Saturday, October 29, 2011

Trick or Treat? (ot: tablet post too)

I haven't been posting much. I was under-invested during this record rally in the stock market. The broad SPY is up about 20% off its lows at 107 in just a few weeks. Many traders missed the bull boat. That huge wall of worry was scaled and the market moved up. Some that missed out are writing angry missives about how it is a trick, that the fundamentals haven't changed. Well, how much did they change to drive the market down to 107?

I also missed this 5% gold rally off the lows, and 9% bond market move lower. I've been writing about October/November as the time to turn bearish on bonds. Looks like I waited too long to pull the trigger on establishing bearish positions (eg: long TBT or short TLT).

I am going to stray into an off topic subject, the buying of gadgets. There is a Best Buy commercial where a guy buys a 3D TV and then see's an ad for a 4D version. So it is with my new tablet, it is Android 3.2 and they just announced version 4.0. A person can always wait. My original plan was to buy one in September, but nothing offered for sale then was compelling enough for me to buy.

My new tablet is an Archos 80 G9 with an 8" screen. It feels like a steep learning curve for Android coming from Windows. Many times I throw up my hands trying to do what seem to me the simplest of things, or irritating bugs. No mouse, no keyboard, make for a very different interface. The main reasons I choose the Archos, are the 8" screen is about the perfect size for me, and the expandability. The 7" tablets are about 40% smaller in square inches, and the Ipads and other 10" tablets are about 30% larger. I made paper cut outs of each size of tablet, and the middle at 8" is the right zone for me. The Archos takes micro SD cards for more memory, and offered 3G expansion with a USB plug in. Unfortunately, I learned too late, that the 3G for the Archos only works in Europe and there are no current plans to have one for the U.S.

No comments: