Quant Trading

Inside the Black Box: The Simple Truth About Quantitative Trading

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Black-Box-Quantitative-Trading/dp/0470432063/ref=zg_bs_2586_17_2

The book makes a mess of the distinction between Alpha, which is earned from other active traders, and Beta, which is earned from buy-and-hold investors. What he calls "theory" in a strategy is no more than ad hoc marketing junk. Theory does not mean just saying you exploit a "documented behavioral bias" or "institutional rigidity." It means a real, sensible, testable theory of who is losing the money you're making. You need to know who those people are, why they are doing it and monitor that they keep doing it. Without a theory the only way you know your strategy stopped working is when you lose money, you never have warning, and you never know when it's safe to go back to it. Also, a theory tells you what to do when things stop working, the author seems to suggest that your only options are keep the strategy running, change it or shut it down. Professionals have several layers of backup plans. Theory is what separates a quant trader from a technical analyst.

Risk management is covered only in the portfolio management sense, in which risk a constraint or something to be minimized. Independent risk management is barely mentioned, and completely misdescribed. The author does not know what Value-at-Risk is, any paragraph with that term should be ignored. The first thing to ask any quant trader for is her VaR backtest. She should produce a number every day before trading starts such that she loses more than that amount 1 day in 20. The backtest should show the right number of break days, subject to statistical error, and those breaks should be independent in time and of the level of VaR.

If you can't produce a good VaR, you don't understand your everyday risk, what happens 19 days out of 20 when markets are normal, so you can't possibly understand your tail risk. VaR is not a measure of risk, it tells you the range in which you can trust your models. You worry more when it is too small, when your models can only be validated in narrow circumstances, than when it is too big. It's not that you like losing money, but for two strategies with the same return and volatility track record, you trust the one that has survived significant adversity more than the one that has seen only mild days.

I think I've just told you everything bad about this book. Note that it's less than 1% of the length of the book. That pretty much sums up my judgment, this is a great book, 99% pure.

Non-OPEC Supply, OECD Demand are Key as Oil Eyes $100

asr: check his old articles on Seeking Alpha ( sumit ROy )

http://www.dailyfx.com/forex/fundamental/daily_briefing/daily_pieces/commodities/2011/01/03/Non_OPEC_Supply_OECD_Demand_are_Key_as_Oil_Eyes_100.html

By Sumit Roy,

03 January 2011 02:57 GMT

After falling for two years in a row, oil demand rebounded sharply in 2010 to reach a new record high. At 87.4 million barrels per day, the year’s demand rose by 2.4mmbbl/d, or 2.8%, according to figures from the International Energy Agency. That is the fastest growth since 2004.

Much of 2010’s robust growth can be attributed to recovery from an especially dismal 2008 and 2009. The steep declines in consumption we saw in developed economies were partially reversed, though Europe put in yet another decline. Demand in the region has not risen since 2004. North America fared better, as demand rose almost 0.6mmbbl/d.

While demand from developed economies bounced back, that from emerging markets absolutely surged. Non-OECD consumption rose by a full 2mmbbl/d, representing over 80% of the year’s total demand growth. China alone accounted for 0.7mmbbl/d of said demand, or 30% of total demand growth.

Taking a look at the other side of balances, supply also put in an impressive performance in 2010. In particular, non-OPEC supply rose by 1.1mmbbl/d, or 2.1%, its best showing since 2004 when it rose by 2.4%. This took the burden off of OPEC, which saw its crude output climb a modest 0.5mmbbl/d, as the cartel maintained a solid level of spare capacity. Effective spare capacity stands at 5.56mmbbl/d per the IEA, well above the 1-3mmbbl/d level back during the last oil bull market during the 2003-2008 period.

A fairly balanced year for supply and demand had inventories in the OECD steady. But while inventories are largely flat year-over-year, they are well below the mid-summer peak and trending lower. Moreover, floating storage has more than halved from a year ago, standing at 64 million barrels in November, down from a peak of 154 million barrels at the end of 2009.

Turning to the new year, the IEA sees demand growth slowing to 1.4mmbbl/d, or 1.6%, in 2011, close to the 2005-2007 average growth rate of 1.7%. Non-OECD growth will slow from 5.1% to 3.9%, which is just slightly below the 2005 to 2007 average of 4.1%. OECD demand is expected to resume its structural decline, dropping by 0.2mmbbl/d. Prior to 2010, OECD demand had fallen in every year since 2005 as the new high oil price paradigm led to increasing conservation and advances in efficiencies.

On the supply side, non-OPEC production may rise by 0.6mmbbl/d, or 1.1%, nearly half the growth rate of 2010. Somewhat surprisingly, the IEA sees North American production falling 0.2mmbbl/d after rising 0.5mmbbl/d due in part to drilling restriction in the Gulf of Mexico that were instituted following the BP Macondo well disaster. But furious drilling onshore in North America continues, which has enabled U.S. production to reach a six-year high. It is very possible that the IEA could be underestimating non-OPEC production growth.

At 29.2mmbbl/d, OPEC crude oil production stands only slightly below the IEA’s estimate of the 29.5mmbbl/d that will be necessary to keep OECD inventories flat in 2011. Of course, there are many risks to this outlook. As we stated previously, non-OPEC production growth could surprise to the upside. That would loosen the market, all else equal. On the other hand, in the event OECD demand surprises to the upside- bucking the call for resumption in the secular decline- that would tighten the market more than expected.

