Stanford's Open Courseware

https://courseware.stanford.edu/pg/file/jcm@stanford.edu/read/96536/introduction-pdf

ETFs or index funds shouldn't be acting any differently from each other and their market sector because they all are conceptually invested in the same underlying investments in the same proportion.

5 phases
1. Wealth creation
2. Wealth growth
3. Wealth accumulation
4. Wealth preservation
5. Wealth transfer

www.bankrate.com

www.choosetosave.org
10 10
9 11
8 12
7 14
6 17
5 21
4 27

1. You must identify your goal in terms of time, priority, and cost.
2. You must know what you own, what you owe, and what's available.
3. You must compare what you have with what you want and identify, if need be, what you are willing to do to achieve what is really important to you.
4. This analysis should be done at least every five years (every three if you are near or in retirement).
5. Do no focus on what you are "giving up"; instead focus on what you will be "getting" from the path you take.
6. What you've learned:

National Savings Rate Guidelines for Individuals by Roger Ibbotson et al. in April 2007 Journal of Financial Planning


Historical returns of stocks, bonds, T-Bills, and inflation from 1926-2008*
*Past performance does not guarantee future results

Large-cap stocks 9.6% *more than $10 billion
Small-cap stocks 11.7% *between $2 and $10 billion
Intermediate-term government bonds 5.4% *less than $2 billion
U.S. Treasury Bills 3.7%
Inflation 3.0%

FDIC-insured* Go to www.FDIC.gov for a more detailed look at the specific rules and restrictions and updates.

There are three basic ways that stocks are organized:
Size (large, mid, small-cap), style (growth, value), location (foreign, domestic)

A simplified way to think of mid caps is that they are either the small companies that made it past the dangerous start-up phase of their lives but haven't yet reached full potential or they are larger companies that are in decline for some reason or another. Recognizable mid caps are Under Armour, Vail Resorts, and Ross Stores.

Small-cap stocks
The Russell 2000 is the most widely used index for small-sized companies.

Investors often look to a stock's price-earnings ratio (P/E ratio) as an indicator of its style tilt.

Bonds:
Treasury (U.S. government)
Municipal (state, cities, and so on)
Corporate
Foreign governments
Foreign coporate

Munis
Government obligation bonds (GOBs)
Revenue bonds

TEY is tax equivalent yield
Tax-free yield / (1-your federal tax rate)

1. Under each of the four basic asset class categories are subcategories that all have different risk-and-return profiles.
2. Cash has the lowest risk-and-return profile out of the four. The major risk with cash is inflation riskk.
3. Stocks are categorized by size, style, and nationality. Each has an effect on the risk-and-return profile of a stock. Due to the economy, interest rates, and other uncontrollable external factors that market as a whole is subject to their own unique risks known as unsystematic risk. The goal of diversification is to minimize unsystematic or company-specific risk.
4. Bonds are loans to organizations. Issuer and time to maturity are the key differentials. They are subject to credit risk and interest rate risk. Treasuries are said to have the lowest credit risk whereas international corporate bonds are said to have the highest. Gnerally speaking, the longer the term to maturity the greater the interest rate risk.
5. Alternatives are basically anything that does not fall into the "big three" asset classes. Their risk-and-return profiles vary greatly.
6. What you've learned:

Expected returns
Standard deviationis stated as a percentage from the expeceted return.

Sample expected standard deviation
Cash 1.0
Intermediate bonds 6.0
High-yield bonds 10
U.S. large-cap stock 16.0
Small-cap stock 22.0
International stock 19.0
Emerging market stock 28.0
Private equity/venture capital 35.0

Portfolio (asset allocation) flavors - balance between risk and return
Conservative, Moderate, Aggressive

Cash - conservative 10; moderate 6; aggressive 2
Bonds - conservative 43; moderate 30%; aggressive 19
Stocks - conservative 42; moderate 54; aggressive 64
Alternatives - conservative 5; moderate 10; aggressive 15

1. The randomness associated with returns or the lack of pattern makes it very difficult for anyone to time the market perfectly
2 This lack of predictability is one of the great arguments for multi-asset class investing
3. The goal of portfolio optimzation is to create target portfolios that provide the greatest return for a given level of risk (or vice versa)
4. Your personal risk profile defines your asset allocation and is dependent on your financial risk capacity and your emotional risk tolerance.
5. To improve the risk-reward trade-off for your long-term investments you need to look at your strategy from a portfolio level, then asset class level, and then finally a security level.
6. What you've learned:

www.callan.com/research/institute/periodic/files/Pertbl.pdf - to check out the periodic chart of investment returns.

