What really causes large price changes................

http://www.santafe.edu/research/publications/workingpapers/04-02-006.pdf

Maturity.............

is when the hair in your nose and in your ears grows far faster than the hair on your head. One of the nicest birthday presents was a nose hair trimmer that even works in the shower.

Big Numbers..........

Maybe the markets are due for a correction one of these years. The head dude at Goldman Sachs was awarded well over $50,000,000 in pay this year. The guy at Morgan Stanley who has only been there maybe 18 months has already made close to $70,000,000. Nothing wrong with either picture. Both stocks have done well. I hear the average bonus for employees at Goldman will be in the $600,000 range. Chump change really when compared to the $600,000,000 our man, Michael Milken, at my old firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert made in 1986.

Christmas addition .....

PNC Financial services every year counts up how much it would cost to buy everything in the 12 days of Christmas song. This year it would cost $18,920, which is up 3.1% from last year. Nice dancing ladies cost $4,759.

Life at 53 ...........

Birthdays are overdone..........we didn't do anything to obtain one, why we get presents is beyond me. I mean really, aren't we all just by-products of fleeting moments in time? Life should be celebrated every day. Every sun rise, every sunset. The lives of our children. All of the fleeting moments of the day. The bad days make the good ones that much better. We learn far more from the bad days which makes life easier for the great days ahead. For me at 53, the best is yet to come. It's good and it's getting better.

House of Morgan......Discover some arbitrations...........

Morgan Stanley is going to sell DISCOVER to pay for the 1,200 arbitration suits that will be reopened after the NASD gets done with their suit. How do you hide millions of emails is beyond me. It appears the NASD caught them and Mack, the $40 million dollar man, has tried to appease the regulators. Let justice prevail. Just more of the same when dealing with Wall Street. Small investors getting fleeced. As I always say, where there's smoke there's fire. This one will be a real blaze!

GOOGLE

Seldom do I mention individual stocks. Usually because the "never-made-a-mistake" crowd is quick to harp when one breaks down fairly soon after getting into the trade, which still happens often enough. When you play in the small-cap, momentum space it happens. Life isn't fair. To some, mattresses are for their cash and to lay on and worry about their lot in life. Yesterday, all of the shares we controlled in GOOGLE were dumped at the 474-475 mark. For all of you who yacked trash when we got into the trade at the 350 mark maybe you'll give me a couple of your winning ideas that will generate 125 points fairly quick. I'm waiting.

Pork, ethics, Wall Street............

The politico's in Washington can't spend it fast enough. The last-minute spending by Congress on pet projects was apalling. Sickening. Fraud on the American taxpayer. They can't police themselves. Off-loading the responsibility to police their ranks is admitting failure of their own ethics. And the law coming down on Franklin Raines of FannieMae fame is a pleasant surprise. Years late but better late than never. Now to get some of the corporate honcho's that have played the options-backdating game to the tune of hundreds of millions. No wonder Wall Street stockbrokers are held to the same levels of trust and integrity as used car salesmen by the public. Wall Street wouldn't do it, the SEC doesn't do much. Spitzer got it done.

Native American

I am a very guilty party. Politically correct types would call me guilty of conduct unbecoming the top dog at a suburban Atlanta money management firm. Frankly, I care less. Some big wigs lunch at the Capital Grill, others at Bones or the myriad of eateries around Atlanta that cater to the power lunch crowd. Me? I get into the Carhartt's and go check traps. Beaver traps, bobcat traps, fox traps, coyote traps. Lunch is trail mix and a Gatorade. It's close to Christmas in Dixie and there's fur to be had in the pines.

Beware of Deer Antlers......................

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (Dec. 14) AP Newswire- Two men were arrested on battery charges Thursday after a road rage incident led one to attack the other with deer antlers and then a handgun, authorities said. Ronny White, 35, and Keith Ransford, 23, both of Ft. Pierce, were booked at the St. Lucie County jail for alleged aggravated assault. Both were later freed on bond, said sheriff's Sgt. Andy McIntosh. A telephone message left for White was not immediately returned on Thursday. Ransford's telephone rang unanswered. "They got into a first altercation and the one guy tries to attack the second guy with deer antlers," McIntosh said. "It's not an everyday occurrence." White and Ransford allegedly got into an altercation while driving along U.S. 1 in Ft. Pierce, McIntosh said. The men stopped, and White allegedly attempted to attack Ransford with the deer antlers. Both men got back in their cars, crashed into each other, then stopped again about a block away, according to the sheriff's report. Ransford then allegedly rammed his vehicle into White's car. White pulled out a handgun and fired one shot into Ransford's vehicle, the report stated. Neither men suffered serious injuries. An investigation was ongoing.

