The figures are really amazing poker, last 5 days broke the Guinness record is the biggest online tournament in which more than 35,000 participants competing for a prize of $ 500,000. Last month, John "The Razor" Phan was elected the best player of the year in which he won a whopping $ 2,075,323 while the pasta was over was Tom Dwan "durrrr", which rose as much to 5.37 million dollars.
Although if we have to find a major, we have until 1928 to go to a bar in Chicago run by Al Capone and his henchmen. A place of dubious reputation, but luxurious, and very popular, frequented by politicians and tycoons of the time. The excesses of the place, alcohol, drugs and the excitement of the game itself, taking the audience back to fabulous figures. As well, the main table in the casino, where he played the most important was reached to form a pot of more than $ 2 million (corresponding to approximately 20 million today).
The boat went to the hands of a bold player, who, with just a trio of two, was forcing his rivals to abandon the table. His identity remains unknown, but there are those who argue that it was a close associate of Capone, but there are those who believe that it was a federal agent who was allowed to win the game.
So if there are many poker is a game, a business or a sport. What is clear is that those who do win by more than luck. The other day, via meneame saw an interesting article titled "All I know of what I learned from negicios Poker" which will translate rabbits which I found most interesting and applicable to anyone who is encouraged to invest some time in their life.
Assess business opportunities
- The election of officers is the most important decision you can make
- Changing table is OK if you see that it is very difficult to win
- If there are too many competitors (some inexperienced or irrational) is harder to win, even if you are the best.
Finance
- Always ready for the worst case scenario.
- The player who wins more hands is not always the most wins in the long term.
- The player who never loses a hand is not always the most wins in the long term.
- Go to the game with expectations of more value to the less risky
- Be sure that your savings are large enough to play and the risks they are taking.
- Play just as you are willing to lose
- Remember, it's a game for the long term. Win or lose individual sessions, but only the final result ..
Strategy
- Do not play games that do not understand even if you see other people making money with them.
- Do not cheat. Cheaters never win in the long term.
- Be faithful to your principles.
- You need to adjust your style of play throughout the night and the dynamics of the game changes. Be flexible.
- Be patient and think about the long term.
- Players with more strength and focus generally earn.
- Hope is a good plan.
Continuous Learning
- Educate. Read books and learn from what others have done before.
- Learn doing. The theory is good but nothing replaces the experience.
- Learn rodeándote talented players.
- By the mere fact of having won one hand does not mean you're good, you have a lot to learn. He could have just been lucky.
- Do not be afraid to ask for advice.
As you can see, the councils are the most sensible and very applicable to your business, investments and other factors of life.
And finally, the usual summary of news:
(92 votes, average: 4.32 out of 5) 
Loading ... Written by Carlos Lopez on January 8, 2009 with 231 comments
As happened last year with the famous financial crisis, sometimes gives the impression that the foundations of our society, economy and living standards in general are not too strong. We have a delicate situation the monetary side, on the other the various confrontations political / military (as in Israel now) and finally the controversial status of certain raw materials, which is what I want to talk today.
There is a raw material that is now indispensable to our modern lifestyle and we should not look or corrupt oil wells or bloody diamond mines, we have to go to Congo, where soldiers are fighting (with more than 4.000.0000 dead in this war) to take care of these sites are so valuable that 80% of the world's a highly strategic mineral. Mines in which more than 30,000 people working every day on a semi-manual workers with children their most coveted because of the small size of their hands ... and how little they complain.
We speak of coltan (Columbia-Tantalum), a key part of the electrolytic capacitors, which are used in almost all electronic devices: mobile phones, GPS, satellites, plasma TVs, laptops, etc.. Between February 2000 and January 2001 (less than one year), the price of pound of tantalum in the London Metal Exchange rose from 180 to 950 €. Interestingly one of the biggest exporters in this area in the world is Rwanda (where extraction is non-existent) due to illegal traffic through the border.
Rescue the following paragraph from Wikipedia:
The exploitation of coltan, especially in Congo, has caused several controversies over the potential social and environmental level. The exploitation of this resource has fueled conflict between local factions, supported, in some cases, by foreign governments such as Uganda. This poses a moral dilemma similar to the marketing of diamonds from war. Other concerns arising from the extraction of coltan through the exploitation of workers who participate in it or the destruction of ecosystems, as most sites match the habitat of endangered gorillas.
In El Pais, recently made an interesting story in which we see changes in the price of this material has led to corruption to another.
