.
First of all, you have based your entire reply around attacking my religion. Which is funny, as I'm an outspoken atheist (check my post history, or take my word for it). The example I gave was only because if I said the same things I do today in many parts of the world I'd be killed for it.
First of all, plenty of Christians have killed and will kill a non-believer. It's documented well, and countless times.
Sure it's happened lots historically, but all present day cases are really just psychopaths.
Funnily enough 10% of Jews in Israel *will* also stone your ass if you drive through a particular street on a Shabat, if you happen be Palestinian and live near certain settlers and if you dare to drive/eat/smoke in their vicinity on a Yom Kippur.
It cuts both ways. There are many mountain regions in Israel that you can't go without also risking being stoned.
Believe me. I live here. The latter example actually took place in Akko recently. An Arab drove through Akko (which is an Arabic city), ended up on a Jewish street, got stones thrown at his car and subsequently *he* was arrested for it.
And hopefully that is more the exception than the rule. But keep in mind the solution isn't to be peaceful when faced with a violence. I think it would be relevant to cite the holocaust..
Then there are the boys who immigrate from Russia who get bullied into circumcising themselves at the age of 20 by their peers in the Army. That one's about brainwashing *and* self-mutilation as a consequence of it, and that's still done by the more secular Jews, that's not even the work of your 10% of orthodox fringe idiots.
It happens in the US military too, so you can hardly call it religiously motivated (more conformity).
Now my boy would be considered Jewish because his mother is an Israeli Jewess, so don't come to me and cry anti-semitism for what I've just pointed out either, please.
Why would I? You've said nothing remotely anti-Semitic.
Having said that, I think the Christians should be very, very quiet about the Muslims killing those who are not Muslim because we all know what religion brought on the Spanish Inquisition, which hunts, the 100 year war, the Crusades and many other calamities that were aimed towards non-believers.
The Christians certainly can't be critical of Muslim history (they were imo much worse) but at least they've progressed.:P
In 1987 George Bush Sr said an atheist can never be considered a citizen and an atheist can never be considered a patriot. Because this is one nation under God. And he got elected president. Twice. And then his son. Twice.
I chucked at this. Your counter example to a religion that sanctions the killings of "infidels" is a *comment* pandering to the hard religious.
But even so, I'm surprised someone could believe that (along with things like 'there are no atheists in the fox holes'). And I honestly don't like the religious any more than you, nor would I ever vote for a party that supports state religion in any respect (Unless it was atheism, I'd be all up for that:P). But even so, I can admit they're really not being actively aggressive to my choice (or lack of) religion.
So please climb off that horse and shut up about the Muslims. Humanists and an atheists can say something about Muslims. Christians and Jews are just part of the same mob, however.
So I can climb back on?:P And yes, I agree that Christians and Jews can be lumped in the same boat.
The US gets to stop an country getting annihilated, that shares similar values and willing to get its hands dirty (at the expense of political backlash). And no, the gains are not canceled out as the people that hate Israel are not the sort of people that ever would not hate the United States.
I've got a great story after talking with a girl who fled Iran after her family was persecuted for not being Islamic (belonged to some weird minor regional religion). Though it's an anecdote, I've come to believe the Muslims hate people for not belonging to their religion. And even if it was only 5% (Although, I'm inclined to believe it's much much higher) it's completely incompatible with our society. Imagine if 5% of Christians started stoning atheists..
There's a whole genre of software for it. But prevention is the best cure. Use the security features of your OS. If you're letting people (especially kids) use your machine, get them their own VM (preferably XP) and full screen it. If you're planning on learning about Linux security, get yourself a copy of Fedora and play (and learn) SELinux.
For white collar crime, I grow exceedingly weary of the American double standard - where lowly proletarian criminals do years of hard time for stealing a stereo, versus the feather delicate touch of the law on those who commit financial crimes, often of vastly greater magnitude.
I hear the same thing everyday from the business community, except about the comparative lax proletarian crime enforcement. I guess it depends what side of the fence you stand on.
On my list: Government corruption.
