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Sunday, September 2

2nd Sep - Weekender: Views, Off-Topics and Finnish


Good evening everyone! First the views, followed by my selection of the ending week's Off-Topic links and select articles in Finnish.


EURUSD: trend down and at the trendline now. The market will either start spending time in a risk on-risk off-trading range, just like in Summer 2011 and early Spring 2012 - or alternatively sell off really hard, like in 2011 Oct-Nov. Selling is preferred around current levels, but the short-term trend is still up, so technically going against the market now is not really safe.

EURUSD on hourly chart still in the rising channel - shorting around 1.26, closing the shorts around 1.25 or catching a possible range break all the way to channel bottom and horizontal support around 1.24 for the greedy ones. Sell, close half at 1.25 and target the 1.24 on the rest?

Spanish 10-year government bond yield has been moving up lately, after the famous Draghi's speech and the apparent stand-off before the event. The dreaded 7% is again approaching, and this after we've been promised bailout packages, bank recaps, banking union and ECB bond support? The market should peak below 7% in similar fashion to early summer's trading - every time the yield rises, someone mumbles something that is supposedly showing support and resolve. I expect a similar pattern now: perhaps 7 to 6.5% again? At some point there WILL be a solution, and either the yields break down to low crisis figures of 5.5-6% - or go clearly higher as Spain defaults.

Spanish 2-year goverment bond yield has remained at low levels, as the current understanding is that the ECB's plan is to intervene in the short end of the market. That makes sense fiscally, as Spain's debt rollovers are mostly done in the shorter maturities. My gut feeling is that the 2-year yield will join the rally this week. Perhaps a spread trade might make some sense (i.e. selling 2-year bonds and buying 10-year bonds).

S&P500 stock index remains in the bull channel. Currently the channel bottom is around 1380-evels, and that is where the next proper horizontal support is as well. The range trading (with everyone trying to buy dips, while hoping but not really expecting new highs) could continue for some time more, and that would also be one way to meet the rising trend line.

The hourly chart of the SPX is not offering much else, except that some sort of an horizontal congestion area is in the works. Friday's reaction to roboreading and feedback trading on the Bernanke's speech was sad to watch for an old-timer like me.




Previously on MoreLiver’s:
31.8. Best of August most read pieces + all my ’views’

Follow ‘MoreLiver’ on Twitter or Facebook 
 
OFF-TOPICS
TOO RICH?
The Best Night $500,000 Can BuyGQ
On the nightlife in the elite clubs of Las Vegas.

Goldman Executive Is Said to Buy $27 Million Luxury ApartmentDealBook / NYT

Indulging in a Yacht, but Still Minding the ExpensesNYT

PSYCHOLOGY
Repellent; The Magical Law of AttractionPsy-Fi Blog
Positivity isn’t a neutral thing; it leads to negative outcomes for firms, employees and shareholders. It also leads to intense short-termism.

The Neuroscience of 20-SomethingsSciAm
Even if the brain’s developmental changes are more dramatic in the teens than in the twenties, the best available evidence suggests that a twenty-something’s brain boasts a little more adaptability than an older brain. Our twenties might represent a final opportunity to begin mastering a particular skill with a kind of facility we cannot enjoy in later decades. Should people in their twenties buckle down and choose something, anything, to practice while their brains are still nimble?

Turn Off the Phone (and the Tension)NYT
One side effect of living an always-on digital life is the tension, along with the thrill, that can arise from being able to peep into people’s worlds at any moment and comparing their lives with yours. This tension may be inevitable at times, but it’s not inescapable. It’s possible to move beyond the angst that social media can provoke — and to be glad that we’ve done so.

Voice of the New Global EliteThe National Interest
In sum, then, I came away from twenty-two weeks of monitoring the Economist convinced that it is, indeed, the very best magazine of its kind—a status made easier by the fact that it is arguably the only magazine of its kind.

PEOPLE
The Gangster Princess of Beverly HillsRolling Stone
Heiress, actress, singer, model - Lisette Lee wanted everyone to think she had it all, but beneath the bling were secrets, lies and private jets filled with weed

Shattered GeniusPlayboy
The author attempts to interview Grigori Perelman, a reclusive mathematical genius.

Teen TitanThe New Yorker
The man who made Justin Bieber.

SCIENCE / TECH / WEB
The Universe in a Nutshell: Michio Kaku on the Physics of Everythingbrain pickings
(video documentary) The history of physics is the history of modern civilization.

Google's Social Network Goes Pro technology review
Google+ is now available for companies to use for internal communications.

How Long Do You Want to Live?NYT
How many years might be added to a life? A few longevity enthusiasts suggest a possible increase of decades. Most others believe in more modest gains. And when will they come? Are we a decade away? Twenty years? Fifty years?