from environmental writer, Michael Casey of the AP

Asia's economic boom has caused a surge in car and motorcycle sales, undercutting efforts to promote public transport in the region and clean up its dirty skies, delegates told a pollution conference Thursday.
While some Asian governments were praised for toughening vehicle emission standards, and most have phased out leaded gasoline, many of the region's big cities are doing little to enforce laws or establish effective bus and train networks, they said.
"Transport is growing faster in most cities so transport emissions are a big part of the problem," Lew Fulton, a transport expert with the U.N. Environmental Program, told the three-day Better Air Quality Conference 2006 in Yogyakarta.
The meeting — one of the biggest air quality conferences in the region — comes at a time when Asia has begun to address the bad air that has resulted from double-digit economic growth rates, especially in India and China. Soot from coal-fired power plants, greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and haze caused by slash-and-burn land clearing activities have all helped turn the region into the world's most polluted.
The World Health Organization said increased pollution in Asia is estimated to be causing as many as 537,000 premature deaths each year, as well as a rise in cardiopulmonary and respiratory illnesses. It is also having economic ramifications, with China saying it is cutting into its growth and Hong Kong fearing its foul air is scaring off investors.
Transport is taking center stage mostly because it is growing so fast, conference delegates said, causing massive traffic jams in many cities and contributing as much as 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the next 20 to 30 years.
"The speed of motorization is so fast in Asia. For example, vehicle fleets double in about five years in an average Asian country," said Cornie Huizenga, head of the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities which helped organize the three-day conference, attended by 900 government officials, researchers and activists.
The number of vehicles in China could grow by as much as 15 times in the next 30 years to more than 190 million, according to a study released Thursday by the Asian Development Bank, while the growth could be up to 13 times in India.
Correspondingly, carbon dioxide emissions from on-road transport can be expected to rise by 3.4 times in China and 5.8 times in India in the same period, the report said.
In less-developed countries such as Vietnam or Indonesia, the problem is motorbikes. Hanoi has gone from almost no motorcycles 10 years ago to 1.5 million today, according to the Swiss Vietnamese Clean Air Project. Indonesia's fleet has doubled in the past five years to 33 million, according to the government, dwarfing car ownership, which has also doubled to around 7.4 million.
With no sign of vehicle growth slowing, delegates called on governments to boost fuel efficiency standards. They also called for more spending on public transport projects such as bus ways in Indonesia or newly designed roadways to accommodate bicycles and pedestrians that are being considered in India.
More importantly, many experts said governments need to establish programs to test and enforce vehicle emission standards, limit the import of secondhand vehicles and consider taxes that would make new vehicles more expensive.
"There are a lot of laws that have been passed to improve the environmental conditions of cities but they need to be backed up by enforcement to ensure the desired effects are developed," said Jamie Leather, an ADB transport expert.
Indonesia reflects the challenges many countries are facing. They have enacted emission standards but have no system for emission testing. As a result, spot checks found that only 60 percent of gasoline powered and 10 percent of diesel powered cars met the standards, the government said.
"If we enforce the regulations, all these cars will have be garaged," said Ridwan Tamin, an assistant deputy for mobile source emissions for the Ministry of Environment. "So we have a social issue, you see. This gives you an idea of how much we have to do to curb this situation."

Up....................

Since the market bottom in August, the S & P 500 has averaged a gain of 2% every 3 weeks.

8.3 million acres...........

of water in the Outer Continental Shelf are now open for drilling. This acreage holds an estimated 5,800,000,000,000 (for those of you in Mandaree that is 5.8 trillion) cubic feet of natural gas. Think your natural gas bill might go down?

193 countries on the planet...........

and the nut running Iran openly decries the eradication of Israel. Enough is enough. Light the candle George. Better sooner than later.

Minerals Management Service...........

