iStock Manager Vs. Bloomberg

I am not exactly sure why, but I'm a bit turned off by iStockManager. It may have something to do with all the inaccessible features of the software. It is offered as a free download but if you pay a fee other features will be unlocked for you. The problem I have with this is that there are to many parts of the screen taken up beckoning you to "go to login" for the paid Ameritrade account. Unlike Bloomberg's software, this software package allows you to not only track your stocks but you can also link it to TD Ameritrade to actually trade your stocks. Also, since I have shelled out the cash for the paid TD Ameritrade account, I can only receive 20 minute delayed quotes of the stocks. I can't get real time quotes the way in which I was able to do with the Bloomberg app. Anyway, I'm not sure that I want to keep using this software or not, just because I'm unhappy about the interface.

As a side note, while using these stock software applications I noticed that sometimes my iPhone automatically will lock and turn off the screen. This gets on my nerves after awhile. I know that it is to save battery life but if I was really trading and every minute counted, I would want some feature to be added to the software that would allow this battery saving feature of the iPhone to be turned off when I had my stock trading software active.

At the top of the screen you are shown the stock prices but that's it. I don't think that is a very intuitive way to present the stock information. Sure I guess I can guess what those numbers mean but I see no reason for not providing some description. You can view a delayed "now" chart, as well as a 5 day, 3 month, 6 month, 1 year, and a 5 year chart. You can also link to news articles concerning this stock but I think the news is really lacking since I got no results for Apple's stock by clicking on the news icon. I went into Bloomberg's app and was able to get news.

One feature that I do like about this app is that from the main screen or the "general" screen you get a 52 week range average and you can see where the price of the stock is falling currently. In my screen shot you can see Apple's stock seems to be a bit in the high range. It would be interesting if I could expand this average to a longer period of time, more than 52 weeks.

I didn't really fiddle around with the screens in relation to the trading features since I did not open an TD Ameritrade account, so I can't give much feedback about those features. I also don't know if it was just my Internet connection but I felt that this app loaded the charts so slowly. I started to get very aggravated after awhile. So then I went into Bloomberg and discovered that the charts and info loaded very quickly, the same for Fonestock as well.

I also really like the feature of being able to just search for the company name instead of being required to input the stock symbol.

After using iStockManger and Bloomberg I'm not really sure if either is the best choice for me. I really do think that Bloomberg offers a great news feature but seems lacking in some aspects. iStockManger seems a little bit better since I can at least see the last 52 weeks average and know a little bit about what is going on with the stock but if you recall some of my earlier posts regarding technical indicators, I believe some of those can really help with making some decisions on when to buy or sell certain stocks, especially in regards to certain patterns that may develop overtime with stocks. But these two software packages have not shown me that they would be able to assist me in any trading decisions.

Taiwanese Pop Music & KTV Addiction

What do I know about Taiwanese music? Not very much except that Taiwanese really love music and with that love for music comes singing. I've never really met a Taiwanese person that doesn't love to bust it loose singing karaoke. In Taiwan karaoke is so popular that they even have establishments that you can go to rent a room with comfortable sofas, a big TV, and a karaoke system that allows you to sing until your heart's content (or your wallet is dry). Many of these places also offer an included snack style buffet but you can also order food or bring your own food and beverages (corking fee applies). They do have some English songs as well but very few. Most of the English songs are old, like 60s and 70s hits but there are also some modern ones as well. You'd be surprised at the number of Taiwanese that can sing. It's like they actually practice these songs for the day they can go to KTV (that's what they call karaoke) and strut their stuff. Even though I'm not that good of a singer, alright I'm not even a little bit good, but I really like KTV. I just wish there were more songs that I could sing. The last time I went I actually attempted to sing some songs in Mandarin and I guess I did okay. I even surprised myself that I could follow along with the lyrics. I don't have enough practice singing though so everyone was urging me to sing out loud. I guess the more beer or vodka you have before you start singing really helps a lot. Some of the popular KTV establishments include HOLIDAY KTV (everyday is a holiday) and PARTY WORLD. I think many people visit these type of establishments as not only a way to have fun but also to relieve stress or celebrate an event like a birthday. I'll try to round up some of my own old photos from my KTV party days and post it to the blog in the upcoming weeks.

