“
Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second-hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours - he was incredibly good at it.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)
“
It is worth saying something about the social position of beggars, for when one has consorted with them, and found that they are ordinary human beings, one cannot help being struck by the curious attitude that society takes towards them. People seem to feel that there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary 'working' men. They are a race apart--outcasts, like criminals and prostitutes. Working men 'work', beggars do not 'work'; they are parasites, worthless in their very nature. It is taken for granted that a beggar does not 'earn' his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic 'earns' his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable.
Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no ESSENTIAL difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is WORK? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course--but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout--in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him.
Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised?--for they are despised, universally. I believe it is for the simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modem talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except 'Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it'? Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a businessman, getting his living, like other businessmen, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modem people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.
”
”
George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and London)
“
LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO BE UNHAPPY...SO LAUGH INSANELY, KISS SOFTLY, AND MAKE LOVE PASSIONATELY.....
”
”
Muffin (North Philly's Finest Part 1)
“
If a curiously selective plague came along and killed all people of intermediate height, 'tall' and 'short' would come to have just as precise a meaning as 'bird' or 'mammal'. The same is true of human ethics and law. Our legal and moral systems are deeply species-bound. The director of a zoo is legally entitled to 'put down' a chimpanzee that is surplus to requirements, while any suggestion that he might 'put down' a redundant keeper or ticket-seller would be greeted with howls of incredulous outrage. The chimpanzee is the property of the zoo. Humans are nowadays not supposed to be anybody's property, yet the rationale for discriminating against chimpanzees in this way is seldom spelled out, and I doubt if there is a defensible rationale at all. Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! [T]he only reason we can be comfortable with such a double standard is that the intermediates between humans and chimps are all dead.
”
”
Richard Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design)
“
It was a bright red TVR Griffith, with a five litre V8 engine, and an exhaust note that could have been heard in Peking. It fell some way short of being the ideal car for a discreet surveillance operation,
”
”
Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
“
The less transparent the market and the more complicated the securities, the more money the trading desks at big Wall Street firms can make from the argument. The constant argument over the value of the shares of some major publicly traded company has very little value, as both buyer and seller can see the fair price of the stock on the ticker, and the broker’s commission has been driven down by competition. The argument over the value of credit default swaps on subprime mortgage bonds—a complex security whose value was derived from that of another complex security—could be a gold mine.
”
”
Michael Lewis (The Big Short)
“
To follow somebody, without them knowing that you’re doing it, is not the doddle they make it seem in films. I’ve had some experience of professional following, and a lot more experience of professional going back to the office and saying ‘we lost him’. Unless your quarry is deaf, tunnel-sighted and lame, you need at least a dozen people and fifteen thousand quids-worth of short-wave radio to make a decent go of it.
”
”
Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
“
The third way you can incentivize the seller to accept your initial offer is by offering a sizable nonrefundable deposit. You can offer this after your short due diligence expires, or after you are certain your loan will be approved. Again, this indicates that you are serious about the property and that you fully intend to make the deal happen. A nonrefundable deposit is a layer of protection for the seller, and the fact that you are offering it up front demonstrates good faith on your part. This makes you a very attractive buyer.
”
”
Manny Khoshbin (Manny Khoshbin's Contrarian PlayBook)
“
Knowing what you’re looking for is half of the search. Actually, it’s more than half. If you know what you’re searching for, you can move forward quickly, with clarity, and you will save months of tire kicking and time wasting. You will be able to behave like a professional buyer, knowing when you like something and why. You will be able to see in short order if it is a real yes, a real no, or something that requires next steps to evaluate whether it is a good fit. This does not mean to be hasty and act with insufficient consideration; rather, it means that you will have more confidence in your search, in talking with brokers and sellers, and in looking at opportunities.
”
”
Walker Deibel (Buy Then Build: How Acquisition Entrepreneurs Outsmart the Startup Game)
“
On the first day of his duel with the bears, Saunders, operating behind his mask of brokers, bought 33,000 shares of Piggly Wiggly, mostly from the short sellers; within a week he had brought the total to 105,000—more than half of the 200,000 shares outstanding. Meanwhile, ventilating his emotions at the cost of tipping his hand, he began running a series of advertisements in which he vigorously and pungently told the readers of Southern and Western newspapers what he thought of Wall Street. “Shall the gambler rule?” he demanded in one of these effusions. “On a white horse he rides. Bluff is his coat of mail and thus shielded is a yellow heart. His helmet is deceit, his spurs clink with treachery, and the hoofbeats of his horse thunder destruction. Shall good business flee? Shall it tremble with fear? Shall it be the loot of the speculator?” On Wall Street, Livermore went on buying Piggly Wiggly.
”
”
John Brooks (Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street)
“
Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggar’s livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course—but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout—in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him.
”
”
George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and London)
“
Because so many people were betting against GameStop —and brick-and-mortar retail in general — the overall short position was enormous, almost comically so. At certain points over the past six months, it had bounced between 50 and even 100 percent of the overall float, meaning nearly all the shares of GameStop in existence had been borrowed and sold by short sellers, all of whom had an obligation to rebuy those shares at some point in the future.
So, what if Keith was right, and the stock went up instead of down? It would be like watching investors trying to get out of a burning building, through a single, narrow door. The stock would rocket.
As a financial educator, Keith knew that short selling could be one of the riskiest plays on the market. You really needed to be certain a stock was going down, because your upside was limited, but your losses could, theoretically, be infinite. The fact that so many competent investors were short selling GameStop could mean the stock really was a dog; but it also meant the stock was loaded with rocket fuel, and it wouldn't take much to ignite and sent it right to the moon.
”
”
Ben Mezrich (The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees)
“
To summarize my trading strategy for VWAP False Breakouts: Once I’ve made my watchlist for the day, I monitor the price action around VWAP at the Open and during the morning session for the Stocks in Play. A good Stock in Play shows respect toward VWAP. If the Stock in Play sells off below the VWAP but bounces back and breaks out above the VWAP, it means the buyers are gaining control and short sellers perhaps had to cover. However, if it loses the VWAP again in the Late-Morning (from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.), it means that this time the buyers were mostly weak or exhausted. This provides a short opportunity with a stop loss above VWAP. The profit target can be the by then low of the day, or any other important technical level. I try to go short when a Stock in Play has lost the VWAP. Sometimes I go short before the price loses the VWAP, to get a good entry while it is ticking down toward VWAP in the anticipation of a VWAP loss. However, be very careful, for the job of a trader is identification and not anticipation. Take small size and add more shares on the way down if you have truly identified a good trading setup.