Monthly cash flow statement

Sources of cash:
Take-home pay*
Dividends/Interest
Rental income
Other

Total sources of cash (A)
USES OF CASH
Fixed expenses
Mortgage
Loan payments
Utilities
Insurance
Property taxes
Other

Total fixed expenses (B)
Variable expenses
Charitable contributions
Clothing
Travel and entertainment
Gifts
Other

Total variable expenses (C)
Total expenses (B+C)
Positive/negative monthly cash flow available for investing A-(B+C)

*Make note of employer saving plan's monthly contributions



-The Five Phases of Your Financial Life
1. Wealth creation
2. Wealth growth
3. Wealth accumulation
4. Wealth preservation
5. Wealth transfer

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti
Giuseppe Verdi Overture to La forza del destino
Franz Liszt Les préludes, Symphonic Poem No. 3

Piotr Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet
Fantasy Overture
Ottorino Respighi Pines of Rome

Hyde Park Suzuki Institute
Music Institute of Chicago
Midwest Young Artists
Merit School of Music
Chicago Children's Choir
Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra

Stars of Lyric Opera at Millennium Park 2010

Puccini

I don't know why I should feel that way because I do not think what we are doing is of much consequence but for some reason it is making a nervous wreck of me which is something I don't particularly want to be the rest of my life.

Belmont/Argyle
alinea-restaurant.com
Grant Achatz
charlietrotters.com
Everestrestaurants.com

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
Death is often a good career more for an author, A poet.

I am dead serious.

Platonic love.
Mandel broatian randomness
Epistemology


Consilient School
A story of recursion
From Kundera to Krasnova
Gregory Bateson
Ivan the Terrible
Get a profession that is scalable. Monstrous regulation.
Turn from a logical impasse to easy-to-implement solution
Your revenue depends on your continuous efforts more than on the quality of your decision
Idea person
Labor is mostly thinking
I am a Black Swan
Pierre Bourdieu
French sociologist-philosopher

Yevgenia Nikolagevna Krasnova is a fictional character
Information is costly to store
Information is costly to manipulate and retrieve
Parisian novelist and intellectual pursuit. Georges Pall.
Andrey (or Andrei?) Nikolaeyskcostly Kolmogorav

Fourteenth Program: The Fairy's Kiss
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 6:30 p.m.

Starvinsky
The Fairy's Kiss, Allegorical Ballet in Four Seasons

The Lullaby in the Snowstorm
A Village Féte
By the Mill
The Lullaby of the Land Beyond Time and Place

Intermission

Liszt

Piano Concerto No. 2 in A major, Op. 23
Adagio sostenuto assai
Allegro agitato assai
Allegro moderato
Allegro deciso
Marziale un poco meno Allegro
Allegro animato

Played without pause

Markus Groh

Tchaikovsky

Capriccio italien, Op. 45

Tenth Program

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
GRANT PARK ORCHESTRA
Hans Graf, Guest Conductor
Alban Gerhardt, Cello

Tchaikovsky
The Tempest, Fantasy-Overture after Shakespeare, Op. 18

Tchaikovsky
Variations on Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 33
Alban Gerhardt

Stravinsky
Petrushka, Ballet in Four Tableaux (1947 Version)

The Shrove-Tide Fair
Petrushka's Room
The Moor's Room
The Shrove-Tide Fair Towards Evening

Mr. Gerhardt plays ona magnificent cello made by 18th-century Venetian instrument maker Matteo Gofriller.

parliamentary debate is an enjoyable complement to your academic experience at the uofc, hopefully providing a challenging outlet for your intellectual curiosity and inborn desire to yell at people.

Title: Patterns in All-India rainfall during 1813-2006

Abstract:

Analysis of All-India rainfall from 1813-2006 using time-series analysis techniques was used in this paper to understand the variability of rainfall across the country during the 194 year period. On average, the country as a whole receives about 1150.5 (mm) of rainfall. June was the month with the higest mean rainfall (174.7 mm), while December through March the rainfall was at its monthly lowest, with the lowest in December (13.3 mm). By year, the higest rainfall was observed in and the lowest rainfall was observed in (). Spectrum analysis showed significant cycles in the 194-year series, but these tend to be low frequencies.

Introduction:

The techniques used in time series analysis are commonly applied to data from the geophysical sciences. This paper analyzes annual and monthly All-India rainfall between 1813-2006. Source of data came from the India Institute of Tropical Meteorology. One note-worthy aspect of our dataset is that annual All-India rainfall follows a normal distribution, implying that yearly rainfall across the country may be modeled by a Gaussian process. However, monthly data for the entire 194-year period indicates that on a monthly level rainfall certainly fluctuates periodically and that there are seasonal lags present. Of particular interest in this paper is analyzing seasonal rainfall patterns across India, determining whether there is any long-range dependence in our dataset.