As far as Taiwanese music goes, in general I'm not a big fan. The reason is a lot of the music that is produced by Taiwanese singers sounds very similar to me. Also many of the CDs are not that great. Some singers release two to three CDs in a single year, so of course the quality of the music will suffer. Unlike in the US, where a singer is just a singer. In Taiwan a singer is supposed to be a singer, actor, comedian, and whatever else their managers can think for them to become. Of course they must look beautiful or handsome and do modeling. So I think the life of a singer in Taiwan is not really a singer but a superstar. They need to be multifaceted and stay in the public eye, otherwise they will be forgotten.

Taiwanese really love ballads here, especially love ballads. The more sad the better. I do have to say, though, of course Taiwanese are more open minded about music than people in the United States. In the United States if you are not singing in English, you are not going to be listened to. I think people in the United States have a hard time believing that you can actually enjoy a song without knowing every single word of a song. Anyway, nowadays there are a lot of singers that you cannot really understand what he or she is singing anyway. I do however have some Taiwanese music on my iPod but am only familiar with a few singers. These singers are probably not as popular as others in Taiwan but anyway, I'm not introducing you to what exactly is popular in Taiwan but about what I like and listen to.

I recall when first coming to Taiwan I was introduced to two big singing stars, A-mei and Leehom Wang. A-mei is an aboriginal Taiwanese, meaning her ethnic background is not like the majority of other Taiwanese in Taiwan. Most of the Taiwanese that reside in Taiwan are of Han Chinese ancestry. A-mei made her big debut in 1996, so when I came here in the year 2000 she was still quite popular. Of course people still consider A-mei a big success but I think because she didn't keep herself in the spotlight people paid less attention to her in recent years. Her music can be called a mix of pop and rock. She also writes some of her own lyrics and has won a ton of awards. On the day that I went to KTV with my friends I sang one of her songs. I guess one reason she is lacking in popularity is that she's getting up there in age, I guess she's nearing 40.

Leehom Wang seems to be releasing albums all the time. He has also won lots of awards and even done a little acting. He is actually an Asian American kid that just happened by chance to get the chance to become a singer. It's hard for me to describe his music style because I think he just combines a bit of everything in order to create his own style of music. He calls this style "chinked out." I didn't really actually sing any of his songs during my last visit to the KTV.

I guess you could say that these two singers were kind of introduced to me through listening to other friends CDs but the last I will introduce was my own discovery. I guess I found out about Elva Hsiao by watching her videos on MTV on Taiwanese TV. I think all of the singers I've introduced should be able to speak English well but Elva went to the US to study for a time and this reminds me of something else about Taiwanese music that is so interesting. A lot of the songs will have one or two sentences of English in the song. I'm not really quite sure exactly why...maybe to make it sound more interesting? Maybe to add something to the song? There is actually research being conducted to try to determine why English is used in Mandarin songs (I heard a PhD student from National Taiwan University discuss this topic once). Elva's music seems to be filled with this kind of stuff. I think you can describe her music as Pop.

Learning Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan

Some people have said they are interested in knowing more about the Chinese courses that I'm taking and how the teachers go about teaching foreigners Chinese in Taiwan. First it needs to be made clear that the Chinese that is spoken in Taiwan is similar to the Chinese spoken in Mainland China but it is not exactly the same. Both are considered Mandarin Chinese, that is one dialect of Chinese. Chinese as a language family has several different dialects that make up the whole Chinese language but most can speak a common dialect referred to in English as Mandarin Chinese. Also the Chinese as a single race, regardless of the country they are from use a single written system. Those in Mainland China use a simplified form of Chinese characters, whereas in Taiwan and other areas (such as Hong Kong and Macau) that include large numbers of ethnic Chinese, utilize traditional Chinese characters. In Mainland China they refer to the system of Chinese characters used in Taiwan as “complex Chinese” instead of "traditional Chinese," but they are in reference to the same thing.

To help you to better understand a difference in the written system, please have a look at these two characters. Both are characters for the word “love” in Chinese. One as you can see is missing a certain part of the character that represents the “heart.” The one without the “heart” is the character used in Mainland China whereas the one that contains the heart is utilized in Taiwan.