All things considered, benchmark crudes have accounted for quite a bit of bullishness with prices sitting in the mid-$90’s. There will likely need to be evidence that the market has tightened more-than-expected before a move into the triple digits. As stated above, the bullish wildcard is demand growth from developed economies, while the bearish wildcard is non-OPEC supply. Additional variables to consider include China’s demand growth as the country’s central bank tightens monetary policy and OPEC crude supply as Iraq lifts production and quota compliance falls due to higher prices.

DailyFX provides forex news on the economic reports and political events that influence the currency market.
Learn currency trading with a free practice account and charts from FXCM.

who am I

WHO am I ?

asr: if I think more who I am ... i think this desc works for me ..

I like to work on and think about building businesses, market positioning and product strategy. Although, by training, I'm a Software Engineer ( database , web, languages )

reference:

http://stackoverflow.com/users/1553/tall-jeff

http://answers.onstartups.com/users/957/tall-jeff

iphone economics

June 22, 2010

Full Analysis of iPhone Economics - it is bad news. And then it gets worse

The median point is under 1,000. Lets call it 999. That number times $1.95 per paid app gives the 'most typical app' the total revenues in its lifetime - the full two years of App Store existence - of $1,948 dollars. This is before Apple takes its cut of 30%, so we are left with $1,363 over two years or $682 per year. This is so 'successful' that half of all of the developers of the 164,250 apps -will actually earn LESS THAN THIS. Before you start to cry, remember, there is that Angry Bird game that had 4 million paid downloads and the Bewelled 2 game with 3 million paid downloads. Thats your math there, they are totally skewing the averages, and you are stuck in the 'long tail' indeed. Half of all developers will earn less than $682 per year. Do you still think this is a good business idea?

Now we can calculate more valuable data points. The total paid apps earned $1.43 Billion over 2 years. When we divide that by the average price paid of $1.95, we get total paid app downloads of 733 million. In other words, of the total 5 Billion iPhone paid and free app downloads, 733 million - 14.7% - were paid, and obviously the rest, 85.3% of all downloaded iPhone apps were free. That is 4.27 Billion free apps. incidentially a sanity check, in Sept 2009, Yankee Group surveyed actual iPhone App users and found 18% of their apps they had were paid, 82% were free. So the math result of 15% paid apps is quite consistent with other sources.

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Making Money In Mobile - Issues and Strategy

http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=7805

Most of the success stories seem to be with iPhone apps. With a block buster iPhone game like "Angry Birds", which has sold over four million copies, you can do quite well even with the ubiquitous $0.99 App store pricing. As can a high quality app, especially one that fills an enterprise need, like iTeleport, a $25 iPhone/iPad app for remotely controlling Windows and Apple PCs that generates over a million dollars in annual revenues.

But those results are atypical. Tomi Ahonen crunched the numbers and calculated the the average iPhone paid app or game returns a mere $682 per year to its developer. It's worse on Android where paid apps are only available in 13 countries. Android apps tend to be offered as a free ad-supported version with a paid upgrade that removes the ads and includes an additional feature or two. Mobile web publishers generally rely on mobile advertising as well.

To make any decent amount of money with mobile advertising you need volume, a whole lot of volume. Cost per click (CPC), the average payout to the publisher when a user clicks on a mobile ad, is about 4 cents in the US. Click Through Rate (CTR) for mobile ads varies widely but most reports, including these from Mobiclix and Chitika,put it at well under 1%. Assuming that you are lucky enough to get a 1% CTR you need about a quarter of a million daily ad impressions or 7.5 million ad impressions per month to make $100 a day! And that's assuming a 100% fill rate

So at the average fill rate, you would need 37 million monthly impressions to earn $100 day. As mobile sites and apps typically only carry one or two adds per page so that equates to at least 18 million monthly page views.

Eighteen million page views is a lot. To put it in perspective, last year People Magazine reported that its mobile site averaged 19 million monthly page views, the New York Times 60 million.

Why is it so hard to make money with mobile advertising? The biggest problem is inventory. There simply aren't enough ads to go around.

Inspiration

One of the Indian business man has his inspirational persons photos in his office . my list is as follows

1. Rajesh Shetty - modern teacher

2. Ratan Tata

3. Charles Kirk Kirkreport - gave me confidence, for his self less sharing

4. Gopi chand acadamy - for the stadium with his own Loan money ( to make world class players Saina ..)

5. NPR - Adi Guru inspirational

6. Nandan Nelkaneni (infy , unique ID card )

7. akshya patra project

BLOG MODEL

try to catture all in this kind of easy to ease single page setup and update it once in a month ..

http://malsup.com/jquery/form/#validation

see this url

have 5 top categories

Family Life Finance Internet Software

and each of them will have these sub cats..

for 1) imp books , health , future plans

for 2) charities , future plans etc.

for 3) gurus Kirk etc, models MCRI , Vantage point,

for 4) Vc blogs ,

for 5) Saas salesforce , google GWT , google Apps , Android, iphone apps ,

Interviews

Jason Kelly
Known for his Neatest Little Guide To Stock Market Investing and for his investment newsletter, J


English major would make a better bet than a computer science major, when it came to writing about technology.
A manager who made the hiring decision explained why he went out on a limb for me: “Technology can be taught easily, the craft of writing cannot. We’ll put the tech knowledge into your head. You be sure the good writing comes out your fingertips.