The exploitation of coltan remains today in Congo, but has lost weight because of declining prices that has suffered in recent years. "Today is cassiterite which is giving the highest cases of child exploitation and forced labor," says Carina Tertsakian of the NGO Global Witness, which specializes in denouncing the exploitation of mineral resources in Congo. The mineral, which is extracted from the tin, an essential component of many alloys, dominates the eastern part of Congo, the most shaken by foreign intervention and fratricidal strife in the country.
So here we find the cassiterite, which together with the wolframite is facing the same problem (I had not heard of them in my life).
As you can see, a raw material completely unknown and forgotten by the media and international governments is essential to our daily lives. Much support all measures against the "diamond war" and not affect us, but what we would be able to do the same for the "mobile warfare"?.
So I leave with you to complete the summary of the press (written from a PC full of coltan):
(120 votes, average: 4.13 out of 5) Loading ... Written by Carlos Lopez on January 7, 2009 with 235 comments
We will make a theoretical exercise based on a premise that could be wrong but I believe the most likely: the intervention of the state has managed to avoid the collapse of the financial system. What does this mean? That people still rely on their banks despite its management problems and that the banks have gained enough time, thanks to the liquidity injected by the government to go face-payments desapalancando and go on their investments.
Suppose that this time they are gaining the banks are getting a mixture of public money and get better returns on their deposits, to pay all his debts and some of them are due. The problem is that these debts do not become unpayable and that no bank has managed to break, so do not leave debts to another, but that does not prevent the risk of customers who can not bear the cost of credit because they happen to unemployment or companies that have suspended payments. What is clear is that with this picture, and many who want to give speeches so as ECB policy makers, banks can not (and certainly not if they should) take risks with their money and buy new assets until it unless previous debts have been reduced to reasonable levels. The sharp reduction in rates worldwide who are benefiting most issuers of debt, and these are almost exclusively in the states, and before they have a variable rate but little impact on new loans. If everyone agrees that delinquencies will rise is absurd to claim that increasing the number of potential defaulters in the future. Why, if they are to close more business, will increase unemployment, asset prices will continue falling ...? Any new investment is a risk too high. This also includes the shares, but may slow its fall to raise needed to make the future better than the present, something that does not seem close.
Therefore I believe it is impractical to think of an exit from the crisis in the short term (and that includes this year) as the most positive that can happen is that economic activity will slow down long enough for the financial system recovered and this time the borrowing capacity of states to obtain and maintain adequate funding to mitigate the impact on society of all this. That can not raise taxes, which can pay unemployment, can ensure that pensions, which can invest in public works and so on. etc. That is the key for me, but the duration of this process the real economy will get worse, and this is something that few doubt.
And if I said that this option would be more positive because the alternative is that states can not assume the role they have chosen to take during 2008 and already can not leave. This crisis could have been developed assuming the inefficient state enterprises, banks or not they should break from the start but the U.S. and United Kingdom rejected that option and the rest of the world are convinced the same thing after the collapse of the stock market later the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Perhaps we are never sure if that option would have been better, as a theoretical exercise is because today you can not go back, so the dilemma is whether any state may now fail.
It would be normal for this to happen, happen in countries that currently have more risk premium on international markets: Latin American countries, countries of Eastern Europe ... This unpaid debt could be assumed by the over-indebted economies of most "developed"? Presumably not, then that would be the slowdown becomes collapse, one that appeared to have avoided in the first paragraph, this would lead to protectionism, both as an excuse policy (which is already being used, what to buy only domestic products, for example) as by distrust, the fear among banks would have happened to a lack of global security and would lead to a decline in world trade. This scenario it would be very similar to the early 1930, amplified by the current speed of developments and the global economic interconnectedness.
If that scenario occurs political radicalism, xenophobia, violence ... would suffer a significant increase. In theory, China could emerge strengthened from this situation, as the tight control over the population and could stifle such revolts maintain its industrial production in convulsos times but this is very risky because as I said before protectionism (which the U.S. or the EU or both decide to save their businesses dramatically raise tariffs on imports for example) could damage its entire economic framework.
In short, although we all rush out of the crisis, I believe it is necessary for economic activity to slow down long enough to heal. We learn from mistakes and control bubbles and credit is important but it must leave and I do not think it has shortcuts to resolve the current situation. For the good of the planet is required to assume that we are entering a phase of stagnation and ordinary citizens should arm of patience ...