One can come to a good understanding about the difference between the Chinese spoken in these two places by considering the way English is spoken in England and in the United States. Both of course speak English but their pronunciation is slightly different and at times the word choice is a bit off. Sometimes certain words in British English mean something entirely different in American English. This too rings true for the Chinese spoken in Mainland China, often referred to as PuTong Hua , or the "average language" (direct translation) whereas in Taiwan it is referred to as "GuoYu" or the "country's language" if translated directly.

I learned a bit of Chinese when I was an undergraduate student in the United States. My Chinese teacher is actually still in the United States but she's currently working with international students at my undergraduate university. I can't really say I learned much from that class though. I then had a chance to become an exchange student at Chinese Culture University in Taipei, Taiwan. I can't really say I learned much Chinese in the courses I took there either since they basically only had two levels "advanced" and "native-speaker" when I enrolled in courses there. Of course, they called the "advanced" class beginner. Even the students that had studied Chinese for a year in their own countries had difficulties. How was I supposed to survive with next to know knowledge of Chinese. I did, however, buy several books during this time and slowly studied with a tutor. When I left Taiwan to go back to finish my masters, I was able to speak some simple sentences and follow simple conversations. When I was a lecturer at National Chiayi University, I continued my tutoring again and I think I improved somewhat. I improved to the point when I had the entrance exam for the Mandarin courses at National Central University, I tested into their 4th level. To be honest, I don't really know how many levels they have here but it seems like 8 levels. I'm currently enrolled in the 5th level and I'm taking it for the second time. I didn't feel I progressed enough the last time I took the level, so I opted to take a rest for one semester and then go back to retake the classes.

Right now I feel my Chinese speaking hasn't advanced as well as it should have in the time I've been given but I blame this mostly on the fact I don't have much time to practice speaking. I guess my reading and writing has improved and I think it was a good decision for me to retake this level. A basic week of Chinese classes for me goes like this: The teacher first goes over the new vocabulary that can range from 30-50 new vocabulary depending on the lesson. Each vocabulary word has one or two example sentences that students are asked to read aloud. From time to time the teacher will elaborate on some sentences or vocabulary words, if he feels they are particularly difficult. We are seldom asked to actually use the words orally in a sentence. We can usually finish these within two two-hour classes. Then it's on to grammar. Each lesson has about 8 to 10 grammar structures. We have fill in the blank questions for practice with 5 to 10 practice sentence per grammar point. There is a little introduction to the grammar point, which the teacher will usually teach to us in his own way and then we go one by one through the sentences reading them aloud and filling in the blanks. After this we will sometimes have a listening exercise where we need to listen to a conversation and then answer some multiple choice questions and also listen to a dialogue that contains all the vocabulary and grammar we learned. We will then usually read the conversation aloud as well. This is usually done on the third day of class. That's the basic routine with us finishing a lesson in about 3-4 days and a test on the 4th-5th day. Our homework is to write each new vocabulary about 10-20 times and use it in a sentence correctly. Besides this, we also need to complete a homework book that asks us to write an article of about 500 characters (equivalent to about 750 words in English). We also have an oral presentation every two weeks. We are also expected to read two novels before the end of the term and turn in a written 600-900 character reflection essay over each novel. Sometimes I feel the classes are overwhelming and it's difficult for me to keep up.

I also am taking a "listening and speaking" class in which I am supposed to review the things that are taught in this other 2 hour class but I feel that seldom happens. If my classmates do not ask the teacher a question, she will provide us with a lot of listening exercises which I feel are not very helpful to me because my listening is already pretty good. If I know the words, I can catch the point of the conversations. Also, the things the teacher provides to us is Chinese speakers speaking putong hua not Taiwan guoyu, so the accent and words are sometimes a bit difficult for me.

My plans are when I finish this term of Chinese in September that I will take a pronunciation course and have a tutor. I hope that I can find someone that can tutor me everyday or at least have speaking practice for 1-2 hours everyday. Maybe I will try to find two people, one for teaching and then one I can just talk with during lunch time.

