SwiftKey keyboard app for Android goes free to download and confirms iOS 8 development - Gadgets and Tech - Life & Style - The Independent

Build platforms that allow people to do things, like Facebook, seem to be the successful business model.  Swiftykey gives you the basic software and hopes to sell add ons.

SwiftKey keyboard app for Android goes free to download and confirms iOS 8 development - Gadgets and Tech - Life & Style - The Independent:



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Buffett Takes Another Shot At The Hedge Fund Industry

Hedge Fund Industry

The Oracle of Omaha recently sent a letter to a San Francisco pension plan, advising the $20 billion fund not to invest in hedge funds. It’s the latest development in Buffett’s tenuous history with the hedge fund world.posted on June 9, 2014, at 11:10 a.m.

Mariah SummersBuzzFeed Staff

AP Photo/Nati Harnik

Warren Buffett doesn’t think it’s a great idea to invest public money in hedge funds. At least that’s what he told a San Francisco pension that sought his advice on the matter last month. The response illustrates Buffett’s long tenuous relationship with the hedge fund world.

A board member at the City & County of San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System wrote Buffett a letter last month, which was obtained by Pensions & Investments, asking his advice on his $20 billion pension fund’s proposed 15% investment in hedge funds as a volatility reduction measure. Buffett wrote back, stating, “I would not go with hedge funds — would prefer index funds.”

Herb Meiberger, the board member, opposed the $3 billion investment plan, and wrote to Buffett after attending the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting last month, where Buffett recounted a story that expressed his lack of faith in hedge funds. Buffett spoke of a $1 million bet he’d made with the hedge fund Protégé Capital in 2008 that a group of hedge funds of Protégé’s choosing couldn’t outperform the S&P 500 index over a 10-year period.

It wasn’t the first time Buffett has criticized or questioned the tactics of the modern day hedge fund world. He has a history of voicing his suspicion on common hedge fund tactics like short selling, as well as the industry’s credentials for capital raising.

But the skepticism goes both ways — hedge fund managers have their doubts about Buffett. At the SALT conference last month in Las Vegas, hedge fund managers took to a panel to discuss Buffett’s returns, including famed investor Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors and John Burbank of Passport Capital, who called Buffett “basically a tax evader.”

As for the San Francisco pension, the board will vote on the hedge fund allocation, which Meiberger believes is overly risky and too expensive, later this year. It also remains to be seen whether Buffett will prevail in his $1 million bet against the industry that he’s now given even more reason to want to win.

Buffett Takes Another Shot At The Hedge Fund Industry:

Link:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/mariahsummers/buffett-takes-another-shot-at-the-hedge-fund-industry

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Daniel Yergin on the next energy revolution

Commentary|McKinsey Quarterly

Daniel Yergin on the next energy revolution

The global energy expert and Pulitzer Prize–winning author expects an energy landscape rife with innovations—and surprises.April 2014







The unconventional-oil and -gas revolution—shale gas and what’s become known as “tight oil”—is the most important energy innovation so far in the 21st century. I say so far, because we can be confident that there will be other innovations coming down the road. There’s more emphasis on energy innovation than ever before. Unconventional oil and gas came as a pretty big surprise. It even took the oil and gas industry by surprise. “Peak oil” was such a fervent view five or six years ago, when oil prices were going up.







The unconventional energy revolution Global energy expert Daniel Yergin tells McKinsey’s Rik Kirkland to expect an energy landscape rife with innovations—and surprises.







But I looked at this the way I did in The Quest, which was: Yes, we’ve gone through this period of running out of oil, but we’ve gone through at least five previous episodes of running out of oil. Each time, what’s made the difference? New technology, new knowledge, new territories. And something else that people forget: price. When we look at economic history, we see a very powerful lesson that has to be learned and relearned: price matters a lot. Price encourages consumers to be more efficient. It encourages the development of new technologies and new ways of doing things. Indeed, I think that the impact of price is often underestimated as the stimulator of innovation and creativity.