Every branch of the government is corrupt. Every big deal that goes down seems to have kick-backs going everywhere. And it's getting to the point, that the average person is starting to notice it. When you give these people a sanctioned monopoly on power, it's going to get abused. Even if it's something as trivial as approving building applications (Ever wonder why some get approved in a month and others 6 months. (Or if you've pissed them off, they simply will not give you an answer and after 18 months you'll need to take them to court to do so.))
And then you got over-regulation. Every year they pump out more legislation and it's seriously taking a toll on people. It would be nice if they could take a step back and say "Hey, do we really need 60,000 pages of tax law?" or "Should it really cost $300k in compliance costs to start a managed investment?"
And then there is of course our wonderful legal system -- it's great in theory, but I rarely see it being used for "what is right" but as a weapon. I've seen black and white lawsuits rack up bills over a hundred thousand dollars - to then give the other party 20k to piss off. Or people (corruptly) get blatantly criminal behavior (like stealing a few million dollars from company coffers) recorded as "negligence" for their negligence insurance. God damn.
And if it becomes too political and they go after you -- you'll lose everything but your money. I could go on, and give a few examples - but I fear what I write here will come back to haunt me.
Profiting with inside trading is accomplished through short-term inaccuracy, where the market is unable to regulate to the correct price before a few individuals have gamed the system.
Exactly. Think about it. The individuals that have "gamed the system" have done so, helping to close the "short-term inaccuracy". Consider it arbitrage trading, and they're closing the perceived and actual value of a company gap.
This all happens before the knowledge is public, leading to a more *accurate* market/evaluation.
Well, I am always entertained by the sight of suckers losing money.:D
Reminds me of when I was at the casino, watching the "high rollers" at their baccarat tables playing with stacks of $250 and $500 chips. I figure this must sort of skill game, and they must be doing it professionally. But reading the casino provided rule book, it's pretty clear it's just a game of chance where the house is constantly scraping a couple percent. Maybe I'm a little sick, but there was something satisfying about watching them reluctantly pull out their wallet and buy another grand of chips.
Thank you for the civilized discourse.:)
It's one of those topics that not many people seem capable of thinking straight about it.
I met a man Rene Rivkin who seemed to love what he did (stock trading) and we talked about a mobile device he carried around for constant stock feeds (I believe he called an "Orange" or something). Anyway, he later was found to have made $2,000 with some insider knowledge, was sentenced to jail, lost his license all which ultimately led to his suicide.
And when you disagree with the premise that insider trading is evil, realize that the only people getting caught are the ones that made no attempt to cover their tracks -- it just seems a little crazy. But then again, I'm also against crap like the "war on drugs" for similar reasons (un-enforceability and the result of trying to).
Just want to be sure I understand. If you were making an equities market, you don't see the value of trying to have a level playing field for information, where all those who would trade an equity have the same information about it (or, if insiders, they'd have some rules on how they can trade)...
A bit of a loaded question. If I could magically ensure information symmetry, I would. But I believe trying to enforce this level-playing-field idea is ridiculous. We're barely making a dent in "the problem", just enough to make it more profitable for those that do. Not only that, but we're throwing people in jail for doing something 99.9% of us would do..
:P but yeah, equity markets serve quite a different purpose than sporting events:P
But for serious now, am I supposed to be happier about investing in your insider-trading-friendly market, versus one that does make an attempt to be transparent?
Of course not. I too would be more hesitant, but the purpose of the stock market isn't designed as a form of entertainment.
Do you propose that your market (where I am virtually guaranteed to get rooked unless I am an "insider") will draw more investors than a more transparent market (were more investors have a more level playing field)?
Yes. The market will react quicker, and (I believe) the liquidity would be slightly stronger.
And I disagree about your getting rooked statement. The only reason I can see that holding true, is if allowing insider-trading provided increased incentives for market minipulation. Which it probably does, but the sort of people that try manipulate the market aren't dumb enough to do anything in their name, so insider trading laws really don't bother them..
In fact, you really think the less transparent market is actually more accurate?
I should say I thought the point of your market was for it to be less accurate, and therefore provide more of an opportunity for insiders to take money from outsiders.:)
People that give false information to "outsiders" to take advantage of them have never worried about insider trading laws. They will continue to operate as usual, and we already have laws and regulation in place to deal with that.