Any thoughts?

iPhone Stock Market apps

Besides giving readers an inside perspective of an American living in Taiwan, this blog is also about chronicling my knowledge and understanding of stocks. Since I have my iPhone 3G with me everywhere I go, I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of this device by downloading some apps from the apple app store that could give me some insights into the stock market. Since I am tight with money, I decided to limit my downloading of apps to those that are available for free. I chose some popular ones as well as some less popular ones. I hope to play around with them in the next few weeks and talk a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Actually I just want to see which of these apps I find the easiest to use and the most helpful. I've decided to start my exploration with the following four apps, all available for free from the apps store on your iPhone: Bloomberg, iStockManager, Fonestock and iSwim.

The first is Bloomberg. The free for download iPhone app provides the basics with an easy to read and navigate interface. The black background is very easy on the eyes. The menus provided for you are News, Markets, My Stocks, and Stock Finder. The Stock Finder option allows you to search for stocks from a variety of Markets (Exchanges) without the need to already know which index it belongs to. Also a handy feature is that there is no need to know a stock's "symbol" to search. You only need to enter the company. For example, have a look at my search for a Taiwanese telecommunications company, Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. The search option does not require me to first select the Taiwan Stock Exchange first before searching.

I also find the news feature really handy. For example, after I searched for Chunghwa Telecom, I was able to add it to my personal portfolio in the "My Stocks" folder. Here I am able to access and follow my stocks easily on a daily basis. From this screen I am presented with a screen that shows the current High, Low, Volume of the day as well as the time accessed. A 52 week set as default summary of the stock high, low, P/E, Return and Market Capital is shown beside a 52 Week summary chart. Simply tilt your iPhone sideways to have the chart expanded. Here you have the option to view 1 day, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, or 5 years chart. The charts displayed show dates, prices, and volume. I am prevented from seeing specific days. I can only view the information provided in the chart and it shows little information for each day, only the high price and the volume for that specific time.

When viewing "My Stocks" I also found the feature of being able to easily click on the column headings in order to change the displayed information. It's quite handy and easy to do. For example, in the photos below I am first looking at the Change but after clicking on the column heading "Chg" I can see the percentage of Change "% Chg" for all the stocks in "My Stocks." I think this is one of the most convenient features of this app.

Let me also briefly give definitions for three terms I have yet to use on the blog: To state it in the most concise number of words P/E refers to P/E ratio or price-to-earnings ratio. You may hear or see it written as "P/E", "PER", "earnings multiple," or "multiple." This number refers to the price paid for a share of a stock in relation to the annual profit earned by the firm per share. A higher P/E ratio means that investors are paying more per share so of course the stock is more expensive. Likewise, a low P/E would indicate a lower priced stock. You may want to briefly visit Wikipedia for a quick summary of Market Capital and Return.

The features that I like the best is the "Related News," which allows you to link directly to news that is related to the stock you are following and as a result may have some influence on this company's stock. I also feel it's helpful to see company data on the first page you are shown for any stock you decide to follow. Besides, the News feature in itself is quite interesting to me. I surf the news sometimes just as an interesting source for news when I'm on the train or bus going to and from school. You can even contact the reporter of that particular news article if you like, simply by linking directly from the article. You can also easily email articles with a single click in this app.

Besides the difficulty I mentioned above by not being able to view any type of chart except for the basic line chart (for example: no candle stick charts), there also seems to be no alert feature that could allow me for example to be emailed or messaged when and if a stock reached a certain bid price. Just as a refresher, recall that the bid price refers to the highest price that a buyer (i.e., bidder) is willing to pay for a good. In the context of stock trading, the ask price is the lowest price a seller of a stock is willing to accept for a share of that given stock. Of course it also doesn't offer any option for trading stocks as well. I am not going to delete it from my iPhone yet. I think the news resources are quite valuable to me.

Just Sleep Hotel XiMenDing

During one of my most recent visits to Taipei I had a very unique hotel experience at one of the newest and hottest hotel chains in Taiwan, Just Sleep. They currently have one hotel in XiMenDing with plans of opening another branch in LinSen in the near future. This hotel seems to be targeting the younger generation with its trendy room design, inexpensive priced rooms, and fun service personnel. The experience I had at Just Sleep was different than any other hotel experience I have had in Taiwan or anywhere else abroad. I'll talk about my hotel experience while taking several aspects of the hotel in consideration: location, price, facilities, dining, and lastly service.