”
”
Andrew Aziz (Day Trading for a Living (Stock Market Trading and Investing))
“
And as a long-short fund, he'd also been obligated to take short positions — betting against companies — which was a tactic that, to most experts in finance, was uncontroversial. The thinking went, when companies were performing poorly, or were mismanaged, or were in an industry that was being overrun, or were simply likely to fail, taking a short position wasn't just logical — it protected the marketplace by pointing out overpriced stocks, prevented fraud by acting as a check against dubious management, and poked holes in potential bubbles. Short sellers also added liquidity and volume to a stock — because they were obligated to buy the stock back at some point in the future. Yes, short sellers profited when companies failed, but usually a short seller wasn't banking on a company failing — just that the stock's price would eventually correct toward its true valuation.
Sometimes, though, a trader picked up a short position because the company in question really was going to fail. Because, perhaps, it was in an industry that was dying; had management that seemed completely unable or unwilling to pivot; and had deep fundamental issues in its financing that seemed impossible to overcome.
”
”
Ben Mezrich (The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees)
“
Which meant, if somehow GameStop did start to go up, the people who had shorted the company would begin to feel pressure to buy; the more the stock went up, the heavier that pressure became. As the shorts began to cover, buying shares to return them to their lenders, the stock would rise even higher.
In financial parlance, this was something called a 'short squeeze.' It didn't happen often, but when it did, it could be spectacular. Most famously, in 2008, a surprise takeover attempt of the German automaker Volkswagen by rival Porsche drove Volkswagen's stock price up by a factor of 5 — briefly making it the most valuable company in the world — in two quick days of trading, as short selling funds struggled to cover their positions. Similarly, a battle between two hedge fund titans — Bill Ackman, of Pershing Square Capital Management, and Carl Icahn — led to a squeeze involving supplement maker — and alleged pyramid marketer — Herbalife, which cost Ackman a reported $1 billion. And perhaps the first widely reported short squeeze dated back a century, to 1923, when grocery magnate Clarence Saunders successfully decimated short sellers who had targeted his nascent chain of Piggly Wiggly grocery stores.
”
”
Ben Mezrich (The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees)
“
To summarize the VWAP Reversal Strategy: After I build my watchlist in the morning, I closely monitor the shortlisted stocks in the first five minutes after the Open. I identify their opening range and their price action. The stocks will either move higher or below the VWAP. Depending on the price action, I may be able to take an Opening Range Breakout to the long or short side. I monitor the price when it moves away from the VWAP and look for a sign of weakness. If it is above the VWAP, failing to make a new high of the day may be a sign that the buyers are exhausted. If it is below the VWAP, failing to make a new low of the day or a new 5-minute low can be a sign that the sellers are gone, and the stock can be ready for a squeeze back to the VWAP. I take the trade only if I can get a good entry and a good risk/reward ratio. Remember, most of the time stocks move really fast without offering a good entry and a good risk/reward ratio. If I am short above the VWAP, I cover my short at the VWAP and bring my stop loss to break-even. If I am long below the VWAP, I sell part of my position at the VWAP, and keep the rest for a squeeze above the VWAP (or as some traders would call it, a VWAP Pop). Do ensure you bring your stop loss to break-even, because sometimes the stock can bounce back from the VWAP as well.
”
”
Andrew Aziz (Day Trading for a Living (Stock Market Trading and Investing))
“
In his job as a financial educator, Keith had spent a fair amount of time breaking down the act — and sometimes art — of short selling, in a way that less savvy customers could understand. When a trader believed a company was in trouble, and its stock was overvalued, they could 'borrow' shares, sell them, and then when the stock went down as they'd predicted, rebuy the shares at a lower price, return them to whoever they'd borrowed them from, and pocket the difference. If GameStop was trading at 5, you could borrow 100 shares, sell them for $500; when the stock hit 1, you bought back the 100 shares for $100, returned them, pocketing $400 for yourself. You paid a little fee to the lender for their trouble and came out with a tidy profit.
But what happened if the stock went up instead of down? What happened if GameStop figured out how to capitalize on its millions of nostalgic customers, who spent billions on video games every year? What if the stock went to 10 instead of 1?
What happened was, the short seller was royally screwed. He'd borrowed those 100 shares and sold them at 5. Now the stock was at 10, but he still needed to return his 100 shares. Buying them on the market at 10 meant spending $1000. And what was worse, when he'd borrowed the shares, he'd agreed on a timeline to return them. There was a ticking clock hanging over his head, so he had a choice — buy the shares back at 10 now, losing $500 on the deal — or wait a little longer, hoping the stock went back down before his time limit was up.
And what if he waited, and the stock kept going up? Sooner or later, he had to buy those shares back. Even if the stock went to 15, 20 — he was on the hook for those 100 shares. Theoretically, there was no limit to how much he could lose.
”
”
Ben Mezrich (The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees)
“
John Bradshaw, in his best-seller Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, details several of his imaginative techniques: asking forgiveness of your inner child, divorcing your parent and finding a new one, like Jesus, stroking your inner child, writing your childhood history. These techniques go by the name catharsis, that is, emotional engagement in past trauma-laden events. Catharsis is magnificent to experience and impressive to behold. Weeping, raging at parents long dead, hugging the wounded little boy who was once you, are all stirring. You have to be made of stone not to be moved to tears. For hours afterward, you may feel cleansed and at peace—perhaps for the first time in years. Awakening, beginning again, and new departures all beckon.
Catharsis, as a therapeutic technique, has been around for more than a hundred years. It used to be a mainstay of psychoanalytic treatment, but no longer. Its main appeal is its afterglow. Its main drawback is that there is no evidence that it works. When you measure how much people like doing it, you hear high praise. When you measure whether anything changes, catharsis fares badly. Done well, it brings about short-term relief—like the afterglow of vigorous exercise. But once the glow dissipates, as it does in a few days, the real problems are still there: an alcoholic spouse, a hateful job, early-morning blues, panic attacks, a cocaine habit. There is no documentation that the catharsis techniques of the recovery movement help in any lasting way with chronic emotional problems. There is no evidence that they alter adult personality. And, strangely, catharsis about fictitious memories does about as well as catharsis about real memories. The inner-child advocates, having treated tens of thousands of suffering adults for years, have not seen fit to do any follow-ups. Because catharsis techniques are so superficially appealing, because they are so dependent on the charisma of the therapist, and because they have no known lasting value, my advice is “Let the buyer beware.
