HopsGuy

How come God made those birds fly into the engines? Isn't it nice to have Sully and Harry Markopolos after all of the disappointments we've had lately? I hope folks don't come down too hard on him for not sounding like a Grammy winner.

Free high calorie/fat breakfast? There are no winners here folks, just survivors. Biggest loser? The Waitresses. It's bad enough that breakfast is the cheapest meal going, so when they're busting their rears re-filling the coffee and getting the grub , the typical customer still tips 15-20%. Today, they'll tip on 20% of the coffee. Here's the thing - you get breakfast and the meal is $7.00. If the service was good, leave $12.00. [/RANT]

Lots of "Six Degrees of Separation" here. I stood in the wedding when my buddy married Funke's daughter. Nice guy.

Jeeze, the MAC is definitely a football conference. I just looked at the schedules/results of a few teams. The conference barely qualifies as a mid-major. UB won that tourny, but that's the only thing the league can brag about. Miami stayed within 5 of Dayton in a low scoring game. Hopefully the Bulls can continue to play well and earn the bid. I'm not sure if the loser of the championship game would get a slot in the NIT.

Uggh, not in HD? Bummer. Toledo is bad. Bulls need to finish the first half strong.

"Making the Spread" has pretty much gone the way of the do-do for trading. Most of the trading has moved from the NYSE floor and NASDAQ workstations to the Electronic Communication Networks (ECNs) that both have gobbled up. Notice how barren the NYSE floor looks on CNBC? The ECN model is not some specialist or market maker making a "fair and orderly" market, but simply people posting bids and offers. A market order will sweep the book at the National Best Bid or Offer (NBBO). The ECN pricing structure for broker dealers to connect is for a the B/D to pay a per share fee for orders that take liquidity (market orders and limit orders that remove shares from the book) and pay a rebate for orders that provide liquidity (limit orders away from the NBBO). Of course the ECN makes money for every transaction because the fee is greater than the rebate. This removes the risk of the specialist/market maker that stands as the buyer/seller of last resort. Large institutions still use MMs and specialists for block trading, but even that has waned recently. "Dark Pool" trading allows these guys to trade anonymously with each other without involving the MMs/specialists. Lots of stuff gets done on after hours crossing sessions for what's called VWAP (volume weighted average price) trading. All of this has happened over the last 10 years. There are still a lot of traders out there that make 5-10x what A-Rod pulls down. But they (and their firms) are the ones taking the risk.

Here's a lineup of Super Bowl QB hos. One way or another, you're payin' for it.

Mr. Burns wants to know how his Confederated Slavery Holdings stock is doing.

Look at this thing.

Don't thank me... I heard this guy say it.

I'll give you a great indicator free of charge: The bottom will be put in when the market stops going down on bad news. You're welcome.

Barney Fife > Anton Chigurh

Blog weighs in on the shortage.

No problem. I've always read your posts as though the signature line was: "Caution, there's a decent chance I have no idea what I'm talking about."

You'd feel it more if you knew the whole story. Simmons has spoken about "The Dooze" and her ability to fetch a tennis ball for years. He talks about his dog so much, a couple of years ago someone even made a drinking game and included a rule about how he'd mention his dog during his annual NBA draft diary. The Sports Guy's wife used to write a piece in his Friday picks. About 4 months ago she mentioned that "The Dooze" was dying and how sad she'd be when the day came. It's no surprise the guy wrote a eulogy about his dog. I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt that he didn't time his dog's death with the opening of a movie. Feel any way you want, you supercilious, pedantic anal orifice (or whatever your title used to be).

I love Showgirls. It's so bad, it's good. And Gina Gershon gets nekkid, so there's that. I haven't seen the others. BTW, I'm fishing for someone to call out where I got my original quote.

All things end badly, or else they wouldn't end.

Here's the difference between dogs and cats: A dog has an owner. The owner provides the dog with food, water, shelter and an exaggerated about of attention. The dog therefore believes the owner to be God. A cat has an owner. The owner provides the cat with food, water, shelter and an exaggerated about of attention. The cat therefore believes itself to be God. ---------------------------------------------------- I liked the column. I'm sure it has been done before but that didn't detract from it, at least for me. George Carlin once said that when you get a new pet, you're basically buying yourself a little tragedy.

There's a whole book about this topic with that title. "The girl with colitis goes by" ("The girl with kaleidoscope eyes"-The Beatles)

Anything from the "No Man's Land" series. Oh wait, what? Okay, okay.... "The Devil wears Prada" was surprisingly good.

When I read the thread title I thought, "I'm totally going to post the Damone quote." I've been hanging out with you people too long.

My grandfather was a bootlegger & speakeasy proprietor. The local police turned a blind eye. Of course, he never went on to head the SEC nor did my father ever become president. Missed opportunity, I guess.

Homer Simpson, Paul Shaffer & Martha Wash all agree: "It's Raining Men" Fabulous doesn't even begin to describe it. Shut up!

I didn't look it up, but my first guess was Nolan Ryan. How do you define 'expansion' team? Perry might be the answer. My favorite story about him was that once he slid into home plate and a bottle of Vaseline fell out of the pocket of his jacket. Strange how he is glorified as a cheater.

Sure blame the speculators. I like Steve Kroft, but he completely missed the point here and failed to ask the question... "Why do they let speculators in to these markets?" Well, let's pretend you asked, Steve. You mentioned in your piece that the users of oil (airlines, gas stations, etc) use futures contracts to "get the best price" for the product. This is where the entire premise that speculators are to blame for the volatility in the oil market falls apart. The futures markets were created for price stability in commodities markets (pig bellies, cattle, corn, wheat, oil, frozen orange juice concentrate, etc). These markets shift the risk of supply disruptions (drought, foot and mouth disease, wars in the Middle East) or demand disruption (Atkins Diet fad, SUVs, etc) from the users and producers to speculators. Kroft also said that the speculators make money whether the price goes up or down. While true, he failed to mention that these folks also lose money. As Gordon Gekko said, "It's a zero sum game pal." (It's worth mentioning that commodities futures speculation actually is a zero sum game, while stock speculation is not due to wealth creation, but I digress.) The real problem not addressed in the piece is that the futures exchange where these contracts trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (owner of the NYMEX where the trading actually occurs) lowered the margin requirements on the contracts with the blessing of the CFTC (the SEC of commodities). Also, miNY (get it? NY?) contracts were created to encourage smaller investors to get into the game. So now we have an unprecedented number of speculators at artificially low margin rates (high leverage) pushing the price of crude around. It went way too high in July and is probably way too low now (although it could still go lower). So what I am saying is that the volatility is a byproduct of higher leverage. higher leverage causes a price disconnect from the normal rules of supply/demand. Y'know, kinda like easy mortgages? GG and a few others here could probably state this more eloquently and fill in the gaps. Oh, by the way Obama's nominee for the head of the SEC is Mary Schapiro, former head of the CFTC.