Geronimoooooo!!!!!!

WHAT A DAY! Today's market action was one of epic proportions, one that I was "lucky" enough to witness. The DJIA index was down more than 1,000 points intraday, with a cascading free-fall over the course of 20 minutes that saw the index lose nearly 600 points. In particular, Accenture (ACN) saw its stock price drop from $40 to $.01 in a single 2-minute candle! In the following rebound, also of epic proportions, the DJIA recovered about 400 points in less than 10 minutes' time. Crazy, huh? Here's a screenshot of major indices:

Well, now news agencies are reporting that erroneous computerized trading may be the cause of the wild swings that affected virtually every sector. Some exchanges, including the NASDAQ, have cancelled trades during the free-fall. I wonder what big-bank trader fell asleep on the "sell" button, haha. It'd be interesting to see what repercussions that this mistake will have on trading regulations, if any.

While my 401(k) took another body blow, my position in AUY mentioned in a post earlier this week recovered nicely as gold returned course upwards. Some pundits are calling for gold to reach new highs as investors seek safe haven from depreciating currencies.

I'll close today with a picture, from my trip to mainland China, of the Great Wall at Badaling Pass. It's rapidly approaching summertime and I feel the travel bug biting again. A new adventure would be a great opportunity for me to experiment with my upcoming DSLR camera! I will be posting more pictures from my trip in future posts so, enjoy!

Stocks and More Flowers

What a day for stocks...DJIA down 2.02% and the S&P down 2.38%! My poor 401(k)! Another one of my interests is the stock market. While there isn't really much in terms of equipment to purchase in order to play the investing game, this is  one hobby that could really hit you where it hurts. I should know, considering I started out making baseless, impulsive decisions that cost me quite a pretty penny...erm, "pennies," I should say.

Back in April '09, I had liquidated virtually all of my positions, expecting that the market would crash soon again and that the action since the March bottom was a dead cat's bounce. A quick glance at the charts since then would show just how wrong I was. Although I remained in cash on the sidelines after my disinvestment, I had ventured outside of company stocks and into exchange traded funds, or ETFs. Since I was still young and dumb in the world of trading, I jumped right into the 3x leveraged ETFs. This is when I assumed my front-and-center seat in the trading school of hard knocks.

After realizing the bulk of my losses in the market around this time-frame with more sporadic, misguided trades, I decided to ban myself from trading until I could justify each trade I wanted to make. In my quest for enlightenment, I eventually found my way into the wonderful discipline of technical analysis, which appealed to me with its focus on analyzing "the charts." Now over half a year later, I can say that while I am no whiz-trader, I am definitely more informed that I was when I first started. This, of course, is not to say that technical analysis guarantees success. Having some idea of what to look for has certainly make me think twice about buying or selling. I've yet to perfect this, however, as the following chart from Google Finance shows:

On April 30, I had an inkling from looking at the technicals that this stock would probably come down soon as it was creeping into "overbought" territory. While I had been looking for an opportunity to exit this position for a couple of months and have had some previously, I again didn't seize the chance and am now back in the red.. What was my mistake? To put it simply, greed. I had wanted to break even and then some. This desire kept me from pulling the "sell" button. I also didn't trust my interpretation of the technicals. The two days since then have proved my original prediction correct. Clearly, I still have much to learn and this mistake highlighted the dangers of greed and not trusting yourself. Luckily for me, I am not down a huge amount and will continue to practice and hopefully, improve.

For those interested in learning more about the basics of technical analysis, I have found this to be an extremely useful resource: Online Trading Concepts.

Oh, before I sign off...here is another picture of the peony I posted in yesterday's post plus the second flower!

Bloom, Peony...Bloom!

Last night, as I lay on the futon trying to fall asleep, a rather unsettling chain of thoughts stumbled across my mind. The anchor appeared to be the age-old question(s): "Why are we here? What is our purpose?" It wasn't that I hadn't wondered about this before or that I suddenly had some novel revelation. Rather, looking at it now, the whole sequence might have been triggered by me thinking how unfortunate it was that our family dogs, like all other dogs, have such a short lifespan relative to us, their trusted companions. (Oh, great time to insert a picture of the two newest members, both toy poodles...)

So just what is the reason for our being? What do we hope to achieve by living? Obviously, these are not questions that can be resolved with a simple blog post. So, rather than attempting to find an all-encompassing answer, my thoughts revolved around my own path in life. It seems that for the better part it, I have been living for the future, rather than the present. Do I have a master plan of some sort? Not that I know of. 

While I made it into (and eventually, successfully out of) the undergraduate mechanical engineering and graduate systems engineering programs at an Ivy League university (Go Big Red!), I remain uncertain what it is that I am seeking in life. Is it wealth? Is it happiness? Do I pursue my personal goals? Do I make some sacrifices in order to fulfill my filial duties? After nearly an hour of contemplation, weaving in and out of consciousness, I came to a rather anticlimactic conclusion: balance.