”
”
Martin E.P. Seligman (What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement)
“
refuge imagine how it feels to be chased out of home.
to have your grip ripped. loosened from your
fingertips, something you so dearly held on to.
like a lover’s hand that slips when pulled away
you are always reaching. my father would speak of home. reaching.
speaking of familiar faces. girl next door
who would eventually grow up to be my mother.
the fruit seller at the market. the lonely man
at the top of the road who nobody spoke to.
and our house at the bottom of the street
lit up by a single flickering lamp
where beyond was only darkness. there
they would sit and tell stories
of monsters that lurked and came only at night
to catch the children who sat and listened to
stories of monsters that lurked.
this is how they lived. each memory buried.
an artefact left to be discovered by archaeologists.
the last words on a dying family member’s lips. this
was sacred. not even monsters could taint it.
but there were monsters that came during the day.
monsters that tore families apart with their giant hands.
and fingers that slept on triggers. the sound of gunshots
ripping through the sky became familiar like the tapping
of rain fall on a window sill. monsters that would kill
and hide behind speeches, suits and ties. monsters
that would chase families away forcing them to leave
everything behind. i remember
when we first stepped off the plane.
everything was foreign. unfamiliar. uninviting.
even the air in my lungs left me short of breath. we came here to find refuge. they called us refugees
so, we hid ourselves in their language
until we sounded just like them.
changed the way we dressed to look just like them.
made this our home until we lived just like them
and began to speak of familiar faces. girl next door
who would grow up to be a mother. the fruit seller
at the market. the lonely man at the top of the road
who nobody spoke to. and our house
at the bottom of the street lit up by a flickering lamp
to keep away the darkness. there
we would sit and watch police that lurked
and came only at night to arrest the youths who sat
and watched police that lurked and came only at night.
this is how we lived. i remember one day i heard them say to me
they come here to take our jobs
they need to go back to where they came from
not knowing that i was one of the ones who came.
i told them that a refugee is simply
someone who is trying to make a home.
so next time when you go home
tuck your children in and kiss your families
goodnight, be glad that the monsters
never came for you.
in their suits and ties.
never came for you.
in the newspapers with the media lies.
never came for you.
that you are not despised. and know that deep inside
the hearts of each and every one of us
we are all always reaching
for a place that we can call home.
”
”
J.J. Bola (REFUGE: The Collected Poetry of JJ Bola)
“
Like,” he repeats with distaste. “How about I tell you what I don’t like? I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn’t be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children’s books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires. I rarely stock debuts, chick lit, poetry, or translations. I would prefer not to stock series, but the demands of my pocketbook require me to. For your part, you needn’t tell me about the ‘next big series’ until it is ensconced on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Above all, Ms. Loman, I find slim literary memoirs about little old men whose little old wives have died from cancer to be absolutely intolerable. No matter how well written the sales rep claims they are. No matter how many copies you promise I’ll sell on Mother’s Day.” Amelia blushes, though she is angry more than embarrassed. She agrees with some of what A.J. has said, but his manner is unnecessarily insulting. Knightley Press doesn’t even sell half of that stuff anyway. She studies him. He is older than Amelia but not by much, not by more than ten years. He is too young to like so little. “What do you like?” she asks. “Everything else,” he says. “I will also admit to an occasional weakness for short-story collections. Customers never want to buy them though.” There is only one short-story collection on Amelia’s list, a debut. Amelia hasn’t read the whole thing, and time dictates that she probably won’t, but she liked the first story. An American sixth-grade class and an Indian sixth-grade class participate in an international pen pal program. The narrator is an Indian kid in the American class who keeps feeding comical misinformation about Indian culture to the Americans. She clears her throat, which is still terribly dry. “The Year Bombay Became Mumbai. I think it will have special int—” “No,” he says. “I haven’t even told you what it’s about yet.” “Just no.” “But why?” “If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit that you’re only telling me about it because I’m partially Indian and you think this will be my special interest. Am I right?” Amelia imagines smashing the ancient computer over his head. “I’m telling you about this because you said you liked short stories! And it’s the only one on my list. And for the record”—here, she lies—“it’s completely wonderful from start to finish. Even if it is a debut. “And do you know what else? I love debuts. I love discovering something new. It’s part of the whole reason I do this job.” Amelia rises. Her head is pounding. Maybe she does drink too much? Her head is pounding and her heart is, too. “Do you want my opinion?” “Not particularly,” he says. “What are you, twenty-five?” “Mr. Fikry, this is a lovely store, but if you continue in this this this”—as a child, she stuttered and it occasionally returns when she is upset; she clears her throat—“this backward way of thinking, there won’t be an Island Books before too long.
”
”
Gabrielle Zevin (The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry)
“
he was reveling in the possibilities inherent in selling a car that behaved like a fighter jet. “Yeah, it’s mad,” he continued, with a dimpled grin. And then he added, “In the option selection, you’ll be able to choose three settings: Normal, Sport, and Insane.” A ripple of laughter washed over the crowd. Then, as if to reassure himself as much as everyone else: “It will actually say ‘Insane.’” He hunched his shoulders forward and laughed. Videos posted by people who had experienced “Insane Mode” during test rides at the event appeared on YouTube the next day. Invariably, the accompanying commentary was littered with expletives and other delighted expressions of shock as the car’s spine-straightening acceleration took effect. In the weeks and months that followed, more reaction videos appeared and spread, with one especially spicy compilation coming to accrue more than ten million views. Insane Mode could be seen as more than just a product feature, more than just a marketing gimmick. It would be the mind-set required to fend off the short-sellers of Tesla’s stock, traditional automakers, political opponents, and an increasingly nervous oil industry. It represented the intensity of fervor needed to win the public over to electric cars. And it was a statement about the velocity of innovation required to transition the world to sustainable energy before the planet’s climate changes beyond repair. Even as a feature for a luxury motor vehicle, though, Insane Mode was audacious in both intent and implication.