First location and price. For those that are not familiar with Taiwan and wish to visit, you should consider this hotel as one of your first choices if you have a tight budget. All the rooms are quite affordable, even for students. They have several different room types from which you can choose including:

• Superior Room (1 Double Bed aka Queen Bed):NT$2,500 (about $75US) includes 1 breakfast voucher
• Deluxe Room (1 Double Bed aka Queen Bed): NT$3,000 (about $90US) includes 2 breakfast coupons)
• Superior Twin (2 Twin Beds): NT$2,800, (about $85US) includes 2 breakfast vouchers
• Hollywood Twin (2 Twin Beds): NT$2,800 (about $85US) includes 2 breakfast vouchers
• Triple Room (3 Twin Beds): NT$3,800, (about $115US) includes 3 breakfast vouchers
• Executive Twin (2 Full Beds): NT$4,800, (about $145US) includes 4 breakfast vouchers

These prices are only for those that hold a valid Taiwanese Identification Card or those possessing a Taiwanese Alien Resident Certificate. Those without one of the above-mentioned IDs would need to try to book through another website or inquire directly with Just Sleep regarding the room rates. Service charges are included for all the room quotes above (I took it all from their website). The difference between the Superior Twin and Hollywood Twin are the size of the room and the layout of the beds. The difference between the superior and deluxe rooms also has to do with the size of the room.

I stayed in the Hollywood twin. You can actually push the two twin beds together to "make" a bigger bed if that's what you desire. :)

The location of XiMenDing hotel is excellent. XiMenDing is one of the hottest places to visit while in Taiwan with lots of restaurants, activities, shops, and theaters. You can easily arrive via the Taiwan MRT at the XiMenDing stop via exit 5 or you can take Bus 207 from in front of the Taipei Main Station if arriving to Taipei from another destination in Taiwan. The bus stop for the hotel is just one stop from the Taipei Main Station. You'll need to cross the street to the hotel.

The hotel is newly built. It's one of the newer style hotels that is actually situated inside an office building. The first few floors of the building are the hotel with many of the higher floors occupied by office space. Don't worry though, you will not get lost since there is a front desk in the lobby of the building. As far as amenities goes for the rooms, you have free bottled water, instant tea and instant coffee. Wireless internet is also available but you can also use two computers with Internet access located in the Just Cafe.

Everything in the hotel has been designed to fit the tastes of a younger generation of guests (or those of us with young hearts!). The interior is very stylish and modern. Let me first talk about their small vending machine area. It was my first impression of the hotel. Very cute and stylish. They have a place to buy some simple food and drinks and some cute sofas to lounge on. I have to mention that there is no in house restaurant but there is a convenient Domino's Pizza button on your room phone that you can call and have pizza delivered to your room.

Speaking of food, at the time I checked into the hotel they were only providing rooms with breakfast but I surfed around on some websites and it seems now they are providing rooms without breakfast as well. I would recommend that you take advantage of the breakfast because all the ingredients used in the breakfast buffet are of some of the highest quality available in Taiwan and abroad. There were several little signs hung up explaining the origin of all the dishes. They provided a selection of drinks including orange juice, tomato juice, coffee, milk, water, etc. Also salad, fruit, various types of bread, Chinese style congee breakfast items, as well as cured duck and ham. I thought all their cured meats were excellent as well as their coffee. I also loved their soft-boiled eggs that each had their own individualized number! At least that is what the lady setting up the buffet told me! She was also very friendly to me and even brought out some freshly warmed yummy leek rolls for me to try! There were also other items such as cereal, preserved fruits and vegetables, and lots of other additions but I didn't really have a chance to try them.

Maybe because of the name "Just Sleep" I assumed that was one of their biggest sellers since I guess they want you to go to the room and enjoy your sleep. The bed was comfortable and the room was more than wonderful. I do have to admit that the room was small but if you look at how unique and stylish the room is, that will not be a big deal. Also, you have to consider the price you are paying for the room. Actually, the prices I quoted above are what Just Sleep is selling the rooms for but you can find the rooms cheaper by booking them on-line through other websites. The thing I loved the best about the room was how cute everything was from the mini classic refrigerator to the do not disturb door hangers, everything was extra special, extra stylish. They have an "open style" closet that adds to the modern feel of the room in the same way in which the open ceilings in the Just Cafe added to your dining experience. I guess the pictures can speak for themselves.