Let me give just another great example of how the Federal Government is shirking its trust responsibility to Native American tribes. A draft report released last week by the inspector generals office fo the U.S. Department of the Interior confirms suspicionsthat extractive industries have been cheating the federal government for years, and government officials have looked the other way. The Minerals Management Service is a department of the Department of Interior (just like the Bureau of Indian Affairs) and is charged with collecting, accounting for and distributing royalties from about 28,000 leases. To spur oil exploration in teh Gulf of Mexico, Congress directed that deep-water oil and gas leases be exempted from federal royalty payments of 12.5%. However, if oil prices ever rose above $36 a barrel, which they have, the payments were to be reinstated and those funds then credited to the reservations wehre the drilling occurred. Over the past decade, the Interior Department signed agreements with oil and gas companies that failed to include the provision intended to protect taxpayers if oil and gas prices moved up. The mistake was discovered at least 5 years ago, but Interior covered it up. Compounding the errors were repeated failures by the MMS to conduct thorough audits which of course is nothing new to Native Americans.

These transgressions are further evidence that the Cobell litigation must be settled in an expedient manner and damages awarded for the amounts that are rightfully owed to Indian Country.

Cold Winter...................

It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared. But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?" "It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?" "Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter." The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find. Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?" "Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever." "How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked. The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

Elsie Meeks speaking the truth.......................

For the past 20 years or so, my job and calling has been to promote economic development by assisting tribal community members with starting businesses. I have worked for many years at the grass-roots level on my home reservation of Pine Ridge, through the work of the Lakota Fund, the first-of-its-kind Native Community Development Financial Institution. For the past six years through my work at Oweesta, I have had the chance to work with tribes and Native communities all over the nation assisting them with starting CDFIs. These organizations are instrumental in helping community members start businesses or buy homes, and are crucial to boosting Native economies. Recently I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days with an American Public Media reporter who was doing a story on Native entrepreneurs. There is nothing like spending a couple of days with an inquisitive journalist to help a person view the situation with an outsider's eye. We spent time at the Cheyenne River and Pine Ridge Reservations in South Dakota where entrepreneurship is off to a good start, thanks primarily to the efforts of two Native CDFIs - Four Bands Community Fund and the Lakota Fund. Progress has been made, but trying to explain why our communities are still so economically far behind our neighboring off-reservation communities was a challenge. In some ways it goes beyond reason. We blame bad federal policy. We blame poverty. We blame the BIA, and we even blame our tribal council. However, as we are well aware, no amount of blame will fix the problem. Over the years I have had the opportunity to visit many other tribes and I currently have the great pleasure of sitting on the Board of Governors of the Harvard Project on Indian Economic Development Honoring Nations Program. Through these experiences, I have seen first-hand a number of tribes that have made enormous progress by making important changes in governance and tribal management in spite of poverty, the BIA, governmental structure and all the other issues that continue to afflict my tribe. Changes such as separating the judicial system from the tribal council and improving the court systems so that they are culturally appropriate but demand accountability can have a tremendous impact on creating a climate in reservation communities that is conducive to economic development. Others include the separation of business development from tribal council, adopting secured transaction codes and increasing government support of institutions like Native CDFIs that help individuals obtain economic self-sufficiency. The list goes on and on as to what tribes can do to improve their economic viability and that of their tribal community members. The question is - if one tribe can do it, why can't my tribe? The reporter and I talked about this for several days and, of course, having lived and worked at Pine Ridge I have many opinions about what it will take to change. But my thinking has changed over the last five years or so. This is a bold statement and will probably make a few people mad at me, but here it is: I don't think we really want to change! Of course, change is hard and it would take a great and deep effort on the part of many people. And, to be fair, there are a number of people that would like to bring about change. I would say that most of the tribal council members want change when they first get elected but, given the complexity of the issues, they are not in the least equipped to do it. Not many people are. They face an uphill battle fighting systems and engrained attitudes that won't allow change to happen. I said my thoughts about bringing about change have changed over time, and this is how. We need to find a starting place. I believe that the message is the starting point: a message about self-sufficiency and not dependency on the federal or tribal government, a message about individuals building wealth and assets, a message that says when we operate in ways that are responsible and accountable we will bring success to ourselves as individuals and to the tribe as a whole. How do we do this? By organizing like-minded people in each community and setting goals around these messages, with the ultimate outcome being the creation of private assets for our people. This is not another short-term fix. We have tried those for a century or so, and in my opinion things have gone from bad to worse. This is about creating lasting change. Even reflecting on my work at the Lakota Fund over the years, I believe that had our goal been to help people achieve and strive for wealth, we would have made different choices along the way. Our strategies may not have changed, but our techniques would have. I believe we would have worked more closely with the schools to promote personal financial management and job and business skills, and we would have implemented the same within the Lakota Fund's programs. As I said, we have made progress and there are more Lakota tribal member entrepreneurs on Pine Ridge than I see in many other Native communities, but they continue to struggle because many lack financial management and business management skills. They also operate their businesses in an environment that does not nurture small businesses. Make no mistake about it - waiting for treaties to be upheld will not move us down the road to self-sufficiency. Treaties should be upheld, but we have to begin this process of self-sufficiency and wealth building ourselves. Sovereign, independent nations cannot be built unless we have economically sovereign people. At the end of the day, it should be the job of our tribal leaders to provide the opportunities and a nurturing environment so that people can come to believe the message of hope. We have ''sold'' poverty for far too long. Let's begin selling opportunity. Elsie Meeks, Lakota, is the executive director of First Nations Oweesta Corporation in Rapid City, S.D. Visit Oweesta.org or Ournativecircle.org for more information.