- Japanese view on healthcare reform
The long amount of time it took the US populace to realize the pointlessness of the Iraq war, for example, took about a week in Japan. When the US health-care reform effort began a year ago, Japan skipped the hope phase and went straight to the realization that the latest effort would fail like previous ones because the US government is controlled by corporations, and health-care corporations don’t want reform. End of analysis, case closed, and it was dead-on accurate. No long discussions, no screaming heads on TV, no illusions of any new political leader being actually new. I find that brutally honest way of dissecting issues to be clarifying.

productivity

When is Some thing worth doing: K. Ref

About Dave Seth:
In practical terms, my work revolves around making sense of the world, using my writing and graphic design abilities to clarify the ambiguous.
his blog caption: An investigative approach to design, productivity and inspiration

asr: wow , see how he expressed his work in CLEAR and SIMPLE terms

asr: we can use these sheets for Anvi/Git kids to log their productivity ..

Concrete Goals Tracker 2010 Updates - Mr. K link, this helps for Trader to focus and doing high value pre-defined tasks
http://davidseah.com/pub/downloads/pceo/cgt/PCEO-CGT01-Standard.pdf

Pursue Tangible Results to Achieve Greater Goals
The Concrete Goals Tracker (CGT) is the original Printable CEO™ form, created one evening in 2005 to alleviate my desire to have a "trusted personal CEO" that would tell me what to do. I figured since I couldn't hire anyone to do the job, I might be able to go the cheap route and print one up on paper :-)

As you accomplish various goal-related items throughout the day, fill in the appropriate bubble to log the points. At the end of the day, you will see how well you did (or didn't). Each CGT form tracks an entire week, so you will see how you did every day, and week-by-week...and most importantly, what you did to move yourself along your path.

all I had to do was focus not on what they were, but how I could tell if I was on the right path or not, and whether my daily output was really helping me forward. The idea is pretty simple: by focusing on making things that people can see and counting what you've done in a simple daily manner, you plant the seeds for daily progress.
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The Making Of The Printable CEO

The Printable CEO was born out of a very specific strategic need: I needed to create more tangible assets--that is, stuff that you could actually see with your eyes.

GOALS are what I want to BECOME, where I want to BE, what I want to HAVE. Because I ain't there now and that sucks.

STRATEGY is the plan that gets me from where I am now (you know, in sucksville) to the place/condition/state of grace visualized in my GOALS. A good strategic plan is one that is designed to succeed given the prevailing situation and favorable conditions. Here's an example of a good strategic plan tied to a specific goal:

GOAL: I want to be outside tomorrow, because being outside feels good.

STRATEGY: The door leads outside. By opening the door and passing through it, our goal will be achieved.


So what is the Printable CEO? It's kind of a tactical trick in two parts: a carefully-defined list of tasks that carry out my strategy without having to think about them too hard, and a positive motivation reward system that's easy to read.

The second part of the trick is the motivational psychology behind the bubble chart. Repeat after me:

The Printable CEO is not a To-Do list. It's an I-Did list.

A To-Do list implicitly says, "You need to do ALL these things, otherwise you are failing." It is a completionist, perfectionist-feeding tool. Personally, I think that creates an environment with more opportunity for failure, especially if you are a procrastinator/perfectionist like me.
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In general, I use only one form at a time depending on what my needs are at the moment:

High Level Goal Tracking for Freelancers and Small Business Owners -
Download the Concrete Goals Tracker (CGT)

Project-level Task Tracking -
Download the Task Progress Tracker (TPT)

Realistic Daily Planning -
Download the Emergent Task Planner (ETP)

Keeping Track of Planned versus Unplanned Stuff that Happens -
Download the Emergent Task Timer (ETT)

Keeping Track of Individual Task Assignments -
Download the Task Order Up (TOU)
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Mr. K organizer
as Mr. K said in his 'tools of the trade' section

Do-Organizer: Keeps everything organized from my to-do list, my trading journal, technical analysis studies, stock screen tracking and management, daily planner, etc. All in all, the program I probably use the most of anything beyond my internet browser. (Gemx)

asr: I need to use this software along with Printable-CEO

New trends / New skills for new this decade 2010

New skills:
- ability to absorb other people works , integrate multiple works and build your work on top of it to create higher value ( high leverage).
. This won't loose value quickly as you are constantly changing 'underlying pieces' so the your final product ( advice etc..) is relavent and has value to your customers.
examples: - Kirk report, moderngraham.com , oldschoolvalue.com ( finance area)
- CSS patterns book ( technology area)

( collage kids should start a blog like moderngraham etc.. in their respective fields , tech kids can start one with

2. New technologies:
- SalesForce.com : Developers will be able to build or modify cloud applications to use Salesforce Chatter’s profiles, real-time streams, and APIs. And that means there's no reason that every cloud app can't get social.
- can build sandboxes (test environments )in fly ...

the decade 2000-2009

2009 in review


http://www.thekirkreport.com/2010/01/the-decade-in-review.html


Top 10 Notable New Diet Books

Value Investor / Value based Investing

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Modern Graham ( Mr. K ref. of its value calculator )
Benjamin Clark
Co-Founder
Benjamin graduated from DePaul University’s Finance Honors Program in 2007, and is currently attending the DePaul University College of Law.

Undervalued Companies
wow: great to see this List , kee is to find this 'under valued' company list and track it when some thing falls sharply and see still it is valid under this MG site rules 2 out 3 'test category' pass.
- other thing is you should have patience for 1 year at least ..

a) VectorVest may have similar programmable parameters of valuation and charting
b) oldSchoolvalue.com has some thing similar to this MG valuation but in spread sheet.
c) crossing the wall street ,see this site also and his holdings.
d) finding one of the above 'value' investors picks when they drop 20 to 40 and pick them ..

asr: wow, you have 3 quantifiable Criteria to define the relative value of the Stock.