Do you have any comment on the relative historical success of transparent markets (such as those in first world nations) versus less transparent markets (either in fact and in principle), such as those in the 3rd world, over say, the last 50 or 100 years?
Good point, but this is more correlation than causation. A country that can afford to regulate, is clearly better off. A country that is well regulated/transparent has less corruption etc. I have never invested in any Chinese company, not because they don't have strict insider-trading laws - but because I have no way of knowing if figures released are accurate etc. etc.
While investing in Australian and American companies I have no such hesitation
Do you mind if I ask, which kind of market has the majority of your investments?
I'm on the board of directors for an Australian company that deals exclusively with industrial properties. And my personal holdings are exclusively in the United States stock market. (My only current position is actually selling calls on Intel.. the calls I sold will expire in four days, and I will look to do something similar again)
I've used that sort of stuff regularly, but things like stop-loses (selling as the stock goes down) is counter beneficial in this sense.
The reason: The news is always released during non-trading hours. So as soon market opens again, it has already made that adjustment. So that's why it's not effective. And why it's actually counter-beneficial.. because the the order will sell your shit as soon as the market opens. That's when all the panic selling occurs. I find that the first 30m the last 30m of market hours is when a lot of beginners get burnt. (And there's a self-fulfilling lull in trading at lunch time, but it's not as bad as open & close imo.)
Then you mentioned the derivates to protect against loss. We can talk all day, but let's use some actual numbers (I'll work on close figures, if you don't mind):
Intel is currently trading at: $13.00 which is actually a great figure to work with. Here is the cost of protecting against loss for a certain time period. (This is a comprehensive insurance program that guarantees you not a cent of loss).
4 day insurance: $0.46
32 day insurance: $1.10 ..and I won't go any further, as it gets a little more complicated (the strike price has been changed from 2009+ onward. I'll leave it as an excersize to the reader to calculate what % of the stock value you're paying for that, but trust me, it's not cheap. And unless you have good reason for buying it, you probably won't make much money.
No fancy trading will ever come close to insider trading my friend.
Yeah, just like markets that allow it. Including real estate and prediction markets.
If I know that someone else can make use of insider information against me, then I have an incentive to put my money somewhere else.
Fine, maybe you and a few other small players will feel too intimidated and not enter the market. (Even though inside trading already occurs, you just need to be sneaky). But that really doesn't change a thing or my point:)
In this case think about those people who bought stock from Cubin. If they had known that Cubin knew more than them, they would probably have opted not to buy in the first place.
Exactly. They didn't know more than him. The news was bad, so he used his knowledge to sell. Influx of selling caused the stock value to go down before the news. If that's not a more accurate and responsive market, then I don't know what is.
That's crap on so many levels. But first, let's get you off your moral high-horse. Let's say you have a $100k worth of Intel stock (from super, or w/e retirement plan you have in your area). So anyway, you always Intel was a pretty solid stock, and got along with some Intel people.
Now let's say you're knocking back a few beers with your Intel buddy, and he tells you the i7 CPUs are failing en masse, the management is crumbling and AMD is poised to deliver a fatal blow. So in short, you are now in possession of insider information. So the question is, would you sell your stock or wait till you lose it?
Secondly, there's no stealing. You agreed, I agreed. We might have different information, but that's hardly a secret. And the person who is "more correct" will drive the market to correct itself. (See prediction markets).
A technical trading is evil? rofl I'm not even going to bother..
As for the case, I think this crap happens more often than you would like to think--the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The fact that this occurred in June of '04 and he's being charged for it now implies that either it takes that long to build up evidence for a case or you don't hear about this until someone slips up.
As a hobbiest stock trader, I can tell you with confidence that inside trading happens a hell of a lot. Theres billions of dollars to be made. In fact, it happens so much - that there are many technical-trading techniques used to "follow the insiders". So every so often they find an inside trader, chuck him in jail and try make everyone happy. I'd much prefer if the government just got it's nose out of the market. The only thing insider traders do is lead to a more accurate market..
It's really not a big deal. He got away with no jail time (which I think he should've) -- he can spend a year without a video camera.