Moon Shot..............

This boondoggle that NASA is embarking on is another testament to the expansion and out-of- control growth that the Federal Government under the Bush Administration is laying on the American taxpayer. It was George W.'s lasting legacy to his NASA pals in Texas. We don't need to lay out over $100,000,000,000 for this nonsense. For those of you in Mandaree that is one-hundred billion dollars.........not really chump change, even for a politician. Not now, not in your lifetime, not ever. Let's get these engineers to work on securing our borders, improving mass transit, making America a better place. And then spend some serious cash on things like finding cures for cancer and making dramatic and much-needed changes for Native Americans on reservations.

Catoosa 2006

Friday morning dawned with extreme "quiet" in the canyons of Catoosa. Except for the rushing water in the drainage below things were very still. I dislike being in the vicinity of other hunters on these public hunts and try to get back in to some of the areas where I've never encountered other hunters. It seems most just won't put in the effort to get into some remote areas where there are a lot of oaks and zero access for quads. My thought was that if the wind were to continue on Friday like it blew on Thursday I wanted to be above the leeward side of some of the canyons covering routes to thick cover and close proximity to heavy acorns. It was frankly impossible to get into the ridges without making so much noise. The frozen leaves were crackling afoot as I moved to the light of my GPS well before daylight. I didn't know the temperature as I have a Garmin GPS that is probably archaic to many of you and it doesn't give the temperature but growing up in very cold climates I knew it was cold and I had dressed appropriately.

When it was light enough to shoot I could hear the sound of hogs well ahead rummaging in the leaves for acorns on a narrow ridge. The sound carried much farther than I thought. Thoughts of emptying my BAR .243 at a nice band of hogs were in my head as I heard some good hog sounds but as I tried to quietly move closer they moved off the ridge in single file by their tracks and headed down into the thick timber that pine beetles have put on the ground in Catoosa. Nature sure has a funny way of thinning out the pines to continue the life cycle of acorn production for the food sources that depend on mast. It is not an overnight process either.

As the sun moved higher, the land of woodpeckers came alive in the morning light and flock after flock of the gutteral croaking birds called sandhill cranes filled the air as the artic blast of cold air moved them south on their winter migration. I heard a couple of volleys of shots way off in the distance and figured either a big buck was on the ground or a coyote had met its fate. It was a great morning to be in the wilds of Catoosa. I put in my time and effort and came out in the middle of the afternoon without firing a shot. My trail-mix, jerky and Snickers bars had served me well in keeping some fuel in my belly. I often think what Catoosa may have looked like a couple of hundred years ago when there were few trees on the land. I happened on some graves of people who had died about 150 years ago and put the location into my GPS in case I ever get my boys back in there and let them see the old headstones with names hand carved into the rock.

For the day, I saw one doe. It wasn't meant to be but there wasn't a place in TN I would rather have been. Was it worth the $20 stamp? Absolutely. Will I do it again next year? Absolutely.

Bottom line, it was just another great hunt.

--------------------
Dean T. Parisian
NRA Life, MN Trappers-Life, GA Trappers-Life, TN Fur Harvesters-Life.
Baiting is a signficant condemnation of a shooters ability to hunt.

Today...............

On this day in 1960, the Arctic National Wildlife Range was created in Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle. It was renamed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Today, more than 19-million acres of land are protected and many Alaska Natives disagree on oil drilling in the range.

Listen to Pine Ridge......................

Paste this in your browser...........

http://www.live365.com/stations/lakotacom?site=lakotacom

If there's a dollar involved Goldman Sachs will be there.............