1/ Enterprising Investor – must pass at least 4 of the following 5 tests: Score = 5/5
2/ Defensive Investor – must pass at least 6 of the following 7 tests: Score = 5/7
3/ Valuation Summary:

MG Value $76
MG Opinion Undervalued
Value Based on 3% Growth $28
Value Based on 0% Growth $17
Market Implied Growth Rate 7.46% ( asr:so MG value is based on this rate? )


InfoSys
Valuation History:
11/2/09 – Value $76, Actual Price $46.36, Undervalued & Enterprising
7/26/09 – Value $74, Actual Price $42.40, Undervalued & Enterprising

CVS Phamacy
Valuation History:
10/17/09 – Value $72, Actual Price $37.70, Undervalued & Defensive

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asr: how a non-finance guy turned as 'Value investor' in 2 years ..

A Brief History
I was never interested in finance. Never took a commerce, accounting, economics class or any subject related to finance in High school or University. I literally abhorred the whole financial industry and couldn’t care less about the economy.

3 months and $3000 later, I wised up and realised that the financial advisor was selling me rubbish

By chance one day, I picked up The Intelligent Investor that was lying around my fiance’s home. I started to read and read and read.
I was hooked with the concepts and it suited my personal attitude and character.

The Beginning
With a clearer idea on investing, I stumbled upon Joe Ponzio’s www.fwallstreet.com which is by far the best blog I have seen. I read and studied his methods and started to fully understand what investing was really about.

Philosophy
I consider myself to be an enterprising investor. I prefer to perform my own valuation and analyses of companies I follow and become interested in. Here I outline the philosophy I take in my valuations and what you will expect to find and not find.

I literally read my first “how to invest” article on fool.com in Sep 2007. Since then, I have spent at a minimum 2-3 hours everyday reading books, magazines, textbooks, blogs, newspapers trying to understand concepts and how businesses operate.
asr: wow just in 2 years this guy mastered value based investing, this is great site for somebody ( Sweta india) or some MBA guy to master value based investment

The value investors mindset is that a company is worth what its business is worth. Jae presents that theory in very good form here. What the price of tea in China ultimately has no bearing on whether Company A is trading for $X.XX per share. This is the concept of the value investor and why we are not over indulged in the micro and macroeconomic environment.

The price of gold or whether the fed is cutting interest rates does not affect our choice to go to McDonalds to get a burger or buy a Coca Cola.
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APple spread sheet sample given in below url
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20485522/AAPL-5yr-OSV-Stock-Valuation-Spreadsheet

WOW what a year it was. The Old School Value portfolio ended 2009 with a gain of 289


Fundamental Business Valuation Process

Sources for great stuff

The othehr day I was struggling to see some clean sites with modern touch, sites which are started last 2 years to see clean designs . I searched (few days) web but did not find any and struggled and did not find a place where you get a list of sites with good look.

Here is the source crunchbase
- below artlogic site is one example, you can get all modern recently funded sites by filterinng with category

http://www.artlogic.com/ - great new look , simple menus , good art background instead of images

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When I just struggled to get a clean looking site for days , then think about findinng best sites like Mr. K . How can you find , what do you serach on . That is why you need some base some place where somebody did the job and ranked that is Forbes best of web
http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/main.jhtml
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great place for new startup enterprenuers to see what already exists , who are the existinng competators in your filed how/when they are funded etc.. If all new enterprenuers read and resrech these companies in their area before starting their company they save months of fruitless labor and money ( by avoidinng starting site in an already crowded area )
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/scribd

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scribd - got great PDF book on candlestick , you can get every document sample and save tons of hours with sample power point , excel etc.
here is good PDF book

see this 'sales presentation' string search gave this
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22026215/Presentation-Sales
ebay presentation - high quality content


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for good site navigation UI , menus , CSS etc.. see my posts in CSS or HTML

15 Free Must-Install Programs for Your New PC

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Forbes best of web bow
asr: from this BOW where I found Mr. K as the best which is true so use this to find BEST in any cateory
http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/main.jhtml --

http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/category.jhtml?id=105

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Docstoc – Documents, Templates, Forms, Ebooks, Papers & Presentations
Docstoc is a community for people to find and share professional documents. Find free legal documents and free business documents.

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http://digg.com/search?s=top+PC+tools

Over the last three years, the writers here at MakeUseOf have profiled thousands of software apps on the website. With all these thousands being presented to you, it’s hard to decide which apps to use and which ones to discard. To make it easier for you, we have managed to compile a list of the top 15 absolute must-have tools for everyday tasks.

1. Firefox / Chrome (Web Browser)
2. AVG Anti-Virus (Anti-virus Software)
3. Auslogics Disk Defrag (Disk Defragmener)
4. Advanced SystemCare Free (System Maintenance)
5. Security 360 (Spyware Removal)
6. IZArc (Universal Archiver / Extractor)
7. Google Picasa Software (Photo Management)
8. doPDF (PDF Printer)
9. Memento (Post-It Notes)
10. xVideoServiceThief (YouTube Video Downloader)
11. Mozy (Backup)
12. Digsby (Multi-protocol Instant Messenger)
13. VLC Media Player (Video Player)
14. Foobar2000 (Music Player)
15. ImgBurn (CD / DVD Image Burner)
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Top 10 Free Windows File Wranglers

http://digg.com/software/Top_10_Free_Windows_File_Wranglers_2

Use the Right Technical Tools When You Trade

By Price Headley | Published 02/9/2006

STOCHASTICS AND MACD MOMENTUM INDICATORS

By now you're wondering how you're supposed to know which indicator to use at any given time.