”
”
Hamish McKenzie (Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil)
“
Faced with this abuse of power - by the strong against the weak - by the use of the small print of the conditions - the judges did what they could to put a curb upon it. They still had before them the idol, "freedom of contract." They still knelt down and worshipped it, but they concealed under their cloaks a secret weapon. They used it to stab the idol in the back. This weapon was called "the true construction of the contract." They used it with great skill and ingenuity. They used it so as to depart from the natural meaning of the words of the exemption clause and to put upon them a strained and unnatural construction. In case after case, they said that the words were not strong enough to give the big concern exemption from liability; or that in the circumstances the big concern was not entitled to rely on the exemption clause. If a ship deviated from the contractual voyage, the owner could not rely on the exemption clause. If a warehouseman stored the goods in the wrong warehouse, he could not pray in aid the limitation clause. If the seller supplied goods different in kind from those contracted for, he could not rely on any exemption from liability. If a shipowner delivered goods to a person without production of the bill of lading, he could not escape responsibility by reference to an exemption clause. In short, whenever the wide words - in their natural meaning - would give rise to an unreasonable result, the judges either rejected them as repugnant to the main purpose of the contract, or else cut them down to size in order to produce a reasonable result.
”
”
Tom Denning
“
For the seller, selling based on price is like heroin. The short-term gain is fantastic, but the more you do it, the harder it becomes to kick the habit. Once buyers get used to paying a lower-than-average price for a product or service, it is very hard to get them to pay more. And the sellers, facing overwhelming pressure to push prices lower and lower in order to compete, find their margins cut slimmer and slimmer.
”
”
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
“
Provisions that set forth what the contract is about, referred to herein as the "operative provisions." For example, the operative provisions of a contract to sell the assets of a business would include a description of the assets, the calculation and method of payment of the purchase price, and the mechanics of transferring the assets. An asset sale contract containing only these operative provisions would be a very short document, legally enforceable, but not addressing many of the other important issues that buyers and sellers care about. What
”
”
Charles M. Fox (Working with Contracts: What Law School Doesn't Teach You (PLI's Corporate and Securities Law Library))
“
The words looped in my head. Download it for free. Cheerful, triumphant. Download it for free! What a freaking bargain.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “She found what?”
"That website. Meems, what was the name again? Bongo or something?”
Mimi looked up from her iPad. “What are you talking about?”
“That website where you found Sarah’s book.”
"Oh,” she said. “Bingo. Haven’t you heard of it? It’s like an online library. You can download almost anything for free. It’s amazing.”
My hands were shaking. I set down Jen’s phone, and then I set down the wineglass next to it. Without a coaster.
"You mean a pirate site,” I said.
“Oh God, no! I would never. It’s an online library.”
"That’s what they call it. But they’re just stealing. They’re fencing stolen goods. Easy to do with electronic copies.”
"No. That’s not true.” Mimi’s voice rose a little. Sharpened a little. “Libraries lend out e-books.”
“Real libraries do. They buy them from the publisher. Sites like Bingo just upload unauthorized copies to sell advertising or put cookies on your phone or whatever else. They’re pirates.”
There was a small, shrill silence. I lifted my wineglass and took a long drink, even though my fingers were trembling so badly, I knew everyone could see the vibration.
"Well,” said Mimi. “It’s not like it matters. I mean, the book’s been out for years and everything, it’s like public domain.”
I put down the wineglass and picked up my tote bag. “So I don’t have time to lecture you about copyright law or anything. Basically, if publishers don’t get paid, authors don’t get paid. That’s kind of how it works.”
"Oh, come on,” said Mimi. “You got paid for this book.”
"Not as much as you think. Definitely not as much as your husband gets paid to short derivatives or whatever he does that buys all this stuff.” I waved my hand at the walls. “And you know, fine, maybe it’s not the big sellers who suffer. It’s the midlist authors, the great names you never hear of, where every sale counts … What am I saying? You don’t care. None of you actually cares. Sitting here in your palaces in the sky. You never had to earn a penny of your own. Why the hell should you care about royalties?” I climbed out of my silver chair and hoisted my tote bag over my shoulder. “It’s about a dollar a book, by the way. Paid out every six months. So I walked all the way over here, gave up an evening of my life, and even if every single one of you had actually bought a legitimate copy, I would have earned about a dozen bucks for my trouble. Twelve dollars and a glass of cheap wine. I’ll see myself out.
”
”
Lauren Willig
“
Can you give us some examples of the intangible benefits being conveyed by a salesperson? Absolutely. Here’s a partial list of some of the things you might bring to the table in a sale: • Integrity • Honesty • Thought leadership • Competence • Confidence • Capability • Responsiveness • Accountability • Follow-through • Comfort level • Humility • Attitude • Vision • Being forthright • Humor • Knowledge • Experience • Expertise • Understanding • Empathy • Caring …just to name a few. Of course, I can keep going. A successful rep is also hardworking, diligent, well prepared, credible, purposeful, professional, relevant, and customer focused, rather than self-serving. Are these intangible benefits important in the strategic sales process? You bet they are! In fact, your ability to convey many of these qualities in a short period of time is likely to be the difference between gaining the customer’s trust or losing the sale. The challenge for sellers is knowing how to convey this much intangible value without trying to personally claim it.
