First Day of School

Well, that's what you called it back in middle school. I guess you can refer to it as the first day of class. For me, it's the first day of the last semester of college. And man was it sweet.

Woke up to the rhythm of the pouring rain, made some Maruchan ramen, and then went to class. EE129 - Nonlinear and Neural Networks. There are no exams, no homework, and the only grade is based on lecture summaries and a final project. The professor explicitly stated that the class material will never help us in life, but also stated that the material will never be obsolete (like 90% of our education).

I also was pleased to get into E190, which means I can graduate in May. I hear there's a lot of work with Nevader, but people still think he's awesome, so let's see how this goes. I was also the last one to get in...that's gotta be rough for the 18 others on the waitlist.

IEOR 171 could be a bit less intimidating, as I can't recall how much reading I've done in my entire career here at Cal. But hey, apparently even the IEOR kids just peruse the case studies, so why can't I? Though, I'm probably going to go for a decal instead, since I don't need CoE units, but just units in general. I have Visual Studies 186X on Friday, the photo class. If it's silly, I'm going to drop it.

A pretty good start, if I may say so.

-eleung
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List: Finance reading

So you wanna be the next BSD at a bulge bracket bank? (or are boutiques the new bulge bracket?) Want to avoid becoming equities in Dallas? Are you a straight-shot to being the youngest M&A MD the world has ever seen? You better start reading these books now, as they are a small fraction of the legendary books read by everyone in the financial services.

• Liar's Poker: Written by a current Berkeley resident, Michael Lewis, this recounts the rise and fall of Salomon Brothers, an investment bank whose heyday was in the 1980's. The man wrote the book to try to expose the utter absurdity and childishness of working on Wall Street, but it drove college students to the investment banking industry like no other. I spoke with an Executive Director in Fixed Income at Morgan Stanley who quoted this book as his reason for joining the industry. Funny how things work out...
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator: Released in 1923 (not a typo), the lessons of this book remain relevant to this day. Before the modern computer was even thought of by Alan Turing, the markets were completely manual, recorded with pen and paper, but speculative trading was in full force in the 1920's, with little regulation and obscene amounts of leverage (2x leverage is maximum for retail investors today, 10x leverage was not uncommon then). I haven't read this book, but it's on the list.
• The Black Swan: This book, by Nicholas Nassim Taleb, was released in 2007 and partially "predicted" the market crash of 2008. Taleb argues that we cannot predict anything other than what color socks we wear in the morning, we falsely believe anything said by an analyst in a suit, and other sorts of logical fallacies. This book gives you a lot to think about, and it's material is applicable to more than financial forecasting. One of my statistics professors delivers a good PhD-esque analysis of the book, and while he agrees with many factors, there are also plenty of logical fallacies in Taleb's arguments.
• The New Market Wizards: As stupid as this sounds, this book contains direct transcriptions of the author's interviews with some of the most successful, seasoned investors on the planet. I read the old 1980's version, though the investing and speculating tips inside are timeless. However, I think this guy has a bent towards futures and commodities traders, which ain't really my gig. Perhaps this has changed in the more recent revision.
• Intelligent Investor: Written by Benjamin Graham, this book is the canonical text on value investing. Well, I lied, the true canon of value investing is Security Analysis, but that's a 1000 page textbook meant for graduate students in finance or MBA programs. Intelligent Investor is meant to provide broad guidelines for average human beings trying to maximize the return on their savings. I think this should be a required read for anybody who is going to trade stocks. This book was originally released in 1949, further proving that true investment know-how is timeless.

I want to get some sleep so I'm going to stop here. Perhaps I'll continue later, my budding rainmakers. Read More......

definition of baller

Originally 'baller' meant the riches attained through playing basketball (I make that shit up but it sounds plausible). Now you hear atrocities like 'baller-ass wall street banker'.

Fuck that shit. This is the definition of baller:



Swimming and playing with lions. I can imagine nothing more manly.
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an evil python bug

Not actually a bug in python, more pebkac.

In python there is a built-in dictionary type that you can access with bracket notation (e.g foo['bar']). However, doing this gets you an error when you try and look up a key that's not there. It's a pain to have to keep writing 'if key in dict:...', but luckily, python dictionaries have a built in get() method that will return None instead of erroring out. This is useful if you're looking for duplicates in a list, for example, using dictionaries to remember what you've seen.


Sometimes, though, this behavior isn't enough. What if you want all values to default to 1? Luckily get lets you specify a default value. So if you say dict.get(key, 1) your values will never be None, instead they'll be 1 if there's no key in the dictionary. Right?

Wrong :( get() can still return None, and this was crashing my script. How the hell does dict.get(key, 'blahblahblah') ever return None? The solution eluded me for about an hour and a half on Friday. I wracked my brains with frustration and came up with nothing until a coworker pointed out the blindly obvious. Sucks how it works out that way - the longer you try to debug, the more likely it is to be a retarded basic logic fail that has been staring you in the eye the whole time. I now understand why my office has a ping pong table, nerf guns, and a shuffleboard table, among other distractions - it's because sitting there programming the whole time basically guarantees you'll run into one of these. Also the lack of cubicles - being able to talk to someone and have them look at code with fresh eyes really helps.

Turns out, the value for key in my case was in fact, None. RAGE.

But part of becoming a good developer is learning to be detail-oriented enough so that little shits like these can't trip you up. One down, many more to go...

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Retail bankers

An NYU girl (A Stern business major) was sharing various NYC nightlife stories with me when we were at the bar. This was by far the best one. And if you don't get it, you're part of the joke.