There are a number of big initiatives and opportunities that could bring changes. Certainly, the electric car will continue to be a big push, as it’s captured the imagination of some people, and a lot of investment has gone into it. Also, public policy is pushing it hard. I think it’s going to take a few more years to get a sense of the uptake, though, because electric cars are competing not with the automobiles of yesterday but with the more fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow. Another big area is electricity storage. If there’s a holy grail out there these days, it’s storage, because innovations in electricity storage would change the economics of wind and solar power.



Distributed electricity generation will increasingly be a big question for developed countries. Electricity won’t just be generated in large, central plants, but through wind power on hillsides and through solar power generated on lots and lots of rooftops. These developments make things much more complicated for the people who have the responsibility for managing the stability of the grid. They also raise important questions about incentives and subsidies that need to be worked out, such as who pays to support the grid? These will be the subject of much debate and turmoil over the next several years as we get our arms around a whole new set of issues.



I don’t know what the pathway’s going to be to solve the problems. But when you have a lot of bright people working on a problem in a sustained way, you will probably get to a solution. Will it be 5 years or 15 years? We don’t know but, ultimately, need drives innovation. I see this as all part of the great revolution that began with the steam engine, and there’s no reason to think it’s going to end. It’s going to continue in the oil and gas industry, and it’s also going to stimulate innovations of other kinds among renewables and alternatives.



We’re not always going to be able to predict where the innovations will happen. Not by any means. But this great revolution in human civilization around energy innovation is going to continue as far as we can see—indeed, much further than we can see. Of course, history tells us that geopolitics can come along and deliver some shocking surprises, but surprises are one of the key characteristics of energy over the long term. One thing we can be sure of: there are always more surprises to come.

Published on Apr 9, 2014

Daniel Yergin, the global energy expert and Pulitzer Prize--winning author, expects an energy landscape rife with innovations—and surprises. The author of "The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World," talks to Rik Kirkland, senior managing editor of McKinsey Publishing, about why he's optimistic about the "unconventional energy revolution," public policy change, electric cars, and distributed electricity generation through solar and wind power.

Watch here and click to find more from our Resource Revolution series on our site: http://bit.ly/McKResourceRevolution.

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  News & Politics

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  Standard YouTube License

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY83891D9TQ&index=2&list=PLhvMIsPbo0GBYLjrgSATY_P1jOZ84mx5Z

About the authors

Daniel Yergin is the vice-chairman of IHS, the research and data company, and author of

The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World (Penguin, 2012) and the Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power (Simon & Schuster, 1991). This commentary is adapted from an interview with Rik Kirkland, senior managing editor of McKinsey Publishing, who is based in McKinsey’s New York office.









Daniel Yergin on the next energy revolution | McKinsey & Company:



Link: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/energy_resources_materials/Daniel_Yergin_on_the_next_energy_revolution?cid=ResourceRev-eml-alt-mkq-mck-oth-1404



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Investment Tweets

Jim Grant: "the most prolific buyers of  stock in bull markets are among the most reluctant  buyers in bear markets"

information overload got you unable to remember anything? try writing it down by hand

Nasdaq up so much in past year, it has "only" 18.8% more to rise in order to reach its all-time high...set more than 14 years ago #WSJ

Susan Weiner, CFA @susanweiner · 14h

An Investor’s Guide to Better Writing — Seriously http://bit.ly/1oTtr52 

 

via @vitaliyk @iimag @michaelkitces

"The more I learn, the more questions I have." ~Dan Brown

"There must be more to life than having everything." ~Maurice Sendak

The New York Times

The Best Investment Strategy? Getting Out of Our Own Way

The average investor tends to buy high and sell low; less well-intentioned action would help close the behavior gap, a financial planner writes.

View on web

Berkshire Too Rich for Buffett ...

