Credit to Direct Broking’s homepage. Very cool form. I do prefer eTrade’s through – for function over form. The pertinent market information is there, and the cursor is waiting for me in the login box, so I can login without resorting to the mouse.
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
Holy advertising enormity!
What a ridiculous ad format. It doesn’t shrink or otherwise go away either.
Jasons, vianet and Trade Me.
A new beta travel site from Jasons. Interestingly they are targeting Australia and the South Pacific as well as NZ. They have 168 listings for Wellington. Vianet, Trade Me’s Travel partner, has 80. However, Jason’s site only displays 10 results at a time, doesn’t map them at all. The battle is on. My money (and …
Contact Energy sucks sucks sucks
I arrive back home to find my gas has been disconnected. For the second time. This year. AND my electricity was disconnected once this year. It is no wonder that this industry killed someone – their approach to customer service is arrogant beyond belief. My bills are always overpaid, and indeed I am over one …
Vista for $US66 in China
Smart move by Microsoft – make the price of their software low enough so that the extra cost over a pirated copy is worth the positive feeling by buying a legal copy. It’s still really expensive compared to the average income, but they have to draw a line in the sand at some point. The …
The Australian on AFR.com.au
A good article in the Australian about the debacle that is AFR.com.au. Killer quote from Cheief Executve Michael Gill: “We are not aware of any other product like that, which is why it has been an unusually complex project.” and the response from Mark Day, the journalist: “Unusually complex? Therein lies the problem. The technical …
Facebook, LinkedIn and Second Life…
Sometimes I really have to sit back and wonder at our short memories… Facebook is the new new thing it seems, even though it has been around since 2004 – starting at Harvard and spreading to other Boston and Ivy League universities. I have an ivy league alumni email address, so in theory could have …
Buy Lance T’s!
Rod Drury is “Rod” #1 on Google.co.nz, #5 on Google.com – both very impressive. I’m the number – oh 80 or so – “Lance” in Google.com, but at least I can order a T-Shirt from the most popular Lance site…
NZ anti-MP-Satire law makes slashdot
Slashdot picked up on it late, but here you go. That’s an impressive law – hitting both The Daily Show and Slashdot. Time to give it up as a bad joke…
Why I am long and short in stocks
In the last two days the US markets plummeted – yesterday by 1.5% on average. But my US portfolio value actually rose marginally on the day, as the value of the 2 stocks I am short (EQR, MSFT) fell by more than the fall in value of the 2 stocks I am long (AAPL, EBAY). …
Burger Fuel numbers
2380 investors, $5.25m raised. That’s $2,205 per investor – paltry. A poorer showing given that they even spent money on TVC’s advertising the float. Goodness knows what the total expenses were for the float, but this can’t have been an efficient way of raising the cash – especially as the founders appear to have deep …
eBay.fr drops gallery fees
eBay France will now give away Gallery for free – when you pay for listings. eBay, unlike Trade Me, charges a listing price, which varies by the size of the reserve. eBay France have now boosted that price, but every auction gets a picture in their search results for free. Interestingly eBay.fr has also dropped …
Drivetalk
I’m becoming addicted to Dave Moore’s Drivetalk. I’ll let Dave’s resume speak for itself: “Dave Moore is Motoring Editor for The Press and The Dominion Post and blogs for Stuff on all things automotive. His words also appear regularly in other Fairfax titles, including NZ Autocar, and he can be heard every week on NewstalkZB. …
pay phones, funny money, income and Telecom
Chicago’s OHare airport is ripping out pay phones and replacing them with power sockets, chairs and counters. Bless them – I’m sick of wandering around (usually american) airports looking for power sockets. Disposable income for “Managers” is largest in Saudi Arabia, small in the USA and generally better in third world countries than first world. …
Continue reading “pay phones, funny money, income and Telecom”
42 investor return
15.5% per annum – that’s the investor return Mark Clare is reporting for 42 Below IPO takers. It is a great article. Folks – that’s not success for those shareholders (but it was for the founders and financiers). An IPO is risky business, and expected returns are much higher. The exit was pretty smooth though, …
Lance Wiggs 