Mark Hinton and Duncan Johnstone may have disagreed with the All Black training squad, but their reaction of pulling the plug on Rugby Heaven seems a little ridiculous to me: :-) Or is the power is off in Wellington?
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
Showing Shorting Success – for now
Following on from the last post – I mentioned that my portfolio has been going pretty well recently: It is up 35% YT while the S&P500 is down 5.6% for the year. You can tell from the sudden drop in the green bar when I went heavily into shorting EQR – over half the value …
Making (more) money from the falling housing market
US housing prices fell 14% March 2008 on March 2007. 14% is larger than the downpayment component of many US mortgages. Would your mortgage be greater than your house value if the house fell by 14%? How about in your first year of ownership? Mortgages like this are in negative equity, and owners should, ceteris …
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US recession and Australian resurgence
A recession has a defined meaning, from the USA’s NBER, via Wikipedia A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of …
NZX.com relaunches
Up goes NZX.com – a collaboration between Fairfax Digital and NZX. This has been a while in the making, so it is great to see the result. Well done everybody. (still some work to do though – it’s super slow from here in Perth)
BNZ Sucks: Verified by Visa sucks
Nigel from Netconcepts pointed out the ludicrous BNZ “verified by Visa” program, which he encountered recently on a NZ retailer. Netconcepts are a NZ/Wisconsin success story – developing websites among other things from their Auckland base. They know their stuff. Nigel was shocked to see the following appear after entering his credit card details in …
Bacon Chocolate – what were they thinking?
Following on from Natalie’s canned Chicken – yesterday here in Washington, DC I had the dubious priviledge of trying Bacon Chocolate. Note that this wasn’t bacon flovoured chocolate, but a chocolate bar with real bacon bits inside. My smart friend pointed out that it addresses both the male and female markets.
Colombia
It’s been quiet around here for a reason – I’ve been in Colombia, visiting a BHP Billiton Mine – Cerro Matoso, which is near Montelíbano, between Bogota and Panama, in the state of Cordoba. Colombia is the missing link for me between Panama and Ecuador. It has the vegetation of Panama and the mountains of …
Stuff wins again
Well done Stuffies – winning again at the Netguide awards. Best Home PAge, Best Media site and Supreme Winner – a fantastic haul. Meanwhile Trade Me captured Best Trading Site (shock, horror) and best Real Estate Site. Interestingly Facebook went over the top of Bebo for best social netwokring site. Are Bebo’s days numbered, or …
Property BS
It’s a certified Real Estate bust market, and you are a “successful property investor”. Do you: A: do nothing – you got out long ago, when the signs were there. B: frantically sell out of the remaining “investment” properties you own C: What there’s a bust? D: Start a property magazine and website. Since this …
BurgerFuel BS
Dubai and Burger Fuel No they have not conquered New Zealand yet No they have not successfully demonstrated that they can enter Australia No there is not conceivable explanation why they are choosing Dubai, which is not a sleepy market. But enter Dubai they have. I guess someone had money to burn. Crazy or Ballsy? …
Microsoft and Yahoo: bugger
Bugger – Microsoft has withdrawn from the Yahoo takeover offer. Microsoft upped the price to $33 per share (from $29 odd), which was a $5 billion increase. Yahoo said “no thanks – we want $37 per share” and so Mirosfot walked away. On Monday, US time, expect: Yahoo’s shares to fall – and pretty far …
Where in the blogosphere is Michael Carney?
Michael has seemingly abandoned the Trade Me success Secrets blog, which was looking to be a really promising place to discuss and see all things Trade Me. He also seems to have left the Grey Group – where he was also writing an interesting blog. If you want to see what an untended blog looks …
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A sweet deal – is Buffet going to Mars?
As Jim mentions, Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway is involved in a $23bn deal where Mars is buying Wrigley. Mars is $22bn and Wrigley $5bn in annual sales, so while big this isn’t a huge swallow for Mars, and both companies are well run and run on a brand basis, so merging should be ok. There are …
Guitar Hero Robot Madness
Hacking defined, via Gizmodo It gets a bit repetitive after the first 30 seconds.
Lance Wiggs 