As I said earlier, there is no holy grail, but this tip comes pretty close to being one - you have to watch price charts as well as indicators. The movement of price bars will tell you what indicator to use.

If you see an index moving back and forth in a narrow range, use an oscillator.
If you see a stock moving an a straight line and breaking above or below previous highs or lows, that's a trend that should be spotted by a momentum indicator.

Now, I'm not advocating a constant waffling between two indicators - there has to be some discipline. As a rule of thumb, when one indicator fails, switch back to the other one. When that one fails, go back to the previous one. Won't that indicator failure lead to a losing trade? Absolutely, but it's better to lose on one trade than it is to continue applying the wrong tool and end up losing on several trades in a row.

Use the right tool at the right time, and you'll have an enormous amount of success. As always, the more you apply this concept, the better you'll become at using it.
----------

A 10-Day Trading System

The 10-day System is probably the simplest one you will ever learn, yet it can be very helpful, especially during choppy markets.

The 10-day lows are, by far, more useful then the 10-day highs. Since 1980, the 10-day lows have been an accurate predictor of short-term gains on the SPX index about 62% percent of the time. Simply buying the morning after a low signal and holding for exactly 5 days each time, as described above, would have yielded a gain of around 120% for the 26 year time period, and that is without reinvesting profits.

While that, in itself, is impressive, it is definitely not the only way that you can use the system. The 10-day System is probably best used to direct your other trades. For example, if you swing trade stocks or options and notice that the 10-day System hits a high signal, you might avoid or cut back on your bullish trades for a few days.

Biggest job loss ever for retail sector

Retailing may never recover fully as consumers begin to save again

But this recession is showing America something new: For the first time ever, more private-sector services jobs have been lost than goods-producing jobs have been lost. Since the recession began in December 2007, 1.41 million service jobs have been eliminated compared to 1.36 million in manufacturing, construction and mining.

Many of those lost jobs were in retailing, which has seen its largest job losses since the data collection began in 1939. Through December, more than 500,000 retailing jobs were gone, representing a record 3.4% of retail jobs.

Retail companies have stepped up the pace of layoffs since the horrible holiday sales season ended. More than 50,000 job cuts have been announced since Jan. 1 by major retailers such as Circuit City, Home Depot, and Macy's. On Thursday, the chains reported that sales were weak again in January, results that are likely to prompt even more layoffs. See full story.

On Friday morning, the Labor Department will report on its nonfarm payroll estimate for January. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch are forecasting a seasonally adjusted loss of 525,000 jobs, nearly identical to the 524,000 lost in December and the fifth straight month of losses of more than 400,000. See Economic Calendar.
Some economists say many of those jobs will never come back as Americans wean themselves from the easy credit that's fueled their consumption for the past 25 years.

"A lot of them are gone for good," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight, a major economic consulting firm. "The age of the U.S. and world economy being driven by the U.S. consumer may be in the past."

"It's a structural change," said Neal Soss, chief U.S. economist for Credit Suisse. Consumers have had access to easy credit for years, allowing them to increase their spending faster than their incomes grew. As for saving, consumers relied on the stock market or increases in their home's value to provide the funds for retirement or other purposes.

As a result, the personal savings rate fell from about 10% of disposable incomes in 1980 to just 0.3% in 2005 at the height of the housing boom.

"The bloom is off that rose," said Soss. People who were convinced that a 401(k) and a big house were a golden passport to Easy Street have now been disillusioned. Most investors have now suffered through two market crashes in the past decade that have wiped out most of their gains.


Americans will have to start actually saving again, and that means less spending on consumer goods. Less spending on consumer goods means less money going into retailers' coffers. And that means fewer jobs and fewer stores.

"Americans won't have to wear a hair shirt," Soss said, but they'll probably increase their savings rate to about 5% of disposable incomes. Once the recession is over, they'll increase their spending no faster than their incomes grow.
Instead of relying on unsustainable consumer spending leading the way, the economy will have to be more balanced. Consumer spending has increased in importance in the past decades, growing from about 65% of final domestic sales in the late 1970s to about 69% last year.

"We need to become more of a nation of producers rather than a nation of consumers," Gault said. We'll have to be just a little bit more like the Japanese or the Chinese, and they'll have to become just a little bit more like we've been.
More details on job losses

In the first 12 months of the recession that began in December 2007, 2.6 million jobs were lost, or 1.9% of the positions that were filled at the beginning of the recession.

As is usually the case, the goods-producing side of the economy is hurting the most, with employment in durable-goods manufacturing and construction down more than 10% from the peak of employment nearly three years ago. That makes sense, because the first thing people do when they see the economy weakening is to stop buying homes and durable goods. Businesses stop investing in new equipment.

The services sector has lost 1.5% of its employment since the recession began. That's the largest percentage decline since the sharp and nasty recession in 1958 that cost 2.5% of service workers their jobs. By contrast, in the equally nasty recession of 1973-75, service employment actually increased 0.9% during the downturn.

Almost all major service industries have lost jobs in this recession. The trade industries -- retail, wholesale, transportation and warehousing -- have cut 825,000 jobs, including 522,000 in retail, 163,000 in wholesaling and 72,000 in trucking.
The temp-help industry has eliminated 490,000 jobs. The financial sector, including banks and real estate, has lost 148,000, publishing has lost 45,000 and broadcasting 26,000. The hotel and restaurant industries have reduced employment by 136,000. The big winner has been health care, which has added 440,000 jobs. End of Story

Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch.