• "So this guy at the bar started talking to us. He thought we were just stupid dressed-up girls, so he tried his best 2007-era pick-up line. 'I work at a bank.' My friend and I give each other that look where we tacitly agree that he's a douchebag, we but decide to humor him.
          'Oh wow, so where do you work?'
          'Wachovia.'
          '....BWAHAHAHAHAHHAAH, OKAY RETAIL BANKER'"

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Summarz

Summer: -> go home -> dick around for a few days -> that ends -> bored out of my mind. Resume brogging.


Maybe it's just me, but every break since sophomore year of college has degenerated into this pattern. The breaks of my friends from LA never really match up, and this time everyone's abroad. I see it coming every time, too. I have to prepare beforehand, during the last week before break starts. The classic 1 book/3 movies/1 game pattern. "Okay, so I've got Jurassic Park to read, and I have a few classic movies (Manchurian Candidate, this time) I've been meaning to watch. Reinstall Portal, that was pretty cool, there's some more achievements I can get. And then I maybe visit UCLA once. Reformat some family computers. Call it a break."

No, no no no, no no.

Now that all of the above is done, I feel like I'm staving off Alzheimer's by trying to keep occupied at home. Here I am, voluntarily reading lecture notes for a class I tested out of and won't have to take in an effort to feel caught up for when I take the next class in the series. In a month. Summer school. I'm summer-reading-prepping for a summer school class. Shit, I wasn't built for long breaks. What the hell do people DO in their spare time?

Lucky that the other broggers are all caught up full-time in their respective internships. I envy them. So. Backup plan. I have the entire intarwebz to keep me company. I've heard good things about this blog, but this is one of the first posts that was decently interesting for me. I also have all the time in the world to learn about, say, investing. Here we go, day trading.

On second thought, maybe I'm feeling guilty for relaxing...on my break. When all else fails, burn a day at the beach... Read More......

Liveblogging the Obama GM press conference

Sorry we let the brog die, royar forrowers.

I just moved into Park Slope in Brooklyn and I have a couple of days before my internship starts. I'm watching CNBC and all the anchors are JIMP'ing about the stock market rally. In 50 minutes, Obama will be having a press conference about what's going on with GM. For all the idiots that live under a rock, GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy at 8:00am Eastern and the US Treasury owns 60% of the company.

11:10 - Kudlow is JIMP'ing about all of the economic indicators that say everything is butterflies and sunflowers. OMG durable goods OMG transportation index up OMG consumer discretionary up. BTW the guy he's interviewing has too much blush on.
11:13 - Kudlow keeps repeating "Little green cars that nobody wants to buy," likely talking about the fuel-efficient cars that Obama is going to force GM to manufacture.
11:16 - Steve Liesman says that Geithner emphasizes the imporance of China in laying the foundations for the global economic recovery. No vein popping out just yet, though.
11:20 - Will China keep buying US Treasuries? "Clearly the world is shifting its views on US debt, Chinese are very concerned about US debt, they said so at the beginning of the year, but what do you do with a bad position? They're long US dollars and long US Treasuries. At some point the Chinese have to let everyone know they're not going to keep buying these things".
Note: The chick keeps asking questions that try to hook in the Joe Sixpacks: "How does this affect the average investor looking to buy Treasuries?" "But isn't China's economy fundamentally linked the the American consumer's demand?"
11:28 - Reporter in Victorville, CA, VICTORLINVILLE????? "What do dealerships do now?" "We keep selling cars to the best of our ability. It's all we can do. It's all we know how to do."
11:30 - Dealer subsidies are huuuuuuuuuuge, that's why they are getting shut down left and right
11:35 - Schatz of Heritage capital: "This rally is sustainable, I think we're going to at least 9,000, maybe 9,500, maybe 10,000"
11:36 - Kudlow: "Construction up 3 straight months, nobody thought that was possible"
11:37 - Long term bearish case: "We're setting the stage for inflation, we don't have the bullets to kill inflation, how is the Fed going to stop inflation if we have to keep rates low to continue housing recovery?" The bitch: "What is long term? Labor day? End of the year?"

• these companies were facing a crisis decades in the making


• relied on loans from the previous administration (potshot at Bush)


• i would not put any more tax dollars on the line if it meant perpetuating bad business decision


• not permanent wards of the state


• recognize the importance of the well-being of our auto industry to the well-being of the country


• collapse of these companies would be devastating for countless Americans and be devastating for our economy


• good for American workers, manufacturing, good for economy


• if GM and Chrysler stakeholders were willing to sacrifice for the company, then the US government would stand behind them


• earlier plan did not not the necessary restructuring


• after consulting with my auto task force, I became convinced if they were allowed to undergo a restructuring and form a partnership with a global car company, they could get a new lease on life: new Chrysler is poised to complete its alliance with Fiat. Court has approved the Chrysler, Fiat alliance, emerging from bankruptcy in few more days

OMG STOCK MARKET RISING WHILE OBAMA SPEAKS

• people were wrong about a quick bankruptcy being impossible, people were wrong about car sales dropping off a cliff when Chrysler went bankrupt


• GM is different; much larger, much more complex, needs to streamline brands, clean up balance sheet, GM and its stakeholders have produced a viable, achievable plan that will give this iconic company a plan to move towards profitability


• GM will start building a bigger share of cars at home, including fuel efficient cars***


• Deal that has worked out is tough, but fair: Unions take pay and benefit cuts


• Shareholders give up remaining value of their shares


• unsecured bondholders get substantially more than if the government had not intervened


• executing plan will take substiantial money that only the government can provide


• the governments of canada and ontario will help to provide an investment


• government of germany has reached an understanding for the sale of an overseas stake


• We inherited a financial crisis unlike any we have seen in our time. Survival ane success of our overall economy depends on it. "Reluctant shareholders"


• US government will not make decisions for GM


• US government will get out quickly.


• Fleet modernization subsidy???

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