”
”
Thomas Freese (Secrets of Question-Based Selling: How the Most Powerful Tool in Business Can Double Your Sales Results (Top Selling Books to Increase Profit, Money Books for Growth))
“
Looking around, he sought his sheep, and then realized that he was in a new world. But instead of being saddened, he was happy. He no longer had to seek out food and water for the sheep; he could go in search of his treasure, instead. He had not a cent in his pocket, but he had faith. He had decided, the night before, that he would be as much an adventurer as the ones he had admired in books. He walked slowly through the market. The merchants were assembling their stalls, and the boy helped a candy seller to do his. The candy seller had a smile on his face: he was happy, aware of what his life was about, and ready to begin a day’s work. His smile reminded the boy of the old man—the mysterious old king he had met. “This candy merchant isn’t making candy so that later he can travel or marry a shopkeeper’s daughter. He’s doing it because it’s what he wants to do,” thought the boy. He realized that he could do the same thing the old man had done—sense whether a person was near to or far from his Personal Legend. Just by looking at them. It’s easy, and yet I’ve never done it before, he thought. When the stall was assembled, the candy seller offered the boy the first sweet he had made for the day. The boy thanked him, ate it, and went on his way. When he had gone only a short distance, he realized that, while they were erecting the stall, one of them had spoken Arabic and the other Spanish. And they had understood each other perfectly well. There must be a language that doesn’t depend on words, the boy thought. I’ve already had that experience with my sheep, and now it’s happening with people. He was learning a lot of new things. Some of them were things that he had already experienced, and weren’t really new, but that he had never perceived before. And he hadn’t perceived them because he had become accustomed to them. He realized: If I can learn to understand this language without words, I can learn to understand the world.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
“
It is worth saying something about the social position of beggars, for when one has consorted with them, and found that they are ordinary human beings, one cannot help being struck by the curious attitude that society takes towards them. People seem to feel that there is some essential difference between beggars and ordinary 'working' men. They are a race apart–outcasts, like criminals and prostitutes. Working men 'work,' beggars do not 'work'; they are parasites, worthless in their very nature. It is taken for granted that a beggar does not 'earn' his living, as a bricklayer or a literary critic 'earns' his. He is a mere social excrescence, tolerated because we live in a humane age, but essentially despicable. Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is not essential difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course–but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout–in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him.
”
”
George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and London)
“
Short sellers profit when the price of the stock they borrowed and sold drops. Short selling is important because stock prices usually drop much more quickly than they go up. Fear is a more powerful feeling than greed. Therefore, short sellers, if they trade right, can make astonishing profits while other traders panic and start to sell off.
”
”
AMS Publishing Group (Intelligent Stock Market Trading and Investment: Quick and Easy Guide to Stock Market Investment for Absolute Beginners)
“
AIMEE is a computer program, short for “Artificial Intelligence Mohawk E-commerce Engine,” designed to identify products with the potential to become top sellers on Amazon, a platform that many start-ups have deliberately avoided.
”
”
Lawrence Ingrassia (Billion Dollar Brand Club: How Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Other Disruptors Are Remaking What We Buy)
“
As interest rates began to rise in the post-war period, leaving your cash at a bank that paid near zero percent interest was not such a good investment. Corporations and municipalities had millions of dollars to invest, but could not get a decent return on the short-term cash. They wanted a rate, because any rate was better than nothing. At the same time, securities dealers on Wall Street began holding trading positions. Previously the role of the broker-dealer was as a pure middleman. That’s the broker part of broker-dealer. When a client wanted to sell a bond, the firm’s salesmen scoured the market to find a buyer. If they could find a buyer, the trade was done: end-user seller to end-user buyer, and the Wall Street firm just stood in the middle. That changed in the 1950s. Some broker-dealers, like Bear Stearns and Salomon Brothers, realized they could make money buying bonds for their own trading account. And, they could even make money betting on the direction of interest rates.
”
”
Scott E.D. Skyrm (The Repo Market, Shorts, Shortages, and Squeezes)
“
As its name suggests, Tri-Party Repo is an agreement between three parties. There’s the seller of the securities (the securities dealer), the buyer of the securities (cash investor), and the clearing bank (the bank that holds both the securities and the cash). The cash investor liked the transaction because they have better security. They knew the securities were priced and margined correctly by the clearing bank. For the securities dealer, Tri-Party minimized settlements and ticket processing. It gave them more time to allocate collateral throughout the day, and it made it easier to finance smaller pieces. The clearing bank did most of the work. They handled the risk management, pricing the collateral, and accommodated collateral substitutions. They managed the settlement risk, cleared the trades, provided valuation, and the position reporting. And, on top of that, they get paid a fee. Sounds like everyone wins! When there was a problem with HIC Repo, the market figured out a way to reduce investor risk. It brought cash investors back to the Repo market.
”
”
Scott E.D. Skyrm (The Repo Market, Shorts, Shortages, and Squeezes)
“
Should I Invest in a Timeshare? In my professional career, timeshare properties have been by far the worst investments I’ve seen. Buyers are lured with a free dinner or spa coupon, only to endure a hard sales pitch by peddlers who do not know the meaning of the word no. This will be the most expensive dinner you will ever not buy, if you sign up for the “free seminar” in exchange for a restaurant coupon. You can’t borrow against a timeshare or use it like a regular financial asset, and you can only reside in it for very short and specific periods of time. If you are really considering getting a timeshare, then only buy it on the secondary market; simply do an Internet search—you’ll find plenty of remorseful sellers offering you their units at huge discounts.
”
”
Sherwin Brown (Safer 401(k) Investing: How to Protect All Your Investments from Wall Street Greed and the Government)
“
There are times when the fear of missing out trumps the fear of losing. People start to chase, price momentum becomes its own catalyst and short-sellers are mercilessly squeezed, sending prices higher with unimaginable velocity.
”
”
Ivaylo Ivanov (The Next Apple: How To Own The Best Performing Stocks In Any Given Year)
“
In most right-side POD failures, once the stock breaks down it will generally carry through the 20-day moving average and then find support at the 50-day or 200-day moving averages, depending on where they lie within the overall pattern, and then try to rally. In most cases this rally will carry back up into the 20-day moving average, which presents a secondary short-sale entry point. The breakdown from there is nothing short of exhilarating for any short-seller short the stock at that point!
”
”
Gil Morales (Short-Selling with the O'Neil Disciples: Turn to the Dark Side of Trading)
“
From a psychological point of view, the POD occurs when a hot-stock high-flyer breaks down severely, at which point it is able to bring in investors who missed the prior big price run and see the stock as “cheap.” This sets off a very rapid price advance back up to the highs and the left side of the POD that is quite simply unsustainable. At that point, everyone who is going to buy the stock has, and the sellers who hit the stock at the left side peak of the POD can now finish distributing their stock. With fewer “suckers” left to buy it, the stock then breaks down in rapid fashion and in most cases to new lows.