Another great part about my experience was the friendliness of the staff. Their demeanor is not what you usually expect from hotel staff: sterile and cold. They are all very friendly and their uniforms are not the traditional monkey suits, quite far from it. I regret I didn't get a picture with one of the staff of the hotel. Maybe I can do this in the future. Their uniforms look comfortable, very hip, and very stylish. From the moment I checked in until the moment I checked out every time a staff member encountered me they greeted me with a hearty "hello" or other such salutation. The front desk staff spoke immaculate English. They were also very knowledgeable and were able to provide me with the answers to all the questions I had during my stay.

I think you can tell by the photos how different this hotel experience can be for you. I really want to recommend all my friends to check out this hotel for their next stay in Taipei. I keep thinking that my sister would love to have the chance to stay in one of these rooms.

Stock Charts

What are technical indicators? Technical indicators are the little friends that help you decide when to get in and when to get out of a trade. Actually sometimes they can be good friends to you and at other times they can be bad friends to you. Just like in real life, you go to your friends for advice, the advice your real friends give you or lead you to believe are not always the best choices you should make. This is the same with technical indicators.

Actually technical analysis, the formal words to describe the close inspection stock charts, can help you in trying to determine where your invested stocks are headed. You can look at these stock charts in the same way you view a weather report. You read a weather report in the newspaper or watch a news anchor on television give the details of an extended forecast in order to prepare yourself for the future weather conditions but that does not mean what they have just stated in set in stone. The same also goes with technical indicators.

The majority of people out there when asked what a stock technical indicator looks like will not be able to describe one in detail but if they *see* one they will probably say "Oh this is about the stock market." So if you ever have seen any charts with lots of lines and numbers on it then you probably have a good idea of what I am talking about. Also if you are good at math (unlike myself) the concept of technical indicators should be easy for you to understand since these indicators are basically just mathematical equations. Luckily you do not need to be a math whiz to put them to work.

Before I get more into technical indicators, I should first go over the type of information that will be available in most stock charts. Technical indicators calculate certain information and present it in a chart. In order to easily understand this information, it may be best for you to first have some ideas about what a standard stock chart will contain.

You may be able to locate these charts almost anywhere on the Internet and there are even software packages that provide the information either for free or for a small nominal fee. Either way, you'll probably be presented with a chart that has the following information: 1) an information section 2) a time section 3) a volume section 4) x and y axis [depending on the chart or rather which technical indicator helped create the chart, the x and y axis information will vary]

The information section of the stock chart does what its name implies, it provides information about the stock such as what exchange it is traded through and possibly the full company name. You may find additional information such as the trading acronym or symbol, the date the chart was created, etc. For example, in the screen shot of a Taiwanese stock I'm tracking you can see that only the symbol (short name) of the stock is given on this screen. Simply clicking around in the software allows access to additional information regarding this stock.

Let's have a closer look at that screen shot. The numbers at the bottom of the screen shot in red, green, and blue provide a lot of basic information that you should familiarize yourself with. The "Open" price of 57.90 indicates the price of the stock when it opened on the market for the day in which the screen shot was taken. The "High" of 58.00 refers to the highest price that the stock has been sold for during that day up until the point when the screen shot was taken. The "Low" 56.60 refers to the lowest price that the stock has been sold for during that day up until the point when the screen shot was taken. "Vol" is in reference to Volume and the number 53442 indicates how many shares of the stock have been sold thus far for today. "Chg" refers to Change" and "Chg%" refers to "Percentage of Change." These represent the change in price from yesterday's closing price for a stock based on the "Last" reported price. The "Bid" and "Ask" numbers are representative of the price a stock can be bought or sold for. The Bid price is in reference to the amount that you can sell your stock for and the Ask price is what the stock can be bought for. There is a difference in these prices because there is a broker working as the middle man to help you with this transaction. To provide another analogy for you to better understand the difference between Bid and Ask price, you can think of a used car dealer. You may drive an old used car to a used car dealer who will give you $650US for the car (Bid price) but then the next day sell the same car to someone else for $850US (Ask price).

