There is a new prime-time game show on NBC that is the first purely probabilistic game show that I have ever seen. The rules are simple. You start out with a number of briefcases containing amounts from $0.01 to $1,000,000. Choose a briefcase. Then as each round progresses, you pick a particular briefcase to open to reveal it's contents. You then must either stay with your original briefcase choice or make a "deal" with the "banker" to accept its cash offer in exchange for whatever dollar amount is in your chosen case.
I've watched a few episodes and observed the following: (a) contestants don't recognize that this is a purely probabilistic game that has a simple optimum strategy for which they can prepare in advance (b) as long as there are large numbers on the board they usually continue to play and eventually give up once all the large numbers and the incentive they provide are gone (c) the friends contestants bring, usually help form a consensus to continue longer than indicated by the optimum strategy by encouraging the contestant to be "daring". The family usually has a somewhat more moderating effect because they can use the money, unless some kid becomes the "decision maker", in which case he usually acts like a "friend".
While the game is utterly devoid of any intellectual content outside of the realm of probability, I found it a useful lesson in market-like pricing mechanism in action. It's superficially similar to the "Sultan's Dowry" problem but simpler because no initial discovery is needed.
Parisian Family Office, Founder & CEO. Started Wall Street, '82. Drexel Burnham alum in LaJolla, CA. Founded Native American Advisors, Chippewa Partners. '95. Chippewa. Conservative. Raised on reservations. Was NYSE/FINRA arbitrator. Trading O'Neil/CANSLIM methodology at PAMELOT, TN farm, GHOST RANCH, MT, on the Yellowstone River, or CASA TULE', their winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Will always be, a relentless optimist with radical gratitude.
Parisian Family Office, Founder & CEO. Started Wall Street, '82. Drexel Burnham alum in LaJolla, CA. Founded Native American Advisors, Chippewa Partners. '95. Chippewa. Conservative. Raised on reservations. Was NYSE/FINRA arbitrator. Trading O'Neil/CANSLIM methodology at PAMELOT, TN farm, GHOST RANCH, MT, on the Yellowstone River, or CASA TULE', their winter camp in Los Cabos, Mexico. Will always be, a relentless optimist with radical gratitude.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Death in the Nest.............
On the way home this morning from taking my youngest son to school and dropping off a basket for our spring carnival I noticed a pile of feathers on the shoulder of the road near my neighborhood. I had been on the road last night about 9:15 pm and hadn't noticed the feathers and curiousity got the best of me so I turned around and went back to see what type of bird was the owner of said feathers.
I knew immediately when you see feathers on a birds legs all the way down to the talons. For years Great-horned owls have been a fixure in our neighborhood. Often waking me up. Often watching their silent flight at early dawn moving back into a 22 acre of woods across the street that they have called home for years. The bird was probably low in flight and was hit by a car last night.
Great-horned owls are the first birds to breed in the calendar year. Something to do with having great feather protection to ward off late winter cold as well as having an ample food supply for their young while the spring vegetation is not thick and provides better hunting opportunity for the birds to feed their young. The dead owl this morning surely had young in the nest. The lonely hooting which subsides during the early days of raising their young may not be heard for a while. I hope the remaining adult bird can feed the young birds and get them into adulthood.
Death comes to predators as well. Even great predators.
I knew immediately when you see feathers on a birds legs all the way down to the talons. For years Great-horned owls have been a fixure in our neighborhood. Often waking me up. Often watching their silent flight at early dawn moving back into a 22 acre of woods across the street that they have called home for years. The bird was probably low in flight and was hit by a car last night.
Great-horned owls are the first birds to breed in the calendar year. Something to do with having great feather protection to ward off late winter cold as well as having an ample food supply for their young while the spring vegetation is not thick and provides better hunting opportunity for the birds to feed their young. The dead owl this morning surely had young in the nest. The lonely hooting which subsides during the early days of raising their young may not be heard for a while. I hope the remaining adult bird can feed the young birds and get them into adulthood.