 Bloomberg News

Berkshire Too Rich for Buffett Is Sign Bargains Are Gone

Warren Buffett gave a nice, simple explanation for why Berkshire Hathaway Inc. didn’t buy back any of its own shares in 2013: The stock just wasn’t cheap enough.

View on web

 

Value Stock Guide‏@ValueStockGuide

Buffett Too Rich for Buffett Is Sign Bargains Are Gone - Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-23/buffett-too-rich-for-buffett-is-sign-bargains-are-gone.html …

Twitter / ValueStockGuide: Buffett Too Rich for Buffett ...:



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Value Stock Guide (ValueStockGuide) on Twitter

Value Stock Guide (ValueStockGuide) on Twitter: "
ValueWalk @valuewalk  ·  May 26
Investing Using the Price-to-Earnings Ratio and Earnings Yield (1951-2013) http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/05/investing-price-to-earnings-ratio-earnings-yield-backtests/ …  $SPY $SPX pic.twitter.com/AGcoIzrAF6 
"

ValueWalk @valuewalk · May 26

Investing Using the Price-to-Earnings Ratio and Earnings Yield (1951-2013) http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/05/investing-price-to-earnings-ratio-earnings-yield-backtests/ …

 

$SPY $SPX pic.twitter.com/AGcoIzrAF6

 

 

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Lessons Learned From Well-Behaved Investors

Making the Most of Your Money
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Lessons Learned From Well-Behaved Investors
By CARL RICHARDS JULY 8, 2013 12:44 PM 21 Comments


Carl Richards is a certified financial planner in Park City, Utah, and is the director of investor education at the BAM Alliance. His book, “The Behavior Gap,” was published this year. His sketches are archived on the Bucks blog.

During my time writing for Bucks, I’ve read several comments from different people that share a common theme: “I don’t have any trouble behaving when it comes to investing. So why can’t you?”

If you fall into this group, investing and behaving may appear so simple to you that you can’t help but wonder if the rest of us are short a few brain cells. But your ability to behave is really quite remarkable.

After all, as Daniel Kahneman noted in his brilliant book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” we all suffer to some extent from cognitive biases that make it nearly impossible to behave. These biases often cause us to take mental shortcuts that can thwart our efforts to successfully balance logic and emotion.

In a recent interview with Morgan Housel of The Motley Fool, Dr. Kahneman explains why some people (maybe you?) can better handle these biases. He also discusses why these biases can be so hard to avoid (the portion of the interview presented below was edited out of the video for space):


Morgan Housel: We often hear that Warren Buffett was born hard-wired for the traits that he has as an investor, which sounds nice. But I wonder if there’s any truth to that. Is there evidence that some people are more prone to cognitive biases than others?

Dr. Kahneman: Yes. There certainly are differences among people. There are differences in intelligence and there are differences in cognitive style and the degree to which people check themselves. So some people definitely are more prone to biases than others. That doesn’t mean that they are doomed to be biased. But certainly being prone to self-control and to slow thinking in general, you’ll find differences in children aged 3 or 4, and some of these differences persist into adulthood.

Morgan Housel: So most of these biases are things that we are born with; they’re not traits that we learn.

Dr. Kahneman: The biases that I’ve been concerned with are really characteristics, I think, of the way we’re wired to interpret the world. So in that sense, yes, we’re born with them. I mean we’re born to see patterns, and if seeing patterns leads you into bias, then that bias is built in.

We’re born with our biases. So what’s an investor to do?

Since behavior plays such a huge role in investing — and as Dr. Kahneman notes, these biases are hard to avoid — you need a strategy to keep you on track. The best source for figuring all of this out is watching the people who do behave well. What do they do differently than the average investor?