The X & Y axes of this chart are comprised of the amount the stock was sold for and also the time in which it sold for that price. Connecting the points together generates the line chart. The time section of the chart indicates the time period that the chart ranges (here it ranges from 9am till 1pm). Depending on how a chart is constructed, this could be over a few minutes to several hours of the day...to even several days. In my chart the time is by hour from 9am till 1pm. We can see that from 9am till 1pm the stock price has fallen between 57.XX and 56.XX.

The volume section of this chart indicates the volume of stock that was traded for that particular day. In the screen shot you can see the lower chart in light blue is a graphical representation of this data. We can see several small peaks of when larger volumes of stock were traded. Remember from my previous post that volume does not just indicate stock that has been sold but it's a combination of both bought and sold shares of a stock.

Now that you understand what kinds of basic information can be viewed in a stock chart, in my next post I'd like to discuss some practical usage of stock charts such as the one included in this post.

Stock Options

I have been discussing the stock market with some of my friends and a lot of them have come to me with a similar question and that is "What exactly is being traded on the stock market?" Some are asking me "What is the difference between buying stocks and buying stock options?" It seems that I have kind of jumped the gun by talking about trading stocks before even discussing what is the stock market or what are stock options. I hope with this post I can give my friends and followers of the blog (Oh I notice I have a few now!) a better idea of what stock option trading is all about.

I think most people understand that when you buy stock options you are not buying a physical object like a television set or a house. You are buying a contract. A contract is always written to be used as an agreement between two people. So in this case the contract is an agreement between the company and you, the buyer. The contract is that by buying the stock you do not own a part of the company but you own the rights to a contract that can be bought to own a part of the company. Stocks are actual ownership of a percentage of the company but stock options are just contracts to the rights to buy a percentage of the company.

So let's think for a moment okay. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. If you can understand the concept of someone that is involved in real estate that buys lots of homes only to resell them for profit, then you can understand the concept of buying stock options. If for example as the case in Taiwan, a new High Speed Rail was built. Those interested in making money with real estate realized that the land and homes located nearest to the new high speed rail would become more valuable because not they would be accessible by more people, businesses, etc. so many people bought them up. Does that mean they are going to live in all those homes? No. They are making a profit. The same goes with the stock options. You buy the stock not really to become a part of the company but to later sell it to others for a profit. Does a buy always lead to profit? No, but the mindset going into the deal is with hopes that it will lead to profit.

Now let me go a bit deeper into the idea of stock options trading with my analogy of the land near the Taiwan High Speed Rail.

Imagine for a minute that the Taiwan High Speed Railway has not been built yet but you know it will be built in the future; actually it will be started in 2 years and probably finished 5 years later. Actually you eye a piece of land that you suspect will be used for the High Speed Railway but you have no idea if it will truly be utilized or not for the railway, but you have a hunch that it will be. The main reason you have this hunch is that you know there are plans to have a stop in a particular city but you're not for sure where. You suspect since this spot is out in the country that it is a good location for the Taiwan High Speed Railway. So you approach the person that owns the land and ask them to sell you the rights to buy the land anytime within the next 10 years for the price that it is valued at today, which we can say is $50,000US. The owner agrees and you pay the owner $5,000US for the contract or rights to buy this land within the next 10 years.

You wait two years later and as it turns out the land you bought is nearby the stop for that city. It's not too close so it will not disturb the residents, yet it's close enough to allow people to easily commute to the railway to arrive at Taiwan's famous Taipei City. You've just made a bucket load of money. At the time you approached the owner of the land, you bought the rights to the property for $5,000US and at the time the value was at $50,000US but do you think after the Taiwan High Speed Rail was installed that it is still valued at $50,000US? No, it's now worth $200,000US. So if you paid the owner the $50,000US, you still make a profit of $145,000US. Not bad, eh?

So what could you do with your land? Well you could keep the land (but you have a nice home in Taipei City already) or you could sell the land on the market right? That would still give you a nice $145,000US bonus. In order to do this though you would need to have the $50,000US to first buy the land then and only then be able to sell the land for profit. Or you could do something else...