”
”
Gil Morales (Short-Selling with the O'Neil Disciples: Turn to the Dark Side of Trading)
“
In framing our new M&A process, we resolved to maintain a clear separation between our dealmakers and our deal-negotiators. After a business leader had cultivated a company for acquisition, he or she would turn the deal over to our corporate M&A department, which would negotiate the contract based on the results for the acquired company that our business unit would commit to delivering. Sometimes our business units disagreed with how our corporate people were handling a deal—our business leaders just wanted it done, and they had developed personal relationships with the sellers. Our corporate M&A team negotiated more dispassionately, assuring that we really didn’t overpay, even if it meant getting tough and walking away. In deal after deal, that made all the difference.
”
”
David Cote (Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term)
Timothy Knight (Best Fiction: A Companion Title to The Book of Books -- Recommended Reading, Including the Best Novels and Short Stories, from the Classics and Best Sellers to the Newest Top Authors)
“
Hair fall - The two words that make up for the shortest yet the scariest horror story that no woman would ever want to witness. However, many women suffer from it and get stuck in a loop of trying various solutions to take control of hair fall. It’s important to understand to what amount the hair fall is normal and to what is abnormal. We lose about 100 strands every day but anything more than that is excessive and alarming.
HAIR FALL PROBLEM
Hair is a big part of our identity and appearance. It adds confidence and resembles our style in ways more than one. When one loses hair, they lose self-esteem and self-confidence. Therefore, it is necessary to find an answer to the question of ‘How to control hair fall?’
Hair Fall Problem
For most of us, a good hair day instantly puts us in a good mood. Such is the importance associated with the appearance of our hair. When even an occasional bad hair day can seriously put a damper on our mood, imagine how dreadful it’s to deal with your precious hair locks beginning to fall off. If you're looking for a basic brush that gets rid of tangles with no discomfort or pain, look no moreoverthan the Patented Venting hairbrush DoubleC. This universal brush is made to detangle wet hair of all kinds and forms with ease. Each brush is made with light, soft, and strong bristles that can painlessly get rid of despite the most serious knots. The points also highlight SofTips at the top that massage the scalp and help improve follicle stimulation. Patented Venting hairbrushes work best on women with long, thick hair for they're usually too large and unwieldy on short or thin hair. Most maximum paddle brushes are created for dry hair, as a regular detangler, and smoother.
Hair Fall Problem
Different Types of Hair Brush
Our wide collection of Nuway4haiHair Brushes covers DoubleC Brush, C Brush, Travel C Brush, Traveler Brush, MagicSpell Combo Brush, and many more. Available in various forms and sizes, these hair brushes for women have two hair types namely. Specially created to serve, appearance, and smoothen up the hair of all dimensions and arrangements, all the hairbrushes come following three distinct ranges, that is, Basic, Premium, and Specialist.
Nuway4hair Top Sellers to Choose From
1. Patented Venting hairbrush DoubleC - Purple
2. Patented Venting hairbrush DoubleC - Blue
3. DoubleC Brush- Black
4. Patented Venting hairbrush DoubleC PRO - Gray
”
”
HAIR FALL PROBLEM
“
The S.E.C. has not been loath to join the popular hue and cry against the friendless short seller. From this we have a right to deduce that they not only want an orderly market, but a market which shall forever gently rise. Of course, that conception is just plain silly, like Voltaire’s suggestion that a community ought to be able to support itself by everybody taking in everybody else’s washing.
”
”
Fred Schwed Jr. (Where Are the Customers' Yachts?: or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street)
“
Some short sellers, feeling the pressure, will begin to gang up together to attack a company—through the media, online investor forums, and, increasingly, on Twitter—all as part of an effort to change the narrative of a company, to highlight the negatives around its business or reveal a failing that normal investors may not recognize. Essentially, they’re trying to scare investors and drive a targeted stock price down.
”
”
Tim Higgins (Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century)
“
short seller has an economic incentive to sell as much as possible – to attempt to drive the price down – in order to increase profits. A simple concept from economics is at work here: prices fall when supply increases. It is as true for cars as it is for shares. For stocks, we call this decrease in price a “dilution of share value” because the price of the shares is falling not because the company performed badly but because there are simply more shares in circulation (an increase in supply).
”
”
Susanne Trimbath (Naked, Short and Greedy: Wall Street's Failure to Deliver)
“
once the issue settled, Tiger and Quantum agreed to have Salomon manage their positions. Salomon had complete control of the entire 2 Year Note. By the middle of May, it was clear there was something wrong. The 2 Year Note’s price was completely distorted; it was trading extremely rich and the yield was extremely low. There was no squeeze in the Repo market, however, because Salomon loaned the securities into the market each day. This created one of the strangest squeezes ever. There was no shortage in the Repo market, but there was a huge premium in the cash market. As the squeeze in the April 2 Year Note continued, Salomon submitted large bids again for the next 2 Year Note settling at the end of May. They were able to accumulate an abnormally large position once again. Prices across the entire 2 year sector were now distorted. Prices were abnormally high and yields were abnormally low. Everyone knew that Salomon had the issue and Salomon was not selling. At this point, all of the trading in the market was from one short seller to another. There were no real owners selling. All of the buyers were existing short-sellers who had ridden their losses as far as they could go and got stopped out. All of the sellers were new short-sellers willing to take short positions and higher and higher prices. There was no way for the squeeze to end without Salomon selling. What was Salomon’s goal? They had already achieved a very successful squeeze. Prices moved in their favor and they had a huge win under their belt. The biggest short-squeeze of all time! However, in July things started to unravel. Market participants started complaining to the Fed. Everyone knew that Salomon owned the entire issue. The Fed passed the information to the Treasury Department. Treasury then passed it to the SEC, who immediately launched an investigation. By the end of July, it was all over.
”
”
Scott E.D. Skyrm (The Repo Market, Shorts, Shortages, and Squeezes)
“
The Velocity of Collateral is like the economics term the Velocity of Money.[33] In economics circles, the Velocity of Money is how much, on average, a single dollar is re-used over a period of time. It’s how fast a currency passes from one holder to another. Think of the same principle, except in the Repo market. The VofC is how much, on average, a security turns over before it gets from end-seller to end-buyer. The Repo market has a high velocity because there are many players making markets, speculating on interest rates, and borrowing and lending securities. In the diagram below, $100 million of securities is loaned from a leveraged portfolio to Bank A, then to Bank B, then to Bank C before it reaches its final destination, the cash provider. Every time the security is re-used (rehypothecated), assets and liabilities are created by the velocity of the collateral.