Death comes to predators as well. Even great predators.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Our focus at Chippewa Partners
“Dad worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and we lived on many Indian reservations across the Great Plains. Growing up, the hills of the Sisseton-Wahpeton tribe on west to the Big Horn Mountains on the Crow Reservation were home to me. It was near Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota I spent my high school years. Only 80 years before, Hotckiss guns were carefully trained on a group of terrified and disarmed Sioux. It wasn’t a battlefield at Wounded Knee, like historians suggest, it was an assassination; as were America’s first freedom fighters; Sitting Bull, Dull Knife and Geronimo. The carnage continues today as the Indian Affairs Trust Office still can not account for two billion dollars of Native American fund transfers. This company was founded to manage serious wealth for those tribes and tribal members who understand that casino gaming alone is not the answer to viable long-term economic success.”
From a conference in New York City; “My Story: From Wounded Knee to Wall Street”
NATIVE AMERICAN FOCUS
Chippewa Partners is the oldest Native American investment management firm, founded in 1995, with 100% Native American ownership. Our scholarship for Native American students speaks clearly of our promotion of Native American economic development and empowerment. Today, for both reservation and urban Native Americans, human capital development is the critical step in building an economic base in Native American communities.
Why should Native Americans do business with Chippewa Partners? We believe that Native American tribes, institutions and individuals should endeavor to cultivate relationships with other Native American businesses that offer high quality, competitive products and services. We know this growth of business enterprise is a positive development for the Native American community.
Native Americans helping Native Americans.
At Chippewa Partners we are committed to the growth of Native American wealth, even for the generations of Native children yet unborn. The American Indian Trust Fund Reform Act places further responsibility on Native American fiduciaries to make sure that Native American assets are invested prudently with investment management firms and not Wall Street brokerage firms.
Our philanthropic interests lie in the area of Native American scholarships. The Chairman of Chippewa Partners, Dean T. Parisian has endowed a significant scholarship at the University of Minnesota specifically for Native American students in the areas of business, economics and finance.
Please consider this unique and important proposal when considering professional investment management services. Chippewa Partners, when managing Native American assets, has a policy of establishing permanent endowment funds that are created with a dedicated percentage of our investment management fees as well as a unique commission recapture program. This is a very unique and valuable program whereby over 70% of all trading commissions are rebated to Native American clients to create scholarships for Native Americans students for that specific tribal organization.
We encourage tribal fiduciaries to examine our 25 years of experience and study. Portfolios are separately managed and customized to meet specific investment objectives. For further information please call us in strict confidence at 770-772-1621 or contact us at ChippewaPartners@aol.com.
From a conference in New York City; “My Story: From Wounded Knee to Wall Street”
NATIVE AMERICAN FOCUS
Chippewa Partners is the oldest Native American investment management firm, founded in 1995, with 100% Native American ownership. Our scholarship for Native American students speaks clearly of our promotion of Native American economic development and empowerment. Today, for both reservation and urban Native Americans, human capital development is the critical step in building an economic base in Native American communities.
Why should Native Americans do business with Chippewa Partners? We believe that Native American tribes, institutions and individuals should endeavor to cultivate relationships with other Native American businesses that offer high quality, competitive products and services. We know this growth of business enterprise is a positive development for the Native American community.
Native Americans helping Native Americans.
At Chippewa Partners we are committed to the growth of Native American wealth, even for the generations of Native children yet unborn. The American Indian Trust Fund Reform Act places further responsibility on Native American fiduciaries to make sure that Native American assets are invested prudently with investment management firms and not Wall Street brokerage firms.
Our philanthropic interests lie in the area of Native American scholarships. The Chairman of Chippewa Partners, Dean T. Parisian has endowed a significant scholarship at the University of Minnesota specifically for Native American students in the areas of business, economics and finance.
Please consider this unique and important proposal when considering professional investment management services. Chippewa Partners, when managing Native American assets, has a policy of establishing permanent endowment funds that are created with a dedicated percentage of our investment management fees as well as a unique commission recapture program. This is a very unique and valuable program whereby over 70% of all trading commissions are rebated to Native American clients to create scholarships for Native Americans students for that specific tribal organization.