Method:

First, annual and monthly raw data are analyzed using appropriate (diagonostic) plots such as the autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation plots. These plots identify whether the dataset follows a moving average or autoregressive process, as well as determining seasonal lags in the data.
Spectral analysis is used to look for possible long-range dependence. Since we expect patterns to occur at least monthly, annual, and possibly of higher orders such as bi-annual and 4-years, low-pass filters are used to study the low frequency patterns in the monthly rainfall dataset.

Finally, we fit an ARIMA model to our monthly data and test the model against the 2328 monthly observations in the dataset. We use the ARIMA model to make forecasts for the next 120 months (or the next ten years).

Results:




(?) Possible monsoon cycles are irregular, but tend to be around for years on average.

Evaluations:

The main objective of this paper is to make as much meaningful inference from one particular dataset. Hence, as much time-series analysis techniques were performed on the appropriate dataset, especially on the monthly rainfall data collected between 1813-2006.

? Displaying estimates on the log scale tends to emphasize the harmonic components. There is a necessity for having some relatively systematic procedure for deciding whether peaks are significant.

Appendix:
All-India rainfall dataset
R codes

Ein Deutsches Requiem

2010 Cathy Heifetz Memorial Concerts

Johannes Brahms

Ein Deutsches Requiem, Opus 45

I. Selig sind, die da Leid tragen - Chorus
II. Denn alles Fleisch - Chorus
III. Herr, Iehre doch mich -Baritone Solo and CHorus
IV. Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen - Chorus
V. Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit - Soprano Solo and Chorus
VI. Denn wir haben hie - Baritone Solo and Chorus
VII. Selig sind die Toten - Chorus

Me and Orson Welles is a great film about idealism, deception, and the facts of life.

Go watch it if you have the time!

Kathleen

Liszt Into Spring

Alice Chen
First Place Winner in the 2010 Concerto Competition
Franz Lisat's Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major

plus two richly evocative symphonic poems

Hamlet and Orpheus
and the exuberant Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

music.uchicago.edu

Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

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Reunion Committee: reunion@ard.uchicago.edu

1. Why this job
2. Why you are good at economics
3. What do you think you can bring to the table
4. Anything that you might want to bring to the table?

High academic achievement, especially in economics
Excellent writing and editing abilities
Ability to work independently on open-ended tasks
Excitement about everyday applications of economics (a la Freakonomics, Nudge, etc)
Interest in/knowledge of international and development economics is a plus but not required

My Personal Statement

I am a senior at the University of Chicago concentrating in Economics with a minor in Statistics. The truth was that I did not realized I would be interested in pursuing graduate studies after college. It was starting in my third year of College, when I more or less completed my degree requirement, that I started to develop a serious interest in Economics. It began with taking Econometrics and taking some of the electives from the department. Last Winter, I took a class on Topics in Economic Growth and Development.

I think an excellent introduction for anyone to the principles of Economics is to get excited about the applications of economic principle to any dimensions of life. This was certainly how I got interested in Economics when I was in high school. I was interested in the sciences, but social science appealed to me because it is concerned with how society as an organized structure functions, and what intrigued me the most about Economics was the micro and macro division. To date, perhaps the most approachable course I have taken at the University of Chicago is, incidentally, a course taught by Steven D. Levitt called 'Economics of Crime'. Professor Levitt has a very high ability to engage his students and to make them excited about the concepts. I would describe this course as very self-contained, however, the bigger picture that I believe a student should walk away is to learn how to apply the model and way of thinking to other dimensions in life. Understanding the drivers that motivate people, namely, that individuals respond to incentives, is a cornerstone to approaching any issue related to behavior, from decision making, and optimizing strategies.

I have excellent organizational skills in compiling information and performing research. I am also quite interested in the specific topics that this position calls for, namely in information dissemination. During my first and second year of college I was a staff writer for The Triple Helix, an undergraduate publication on science, law and society. I wrote my articles from an economic perspective, from the science of sleep to the economics of organic food. What I enjoyed the most about the article is learning something new and coming across something that may have a direct impact on how I think while doing research for the article.

I believe I would benefit from this position the most by taking a year off from academics and thinking seriously about what I would like to pursue for graduate studies. Along the way, I expect to be fully in touch with academics and to be exposed to economic and financial literature.

My other motivation for this position is that I consider myself a student who highly values good pedagogy. I sincerely believe that any academic discipline can be explained clearly and presented in an inspirational manner to any student. This is why good editing skills and a personal interest in the subject itself is important. In my previous work experience I have drafted concise reports, edited summaries, and always thought about the best way to present my findings and to convey information to my readers. I would like to apply those skills to producing a coherent and useful textbook. I would also like to see those ideas applied to social and development issues, something which I have a keen interest in with regards to applied microeconomics.

