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I just saw this article in Yahoo Finance Web site, which said that while the S&P 500 is down -11.31% from 11/01/2021 to 04/12/2023, retail investors are down -27.49%. Wowzah! Who are these retail investors? Anyway, that's the number quoted from VandaTrack Research. See article here...

As of 2 days ago, I had no idea where to go this year. Then, I got the idea of catching a repositioning cruise from the US to Europe, then continue the trip on land before flying back to the US. The Atlantic crossing will take more than 1 week, something I have not done before but read about...

As y'all know, I am proud of having my finances all tracked and updated by Quicken. Well, most of my accounts are, except for a few. One of the accounts neglected was my Amazon Visa card. This card was tracked on Quicken, but then there was some problem with the connection, and Quicken stopped...

Back in June, I booked our Sep-Oct trip to Europe as follows with American Airlines (AA). It's codeshare with British Airways (BA). * Going: PHX-LHR by BA; LHR-LYS by BA * Return: LYS-LHR by BA; LHR-PHX by AA I got seats assigned, the whole work. I then settled down to putting details into...

A short time ago, I read somewhere young Chinese people were getting burnt out from hard work that got them nowhere. They just don't want to work, and instead are just "lying flat". And now, there's a new term: "Let it rot". A Web site has this definition: 'Lying flat' equates to spending...

My wife and I both use Android phones. Recently, my sister-in-law talked my wife into installing Viber on her phone. I have heard of this app, which allows you to talk to another Viber user by VOIP, but never bothered to install it. In the process of setting up the Viber app on her phone, my...

Yesterday, the Dow dropped 393, and that's -1.07%. The S&P was down -1.94%, and the Nasdaq was the worst at -3.34%. I was working on fixing a refrigerant leak on a mini-split, and when I got done and looked at my stocks again after the market closed, saw that the market had taken a hard...

Musk certainly has some notches on his belt. It's undeniable. But I am still watching to see how some of his endeavors will work out. For example, the Starlink service promises to bring the Internet to far fetches of the world. I don't doubt that it will work, but will it prove to be...

Yesterday, I received a dunning letter from a toll road company in California. They want me to pay $2.92 with a one month deadline, or a penalty of $100 will be added on. This is the new car I bought in Jan 2021, and has not been driven to CA. The letter says I can go on their Web site to...

I am about to inherit $7.5 million. Fugget about business-class seat. Nothing but first-class seat for me from now on. Yes, that's what Mr Li Jie, a personal banker of Ping An Bank in China told me in his unexpected recent letter. What happened was that his client with the same last name as...

"Failure to exercise in-the-money option" No, it's not me, but the other side of the trade who failed to exercise an option and throwed away money. I know there are people here working in a brokerage or having to do with the investment industry, so make this post to see if they can shed some...

Waymo, the division of Google that develops self-driving cars, has been testing its self-driving cars for 3 or 4 years now around the part of Phoenix where I live. Today, Waymo announces that it will soon offer a service for the public to hail its driverless taxis via a smartphone app. The...

Just saw this on the Web: No mention of Tesla. See: https://www.barrons.com/articles/tesla-didnt-join-the-s-p-500-but-three-others-did-51599255574?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

Reading the two official reports from the WHO and the CDC on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the COVID-19 disease that it causes, I notice the following major discrepancy. The WHO report on the COVID-19 disease in China released on Feb 25 had this to say about asymptomatic infections with the...

I drove to my mother's home, which was 5 miles away, to share with her some bleach for her to dilute out to make hand sanitizer when she needed to go out. She does not have any bleach. I kept reiterating to her time and time again for the last month that she needed to remember not to put her...

White Sands is now the 62nd National Park. Its designation change to a national park from a national monument was legislated in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. One may ask what this has to do with the National Defense budget. I think it is quite often that...

Last night surfin' the Web, I ran across an article that I wanted to share, but waited until this morning. Now, I cannot find it except there's a copy on the NY Times and it is behind a paywall. How was I able to read it last night? Anyway, the gist of the article is that predictions are...

I just brought back to life my wife's "bricked" desktop PC. I was the one who killed it. To make a long story short, I decided to update the BIOS on the motherboard, and things didn't go smoothly as the umpteen times I did in the past. The machine was "bricked". ARGHHH! Opened the case and...

As mentioned in another thread, I will describe a simple off-grid solar system that should be helpful for people who face frequent power outages, such as the current blackouts in California for powerline fire prevention. Such a system should be sufficiently powerful to run a refrigerator...

The thread title is self-explanatory. I will go first. I often snack on Jack Links and SlimJim sticks. Sometimes I would try some lesser known brands. And we usually keep them on the shelves in the utility room which is dark. One day, I went in to grab a small stick, and it tasted funny. I...

Austria just sold 100-year bond, at a price of 154 and a coupon of 2.1% at par. If held to maturity, the yield is 1.171%. What is the chance of inflation being below 1.171% for the next 100 years? And what keeps the Austrian government from recalling the bond, causing the bond holder to...

We have had two threads already about Cilantro, and this common herb stirs up quite a bit of interest. But how about something less well known, Culantro? I have had it in some Asian restaurants. I can eat it, but do not use it like cilantro. Anyone here knows about this herb, and uses it in...

Indiana just got its first national park, called Indiana Dunes National Park. It's now the 61st NP of the US. The state has been trying to get this designation for 103 years. See: US Newest National Park.

I looked, and there has not been a new thread on this popular topic for 2019. So I am starting one. I just booked flight for a Spring trip to Spain and Portugal. The duration will be a bit more than 5 weeks. The time is mid April to mid May. We have been to Spain before, but this time will...

We bought an air fryer at Costco last year when they had it on sale. We liked it so much that we bought another one to bring up to our 2nd home. The 2nd one is a different brand than the 1st. My wife bought an Instapot, but changed her mind about having to learn to use it, and returned it...