We encourage tribal fiduciaries to examine our 25 years of experience and study. Portfolios are separately managed and customized to meet specific investment objectives. For further information please call us in strict confidence at 770-772-1621 or contact us at ChippewaPartners@aol.com.
First Nations Training......Rapid City
My absence from the office for a couple days in South Dakota was great. It's so refreshing to see a solid attempt to gain a foothold in financial literacy across so many communities and "fronts" in Indian Country. It was impressive.
The trainers were excellent. Spirited, objective and willing to listen.
First Nations is on to something here. It is a great beginning.
I am glad to to have had the opportunity to help. A guru I am not. Just a regular guy who without the loving concern and tough love of his parents would have probably never made it out of Pine Ridge, SD let alone to the canyons of Wall Street.
The trainers were excellent. Spirited, objective and willing to listen.
First Nations is on to something here. It is a great beginning.
I am glad to to have had the opportunity to help. A guru I am not. Just a regular guy who without the loving concern and tough love of his parents would have probably never made it out of Pine Ridge, SD let alone to the canyons of Wall Street.
Native American Focus..............
It was in high school that Dean Parisian realized he wasn't the typical American kid. Today he feels that life on various reservations surrounded by poverty and neglect served him well as a training ground for the challenges of Wall Street. Dean is an enrolled member of the White Earth Reservation and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Being Indian is more than an ethnic label and has influenced his every step, from the rough, often hopeless world of the reservations, to an appointment at West Point, an officer at several major Wall Street firms, and as President of Native American Advisors, Inc., an independent investment management firm. Dean is a seasoned professional and for many years has seen the unfortunate mismanagement of Indian assets. Native American Advisors, Inc. is a money management firm that provides investment counsel and management services to individuals, corporations, retirement plans, Tribal Colleges and tribal funds derived from gaming, trust, and energy resources. The firm's mission is to help preserve the financial resources, integrity, and sovereignty for generations of Tribal members.
Growing up, Parisian had an unusual vantage point to Native American problems. He attended four high schools on three reservations, his father being an investigator with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. During his collegiate years at the University of Minnesota he double-majored in Economics and Education. Postgraduate work included law school before moving to southern California to launch his career. In 1982 he trained on Wall Street with Kidder Peabody, worked several years for Drexel Burnham Lambert, and after moving to Atlanta, worked as a Vice President at both major NYSE brokerage and banking firms.
Helping other Indians has been a priority for Parisian. In the 1980s, he spent years on the Board of the San Diego American Indian Health Center, a provider of medical and dental services to urban Indians. In education, he funded a $25,000 scholarship at the University of Minnesota specifically for Native American students to study business. "We have to help America's indigenous help themselves," he says. Parisian believes that Native Americans must work to assimilate their beliefs and traditions, which are so important, into a global marketplace and unite to craft a national Indian policy. "We can't shut reservation doors and live in an autonomous world," he says.
Surrounded by computer screens and Indian artistry, in an office overlooking a scenic creek north of Atlanta and far removed from the noise on Wall Street, he maintains that "gaining economic, political, and educational power is the way for Indians to move forward. Indians should be doing business with Indians." Included on the Board of Native American Advisors, Inc. is Larry A. Pankey. Mr. Pankey is enrolled at the Ft. Berthold Reservation and member of the Three Affiliated Tribes, Dean says "Larry has made a significant contribution to our team." The firm uses stockbrokers of Native American heritage for trade execution whenever possible, because as Dean says, "the firm's mission is to help promote Indian business enterprise."
As an investment counseling firm, Native American Advisors, Inc. is committed to delivering exceptional service to individuals and institutions, and as Dean said, "a firm that has made a commitment to trust, which means we can and will do as we say." Dean notes the firm is strictly fee-based. He feels this is important to the delivery of impartial investment advice. The firm provides complete investment management services that combine a strong research effort with active money management tactics in pursuit of superior investment performance. In addition, the firm will provide investment seminars nationally, and can be reached at 770-772-1621. The first thing they'll do is listen.