If you do not have the money to buy the land first and then resell it, you could simply sell your contract that you purchased for $5,000US to someone else for a higher price. You've already paid the $5,000US and already have the rights to this land. Therefore, you could not sell the land itself because it still belongs to the original owner but you could sell the rights to purchase the land to someone else and you could do it for profit! So instead of buying the land (you don't need it or you don't have the money to do it), you sell the contract to a big real estate firm for $100,000US, making a big profit of $95,000US and are very happy to do so!

So now I think you have a better idea of what it means to buy stocks, or to be an options trader in the stock market. What you're essentially doing with options trading is buying and selling contracts and of course this can be very profitable! Any questions?

So what would you do if you were investing? You would try to find a stock that you knew through research was going to increase in price in the future. (We will talk about this more in detail later or you can view my earlier posts for some simple examples.) Then when it increases in price, you sell it for profit and walk away a happy person!

Facebook & Farm Town

When I started my PhD career my good friend and classmate was constantly on my case to open a Facebook account and start friend networking. I thought it was going to be an even bigger waste of time than my Myspace account that my sister had bugged me about until I signed up. After having used Facebook for about a year, I think that I can adequately discuss it's good and bad points.

Social networking. That can be both a good and bad thing. Who wants Molly Sue your high school girl friend that you broke up with because of bad acne contacting you again after so many years? It seems that's just the kind of thing that happened to me. There were people that didn't think twice to talk to me in person when I was their high school classmate (even a few elementary school "friends" added me). Then after adding me, they never message or contact me. Then there are those people that are out there on a constant pursuit to boost their friend totals. But what for? I can't count how many people that have added me but never contacted me since then. It's great there is the "delete friends" feature. There are some people in real life it would be nice to just "delete" from your life.

These built-in apps can be addictive as well. At first the "send your friend a chocolate cheese cake" app seemed cute and harmless but now they are beginning to feel pointless. And how many more surveys or quizzes need to be filled out to determine "Which movie are you?" or "Which color suits your spirit?" or "What animal are you most like?" Not only are these quizzes poorly constructed but some are just down right dumb.

But of course it's not all that bad, otherwise I would not be logging in everyday to play my favorite pastime Farm Town, a neat on-line farming game that currently can only be accessed through Facebook. Sure, it's buggy at times and slows my old five year old iMac G5 to a halt, but I still cannot resist it. It reminds me of my childhood days of Nintendo Mario Golf. I'd never do the real thing but the electronic version, heck yea!

In Farm Town you first are given a plot of land in which you can later expand if you have enough coins and experience. Experience points add up and you are promoted to a new level that will allow you to purchase different "things" that can be placed on your farm. Also it will allow you to purchase more money-making crops as well.

So how to earn coins? There are a number of ways. You can plant crops and then after the period of time passes for those crops to grow, you can harvest. You need to pay to buy the seeds from the "store" to plant the crops. Also before you plant you must first plow the land. Both plowing and planting cost money. You can save on plowing by "hiring" someone to do it for you but you must do the planting yourself. If you hire someone that is considered your "neighbor" you can save even more money on plowing. You can find people looking for work in the "market place" that is a place you go to sell your harvests. You can hire random people to help you plow or harvest your crops there or as I said before hire your neighbors, but of course your neighbors need to be on line at the same time you're on line.

How do you have neighbors? Those friends from Facebook that have added the Farm Town app and have also requested to be your neighbor and you have accepted their request will appear on your neighbor list. By visiting your friend's farms to help them rake or water crops you can earn coins and experience points. Each day you can also send your neighbors gifts, which range from farm animals to flowers and trees. Right now the farm animals do nothing on your farm except take up space and slow down those people that are trying to load your farm. Yeah, maybe they are cute but I'd like to have a pig farm and sell all my pigs to the slaughterhouse. Also the baby chicks never grow up.

The forever "beta" is stuck to the loading screen of the game. I'm not sure it will ever not be beta since these kind of on-line games are always expanding although they have made some improvements on the game since it was first released. Now you do not need to wait for each individual plot of land to be plowed or planting before you click on the next plot that you want to be plowed or planting. So for example, you can click 50 plots of land you want plowed (that is if you have enough coins to afford it) and if your computer is slow enough just let it do its work while you work on other things.

The game is highly addictive but also it can get quite monotonous as well. What makes the game the most fun is that your friends can log on and play together with you.