(206 votes, average: 4.42 out of 5) Loading ... Written by Droblo on January 5, 2009 with 242 comments
Personal comment.
Finally in December has proved to be a months-bullish except China and Dow Jones, which is not happening! Since April! but whose only contribution to value in this bearish trend has been less volatile. But it has managed to close the minimum years away, but we must remember that 20% of which half has been bounced from the ground just means that it is 10% of current prices. Here is a box the major indexes in 2008 month by month:
January is supposed to be another key bag is the month where you can clearly see if the liquidity that is ready to address the equity or not and their importance is such that, as shown in this graph , which is positive or not in January usually marks the trend of the year:
(Even the other day I read that it is the month that more money entering the casinos of Las Vegas)
The fact is that we are in times of good intentions and what can be best intentions to learn from the mistakes of the past year. This translated into stock market, I think trust is summarized in the trend and never placed against her. I understand the monumental cabreos (and justified) of those who bought shares of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers and so on. confident in the words of directors of these companies or the Paulson ensuring the viability and strength of these companies but they did not fall in price from day to day, was a process in which it was made clear its bearish trend. The worst thing is that I believe many of the small investors who are hooked on these values when they did precisely this tendency was more pronounced, confusing a low price with a cheap price. It is wrong to sell when the trend is bullish but it's a price to be paid in exchange for peace. However, not to sell or buy when the trend is bearish, causing loss of money and psychological pain because the fund is an attitude that reflects that is created that makes it smarter than the vast majority of market participants . Every day traded stocks of companies that are not in bankruptcy because banks will not grant new loans to increase their bad debt and other business benefits that have never given, nor when the economy was doing well, others have a clear downward trend others that these three conditions happen at once ... and many small investors are still hooked on them waiting for a miracle ... I am not saying that nobody dispose of their investments in this kind of values but at least not again make the mistake again to do something.
Are we fiaremos this year's predictions of the experts?.
Are famous in the market and the wrong predictions about the IMF's global growth, the ministers of economy when making the State Budget, the analysis of the houses and gurus ... but there are some institutions which still maintain a certain prestige. One is the FED. Is it a bug?
According to the work done by David Reifschneider and Peter Tulip and after study from 1986 to 2006 all the predictions of the EDF, the budget office of Congress, the White House and private sector projections made by the Blue Chip Consensus and the index of professional forecasters, we find that all fail more or less the same. Here are details:
According to the study, 70% of the time everyone is wrong in the correct range that has predicted it will reach the next deduction after refine calculations historical statistics:
- There is a 70% chance that growth next year is just a 1.3%! higher or lower than indicated by the EDF in its forecast range.
- For years the range of error is going up or down to 1.4 points. (This I find it really strange, almost in the same mistake with the most closest and most distant).
The curious thing is that it assumes that the EDF, with its deployment of resources and information, should get better numbers, but not more than all other market players. This proves two things:
- Said that what the FED has to put more value to the EDF for the reliability of their predictions.
- Try to predict that the economy is so difficult that neither those who have more and better information in the world are able to succeed. That is why I emphasize the need to be humble.
A very good thing we can say about the EDF: exercising self smoothly since that study was released by the EDF ¡!
(as a joke figure said some time ago I read in the newspaper DNA, who knows a lot of economy has a better chance to get the direction of the markets as he knows a lot of football to hit the quiniela)
PS - Speaking of experts, they say that January 15 the ECB will lower the official rate at 2%.
(more ...)
(72 votes, average: 4.08 out of 5) Loading ... Written by Droblo on January 2, 2009 with 181 comments
By end 2008, just as in January that comentabamos leap years bring bad luck and has been for the world economy. Therefore, it's time to get pole and see what we commented in early 2008 to analysts, this rescue this special Expansion published a year ago.
Macroeconomics
Investment firms such as Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Espirito Santo predict growth rates above 4% globally, even reached 4.5%. From entities such as Citigroup cut something that optimism is at around 3.4%. This percentage will be largely overcome by the increases of close to 7% GDP to maintain the emerging countries.
Interest rates
The rate cuts will continue in the United States, and the consensus of analysts stands at 3.5% in late 2008.
Despite inflationary pressures, and the resistance shown so far by the European Central Bank, the euro zone seems to be enjoying in 2008 about lower interest rates than in 2007. 4% now remains as a reference to the end of 2008 analysts think more reluctant to lower rates, but most of the investment firms in establishing an official price forecasts of the money at 3.75%.