In fact, I'd like to see punishments like this for people that aren't a danger to society. Like tax evasion, let's not ruin their lives over it (at further tax player expense, may I add) but still provide a disincentive to other people.
Slashdot Mirror
A coincidence that it was posted two years ago?
Replying to myself. The end of my post got truncated by html parser thingy. Slashdot has to be the bulletin board where you need to write < to get a < sign..
The end of the post should have:
< 1ms). I assume it must be from packet loss, but it very well might be a bandwidth issue too.
WiFi itself is enough to completely kill a gaming session. When I'm at home on my laptop, I like to remotely login to my desktop. Allows me the horse power of my desktop, along with access to all the files (read: pr0n).
Works flawlessly really, but the difference between ethernet and wifi is perceptible. But as soon you try gaming over it, it becomes unusable (for any action game at least). Even simple games like kasteroids or kbounce are not worth using (I get routine 1 second freezes). On the other hand, doing the same thing over ethernet is perfect and you couldn't tell the difference.
In fact, connecting from university (where the latency is around 60-80ms) is a lot smoother than wifi (where the latency is
As for C/C++ IDEs I've tried and disliked both KDevelop
Yeah, it feels like a clunky shell around Kate, but I've been playing with KDevelop4 from SVN and they've done some really nice work. Hopefully they're nearing a release.
and Anjuta
Yeah, it's trashy. If you want something very minimalistic, geany is quite nice. I use it on my laptop.
Eclipse/CDE and Sun's netbeans based stuff are quite nice, but my poor little laptop doesn't like them.
Yeah, even my Pentium 4 doesn't like it. Netbeans has to be the most intensive application. In fact, it seems to use more resources than running another OS in a virtual machine. Which is telling you something.
I ended up settling with Code::Blocks, it's lightweight and native (C++/wxWidgets) and supports all the de-factor features.
Code Blocks is pretty decent. I do wish they made releases more often though.
In certain situations, syntax errors in interpreted languages can be pretty hard to track down. If you don't test absolutely every code path, you're bound for trouble.
Every since dealing with that crap, I've vowed to never use a language unless it's a) Compiled. b) Strongly typed.
Are C/C++ really fast? Have you got figures to back it up?
Give me a break. Of course it is. And no, I'm not going to provide figures for an accepted fact.
I'm not just talking about using C directly, but using C with some heavyweight library like Gtk which does its own very inefficient implementation of objects (glib), uses reference counting, and adds tons of asserts (which in a true HLL could be eliminated by the compiler).
Jesus Christ. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? You think if the detail is hidden from you, it doesn't exist. As for removing asserts and debug stuff, I can't think of an easier way than with C. You can even just use the preprocessor (#IFDEFINE) to remove the body of the function. Then let the compiler optimize out any use of it. Try that with Python/Ruby.
As Wikipedia would say ... [citation needed].
Rich.
w/e
in a few weeks you'll forget Python's indentation conventions ever bothered you.
Agreed. That's about the time it takes, until the lack of good debugging will get to you. :P
No, and due to the lack of momentum, I doubt it ever will be. But you can add C++ to the Gnome. Gtkmm is quite complete, or you can call Gtk+ methods fine.
C/C++ are the languages you'd want to go for. They can do *everything*, have great support, are fast etc.
.. just use it.
Take a look at Qt and Gtk. They're the two big GUI toolkits. I personally like Qt more, it's better documented and much easier to get running in Windows (and macs). As for the python, there's nothing wrong with its indenting. The problems of the language are much deeper. No language is going to be perfect, it's a tool
As for IDE's, if you're coming from a MS background take a look at the latest netbeans. It's a little slow (fine on new hardware though) and a bit better than Eclipse for C/C++ support.
Not quite. Linear time means that for a given hash table, the search time will be the same (assuming no collisions).
Instead of viewing them both as O(1) look at it like O(1) and P(1). The bigger hash table will have a bigger look-up time but still be constant.
Same here. Midori crashes so much that it's unusable in its current state. I'm waiting for Chrome for linux. :D
First of all, plenty of Christians have killed and will kill a non-believer. It's documented well, and countless times.
Sure it's happened lots historically, but all present day cases are really just psychopaths.
