A.I.M. Users Bulletin Board

[SFSecurity]

Hi Art, Thanks for your kind words.

I had already seen Robinhood and wrote them asking about their security. They pointed me to an almost meaningless FAQ. Very annoying, especially since my background for the last 20 or so years has been information security.

If this type of app becomes common then we are likely to see a rise in cell phone hacking because, except for the Blackberry which has a hardware module for this function - much, much harder to crack, they are all quite vulnerable. For example the iPhone recently implemented a 6 character encryption code. All well and good but..., well, ever since the Pentium Pro cracking an 8 character code can be done in under 3 minutes. The FBI demonstrated this at Moscone Center at least 15 years ago. Look up Rainbow Tables if this interests you. Brief abstract of an improvement is at http://lasec.epfl.ch/php_code/publications/search.php?ref=Oech03 that is worth reading. I could bore you with a bunch of additional information about hacking but I won't. Aren't you lucky?

Back to the basic theme, grist for the AIM mill. Backtesting is great but how many stocks, ETFs, and other possibilities are there? Too many to be realistic for each of us to do them all, so what we need are some metrics to screen out the least likely to work with AIM. That way we can realistically do backtests and create virtual AIM positions that we can manage. 100? I doubt any of us have the patience to do that many virtual AIM positions, I sure don't. So the goal is to create a screening mechanism and metrics to get the number we need to look at under control.

Tom talks about doing an analysis of a potential position just to see if it is worthy of looking at. I did that on one position but missed a key fact and so was lucky to get out with my skin intact. Had I had a rubric to consult as I evaluate a position I would have been told to look at the lifespan of a trust. But I lost less than $100 even though I could have done much worse. Bound to happen as selection is never perfect, especially given the strange things happening around the world and how interlocked all of our economies are. Oil is down causing the Russian ruble to go down, but wait, that is great for the EU which gets the bulk of its oil and gas from Russia. So what will be the outcome of this in the middle of winter? Are the EU countries already locked into contracts at a higher price than current market or not? What effect will this have on American exports what with the strengthening dollar, especially given the current sanctions by both the US and EU over the Ukraine and Russia's Crimea grab?

I have no clue and I doubt anybody has much more than guesses. So what do we do, avoid anything that might go down, and might not go back up, because it is somehow related to trade with Russia? If you have any ideas as to what all that includes you have a much better crystal ball than I have, or maybe it is a Ouija board and planchet that speaks to you. Can I look over your shoulder?

Back to selecting things that are interest to us. Yeah, I'd rather do positions that interest me but on the other hand my tastes are not necessarily the same as the market's so I want to be a bit adventuresome and try those strange items on the menu. What is that they are eating over at that table? Looks interesting, maybe I should try it.

In any case Best to you and those you hold most dear, now and in the New Year,

Allen