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Because i'm thinking alot about the slowdown in China, i pay extra attention to the headlines about the 2nd largest economy in the world. Recently they are increasingly worrysome. I haven't been able to come up with a good strategy to approach this weakness. But i already wanted to share some of the recent articles that are making me think hard about trading ideas.
Some articles may need some explanation. For example that Mercedes is selling it's cars at a discount may appear to be especially bad news to Mercedes but it is also a sign that they need to do this to keep demand up. The same thing with Prada and then there is the Goldman and Sachs article, they are missing out on IPO's over there. Now, thing is they have a reputation for being on the right side of deals, they reveal in the article that they are largely staying out of the Chinese IPO market because of the risk of underwriting. Meaning they are stuck with shares. Including the massive fees this tends to be a very profitable business but they are deeming this risk so severe that they are forgoing them.

Amazon recently launched a new app, to be used from smartphones, that is able to scan barcodes of physical products and compare them to their online prices. On the web there seems to be some controversy around this app.  Some see it as distastefull or even as the works of the evil multinational against the good old mom and pop shop.
Those who are so fiercely against this app thereby implicitely admit that shopping online is better "value". I use the term value as i think shopping online and live offer a different experience and this is an intrinsic part of the purchase. Physical shopping may be more expensive when prices are directly compared but there is no social aspect to it. Like making a day of it with your wife or daughter or family.

Eric Jackson wrote an interesting piece on shorting gold. What was particularly interesting to me, was that he listed the arguments of the bulls (i put them here in CAPS; and gave my counter argument next to it:
- QE3 IS COMING
Ofcourse but the FED is showing signs now of slowing down with the fullblown monetary easing.
- EUROPE IS CRACKING UP
Europe is, albeit slowly, starting to take action
- THERE IS A SUPPLY DEMAND IMBALANCE

Obviously i'm not going to brag everytime something goes right. This is just pure luck;
Gold futures sank $30 in electronic trading after the Federal Reserve released its policy statement Tuesday, adding to minor losses in the regular session chalked up to a higher dollar and reports Germany opposed a bigger regional rescue fund.
After the close, gold for February delivery GC2G -1.92% sank more than $30 and was recently down $29.10, or 1.8%, at $1,634 an ounce.

Fellow former poker player Kid Dynamite posted an interesting merger arbitrage opportunity on his blog. Merger arbitrage is traditionally a very dangerous field. It is commonly likened to picking up pennies in front of a bulldozer.
In this case it the bulldozer is there but it's moving slow and the penny looks more like a silver dollar..
"Gilead ($GILD) is buying Pharmasset ($VRUS) for $137 per share. VRUS’s main asset is an experimental drug that hopes to treat/cure Hepatitis C. The merger is being enacted by a tender offer, which was launched yesterday, and will expire January 12th, 2012, pending regulatory antitrust approval under HSR."

Just to clear something up. I'm not shorting GLD on the chart i i ncluded. I included the longterm chart of goldprices to show how it has run away from recent historic levels over the last ten years. To show that it has the shape of a bubble spike. I don't see any indications in this chart it should reverse. Trading gold can also hardly be done on fundamentals. Yet i'd like to reïterate; Gold was being bought to speculate against major inflation and the destruction of major currencies. Europe is regaining stability (albeit slowly), Europe is also fighting off deflation and although it's possible the focus will go back on the problems in the U.S (budget deficit, government default etc.) it's not currently there. And the focus might not remain so gloomy.

Cautiously i'm going to put on a short on GLD. The price has had an extreme runaway in the past. Has recently started to falter it's tremendous advance. Neither reasons to put my neck on the block. Yet the buzz it had for quite some time, setting high after high has gone away.
It lost some of it's appeal to add it to any stockportfolio as a hedge against market risk, given that it showed recently it can make sharp moves down in a short time. Some bulls have been arguing present and future demand from China. Recently i'm noticing more and more evidence of at least the chance of a significant downturn in the Chinese growth show.

The black swan title is derived from the discovery of black swans in Australia at a point in time when the prevailing opinion was that all swans are white. The philosophical argument that you can only disprove a theory by observation of events and never prove it.
Black swans in Nassim Taleeb book are events no one suspected to happen before they happen. It was written before the 2008 crisis and made a huge splash during it. For obvious reasons.
One of his philosophies that rings very true to any professional gambler is that luck is more important then skill in the achievement of most worldy results. Yet humans continuously overestimate their skill in succes and underestimate their own doings in any unexpected disasters.

When people ask me about the best investment. I answer that it is in their own health. I don't mean this in a hippie way. Actually it is pure math. A force that works strongly in your favour when investing is; time.
Compounded interest (Einstein called it the strongest force in the Universe) becomes tremendously powerfull over time. Being as healthy as you can manage to be is therefore a very strong investment tool. If your income (from all sources;investment and otherwise > living expenses. If it's the other way around, it's actually detrimental to the building of your portfolio but most likely still preferable.

Brief introduction;
For the most part i'm a medium- to longterm investor. I'm always interested in getting good trades on. And this blog is mostly about those shorter- to medium term trades. If i see value in currency plays, commodity trades or in hedging my stock exposure with a trade on a ETF or index future i will blog about my thoughts here. None of it should be taken as professional investment advice.