Funnily enough 10% of Jews in Israel *will* also stone your ass if you drive through a particular street on a Shabat, if you happen be Palestinian and live near certain settlers and if you dare to drive/eat/smoke in their vicinity on a Yom Kippur.
It cuts both ways. There are many mountain regions in Israel that you can't go without also risking being stoned.
Believe me. I live here. The latter example actually took place in Akko recently. An Arab drove through Akko (which is an Arabic city), ended up on a Jewish street, got stones thrown at his car and subsequently *he* was arrested for it.
And hopefully that is more the exception than the rule. But keep in mind the solution isn't to be peaceful when faced with a violence. I think it would be relevant to cite the holocaust..
Then there are the boys who immigrate from Russia who get bullied into circumcising themselves at the age of 20 by their peers in the Army. That one's about brainwashing *and* self-mutilation as a consequence of it, and that's still done by the more secular Jews, that's not even the work of your 10% of orthodox fringe idiots.
It happens in the US military too, so you can hardly call it religiously motivated (more conformity).
Now my boy would be considered Jewish because his mother is an Israeli Jewess, so don't come to me and cry anti-semitism for what I've just pointed out either, please.
Why would I? You've said nothing remotely anti-Semitic.
Having said that, I think the Christians should be very, very quiet about the Muslims killing those who are not Muslim because we all know what religion brought on the Spanish Inquisition, which hunts, the 100 year war, the Crusades and many other calamities that were aimed towards non-believers.
The Christians certainly can't be critical of Muslim history (they were imo much worse) but at least they've progressed. :P
In 1987 George Bush Sr said an atheist can never be considered a citizen and an atheist can never be considered a patriot. Because this is one nation under God. And he got elected president. Twice. And then his son. Twice.
I chucked at this. Your counter example to a religion that sanctions the killings of "infidels" is a *comment* pandering to the hard religious.
:P). But even so, I can admit they're really not being actively aggressive to my choice (or lack of) religion.
But even so, I'm surprised someone could believe that (along with things like 'there are no atheists in the fox holes'). And I honestly don't like the religious any more than you, nor would I ever vote for a party that supports state religion in any respect (Unless it was atheism, I'd be all up for that
So please climb off that horse and shut up about the Muslims. Humanists and an atheists can say something about Muslims. Christians and Jews are just part of the same mob, however.
So I can climb back on? :P And yes, I agree that Christians and Jews can be lumped in the same boat.
The US gets to stop an country getting annihilated, that shares similar values and willing to get its hands dirty (at the expense of political backlash). And no, the gains are not canceled out as the people that hate Israel are not the sort of people that ever would not hate the United States.
I've got a great story after talking with a girl who fled Iran after her family was persecuted for not being Islamic (belonged to some weird minor regional religion). Though it's an anecdote, I've come to believe the Muslims hate people for not belonging to their religion. And even if it was only 5% (Although, I'm inclined to believe it's much much higher) it's completely incompatible with our society. Imagine if 5% of Christians started stoning atheists..
There's a whole genre of software for it. But prevention is the best cure. Use the security features of your OS. If you're letting people (especially kids) use your machine, get them their own VM (preferably XP) and full screen it. If you're planning on learning about Linux security, get yourself a copy of Fedora and play (and learn) SELinux.
For white collar crime, I grow exceedingly weary of the American double standard - where lowly proletarian criminals do years of hard time for stealing a stereo, versus the feather delicate touch of the law on those who commit financial crimes, often of vastly greater magnitude.
I hear the same thing everyday from the business community, except about the comparative lax proletarian crime enforcement. I guess it depends what side of the fence you stand on.
On my list: Government corruption. Every branch of the government is corrupt. Every big deal that goes down seems to have kick-backs going everywhere. And it's getting to the point, that the average person is starting to notice it. When you give these people a sanctioned monopoly on power, it's going to get abused. Even if it's something as trivial as approving building applications (Ever wonder why some get approved in a month and others 6 months. (Or if you've pissed them off, they simply will not give you an answer and after 18 months you'll need to take them to court to do so.))