1) Separate decisions from emotion

I’ve often said that I’m great at making unemotional decisions when it’s another person’s money. But when it comes to my own money, it can be a struggle. Warren Buffett is a perfect example of this principle. Mr. Buffett has said over the years that he tries to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. That is essentially putting into practice the notion of “buying low and selling high.” And it means sticking with a plan even when it’s painful (for instance, when stocks suddenly jump or slump).

2) Doing nothing is the default choice

When I heard about the study that found soccer goalies could be more successful by doing nothing, I immediately understood why there would be resistance to the idea that not moving could block more goals. I suspect most of us have a bias toward action, especially if we think we’ll look stupid if we stand still. The best behaved investors understand that it’s in their best interest to do nothing most of the time, even though everyone else around them may be saying otherwise.

3) Understand that investing and entertainment are two different things

I’m the first to admit that reading and watching the so-called financial news can be interesting, even outright entertaining. But those who manage to behave seem to have adopted two approaches: watch it, but don’t act on it or ignore it completely. They’ve drawn a line between investing and entertainment. They may watch and read, but what they see doesn’t sway them from their plan.

Obviously, none of these three things are particularly complicated. So is something more going on? Is it a case of survivorship bias, where the people who appear to behave just haven’t made a mistake yet?

I doubt it. I think well-behaved investors are just better equipped than the average investor over the long haul. But they’ve also done something that the rest of us can do. They have acknowledged the connection between emotion and behavior.

There are no guarantees that we’ll avoid our biases in the future, or that we’ll avoid making mistakes. But simply recognizing that the land mine exists may get us out of some difficult situations or avoid them entirely. So take a look around you.

Do you know anyone who seems particularly well-behaved? How about someone who bought something like a low-cost index fund and then stayed put for 10, 15, even 20 years?

What have you noticed about them?

Maybe I’ve misjudged the situation, and perhaps it isn’t possible to behave over the long haul. Still, I’d like to think that we have enough examples from well-behaved investors to learn from. And that can help make the seemingly impossible become more probable for the rest of us.
 

Link: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/09/abcs-of-private-equity.asp?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tw-post-60214&utm_content=ctp-article_cti-articles/stocks/09/abcs-of-private-equity

GDP Denial

The Stock Market's GDP Denial Could End Badly









Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
--Mark Twain

So let me get this straight: The GDP revision for first quarter came in far worse than economist estimates, and the stock market simply doesn't care? Enough with the weather excuse. Enough with the Russia excuse. The bond market since day one of this year has been pessimistic on the economy. So far, data proves that Treasuries are right. Something is very much amiss in the narrative that stocks continue to put false belief in, and the way deflation trades are behaving. This is no longer opinion. This is no longer conjecture. We cannot simply turn a blind eye to data that is weak and argue that all bad news is good news for stocks. At some point, bad news is bad news.

At some point, volatility will rise from the ashes of complacency.

The biggest and most disturbing thing thus far about the stock market's denial of the economy is the stock market's denial of itself. Utilities have been remarkably strong all year, albeit in most recent days weakening just a bit at the margin. Treasuries have been shockingly strong. More problematic than all this, however, is the market internally not believing in the consumer anymore. We all know just how important consumer spending is to the economy. A healthy economic environment should be led by stocks, which are most sensitive to the economy. Conversely, when consumer stocks are weakening, the market may be anticipating some kind of slowdown more broadly ahead, which equity averages would then act with a lag to.

That's kind of happening, isn't it? Take a look below at the price ratio of the SPDR S&P Retail Index (NYSEARCA:XRT) relative to the S&P 500 ETF(NYSEARCA:SPY). As a reminder, a rising price ratio means the numerator/XRT is outperforming (up more/down less) the denominator/SPY. This is one of the uglier relative charts that one can view markets through the lens of, and is sending a clear message: Stock market denial is real and can only persist for so long.



My firm's ATAC (Accelerated Time and Capital) models used for managing our mutual funds and separate accounts are getting considerably closer to another defensive rotation. The complacency occurring in the here and now is utterly stunning, and several intermarket trends are sending the same message.