Technical knowledgeUnderstanding Society
There is a kind of knowledge in an advanced mechanical society that doesn't get much attention from philosophers of science and sociologists of science, but it is critical for keeping the whole thing running. I'm thinking here of the knowledge possessed by skilled technicians and fixers

Printing in DNA: Words in a vial (video) – Babbage / The Economist
A book has been written in DNA, and now 70 billion copies exist in a small vial of liquid in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As costs fall, storing information in DNA may one day become common

Taking pictures on Mars: Red eyes Babbage / The Economist

Thorium reactors could hold the key to safer cheaper nuclear powerqfinance

Drake equation: How many alien civilizations exist?BBC

Richard Feynman on the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Societybrainpickings

CRIME
The Shadow ScholarThe Chronicle of Higher Education
The man who writes your students' papers tells his story

Before Gunfire, Hints of ‘Bad News’NYT
The Batman-shooter.

America's War on Drugs Keeps It From Being the Freest Country on Earthreason
When the public is this divided about an issue, it's best left to voluntary social pressure instead of legal enforcement.

The ThrowawaysThe New Yorker
Police enlist young offenders as confidential informants. But the work is high-risk, largely unregulated, and sometimes fatal.

OTHER
Did Reuters kill Hitler?Thomson Reuters
During the last days of the war in Europe – in April 1945 – the story goes that Adolf Hitler had a Reuters teleprinter in his bunker below the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.  He also had a radio-set which could receive the BBC.  Hitler was said to have learnt while in the bunker that the Russians had entered the city and that Gestopo Chief, Heinrich Himmler,  had offered to surrender to the Western Allies.

Think of my programmes as your research departmentLetters of Note
Early-1996, on learning that a forthcoming, weekly drum & bass programme was to eat into his own show's airtime, shortening it by an hour, pioneering DJ John Peel made his disappointment known by writing the following letter to Matthew Bannister, then-controller of BBC Radio 1.

Knowing When To Fold ‘Em: The Science of PokerSciAm

A New Kind of Social Science for the 21stg CenturyEdge
These three things—a biological hurricane, computational social science, and the rediscovery of experimentation—are going to change the social sciences in the 21st century. With that change will come, in my judgment, a variety of discoveries and opportunities that offer tremendous prospect for improving the human condition.

Insurance for Astronautsriskheads
The Apollo Astronauts' Fascinating Insurance Coversukinsurancenet



IN FINNISH
EU valmistautuu ottamaan pankit valvontaansa jo ensi vuonna HS

Finanssivalvonta haluaa potkia amatöörit eläkeyhtiöiden hallituksistaSK

Pääkirjoitus: Velkaraha pitää hallituksen koossaIS

Podcast-vinkki: "Kuinka ratkaisisin eurokriisin kahdessa viikossa" - euroetana

Vastuuttomuutta suomalaisten työntekijöiden työpaikkojen kanssa – SAK:n Lyly tekee europolitiikkaa kunnallisvaalien allatyhmyri

Katainen samoilla linjoilla Lipposen kanssaIL
Jyrki Kataisen mielestä Suomen kannattaa olla siellä, missä päätökset tehdään.

Suomen asuntomarkkinoilla rauhallista heinäkuussa euroetana

Keskuspankit ovat aina poliittisia eläimiä muista väitteistä huolimatta – myös Bloomberg kirjoittaa samaa tyhmyri

EU-tovereille helpotuksia – Suomelle 2 miljardin laskuTalSa

Risto E. J. Penttilä: Kreikkaa ei voida enää puolustaa - Suomen hallituksen muutettava eurolinjaustaanSK

Kriisimailla menee entistä huonommin ja sitä iloitaan edistymisenä – Spiegelin juttutyhmyri

Professori: Downshiftaaja onkin menestyjäYLE
Suomalaisilla on kapea kuva hyvästä elämästä. Eletään muiden odotusten mukaan ja ahdistutaan.

Tämä on vain alkua: Lopulta taivaalta sataa euroja Jan Hurri / TalSa
EKP on luvannut tehdä "kaiken tarvittavan" euron pelastamiseksi. Ensi viikolla selviää, tarkoittaako lupaus muuta kuin yhä railakkaampia raharuiskeita kriisivaltioiden ja -pankkien tukemiseen. Tätä menoa "kaikki tarvittava" tarkoittaa, että pelastustoimien päätteeksi taivaalta sataa euroja

Perussuomalaiset rynnii kuntavaalikyselyssäYLE

Perussuomalaiset suurin puolue miesten osaltaReijo Tossavainen / US Puheenvuoro

Mikä on Suomen visio?Hannu Visti
Yksi maa panostaa pääkonttoreihin. Toinen valmistukseen. Kolmas tuotekehitykseen. Neljäs kaikkeen bisnekseen matalalla verotukselle. Jne. Mutta entä Suomi?

Eurokriisi fifty-sixty (audio, 45min) – YLE
Brysselin koneessa pohditaan mistä euron kriisi johtuu ja miten tässä voi käydä . Haastateltavana on erikoistutkija Heikki Taimio Palkansaajien tutkimuslaitoksesta. Vaikka aikaa onkin ostettu erilaisiin euron tukitoimin niin kriisiä tulee kriisin perään. Taimion mukaan euro tulee hajoamaan jollain lailla. Ainoa kestävä ratkaisu euron toimivuuden jatkumiseen olisi täysimittainen liitovaltio, mutta siihen taas ei löydy monessakaan maassa riittävästi poliittista tahtoa.