The World FACT book

Wow Great data book online on all countries in the world ( CIA source )
can click on 'graph' symbol to see the 'ranking of countries' on any topic

Sex ratio:
under 15 years: 1.1 male(s)/female - wow 10% more boys than girls, so girls are in great demand

Administrative divisions:
28 states and 7 union territories* : all state names in one place

election results: see which party has how many seats ( which is very hard to get any where else )

Wow : china came below USA on birth rate

Best Places to Live USA

top 100 best places to live 2008


http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2007/top100/

U.S. Schools

characters

Two Million Minutes until high school graduation…Two Million Minutes to build their intellectual foundation…Two Million Minutes to prepare for college and ultimately career…Two Million Minutes to go from a teenager to an adult

How a student spends their Two Million Minutes - in class, at home studying, playing sports, working, sleeping, socializing or just goofing off -- will affect their economic prospects for the rest of their lives.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/june11/edfilm-061108.html
The title, 2 Million Minutes, represents the approximate number of minutes in a four-year period. As the film goes back and forth between typical days in the three countries, it shows American students attending football games in their high school's brand new $30-million stadium, while Chinese students display medals won in math competitions. Indian students meet for teacher-led study sessions at 7 a.m. on Saturday mornings while their American counterparts gather at a friend's house to casually study for a test with the television on and Grey's Anatomy competing for their attention.

While the Americans attend sports, socialize work in part-time jobs and study, their Chinese and Indian counterparts pretty much study nonstop. And while even the best American students say they do not feel challenged in schools, the most brilliant in China and India are constantly challenged to learn more.

The average U.S. student, his film states, spends 900 hours in a classroom and 1,500 hours in front of the television. By the end of high school, Chinese students have spent twice as much time studying as Americans.

U.S. Schools: Not That Bad
America's educational system is easier than those in China and India—but it's still teaching valuable life lessons.

Students have 2 million minutes—the time from the beginning of eighth grade to high school graduation—to build the intellectual foundation they'll need for professional success.

Two Million Minutes provides a provocative glimpse of the global competition now facing U.S. students. And the conclusion many are drawing is that to keep our edge, our children need to study more math and science and work harder.

Years Ahead and Miles Apart
The documentary was produced by Bob Compton, a venture capitalist. Compton says that an increasing number of companies in his portfolio are moving research and development to India and China. To understand why, he traveled to India and visited their schools. He was stunned by the career aspirations of children as young as 5 and the advanced education that middle and high school students were receiving. Indian students in the same grade as his teenage daughters were two or three years ahead in math, physics, biology, and even subjects like world history and English literature. He left India wondering how his daughters, and American children in general, would be able to compete in the 21st century.
Two Million Minutes is the fruit of that wondering. One of the two U.S. students depicted is Brittany Brechbuhl, 17, who's in the top 3% of the graduating class of a highly ranked school in Carmel, Ind. She dreams of becoming a doctor but also wants to enjoy life. Neil Ahrendt, 18, is senior class president at Carmel and a National Merit semifinalist. But he isn't sure what career he wants to pursue.
The American students are compared with 17-year-olds Apoorva Uppala and Rohit Sridharan from Bangalore and Hu Xiaoyuan and Jin Ruizhang from Shanghai. All four know exactly what they want to be when they grow up. They labor on weekdays and weekends to prepare for entrance exams at top universities. They excel in math and science. Jin even competes in international math tournaments.
The film depicts the Indian and Chinese students as well-rounded and having much more parental support than the Americans. For example, Rohit sings in an American-style rock band, and Hu is learning the violin. Rohit's parents and sister routinely help him with his physics homework, and Hu's parents hired one of China's most prominent violinists to encourage their daughter to study music.

On the other hand, Neil talks about having coasted through most of his high school years and having lucked out by gaining a full scholarship to college. The former high school football team captain works part-time at a restaurant. Brittany watches Grey's Anatomy on TV while studying math and looks forward to joining a sorority and partying in college. Both are at the top of their classes, but they lack the ambition and focus of their Indian and Chinese counterparts.

Social Skills Can Pay Off
Being the parent of two American kids and having studied for a short time in India, I can personally relate to the documentary. (I also am interviewed in it.) Education in India can be greatly challenging and fiercely competitive. Children are brought up to believe that education is everything. It will make the difference between success and starvation. So from their early years, Indian children work long and hard. Most of their childhood is spent memorizing books on advanced subjects.

On the other hand, Neil and Brittany reminded me very much of my children. Life is a lot easier here.

But things aren't as dire for U.S. students as they might appear in the documentary. As an academic, I have been researching engineering education and have taught many graduates of Indian, Chinese, and American universities. It can take longer for Indians and Chinese to develop crucial real-world skills that come more easily for some Americans. Yes, U.S. teens work part-time, socialize, and party. But the independence and social skills they develop give them a big advantage when they join the workforce. They learn to experiment, challenge norms, and take risks.

A Push for Improvement
The graduates of top Indian and Chinese engineering schools are usually brilliant. They are adept at math and science. Some Indian and Chinese parents invest their life savings to send their children to America because they know the education they receive there will best prepare them to be successful entrepreneurs and business leaders.
But the reality is that the vast majority of India and China's children don't receive quality schooling or make it to college. I estimate that Apoorva and Rohit represent at best 5% of the children in India.