Bags
The upward cycle of exchanges will continue in 2008. At least not in the lowered estimates of analysts for next year. The evolution of the global economy and corporate profits, coupled with some still attractive valuations, would go a step further increases that are repeated year after year in the world stock markets since the end of the "technology bubble" since 2002.
Revaluations expected for global equity range between 5% and 15%.
Oil
With oil, the investment firms reiterated forecasts for 2008 volatility, going hand in hand with some predictions of a modest correction in oil prices. After reaching almost $ 100, several investment firms put the average price of a barrel for 2008 of around $ 75.
In the always contentious Cotizalia McCoy made an interesting article entitled the 20 economic surprises (negative) 2008, in which, despite being very pessimistic, we would like to meet. We leave their forecasts for first 5 we see that he was not so desencamindado.
The real estate depression of 2007 becomes recession in private consumption in 2008.
Corporate profits fall 10%.
The S & P500 index depreciating by between 5% and 10%.
The volatility has picked up even more. Movements of plus or minus 1% -2% become in our daily bread.
The Federal Reserve rates low, 0.25% in each of its meetings in 2008.
If you throw the library (well, of Google) we will find that there were many negative forecasts, but mysteriously only gave credibility and publicity to those who predicted increases and good news.
They say that 2008 is a year to forget, but I think this is quite the contrary, we are talking about a year to remember and not the same mistakes again, back again to the sometimes forgotten premise that any savings should have in mind is that in any investment, risk is directly proportional to its profitability and investment is no exception to this rule. And if you do, because sooner or later end up editing
Happy 2009 to everyone.
(114 votes, average: 4.48 out of 5) Loading ... Written by Carlos Lopez on December 31, 2008 with 189 comments
On June 20, 1963, shortly after the missile crisis in Cuba, which was about to lead the third world war, the United States and Russia to see the need to maintain communications fluídas decided to set up a hotline linking Washington to Moscow. To avoid misunderstandings verbal, that is dicidió line was only written communication. It was first used in 67 during the six days of war between Israel and Egypt.
In the 70 modernized with the use of verbal communication using two satellites, one American and one Russian, since 1986 the line intecarmbiar quickly allows a large number of documents, including photos like this has happened during the war in Iraq.
As you can see, a simple mechanism for direct communication and clear we could hold a nuclear holocaust, the idea is so attractive that India and Pakistan now have another "phone" of this type, because both are nuclear powers and have a conflict the Kashmir region.
Exactly one year ago, another phone communicating with a real estate bank received a call that fateful dyed red the Spanish property market.
"That call to his mobile phone marked the beginning of chaos in the Spanish property sector. At the end of that conversation, we are entering terra incognita. " These words, uttered by a former counselor at the Colonial Real Estate, referring to the ultimatum made by a senior executive of a major financial institutions to the president of Spanish Colonial, Luis Portillo, a few days before the Eve of 2007, exactly one year.
As if it were a new missile crisis in Cuba, was launched in an ultimatum demanding that the bank guarantees to Colonial submit to the huge personal debt that had subscribed to purchase shares of the company. Two days after the 37% value empresda companies.
At midnight from 28 to 29 December 2007, the head of the president of Colonial, the Louis XVI brick, rolled on the gallows of the crisis, putting an end to the era of the real estate sector Versailles.
Forty-eight hours later in the day's Eve, Expansion reported the start of the process of selling the first Spanish property, which would last until summer 2008.
The same story has been repeated in most businesses, the day came from endorsing the huge debts incurred during the period of calm, its assets were not sufficient. The list is long and includes those who were heavyweights in the Spanish stock exchange: Metrovacesa, Fadesa, Habitat, Tremón, Cosmani, Lábaro and many more who came to losing around 80% of its market capitalization.
The outcome is close and not look very promising.
The main consultants are already working on the valuation of property assets to be attached to the annual accounts of companies from January. There is unanimity among all the consultants: the fall in the value of assets, particularly housing, is at the moment, 30%, far more than official statistics show that nobody believes. It is unknown whether the decline has bottomed out.
Thus, we see that having a communication with "the enemy" is critical for the periods of war and while the ministry of housing instead of offering a high quality gives us some statistics of the most dubious. We look to this study to be published today and see if they have finally decided to update your phone.
(115 votes, average: 3.92 out of 5) Loading ... Written by Carlos Lopez on December 30, 2008 with 277 comments
