Welcome to the end of the week and another edition of Happy Hour! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy your end of the week roundup of all things interesting in the land of money.
Nasdaq Outrage
There was an outage on Wall Street yesterday. Not your typical power loss either. The Nasdaq was offline for 3 hours due to a software malfunction or glitch as they called it. If you’re not sure what 3 hour glitch looks like, these charts show it clearly. Of course, the big gap on the chart below also shows it.
In the process, Nasdaq did a terrible job of communicating the problem.
Personally, the outage didn’t affect me because I don’t trade. But it was still a problem. It affected all the options and futures of Nasdaq traded securities, as well as, any ETFs with Nasdaq traded stocks.
The problem is trying to price an ETF or index fund based on stocks that aren’t trading or price options and futures based on the same thing. Or any number of other combination that deal with pricing securities. The point is, it’s all interlinked and without one, it makes it really tough to do anything accurately with the rest.
But hey, at least Nasdaq didn’t think it was a big deal.
Why Politics Works
With the constant lying and flip-flopping we see in politics, it’s a wonder how anyone gets reelected at all. Until I came across this political poll that explains everything. It’s a Louisiana public policy poll asking several questions including – who’s responsible for the poor Hurricane Katrina response? Only 28% got it right, saying George W. was responsible. It’s the other 72% that should have us worried.
There will always be diehard Democrats and Republicans voting for their side. It’s those folks in the middle that matter. It doesn’t work on everyone. You have to find the people with terrible short-term memory, a willingness to believe anything they hear, or willingness to make stuff up when they don’t know the answer and convince themselves its true (if they can convince others its true, even better). If you can do that you’ve bought yourself an election.
Ballmer Retires
Steve Ballmer announced his retirement this morning. The markets mourned the loss of the long time CEO by sending Microsoft shares soaring 8%.
By the way, today’s $2+ bump in stock price equates to a $20 billion increase in market cap. How does it feel to know your absence is worth $20 billion more to shareholders?
Last Call
- How to Avoid Being a Wall Street Muppet – benefits of using a diversified portfolio of index funds.
- A Bucket Portfolio Stress Test – nice study on the possibilities of a bucket portfolio strategy.
- Obama’s 6 Retirement Proposals – these are only proposals, so nothings written in stone, you should be aware of the possibilities.
- More Of Your Questions About The Affordable Care Act – great info about the upcoming Oct. 1 insurance exchanges and other questions you might have.
- Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini Unveil the New Abnormal – Roubini is a bit of a debby downer and glass half empty type, a doomsayers view of the global economy going forward.