Balance, huh? Just what the heck am I talking about? It's quite simple actually...I can have it and do it all! Well, maybe it's not as simple as I'm making it out to be. For example, my bank account is currently higher than it's ever been and yet, I continue to stash away most of my paycheck each bi-week, like a busy honey bee hoarding nectar. As my coworker posed to me, "Can [I] take it with me?" Generally, the answer is a pretty certain "No!" This led me back to a concept that, for better or for worse, has guided me in life: everything in moderation. 

So, long story short, I had justified to myself that I can go ahead and spend my hard-earned money in moderation or more specifically, buy a new DSLR camera since it would bring me happiness by allowing me to pursue my new hobby. Admittedly, I may have reached my conclusions as a part of an intricate, round-about plan for self-justification. Alright, enough introspective babble...let's see some pictures!

Here's a Paeonia suffruticosa, one of a genus of plants commonly referred to as peony. This particular cultivar is called the "mudan" in Mandarin Chinese and has long been used in traditional symbolism. I only found two of these in the backyard and the other one should blossom later this week. I took a couple of more pictures from different angles/distances:

The mudan cultivar of peony has a particularly nice petal arrangement as well as a pleasant fragrance. As the traditional floral emblem of China, it was declared the national flower by the Qing Dynasty in 1903. Here's a closer view of the mudan:

Peony can be classified by two methods: plant type and flower type. According to the article linked above, it is not easy to distinguish between the different species of peony and the number of species is not clearly established, ranging from 25 to 40.

This about wraps up my second post. In hindsight, the first half of today's entry seems a tad bit "heavy" but that's what a blog is for right? Stay tuned for more pictures from the front/backyards as summer rapidly approaches!

Foray Into The Unknown

Hello All,

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So here I be, contemplating what to write in the first post of my brand-new blog. Blogs...new to me, old to probably the rest of the world. I'm not quite sure what impulsed me to start this, especially since the seemingly boundless prevalence of social media in recent years has become, at least to me, more exhausting than appealing. This being said, let me begin my own experiment into this ever interconnected world.

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Today was wonderfully beautiful day. While the day started out with some overcast, the sun eventually broke free of the clouds and beamed across the cloudless sky. The weekend is something to be cherished, a welcome break from the workweek. For my weekend, I indulged in my new hobby, photography.

Ever since my trip to mainland China in the summer of 2009, I have been increasingly interested in the world of photography. Armed with a Panasonic DMC-ZS3 travel super-zoom, I quickly filled up my 16GB SD card with photos of centuries-old architecture and scenic vistas. Fast-forward almost a year later, I have filled a another 16GB and begun my quest to find the perfect DSLR to delve further into this addictive hobby.

Being in the midst of spring, I ventured out into my backyard where flowering plants of many different types are carefully nurtured by my green-thumbed mother. Yes, for all those who are in disbelief, I do live at home with my parents. =) A'ight, let's have at those pictures, shall we?

Above, we have some clematis flowers that bloomed yesterday. There's another group of these vines but they mostly have not yet opened up. Nonetheless, I took a picture of the soon-to-bloom buds:

An interesting fact about these clematis is that they were once used as a less-pricey alternative to black pepper in the old days. However, as stated in the above Wikipedia link, an alternative is nevertheless, an alternative:

"Unlike black pepper or Capsicum, however, the compounds in clematis cause internal bleeding of the digestive tract if ingested in large amounts. The plants are essentially toxic." 

Moral of the story? Don't eat the clematis! Here are some more pictures of these lovely, and apparently deadly, flowers:

There weren't many of these white cultivars available for me to photograph and most weren't as healthy-looking as this one. One thing that caught my attention about these clematis were the wavy stamen that radiated from the center of the flowers. This presented an opportunity to experiment with the macro function.

The above picture is a close-up of the purple clematis. Yellow stamens have begun to unfurl from the center and eventually, the ovary will be exposed. It's interesting how different flowers have different colors schemes...I suppose the contrast is to draw attention to the flower's "naughty bits". Here's the white clematis for comparison:

The white clematis exchanges the yellow stamens of the purple clematis for dark-violet-tipped stamens, which are pretty cool. They remind me of the wriggling tentacles of a squid. If I had to choose between the two types of clematis, I'd choose the white one for its cooler stamens; however, the purple petals are a bit more lively than the white ones.

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I hope you've all enjoyed my first post...I have more photos from my collection to share and even more to take in the coming days! Please feel free to comment on anything here, whether it be my writing style, photography, or content (other subject matter will be broached in future posts). For those who would like larger images of my photos for use as desktop wallpaper, let me know and I'll post them here. Thanks for reading!

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