”
”
Scott E.D. Skyrm (The Repo Market, Shorts, Shortages, and Squeezes)
“
I’ve seen the Velocity of Collateral of the U.S. Repo market estimated to be between 2.4 and 3. That means, on average, the amount of times collateral goes from end-seller to end-buyer is between 2.4 times and 3 times. It also means there are, on average, between about 1.5 and 2 banks standing in between the end-sellers and end-buyers on each transaction. That appears about right.
”
”
Scott E.D. Skyrm (The Repo Market, Shorts, Shortages, and Squeezes)
“
The first known law banning short-selling appeared in Holland on February 24, 1610. The government called it "trading the wind" – which meant selling shares that you didn’t own. The law was enacted when the East India Company complained that short-sellers were driving down the price of their stock.
”
”
Scott E.D. Skyrm (The Repo Market, Shorts, Shortages, and Squeezes)
“
Short-selling increases both the supply and demand, but it does not increase the net number of securities. · You can say a short-seller is selling a security for someone else. They sell the security and borrow it from an actual owner.
”
”
Scott E.D. Skyrm (The Repo Market, Shorts, Shortages, and Squeezes)
“
Rehypothecation is not risky in large Repo markets like U.S. Treasurys, but it becomes a potential problem in small securities markets. Think of small corporate or municipal bond issues. What happens if one of the counterparties defaults? Think of it like a break in the collateral chain. When one party defaults, the two counterparties on either side must liquidate their securities. One counterparty sells the collateral and the other one buys the collateral, but not necessarily to each other. For highly liquid and large issue securities, like U.S. Treasurys, this is easy. Problems arise when the collateral is non-fungible, a private-label issuer, or a small issue size. In these cases, when the entity in the middle goes bust, it’s hard for the original seller to get back their securities.
”
”
Scott E.D. Skyrm (The Repo Market, Shorts, Shortages, and Squeezes)
“
That was because of the uptick rule. The rule was part of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (rule 10a-1). It specified that, with certain exceptions, short-sale transactions are allowed only at a price higher than the last previous different price (an “uptick”). This rule was supposed to prevent short sellers from deliberately driving down the price of a stock. Seeing an enormous profit potential from capturing the unprecedented spread between the futures and the index, I wanted to sell stocks short and buy index futures to capture the excess spread. The index was selling at 15 percent, or 30 points, over the futures. The potential profit in an arbitrage was 15 percent in a few days. But with prices collapsing, upticks were scarce. What to do? I figured out a solution. I called our head trader, who as a minor general partner was highly compensated from his share of our fees, and gave him this order: Buy $5 million worth of index futures at whatever the current market price happened to be (about 190), and place orders to sell short at the market, with the index then trading at about 220, not $5 million worth of assorted stocks—which was the optimal amount to best hedge the futures—but $10 million. I chose twice as much stock as I wanted, guessing only about half would actually be shorted because of the scarcity of the required upticks, thus giving me the proper hedge. If substantially more or less stock was sold short, the hedge would not be as good but the 15 percent profit cushion gave us a wide band of protection against loss.
”
”
Edward O. Thorp (A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market)
“
Here is a stark example. If you have time, I suggest watching the YouTube video of the January 2000 presentation by the president of Enron, Jeffrey Skilling, and his senior management on the launch of Enron Broadband.2 I dare you not to be impressed. The guys are poised, confident, and, at least to my eyes, extremely competent. It is hard to find fault with their strategy or vision, and their execution plan for broadband services seems spot on. However, in less than two years after this impressive presentation, Enron went bankrupt, and in 2006 Skilling was sent to prison for perpetrating a massive fraud.3 Except for a few short sellers, no professional analysts or investors could have guessed what was going on at Enron even though the management was quite open to the media and regularly gave interviews. I know what you are thinking. Am I building my entire case on an outlier like Enron? Let’s look at it another way. I assume you have read the interviews of many CEOs or company presidents. Did any mention that they don’t care for the customer, that they have stopped innovating, or that they hire people who have been rejected by other companies? Have you ever heard a company leader disparage their products or services or admit that their competition is doing a better job or that they are sick and tired of company politics?
”
”
Pulak Prasad (What I Learned About Investing from Darwin)
“
When the stall was assembled, the candy seller offered the boy the first sweet he had made for the day. The boy thanked him, ate it, and went on his way. When he had gone only a short distance, he realized that, while they were erecting the stall, one of them had spoken Arabic and the other Spanish. And they had understood each other perfectly well. There must be a language that doesn’t depend on words, the boy thought. I’ve already had that experience with my sheep, and now it’s happening with people. He was learning a lot of new things. Some of them were things that he had already experienced, and weren’t really new, but that he had never perceived before. And he hadn’t perceived them because he had become accustomed to them. He realized: If I can learn to understand this language without words, I can learn to understand the world.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
“
Blankfein, who up until now had resisted pushing back against short-sellers, was becoming convinced that the pressure his stock was under was not an accident.
”
”
Andrew Ross Sorkin (Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves)
“
Adam Smith’s great insight was to show that the marketplace can mobilise diffuse information about people’s wants and the cost of meeting them, thereby coordinating billions of buyers and sellers through a global system of prices – all without the need for a centralised grand plan. This distributed efficiency of the market is indeed extraordinary, and attempting to run an economy without it typically leads to short supplies and long queues. It was out of recognition of this power that the neoliberal scriptwriters put the market centre stage in their economic play. There is, however, a flip side to the market’s power: it only values what is priced and only delivers to those who can pay. Like fire, it is extremely efficient at what it does, but dangerous if it gets out of control. When the market is unconstrained, it degrades the living world by over-stressing Earth’s sources and sinks. It also fails to deliver essential public goods – from education and vaccines to roads and railways – on which its own success deeply depends.
