Professor Elam

Secular Stagnation

Monday March 30 2015

Janet Yellen wonders if the US is suffering from secular stagnation.

Well add in over regulation and a completion of five Elliott Waves Up from the low in 1931, 1974, and 2009 and there you have it. The world is moving east.

More on Google, Spared from Prosecution

Monday March 30 2015

Last week I posted on the remarkable career of the new Google CFO. I still don't know  if Ruth Porat is a CPA, but we do know she is well connected and became the CFO for Google. 

Google escaped prosecution for dominating the search engine field. Even MSFT could not get Google prosecuted. Recall that MSFT has been an also ran in search from day one. 

And recall that Google has a meeting in the White House about once a week. 

Connections count. Who's on your rolodex?

Private Equity is Done

Monday March 30 2015

Andy Kessler, who ought to know, says the easy money in Private Equity is over.

I take this as another sign of a coming market top. Easy money as he says allowed funds to buy a company on cheap money, strip it to the bone, make debt payments, and then hope to sell it. That is over. 

A harbinger for the market as a whole?

The $73K Mustang

Monday March 30 2015

Monday March 30 2015

We have featured numerous examples of excess wealth on display the last few months. Here is another.

Saleen creates a $73K Mustang. 

“From the beginning of this project, we have always known that we wanted to create the most powerful production Mustang we have ever built,” said Sven Etzelsberger, Saleen vice president of engineering. “I can happily say that we have accomplished this goal with great success.”

That statement is a metaphor for the new highs in stocks created by stock buy backs propelled by zero interest money. 

Interestingly the article mentions that Saleen is rumored to be broke, the metaphor with the US Govt is stronger than ever!

Market tops are typified with the desire to show off. The WSJ re labeled its real estate section on Friday from Distinctive Properties to Mansions after the 2009 real estate melt down, the latter word is more fitting for a market that has risen even further. Expensive watch ads abound on pages two and three in the WSJ. And the race to produce more powerful, and more expensive autos continues with the Bugatti and some Ferrari models now stickered at seven figures. 

In early February a Gaugain painting fetched near a record $300 M. Do you see it?  Autos, real estate, watches, and artwork are all making highs along with stocks. Social mood is expansive, the very opposite of where it was in March  2009. 

Research Symposium Early Announcements

Saturday March 28 2015

A student asked about a response to registering for the Research Symposium. Here is what Dr. Sosa Fey sent me.

 

 

We are working on the schedule in anticipation of the deadline:  March 31st.

 

We are looking for presenters for Friday, April 17th since a majority of those who registered have opted for a Saturday presentation.  All students who have submitted their abstracts and have registered for the Symposium will be receiving a letter (email) in the next couple of days giving them more information.  We are going to have a couple of optional workshops  this week for those students who need help in getting their presentations ready for the Symposium.  The letter will inform them of this opportunity.

 

 

Dr. Sosa-Fey

 

Connections Trump Certifications, Meet Ruth Porat

Friday March 27, 2015

Meet Ruth Porat, Google's new CFO. She is receiving a $5 M one time signing bonus and a $65 M stock option grant. 

Her resume of a cornucopia of NE Corridor done right. And she is politically connected to, well everyone from Morgan Stanley to Hillary Clinton. I see Stanford, London School of Economics, Wharton on her resume but nothing about CPA. 

Lesson, if you are well connected enough, you don't have to sit for exams. 

Forbes Best Places to Work Includes Three SA Firms

Thursday March 26 2015

Forbes named USAA, HEB, and Valero as three best places to work. 

The rankings were 11, 67, and 280. Frankly I don't know quite how one quantifies the 

qualitative experience of where one works. As a faculty we have toured both HEB and Valero and I now

several people at USAA.  All are fine firms who express a real interest in their people. But then so does Zachary HOLT CAT, and Tesoro and so it goes. 

The San Antonio Austin Growth Corridor is one of the best in the USA or on the planet for that matter. 

Be glad you are in such a rich growth environment. 

Kraft Heinz

Thursday March 26, 2015

A Student asked about the Kraft Heinz deal, why now?

Brazilian 3 G is known for cost cutting, and Buffet had a hand in this as well. Buffet plans on zero based budgeting, and as the WSJ observed how about  some of that for Washington?

