Today General Motors closed at $1.45 which is a day’s gain of +0.18 or 14.17%. I had a conditional order set to buy GM at $1.00 per share that just so happened to trigger a few days ago. This is a completely blind trade and is only meant to take advantage of the uncertainty regarding the future of this once dominant auto company. You can’t ignore this kind extreme volatility. We are in the process of experiencing the bankruptcy of Chrysler. I do feel Chrysler and General Motors are two completely different situations, but bankruptcy is still a high probability. I would think it would be in everyone’s interest to come to a conclusion on the restructuring of General Motors that benefits all parties involved. Most analysts say that bankruptcy is inevitable. I feel once General Motors puts this whole process behind them they will have the ability to successful compete in the auto industry of the future. Bankrupt or not, we should see some nice movement in the stock. I am heading out to Las Vegas next week so if this trade swings in my direction it will only enhance the Vegas experience and provide some extra spending cash. I am completely aware of the risks involved in this trade and definitely don’t recommend it for the faint of heart.
Today was a glorious day. I arrived home to find a package waiting for me on my door step. That package was a book that I had ordered a few days prior, Building Automated Trading Systems: With an Introduction to Visual C++.NET 2005 (Financial Market Technology). I usually dedicate the weekends to work on my little project so I plan to jump right in this weekend and start building what will soon become “The Beast“.
I also got a visit from my college roommate who decided to stop by and hang out for a bit. He mentioned he was thinking about going back to school to take a graduate certificate program and that they offered a great certificate program that would compliment my little side project. I have been pondering the idea of returning to school and decided I would join him on his quest for knowledge. It will be nice to have someone to commute with and share in the experience.
Applied Statistics:
This certificate provides professionals in biology, business, computer science, engineering, insurance, medicine, pharmaceutical and other sciences with statistical tools for survival in a highly competitive world marketplace. Experimental design provides methodology for gaining information in an efficient manner. Use of designed experiments in product development is known as off-line quality control. Clinical trials are examples of designed experiments in the medical field. Statistical modeling (linear regression analysis) includes systematic procedures for collecting and analyzing data in order to “predict” a response variable based on one or more “predictor” variables. The techniques covered in design of experiments are special cases of the general approach to statistical modeling. Certificate holders will be equipped with quantitative tools that form the heart of a quality approach to development and improvement of products and services.
I started working on some trading applications with Excel VBA the other night that basically process large amounts of data and run algorithms to come to a single conclusion; buy or not to buy. Exciting huh..? I ended up getting lost in the moment, before I knew it the sun was rising and I had three empty energy drink cans resting on my desk. The night was a success because I did end up finishing the task I had set out to complete. The whole process brought me back to the days of Americal Online, that I was lucky enough to experience at a very young age. I guess it is because that was the last time I actually seriously coded anything using Visual Basic.
If the terms Punter, Proggies, Server, Phishing ring a bell or you might enjoy this post. I got involved with the AOL Warez scene at an early age (like most others involved). The first time I heard those four beautiful words, “Welcome! You’ve got mail!”, I was hooked. Before I discovered America Online I would connect through my local ISP and browse through the eyes of Netscape. Back then, the internet was not for everyone and the world wide web was hardly the playground it has built itself up to be today. America Online eventually became the new sheriff in town offering you the same product as your local ISP but with one exception. America Online kept you busy while you were connected serving as a complete content portal.
It all began for me in a magical place known as pr: Warez. This was a private chat room with software being offered for trade and download. It was my first experience with peer-to-peer sharing, way before the Napster generation came along. This same private chat also became the stomping grounds of the “Warez Group”. pr:Warez was also the birth place of a little program known as “AOHELL“. A 17 year old programmer going by the handle “Da Chronic” had created a program in Visual Basic that allowed users to take advantage of the many exploits AOL had to offer at the time. This was a fairly simple program that reached massive levels of popularity. Soon thousands of applications just like “AOHELL” had flooded the scene. Some popular functions of AOHELL were:
- A fake account generator which would generate a new, fully-functional AOL accounts.
- Phishing tools, which would barrage random AOL users with instant messages like:
- A punter, which would send an IM containing HTML that would sign users off.
- A mail bomb script which would rapidly send e-mails to a user’s inbox until it was full.
- A flooding script that would flood a chat room with ASCII art.
- An IM manager, which would automatically respond to or block IMs from certain users.
Soon enough America Online came along and killed the party just as Broadband internet began to kill theirs. Warez groups would then migrate to another great place known as IRC. I am 24 year old now and the days of America Online are long gone, but many people don’t realize the significance of the whole scene and the talent that it had created. AOL Warez has played a major role in my life, and it’s something I don’t wish to ignore or forget.
Check it: History of AOL Warez
(waol.exe)
A little taste of Vegas in General Motors.
Today General Motors closed at $1.45 which is a day’s gain of +0.18 or 14.17%. I had a conditional order set to buy GM at $1.00 per share that just so happened to trigger a few days ago. This is a completely blind trade and is only meant to take advantage of the uncertainty regarding the future of this once dominant auto company. You can’t ignore this kind extreme volatility. We are in the process of experiencing the bankruptcy of Chrysler. I do feel Chrysler and General Motors are two completely different situations, but bankruptcy is still a high probability. I would think it would be in everyone’s interest to come to a conclusion on the restructuring of General Motors that benefits all parties involved. Most analysts say that bankruptcy is inevitable. I feel once General Motors puts this whole process behind them they will have the ability to successful compete in the auto industry of the future. Bankrupt or not, we should see some nice movement in the stock. I am heading out to Las Vegas next week so if this trade swings in my direction it will only enhance the Vegas experience and provide some extra spending cash. I am completely aware of the risks involved in this trade and definitely don’t recommend it for the faint of heart.