Goldman Sachs has become the first bank to create a hedge fund replication tool in a move that could lead to a shake-up of the $1,300bn hedge fund industry.

The platform will greatly undercut the notoriously high fees of the hedge fund sector. Those investing through a fund of funds can end up paying annual charges of 4-7 per cent, with up to 50 per cent of their returns eaten up by fees. Goldman will charge a flat 1 per cent.

Goldman’s Absolute Return Tracker index (Art), is set to be among the first of a flood of hedge fund cloning products likely to be launched in a revolution being compared with the arrival of index trackers in the mutual fund world a generation ago. “There is a lot of dead wood in the industry – people who should not be running hedge funds,” said Harry Kat, professor of risk management at London’s Cass Business School, who has just launched his own hedge fund replication tool.

“A lot of them will leave the business, because people are smartening up. Index replication is going to become as important as it is in traditional long-only investment, with 30-40 per cent of the market.”

Replication strategies are based on academic research that suggests hedge fund performance is largely driven by movements in underlying markets, such as equity, bond and commodity prices, rather than the intrinsic skill of managers.

Goldman has spent two years developing the algorithm that underpins its platform. The performance characteristics of thousands of hedge funds will be fed into the system monthly and Art is designed to decompose these data and calculate the aggregate position of the hedge fund universe. This position can then be replicated, potentially allowing Goldman to generate hedge fund performance at a fraction of the cost.

Clones such as Art avoid the negative selection bias that bedevils existing investible hedge fund indices and funds of funds, due to the fact that few of the better hedge funds are open to new investment.

It will be far more liquid, with trading available on a daily basis.

“This may be ideal for any large institution that has been looking at hedge funds but doesn’t like the fact that it takes six months to put money [in] and to take it out again,” said Edgar Senior, executive director in Goldman’s fund derivatives structuring team.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

Huge numbers .....

Capital markets in the United States have $375 trillion in derivatives whose trading volume is half a quadrillion dollars per quarter. How’s that for madness?

Sanity in our markets is history. By way of comparison, US annual GDP is $12 trillion. In our markets 90% of NYSE trades are black box trades, not Mom and Pop in Mandaree loading up on Exxon and McDonalds. We have offshoring and outsourcing under the title of free trade and globalization dampening our economy. GM and Ford are on the edge of bankruptcy. Ford is shutting 15 plants and laying off another 45,000 workers making $31.64 an hour who will now make $10.00-$12.00 an hour if they can find work.

Big, real big numbers. And bigger questions.

So you want to manage your money like a hedge fund?

Have at it.

The ones people copy most are Appaloosa, Greenlight Capital, Lone Pine, ESL, and Icahn Partners. You can copy them by looking at their 13-F reports.

Appaloosa's 3 biggest holdings are Oracle, Micron, and Applied Materials, recent addition AMR, recent sale Mirant.

ESL's 3 biggest are Sears, AutoZone, and AutoNation. no recent additions, no recent sales.

Greenlight's 3 biggest are Ameriprise, Microsoft, and Hospira. Recent addition of First Data, recent sale of Live Nation.

Icahn's 3 biggest are TWX, Imclone, and American Railcar. Recent add of Hilton, recent sale of Symantec.

Lone Pine's 3 biggest are Brookfied Asset, GOOG, and Comcast. Recent add SLB, recent sale Research in Motion.

Or just call Chippewa Parners.

First "Pamelot" buck

I was in alot of great country this fall and took some great animals but this one may perhaps be the most memorable of 2006 simply because it was on our farm and was the first buck ever taken on it. I loaded my rifle in the driveway in the garage light and started walking in the dark. When first light came this youngster ran to me chasing a doe. It may be the last deer I ever shoot on the farm as my boys will be doing some damage to the whitetails in years to come but one thing is certain. You always remember your first.

Milton High School

I had the privilege this weekend to chaperone the Milton High School swim team to a swim meet up in Chattanooga, TN. What a great experience.

The student swimmers were the best. Fun, energetic and mature.

They are a credit to the school and their parents. Little did they know that it was motivating to see their dedication and team spirit at work. I was also proud of the MHS swim coaches. They took the right road when they had to. It was a job well done by all.

Did you know...................

There is a pretty cool Wine service called Vintrust. You buy wine, and store it at their facility. Then, you can trade wine back and forth with people, and all it does is require the moving of the barcode on the bottles. They have about 2 million bottles under management.