My Personal Statement


1. How I got interested in Economics
2. What I have been involved in over the last 4 years
3. Why do I want to apply for this position
4. How might this be related to my background?
5. What I hope to achieve in the future?

The path that led me to decide that I want to work in applied microeconomics in Economics was not a straightforward path. I was born in Hong Kong and spent the majority of my time living in a fairly multi-cultural and diverse background. Because of my father's occupation I moved around throughout my childhood. The places that I have lived and called home at some point in my life are Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore. Looking back, I did have a first-hand account of witnessing different stages of development in three different countries: I lived in Shanghai for six years in the from 1990-1996, during which time it was gradually opening its doors to foreign imports and the like. In Kuala Lumpur, I saw the building of the Petronas Twin Tower, which was then the tallest structure in the world. Finally, in SIngapore, which is my current home, I saw how a small island is transforming itself to one of the most admired and possibly best success story out of the South East Asian region. Nevertheless, apart from this background I was more interested in learning about theory and taking my college experience in stride.

College itself was an interesting experience to learn how to study effectively without compromising anything. It gradually became clear to me that while I might have an excellent preparation from high school, I had not encountered an immense variability in a teacher's ability to convey the information in planned manner. For example, most of the teaching duties are assigned to graduate students for many introductory classes, while full-time professors may only be hired for their research and not their teaching abilities. A lot of this I see as a model that I had not quite yet understood as a first-year. The learning curve was considerably harder in that respect. But I persevered and went through the class. It was only fairly recently, though not late that I thought hard about using my intuition to make sense of what I was learning. That made studying considerably easier - much easier and far more manageable than I had previously thought.

I became interested in applied microeconomics in my third year of college as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. Before that, when I was taking the core sequence of the major, most of what I was taught was fairly mechanical most of it was understanding how to use applied math. Last winter, I took an economics class on Growth and Development, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was an introduction to issues specific to the study of development, using basic tools in microeconomic and macro-economic analysis to identify fundamental features that might be common across developing countries. The topics that we studied include how agents optimize their options and make decisions subject to realistic constraint, from occupation choice model concerning different types of wage contracts, to micro-financing, where we studied how an entrepreneur might be able to take out a loan and how the structural constraints such as the size of one's community might affect how feasible such a scheme is.

I am particularly interested in modeling because of its intuitive use as a simplified representation of the real world, of which the mechanism can be used to explain a particular concept. As a theoretical construct to explain economic process, it is a useful framework from which one can use to test the assumptions using empirical work. I am interested in exploring academic research and become a part of real-world applications of economic concept. I followed this by choosing to use the remainder of my senior year in College to complete a minor in Statistics. The minor in Statistics heavily emphasizes on statistical methods and data analysis.

Finally, I have a personal aspiration to be involved in fieldwork that has a positive impact on local communities. I speak from personal experience growing up in South East Asia how much work should be done to address the economic argument that has perhaps been the fundamental distinction between the rich and the poor. Interestingly enough, and it has also been addressed in my Economic Development class, developing economies is a subjective a term, and obvious examples show that that there is a continuum of different development stages that countries experience and transition between. However, by understanding how dynamics work and influence the long-term path of the economies, it is possible to influence positive change through appropriate policy recommendations. Involvement in field work is not only a means but also an end to arrive at empirically verified facts about the many dimensions of economic development. We gain insight by designing experiments to test these ideas in the hope of obtaining something real and applicable that will make a positive change on our community.

I believe that I will benefit largely from this work experience and to gain a solid preparation prior to pursuing graduate studies. What Boston has to offer in particular is a great academic environment, a change that I look forward to after my time in Chicago. I imagine that my exposure to academic colleagues will be greater post college. There are already some ground rules that I have established for myself. For example, I found that I enjoy working on task when I can focus on it for a long period of time, but like variety in my work to maintain my interest and enthusiasm. Working for at least a year will give me more academic maturity and the time spent will allow me to build on my mathematical and statistical analysis abilities.

http://www.ditext.com/abbott/abbott_aims.html

http://www.ditext.com/mearsheimer/aimsofeducation.html

I think I've ****** ** **** **** ******* on the dance floor, and I don't even know much about him. The only thing that I do know about hims is that I'm quite attracted to him, am am thinking of things that are far to ahead, and things that I would have no idea if they will even happen.

I'm writing this down only because I realized that it's hard for me to think about anything else pressing. Anything that is utterly urgent for me to write down here. In this blog.