Growing up, Parisian had an unusual vantage point to Native American problems. He attended four high schools on three reservations, his father being an investigator with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. During his collegiate years at the University of Minnesota he double-majored in Economics and Education. Postgraduate work included law school before moving to southern California to launch his career. In 1982 he trained on Wall Street with Kidder Peabody, worked several years for Drexel Burnham Lambert, and after moving to Atlanta, worked as a Vice President at both major NYSE brokerage and banking firms.
Helping other Indians has been a priority for Parisian. In the 1980s, he spent years on the Board of the San Diego American Indian Health Center, a provider of medical and dental services to urban Indians. In education, he funded a $25,000 scholarship at the University of Minnesota specifically for Native American students to study business. "We have to help America's indigenous help themselves," he says. Parisian believes that Native Americans must work to assimilate their beliefs and traditions, which are so important, into a global marketplace and unite to craft a national Indian policy. "We can't shut reservation doors and live in an autonomous world," he says.
Surrounded by computer screens and Indian artistry, in an office overlooking a scenic creek north of Atlanta and far removed from the noise on Wall Street, he maintains that "gaining economic, political, and educational power is the way for Indians to move forward. Indians should be doing business with Indians." Included on the Board of Native American Advisors, Inc. is Larry A. Pankey. Mr. Pankey is enrolled at the Ft. Berthold Reservation and member of the Three Affiliated Tribes, Dean says "Larry has made a significant contribution to our team." The firm uses stockbrokers of Native American heritage for trade execution whenever possible, because as Dean says, "the firm's mission is to help promote Indian business enterprise."
As an investment counseling firm, Native American Advisors, Inc. is committed to delivering exceptional service to individuals and institutions, and as Dean said, "a firm that has made a commitment to trust, which means we can and will do as we say." Dean notes the firm is strictly fee-based. He feels this is important to the delivery of impartial investment advice. The firm provides complete investment management services that combine a strong research effort with active money management tactics in pursuit of superior investment performance. In addition, the firm will provide investment seminars nationally, and can be reached at 770-772-1621. The first thing they'll do is listen.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Intel
Intel is a great company. Unfortunately they are a commodity business. With the shares trading on NASDAQ and today's volume being reported as over 200,000,000 shares and moving down less than 1% maybe they should prepare for the coming price war with AMD. Moore's Law appears to be alive and well.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
from Jerry Davis..................
Do a google search for the phrase, "without admitting or denying guilt, SEC". It's eye opening. Maybe someone should tally up all the "Free Pass" fines (tolls) and see how profitable "fraud oversight" is to the SEC.
Quarterly mania.........
Analysts are an amazing bunch. Their single focus is quarterly earnings and revenue growth. Perhpas it has something to do with putting out research notes to justify their measly existence.
I like what GOOGLE managment is doing to combat the mania of quarterly number crunching. Many companies/products/services are not geared to quarterly comparisons to the extent that Wall Street wants, and knowing that some corporate management is actually more concerned with the big picture versus the short term view is refreshing. Another sickness that Wall Street anal-ysts love to cheer is there laughable ratings changes, that is, when they change their "buy-sell" rating on a stock in a research note, written at say, midnight, when not a single investor can act on their recommendation. That is, until the stock opens down afew points and the short sellers go to the bank, (their own trading desk perhaps, tell me that still doesn't take place!!) All in all, Google has it right. All is fair in war.
Check out these sites if you have a minute as well.
www.locatecheck.com
www.thesanitycheck.com
I like what GOOGLE managment is doing to combat the mania of quarterly number crunching. Many companies/products/services are not geared to quarterly comparisons to the extent that Wall Street wants, and knowing that some corporate management is actually more concerned with the big picture versus the short term view is refreshing. Another sickness that Wall Street anal-ysts love to cheer is there laughable ratings changes, that is, when they change their "buy-sell" rating on a stock in a research note, written at say, midnight, when not a single investor can act on their recommendation. That is, until the stock opens down afew points and the short sellers go to the bank, (their own trading desk perhaps, tell me that still doesn't take place!!) All in all, Google has it right. All is fair in war.
Check out these sites if you have a minute as well.
www.locatecheck.com
www.thesanitycheck.com
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