So I suspect they will fire the help at Kraft as Kraft was the one taken. 

Mergers tend to happen at in bull markets. As one of the largest, it is fitting that this is happening right on the cusp of THE market high. CEOs feel compelled to do something on their watch and buying a competitor is always a way of increasing market share. 

Kraft has had lackluster earnings the last few years and so became a target for someone. Innovate or get taken. 

An Update on the Hemline Indicator

Wed March  25, 2015

The hemline indicator states that as social mood grows more positive, it invites a frisky attitude in fashion. This results in shorter skirts. The idea is that the hemline rises and falls with the stock market, that laboratory of social mood. 

Pete Kendall has an interesting history in this video Skirts.  I am hoping this long term look at just how quickly fashion can adjust to social mood might be of interest to our female students. The latter part of the video details just how quickly hemlines rose as the markets recovered from the March  2009 low. 

Want a stock market indicator, Bob Prechter suggests we should read Women's Wear Daily instead of the Wall Street Journal. 

Jeff Cooper's Color Code

Tuesday March 24, 2015

 

Jeff Cooper served in the Marine Corps in WW II and Korea.  He founded the Gunsite Training Academy which is still doing a lively business today.

Of interest to us in becoming better students is Jeff's creation of a Color Code Awareness System. See the first link for a detailed explanation.

Jeff makes the point that most people wander around in what he calls Condition White, unaware of what is going on around them and not taking the interest to observe it.

He escalates the level of awareness from White  to Yellow Orange Red. He is addressing the concept of personal danger, and by the way we see a lot of that reported in the news every day.

Here is a practical application of what Jeff means about your personal safety. How often do you see someone wandering across the parking lot talking on a cell phone, oblivious to what is around them. This is how car jackings take place. You are at your most vulnerable when you have the key and open the door of the car, that is the moment a thief is most liable to attack taking the car and  perhaps yourself in the process. Staying off the phone, examining the area, walking with a friend, looking inside the car before opening the door, all these simple things could prevent a disaster.

We can however use the same idea in analyzing just how ready and engaged you are as a student, particularly all of you who tell me you intend to take the CPA exam.

I posted a letter from a Baylor student about her preparation for the CPA exam. Clearly she is in condition red, alert and aware and prepared.

What condition are you operating in?  Just this past weekend I got multiple e mails from students who just could not imagine why they got kicked out of an on line exam. An examination revealed they simply started too late and the deadline kicked in.

Jeff made these comments on the confusion the government added to the situation by issuing colors based on the situation rather than the mindset.

Considering the principles of personal defense, we have long since come up with the color code. This has met with surprising success in debriefings throughout the world. The color code, as we preach it, runs white, yellow, orange, and red, and is a means of setting one’s mind into the proper condition when exercising lethal violence, and is not as easy as I had thought at first.

There is a problem in that some students insist upon confusing the appropriate color with the amount of danger evident in the situation. As I have long taught, you are not in any color state because of the specific amount of danger you may be in, but rather in a mental state which enables you to take a difficult psychological step. Now, however, the government has gone into this and is handing out color codes nationwide based upon the apparent nature of a peril. It has always been difficult to teach the Gunsite color code, and now it is more so.

We cannot say that the government’s ideas about colors are wrong, but that they are different from what we have long taught here. The problem is this: your combat mind-set is not dictated by the amount of danger to which you are exposed at the time. Your combat mind-set is properly dictated by the state of mind you think appropriate to the situation. You may be in deadly danger at all times, regardless of what the Defense Department tells you. The color code which influences you does depend upon the willingness you have to jump a psychological barrier against taking irrevocable action. That decision is less hard to make since the jihadis have already made it.

I added the bold id for emphasis. Frankly most students are in condition white in class, they have

not read the book

failed to work the problems

and therefore cannot possibly follow the discussion in class

As Jeff says your mind set is dictated by the state of mind you think appropriate to the situation, which is to say paying maximum attention in class brings maximum results

Preparation, Participation, Practice = Results

Hmm, I like that.

 

And that is what Jeff means by Condition White. Plan to upgrade your level of awareness.