And then you got over-regulation. Every year they pump out more legislation and it's seriously taking a toll on people. It would be nice if they could take a step back and say "Hey, do we really need 60,000 pages of tax law?" or "Should it really cost $300k in compliance costs to start a managed investment?"
And then there is of course our wonderful legal system -- it's great in theory, but I rarely see it being used for "what is right" but as a weapon. I've seen black and white lawsuits rack up bills over a hundred thousand dollars - to then give the other party 20k to piss off. Or people (corruptly) get blatantly criminal behavior (like stealing a few million dollars from company coffers) recorded as "negligence" for their negligence insurance. God damn.
And if it becomes too political and they go after you -- you'll lose everything but your money.
I could go on, and give a few examples - but I fear what I write here will come back to haunt me.
Profiting with inside trading is accomplished through short-term inaccuracy, where the market is unable to regulate to the correct price before a few individuals have gamed the system.
Exactly. Think about it. The individuals that have "gamed the system" have done so, helping to close the "short-term inaccuracy". Consider it arbitrage trading, and they're closing the perceived and actual value of a company gap.
This all happens before the knowledge is public, leading to a more *accurate* market/evaluation.
Well, I am always entertained by the sight of suckers losing money. :D
Reminds me of when I was at the casino, watching the "high rollers" at their baccarat tables playing with stacks of $250 and $500 chips. I figure this must sort of skill game, and they must be doing it professionally. But reading the casino provided rule book, it's pretty clear it's just a game of chance where the house is constantly scraping a couple percent.
Maybe I'm a little sick, but there was something satisfying about watching them reluctantly pull out their wallet and buy another grand of chips.
Thank you for the civilized discourse. :)
It's one of those topics that not many people seem capable of thinking straight about it.
I met a man Rene Rivkin who seemed to love what he did (stock trading) and we talked about a mobile device he carried around for constant stock feeds (I believe he called an "Orange" or something). Anyway, he later was found to have made $2,000 with some insider knowledge, was sentenced to jail, lost his license all which ultimately led to his suicide.
And when you disagree with the premise that insider trading is evil, realize that the only people getting caught are the ones that made no attempt to cover their tracks -- it just seems a little crazy. But then again, I'm also against crap like the "war on drugs" for similar reasons (un-enforceability and the result of trying to).
..which would get you prison time if caught. :)
Just want to be sure I understand. If you were making an equities market, you don't see the value of trying to have a level playing field for information, where all those who would trade an equity have the same information about it (or, if insiders, they'd have some rules on how they can trade)...
A bit of a loaded question. If I could magically ensure information symmetry, I would. But I believe trying to enforce this level-playing-field idea is ridiculous. We're barely making a dent in "the problem", just enough to make it more profitable for those that do. Not only that, but we're throwing people in jail for doing something 99.9% of us would do..
Sort of like the SNL all drug olympics, right? Ah, I kid. :D
:P but yeah, equity markets serve quite a different purpose than sporting events :P
But for serious now, am I supposed to be happier about investing in your insider-trading-friendly market, versus one that does make an attempt to be transparent?
Of course not. I too would be more hesitant, but the purpose of the stock market isn't designed as a form of entertainment.
Do you propose that your market (where I am virtually guaranteed to get rooked unless I am an "insider") will draw more investors than a more transparent market (were more investors have a more level playing field)?
Yes. The market will react quicker, and (I believe) the liquidity would be slightly stronger.
And I disagree about your getting rooked statement. The only reason I can see that holding true, is if allowing insider-trading provided increased incentives for market minipulation. Which it probably does, but the sort of people that try manipulate the market aren't dumb enough to do anything in their name, so insider trading laws really don't bother them..
In fact, you really think the less transparent market is actually more accurate?
I should say I thought the point of your market was for it to be less accurate, and therefore provide more of an opportunity for insiders to take money from outsiders. :)
People that give false information to "outsiders" to take advantage of them have never worried about insider trading laws. They will continue to operate as usual, and we already have laws and regulation in place to deal with that.
Do you have any comment on the relative historical success of transparent markets (such as those in first world nations) versus less transparent markets (either in fact and in principle), such as those in the 3rd world, over say, the last 50 or 100 years?