Compton says his documentary doesn't prescribe solutions. But he hired math and science tutors for his daughters, even though they were at the top of their class at a premier private school. And this documentary has become a key part of a campaign, ED in '08, sponsored by backers such as Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates. They advocate a greater emphasis on math and science education and more study time.
There is no doubt that U.S. education can and should be improved. In the global economy, skills are going to provide the competitive edge. But it will take more than math and science. Our children also need to learn geography, literature, language, and culture. Creativity and innovation come from a broad education and independent thinking. We need sociologists and historians as well as mathematicians.
Moreover, we need to create the excitement and demand that makes our children want to become engineers and scientists (BusinessWeek.com, 10/26/07). There is no shortage of these skills in the U.S., but these professions just aren't cool. In India and China, engineers and scientists are regarded highly; here they are called nerds or worse.

Upgrading the Current Workforce
We also need to focus on the 120 million in the existing workforce. That is where the entrepreneurs come from (BusinessWeek.com, 4/30/08), and these are the people whose skills need to be upgraded most urgently. We've got to make them more competitive; we simply can't wait for the next generation.

And even though so few Indians and Chinese receive a high-quality education now, that will change with the emergence of a middle class in both nations. India's middle class now constitutes 350 million people—more than the entire population of the U.S. Both India and China are making massive investments in education. If India can become a technology superpower by providing good education to less than 5% of its population, what will happen when they reach 50%?

Bottom line: Our competitors are working very hard to be innovative and entrepreneurial like us. There are many things we need to fix—not just math and science education. We need to compete on our strengths, not theirs.




_____________________________________________________________________________________
Ivy League business schools


Who Needs the Ivies?
These schools often focus on producing the next generation of research scientists and academics—not entrepreneurs. He believes that the elitism and confidence these schools nurture may work well in large corporations, but not in tech startups.


Entrepreneurial vs. Corporate Thinking
He notes that IITs only graduate 5,000 of India's 176,000 engineers every year, and that based on the number of companies started by its graduates, they were five times more likely than others to start tech companies

I decided to seek input from Carl Schramm, who is probably the world's leading expert on entrepreneurship and education. Schramm heads the Kauffman Foundation, which focuses on advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth.
The university that produces the most blue chip CEOs and university professors, the most Peace Corps volunteers, and the most productive and long-running patents isn't Stanford or MIT—it's the University of Wisconsin. Students "who do the prestige MBA route find it hard to shake the huge offers and end up becoming risk-averse," Schramm says. Graduates of elite schools tend to be book-smart and have incredible SAT scores, but they often lack street smarts and creativity, he says. Plus, they tend to have a sense of entitlement and superiority that leads to not working well with others, he notes.

India's top 20 engineering colleges

India's top 20 engineering colleges

June 28, 2005

ALL RECs are now called NIT ( National institute of technology )

During spring, just as flowers bloom, rankings of engineering colleges pop out of national magazines. It is time to rejoice for students of some of the highly ranked colleges; while for others, it is time to worry and introspect.

Why do we need these rankings?

College ranking is a controversial yet a useful guide for many.

Consider this:

* For college-entering students to decide the best option available.
* For colleges to know what they need to improve and where they stand in the pecking order.
* For recruiters and human resource managers to decide the college they would visit for campus interviews and negotiate pay packages.
*
For the teaching faculty to decide which colleges to aspire to teach in.
*
For students and alumni, for whom it is a matter of pride.

Type of rankings

There are basically three types of rankings:

Government rankings: The central government carries out a survey of engineering colleges every few years. The survey, conducted by the World Bank, is used to arrive at a funding formula for financing colleges under United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and to monitor the progress of the colleges receiving funding.

The government survey is highly respectable and includes comments/suggestions for the improvement needed by the colleges. These are generally not available in public domain.

Academic rankings: These is carried out by leading institutions around the world and sometimes by academic and scientific magazines. The survey is authentic and unbiased, but is of limited use. It is used mainly to boost the ego of a college among similar colleges, to attract talented faculty and to keep flow of money from its patrons.

The Asian Technology Information Program, Tokyo, is a prestigious, non-profit think-tank, which monitors research programmes from universities/institutes across Asia and classifies some of the leading universities in a specific research area.

For example, according to ATIP, Indian Institute of Science is among the world leaders in the field of nano-crystal technology research. Similarly, it puts Banaras Hindu University among the leading research universities in the world in the field of application of hydrogen energy to two-wheeler vehicles.

Magazine rankings: Also known as popular rankings, these are the ones that are mostly read by common folk. These are carried out by national magazines as a guide for students and faculty, and for the college themselves.

Dataquest survey results

Following results have been published with the kind permission of Dataquest India for the 2005 engineering college rankings. (Note: IIT-Delhi did not participate in the survey):