Denial can keep asset prices afloat, but at some point even the most stubborn of risk-takers will learn the hard way that risk management needs to be done before the decline occurs -- not after.

Twitter: @pensionpartners

Wall Street: 98 Risk of Crash This Year

Wall Street: 98 Risk of Crash This Year: "Wall Street: 98% Risk of Crash This Year
Thursday, 29 May 2014 04:25 AM
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Earlier this year, a select group of Wall Street Insiders were surveyed, and the results were ominous. These financial experts and fund managers predicted a 98% chance a stock market crash will happen in the next six months.

Gary Shilling, one of Wall Street’s top economists, says the S&P Index could drop as low as 800, a 42% decline.

Jeffrey Gundlach, one of the world’s biggest bond fund managers and CEO of DoubleLine Capital, says the real damage is yet to come and an “ominous third phase” will “far exceed the damage of 2008.”

And Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff, author of “The Real Crash: American’s Coming Bankruptcy,” warns, “I am 100% confident the crisis that we’re going to have will be much worse than the one we had in 2008.”

Even billion-dollar investor Warren Buffett is rumored to be preparing for a crash as well. The “Warren Buffett Indicator,” also known as the “Total Market Cap to GDP Ratio,” is breaching sell-alert status and a collapse may happen at any moment.

So with an inevitable crash looming, what are Main Street investors to do?

One option is to sell all your stocks and stuff your money under the mattress. Another option is to risk everything and ride out the storm.

But according to Sean Hyman, founder of Absolute Profits, there is a third option.

“There are specific sectors of the market that are all but guaranteed to perform well during the next few months,” Hyman explains. “Getting out of stocks now could be costly.”

How can Hyman be so sure?

He has access to a secret Wall Street calendar that has beat the overall market by 250% since 1968. This calendar simply lists 19 investments (based on sectors of the market) and 38 dates to buy and sell them — and by doing so, one could turn $1,000 into as much as $300,000 in a 10-year time frame.

Editor's Note: Sean Hyman Reveals His Secret Wall Street Calendar in This Controversial Video, Click Here

“But this calendar is just one part of my investment system,” Hyman adds. “I also have a Crash Alert System that is designed to warn investors before a major correction as well.”

(The Crash Alert System was actually programmed by one of the individuals who coded nuclear missile flight patterns during the Cold War, so that it could be as close to 100% accurate as possible.)

Hyman explains that if the market starts to plunge, the Crash Alert System will signal a sell alert warning investors to go to cash.

“You would have been able to completely avoid the 2000 and 2008 collapses if you were using this system based on our back-testing,” Hyman explains. “Imagine how much more money you would have if you had avoided those horrific sell-offs.”

One might think Hyman is being too confident, but he has proven himself correct in front of millions of people time and time again.

In a 2012 interview on Bloomberg Television, he correctly predicted that Best Buy would drop down to $11 a share and then it would rally back up to $40 a share over the next few months. The stock did exactly what he predicted.

Then, during a Fox Business interview with Gerri Willis in early 2013, Hyman forecast that the market would rally to new highs of 15,000 despite the massive sell-off that was haunting investors. The stock market almost immediately rebounded and hit his targets.

“A lot of people think I am lucky,” Hyman said. “But it has nothing to do with luck. It has everything to do with certain tools I use. Tools like the secret Wall Street calendar and my Crash Alert System.”

With more financial uncertainty than ever, thousands of people are flocking to Hyman for his guidance. He has over 114,000 subscribers to his monthly newsletter, and his investment videos have been seen millions of times.

In a recent video, Hyman not only reveals the secret Wall Street calendar, he also shows how his Crash Alert System works, so that anybody can follow in his footsteps (click here to watch it now).



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Frothy Market

Link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/11-stock-charts-to-navigate-a-frothy-market-2014-05-28?mod=latestnewssocialflow&link=sfmw