”
”
Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economics: The must-read book that redefines economics for a world in crisis)
“
The economy is slowing; reports are negative. Corporate earnings are flat or declining, and falling short of projections. Media report only bad news. Securities markets weaken. Investors become worried and depressed. Risk is seen as being everywhere. Investors see risk-bearing as nothing but a way to lose money. Fear dominates investor psychology. Demand for securities falls short of supply. Asset prices fall below intrinsic value. Capital markets slam shut, making it hard to issue securities or refinance debt. Defaults soar. Skepticism is high and faith is low, meaning only safe deals can be done, or maybe none at all. No one considers improvement possible. No outcome seems too negative to happen. Everyone assumes things will get worse forever. Investors ignore the possibility of missing opportunity and worry only about losing money. No one can think of a reason to buy. Sellers outnumber buyers. “Don’t try to catch a falling knife” takes the place of “buy the dips.” Prices reach new lows. The media fixate on this depressing trend. Investors become depressed and panicked. Security holders feel dumb and disillusioned. They realize they didn’t really understand the reasons behind the investments they made. Those who abstained from buying (or who sold) feel validated and are celebrated for their brilliance. Those who held give up and sell at depressed prices, adding further to the downward spiral. Implied prospective returns are sky-high. Risk is low. Investors should forget about the risk of losing money and worry only about missing opportunity. This is the time to be aggressive!
”
”
Howard Marks (Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the odds on your side)
“
A now-classic example of the failure of this sort of HFT took place in September 2008 when the investment bank Lehman Brothers (ticker: LEH, now delisted after bankruptcy), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp (ticker: FRE), and many other mortgage holdings and investment banks all suffered a massive drop in price. Programs tried to buy their already broken stock to squeeze and burn the short sellers, but the stock price never went higher. Day traders and huge institutional sellers dumped their shares on the program. The programs and their developers were obliterated and left holding huge quantities of worthless shares of LEH and FRE, as well as other bankrupted holdings.
”
”
AMS Publishing Group (Intelligent Stock Market Trading and Investment: Quick and Easy Guide to Stock Market Investment for Absolute Beginners)
“
I figured the thing came when there were enough shadows to the day to collect around itself like a dim dream of a cape. It was always hiding a little—flirting with the possibility of showing itself, but ultimately deciding against it.
”
”
Mary B. Sellers
“
Predictably irrational
1) the importance of having something for FREE when selling something.
2) the price we hear effects what we’re willing to pay. Known as arbitrary coherence. The basic idea of arbitrary coherence is this: Although initial prices can be "arbitrary," once those prices are established in our minds, they will shape not only present prices but also future ones (thus making them "coherent"). Eg new tv on market we kook for an anchor price. Released at £1200. That’s the anchor
3) when we own something we over value it. The seller feels all the things they could do with it. The buyer feels what they could do with the money.
4) experiences are shaped by our expectations. Coke Pepsi test. Or example if we have heard a movie is good we will enjoy it more.
5) social norms and market norms.
6 ) most people are dishonest. Get people thinking about honesty. When people thought about the 10 commandments.
7) acknowledge your weakness and set your deadlines. Also set yourself short term awards when reaching long term goals.
8) try not to keep your options open. The Chinese war where he burned the boats so they couldn’t retreat.
If you have your options open on two things close one of them so you can fully focus on one.
”
”
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
“
Playing the price game, however, can come at tremendous cost and can create a significant dilemma for the company. For the seller, selling based on price is like heroin. The short-term gain is fantastic, but the more you do it, the harder it becomes to kick the habit.
”
”
Simon Sinek (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action)
“
Legalman would immediately begin to implement the "he-we-I" evolution strategy. At the outset, he would talk in terms of he (the seller) in discussing the property and the closing. Then, in a relatively short period of time, the word he would subtly evolve into we (i.e., the seller and Legalman). At that point, the seller was no longer in full control of his destiny. Nay, it was now he and Legalman who were making the decisions. Finally—you guessed it—Legalman, in a galling display of arrogance, would magically transform we into I (as in Legalman). Some things in life are inevitable, and Legalman's "he-we-I" evolution strategy is one of those inevitabilities. From that point on, it was entirely Legalman's deal. The buyer and seller had been reduced to nothing more than bothersome but necessary bystanders to Legalman's closing.
”
”
Robert J. Ringer (Winning Through Intimidation)
“
A word of warning: The absolute worst thing you can do is ask yourself, What products are super popular right now? For example, I can’t tell you how many people I know chased fidget spinners or tried to sell diet supplements. Both trends exploded brightly, and, sure, some people made some money—but they couldn’t build a business, because fidget spinners are a one-off product that don’t serve a direct person, and diet fads change every year. Those people thought they had a business, but what they actually had was a short-term cash flow machine, and most of those sellers are out of business now that their flash-in-the-pan fad has fizzled out.
”
”
Ryan Daniel Moran (12 Months to $1 Million: How to Pick a Winning Product, Build a Real Business, and Become a Seven-Figure Entrepreneur)
“
Only a stock that many traders were selling short could be cornered; a stock that was in the throes of a real bear raid was ideal. In the latter situation, the would-be cornerer would attempt to buy up the investment houses’ floating supply of the stock and enough of the privately held shares to freeze out the bears; if the attempt succeeded, when he called for the short sellers to make good the stock they had borrowed, they could buy it from no one but him. And they would have to buy it at any price he chose to ask, their only alternatives—at least theoretically—being to go into bankruptcy or to jail for failure to meet their obligations. In the old days of titanic financial death struggles, when Adam Smith’s ghost still smiled on Wall Street, corners were fairly common and were often extremely sanguinary, with hundreds of innocent bystanders, as well as the embattled principals, getting their financial heads lopped off. The most famous cornerer in history was that celebrated old pirate, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who engineered no less than three successful corners during the eighteen-sixties. Probably his classic job was in the stock of the Harlem Railway. By dint of secretly buying up all its available shares while simultaneously circulating a series of untruthful rumors of imminent bankruptcy to lure the short sellers in, he achieved an airtight trap. Finally, with the air of a man doing them a favor by saving them from jail, he offered the cornered shorts at $179 a share the stock he had bought up at a small fraction of that figure.
”
”
John Brooks (Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street)
“
The cancellation of inter-Ally war debts was designed to de-couple American finance from Europe. Keynes supported American loans to get European industry restarted, pay for essential food imports, and stabilize currencies. But he was adamantly opposed to Europeans borrowing from the United States to service deadweight debt. His book became an international best-seller, had a profound effect on post-war thinking, and made Keynes world-famous.
”
”
Robert Skidelsky (Keynes: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))