Table A: 2005 Overall Rankings

The Top 20

Overall Rank


College


Composite Score

1


IIT Kanpur


77.5

2


IIT Bombay


75.6

3


IIT Madras


73.8

4


IIT Kharagpur


73.1

5


Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi


72

6


IIT Guwahati


71.6

7


NIT Warangal


70

8


NIT Trichy


67.6

9


Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala


66.7

10


Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (DIT), New Delhi


64.5

11


NIT Suratkal


64.2

12


Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad


62.1

13


Punjab Engineering College, Chandigadh


60.3

14


International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad


60.2

15


Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani


59.9

16


IIT Roorkee


59.2

17


NIT Rourkela


58.5

18


NIT Kurukshetra


57.5

19


Indian Institute of information Technology, Allahabad


57.1

20


Delhi College of Engineering, New Delhi


57.1

Table B: 2005 Top 5 on Parameters

The Top 5 On Parameters

Placement

Rank


College


Score

1


IIT Chennai


31.2

2


IIT Kanpur


31

3


NIT Suratkal


27.1

4


NIT Warangal


26.4

5


Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (DIT), New Delhi


25.9

Intellectual Capital

Rank


College


Score

1


IT-BHU, Varanasi


11.8

2


IIT Guwahati


9.3

3


Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala


8.3

4


IIT Bombay


8.2

5


IIT Kharagpur


8.2

Infrastructure

Rank


College


Score

1


IIT Kanpur


14.8

2


IIT Bombay


14.8

3


IIT Kharagpur


14.8

4


IIT Guwahati


14.8

5


Krishna Institute of Engineering And Technology, Ghaziabad


14.8

Industry Interface

Rank


College


Score

1


IIT Kharagpur


3.2

2


IIT Bombay


3.1

3


NIT Trichy


2.4

4


Jadavpur University, Calcutta


1.8

5


IT-BHU, Varanasi


1.6



Table C: 2005 The Perception Factor

The Perception Factor

Rank


College


Score

1


IIT Kanpur


25

2


IIT Bombay


25

3


IIT Chennai


24.5

4


IIT Kharagpur


24.5

5


IT-BHU, Varanasi


22.4

According to the HR heads' perception, IIT Kanpur and IIT Bombay topped the list



Table D: 2005 Performance region-wise

How They Stack Up

N o r t h

S No


College


Overall Rank

1


IIT Kanpur


1

2


IT-BHU, Varanasi


5

3


Thapar Institute of Engg & Technology, Patiala


9

4


Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology, New Delhi


10

5


MN-NIT, Allahabad


12

S o u t h

1


IIT Madras


3

2


NIT Warangal


7

3


NIT Trichy


8

4


NIT Suratkal


11

5


IIIT Hyderabad


14

E a s t

1


IIT Kharagpur


4

2


IIT Guwahati


6

3


NIT Rourkela


17

4


Jadavpur University, Calcutta


25

5


SIT Kolkata (Formerly IIIT)


27

W e s t

1


IIT Bombay


2

2


Government College of Engineering, Pune


24

3


Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Bombay


26

4


International Institute of Information Technology, Pune


34

5


Bharatiya Vidyapeeth's College of Engineering, Bombay


42

In India, there are two popular ranking surveys for engineering colleges: one is by India Today magazine and other by Dataquest magazine.

India Today survey

The magazine has been conducting such surveys for the last several years. This year, the survey was carried out in association with A C Nielsen ORG-MARG.

The ranking shows top 10 engineering colleges in the India, along with the rankings in the field of business management, medicine, commerce, science, law and arts.

The survey takes into account institute's infrastructure, research, admitted student quality, placement statistics, perception among academic and industrialists, etc.

Dataquest survey

The survey, done for technical schools only, was conducted for the first time this year in India by this magazine. It was done in collaboration with International Data Corporation and the National Association of Software and Service Companies.

IDC is a world leader in the market research for information technology and software industries. Nasscom is India's most powerful IT industry association -- which even the country's Planning Commission consults for IT and software-related forecast and planning.

The survey has a no-nonsense approach, as the study claims: "The Dataquest-IDC-Nasscom survey findings are most likely to send some of the Tier-I schools into a tizzy. However, instead of breathing fire down our necks, these institutes would do well to ponder a little on where exactly they have erred."

The survey takes into account the infrastructure of the college, placement scenario, intellectual capital (faculty quality and strength, research, et cetera), interface with industries and perception of recruiters.

How reliable are these surveys?

With different surveys showing different rankings for the same college, the common man asks the question: which of the surveys to believe?

Well, the answer is that there is no clear answer.

Different surveys take different criteria, ask different questions for the same criterion and give different weightage while arriving at a composite score for determining overall rankings.

Hence all these surveys are correct up to some extent in their own way.

A good survey will not be afraid of the public criticism and the most popular colleges need not be the best in the ranking. The list should not be the same year after year and, at the same time, there should not be any drastic changes in rankings at each year. Good examples are college rankings in the United States by magazines such as Business Week and US News & World Report.

Each survey has its own drawbacks of some kind. For example, the India Today survey, although based on acceptable criteria, mostly reserves the top six to seven slots for a group of institutes, while the next three to four ranks fluctuate every year.

It may be advisable for it to publish the expanded list, such as top 20 overall ranks and provide rankings under different criteria/sub-categories.

On the other hand, the Dataquest survey is geared towards requirements of the IT and software industry.

Moreover, students need not depend solely on college rankings for the selection of a college. Other factors beyond rankings are also to be considered. Such as quality of study, selecting proper branch, proximity to home, hostel facilities, etc. They should visit the campus to get first-hand information and also find out from their friends who have studied there.

In conclusion

The surveys have a welcome move of also including colleges which do not have a favourable public perception. Bold surveys give the masses a second chance to know about the good colleges unknown to them so far.

This is an important step since the mass media in India is saturated with success stories of only 1 per cent of the total of 1,200 engineering colleges, giving a distorted vision for many and false pride for some. It is expected that the coming years, the surveys will be more refined.

In such a scenario, beacons of college rankings from the lighthouse of magazines will guide the boatload of applicants to the islands of academic excellence.

Yogesh Upadhyaya is a chemical engineering graduate from IT-BHU and an MS (chemical engineering) from Rutgers University, New Jersey. Arvind Gupta, also an alumnus of IT-BHU, is CEO of e-Enable Technologies, New Delhi.
The Dataquest survey rankings are published by the kind permission of Dataquest , a CyberMedia publication.

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