Good point, but this is more correlation than causation. A country that can afford to regulate, is clearly better off. A country that is well regulated/transparent has less corruption etc. I have never invested in any Chinese company, not because they don't have strict insider-trading laws - but because I have no way of knowing if figures released are accurate etc. etc.
While investing in Australian and American companies I have no such hesitation
Do you mind if I ask, which kind of market has the majority of your investments?
I'm on the board of directors for an Australian company that deals exclusively with industrial properties. And my personal holdings are exclusively in the United States stock market. (My only current position is actually selling calls on Intel .. the calls I sold will expire in four days, and I will look to do something similar again)
I'm not sure what you're getting at.
.. because the the order will sell your shit as soon as the market opens. That's when all the panic selling occurs. I find that the first 30m the last 30m of market hours is when a lot of beginners get burnt. (And there's a self-fulfilling lull in trading at lunch time, but it's not as bad as open & close imo.)
..and I won't go any further, as it gets a little more complicated (the strike price has been changed from 2009+ onward. I'll leave it as an excersize to the reader to calculate what % of the stock value you're paying for that, but trust me, it's not cheap. And unless you have good reason for buying it, you probably won't make much money.
I've used that sort of stuff regularly, but things like stop-loses (selling as the stock goes down) is counter beneficial in this sense.
The reason: The news is always released during non-trading hours. So as soon market opens again, it has already made that adjustment. So that's why it's not effective. And why it's actually counter-beneficial
Then you mentioned the derivates to protect against loss. We can talk all day, but let's use some actual numbers (I'll work on close figures, if you don't mind): Intel is currently trading at: $13.00 which is actually a great figure to work with. Here is the cost of protecting against loss for a certain time period. (This is a comprehensive insurance program that guarantees you not a cent of loss).
4 day insurance: $0.46
32 day insurance: $1.10
No fancy trading will ever come close to insider trading my friend.
No, I think it will lead to no market at all.
Yeah, just like markets that allow it. Including real estate and prediction markets.
If I know that someone else can make use of insider information against me, then I have an incentive to put my money somewhere else.
Fine, maybe you and a few other small players will feel too intimidated and not enter the market. (Even though inside trading already occurs, you just need to be sneaky). But that really doesn't change a thing or my point :)
In this case think about those people who bought stock from Cubin. If they had known that Cubin knew more than them, they would probably have opted not to buy in the first place.
Exactly. They didn't know more than him. The news was bad, so he used his knowledge to sell. Influx of selling caused the stock value to go down before the news. If that's not a more accurate and responsive market, then I don't know what is.
That's crap on so many levels. But first, let's get you off your moral high-horse. Let's say you have a $100k worth of Intel stock (from super, or w/e retirement plan you have in your area). So anyway, you always Intel was a pretty solid stock, and got along with some Intel people.
Now let's say you're knocking back a few beers with your Intel buddy, and he tells you the i7 CPUs are failing en masse, the management is crumbling and AMD is poised to deliver a fatal blow. So in short, you are now in possession of insider information. So the question is, would you sell your stock or wait till you lose it?
Secondly, there's no stealing. You agreed, I agreed. We might have different information, but that's hardly a secret. And the person who is "more correct" will drive the market to correct itself. (See prediction markets).
A technical trading is evil? rofl I'm not even going to bother..
As for the case, I think this crap happens more often than you would like to think--the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The fact that this occurred in June of '04 and he's being charged for it now implies that either it takes that long to build up evidence for a case or you don't hear about this until someone slips up.
As a hobbiest stock trader, I can tell you with confidence that inside trading happens a hell of a lot. Theres billions of dollars to be made. In fact, it happens so much - that there are many technical-trading techniques used to "follow the insiders". So every so often they find an inside trader, chuck him in jail and try make everyone happy. I'd much prefer if the government just got it's nose out of the market. The only thing insider traders do is lead to a more accurate market..
It's really not a big deal. He got away with no jail time (which I think he should've) -- he can spend a year without a video camera.
In fact, I'd like to see punishments like this for people that aren't a danger to society. Like tax evasion, let's not ruin their lives over it (at further tax player expense, may I add) but still provide a disincentive to other people.