As Web's World Turns

[Websman]

Here's my positions...all long.

SVL, ELN, TIII, SURG

SURG has a ranking of 941 on the VTP. Looking good.

TIII's ranking has dropped on the VTP scale. Caution is in order.

I'll be watching ELN and SVL close. If their VTP ranking drops, I'll take profits.

PARL looks like it's just getting started. Paris Hilton will laugh at the shorts, while they lie in a pool of blood at her feet...

[spikefader]

If the VTP ranking drops, I'll take profits.

LOL .......

[Websman]

LOL .......

Laugh if you must, but my VTP is superior...

[spikefader]

no I was laffin' at what surely is a typo dude. I'm assuming you meant to put a different 'ticker' lol It just read funny that you were gonna take profits on your system....

[Websman]

no I was laffin' at what surely is a typo dude. I'm assuming you meant to put a different 'ticker' lol It just read funny that you were gonna take profits on your system....

Ohhhh....now I see it. I posted that early this morning. I guess I wasn't awake yet.

[Websman]

Ohhhh....now I see it. I posted that early this morning. I guess I wasn't awake yet.

Wow...it was full of typos....

[Websman]

Fascinating indeed...

http://www.physorg.com/news11164.html

Physicists Predict Stock Market Crashes

This graph shows the behavior of log returns in the S&P 500 index during 1984-1995. The inset shows the log returns on a 10-minute scale in region C (black Monday). The probability of large fluctuations at this time accompanies the onset of the crash. Source: Kiyono et al.

On Monday, October 19, 1987 – infamously known as “black Monday” – the Dow fell 508 points, or 22.9%, marking the largest crash in history. Using an analytical approach similar to the one applied to explore heart rate, physicists have discovered some unusual events preceding the crash. These findings may help economists in risk analysis and in predicting inevitable future crashes.

Although stock prices fluctuate, the variations across the overall market are relatively small, as well as similarly random (or “Gaussian”) on a large time scale. Nobody knows what causes the giant drops that result in market crashes, except that crashes involve a variety of factors.




This graph shows the probability of 10-minute price variations during 1984-1995. The significant increase in 1987 resulted in black Monday, and the increase in 1990 did not result in a crash, likely because of the influence of the Iraq-Kuwait and Gulf wars causing sluggish stock activity. Source: Kiyono et al.
While analyzing stock-price fluctuations based on critical dynamics and phase transitions, physicists from the University of Tokyo (Kiyono et al.) have observed some surprising behavior preceding market crashes. During the year before black Monday, the team found that the probability of large price fluctuations increased unexpectedly (“non-Gaussian” behavior), as if approaching a critical point signifying a major change. At the critical point – or day of the crash – an abrupt phase transition did indeed occur as the probability model changed from being scale dependent to scale invariant. Scale invariance, which in this case meant that the prices no longer depended on the time scale, is characteristic behavior observed at a critical point.


“Because the probability of the occurrence of extremely large fluctuations shows a sharp increase before black Monday…our observations suggest that, through the internal dynamics, the system gradually approaches a critical point where inherent, multi-scale fluctuations are likely to result in a crash,” said the scientists in a study published in a recent Physical Review Letters.

This “critical” model builds on the idea that the volatility, or variation, of price changes can quantitatively measure how much the market may fluctuate. In fact, volatility – not actual price – is the key input in Black and Scholes’ “option pricing” model on price variation over time, developed in 1973 and highly influential in financial markets.

However, volatility alone could not explain the occurrence of large price fluctuations found by Kiyono et al. The team also studied price changes on a short (10-minute) time scale, and discovered a probability of large fluctuations on this scale, as well. This similarity of fluctuations on different time scales resembles the behavior of earthquakes and heartbeats, which are also scale invariant. The physicists think that the small-scale stock price fluctuations may have caused highly clustered behavior of individual traders, which then grew rapidly through internal interactions in the stock market.

“If the same characteristics can be observed in other stock indices, our approach may be applicable to quantitative risk evaluation,” the scientists reported.

Does an increasing probability of price fluctuations necessarily mean a crash will occur? Not at all, since even the most statistically promising analysis cannot account for external factors. For example, the team observed extreme price fluctuations in log returns before 1990. However, because the Iraqi attack on Kuwait in August 1990 and the Gulf War in 1991 led to declining stock prices and action, the internal dynamics of the market underwent a radical change and a phase transition and critical point did not occur.

Citation: Kiyono, Ken, Struzik, Zbigniew R., and Yamamoto, Yoshiharu. Criticality and Phase Transition in Stock-Price Fluctuations. Physical Review Letters. 96, 068701 (2006)

By Lisa Zyga, Copyright 2006 PhysOrg.com

This news is brought to you by PhysOrg.com

[Lyehopper]

no I was laffin' at what surely is a typo dude. I'm assuming you meant to put a different 'ticker' lol It just read funny that you were gonna take profits on your system....

One day "VTP" will be a valid ticker.... I'm sure you will want to get in on the IPO....

[Lyehopper]

Fascinating indeed...

http://www.physorg.com/news11164.html

Virginia Tech has a little Holstein heifer that predicted the football game scores last season for the Hokies, she was very accurate....

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/xp-39227

Shanna the cow has Tech foes licked
By Kevin Miller

BLACKSBURG -- Look out, Hokie Bird: Another resident of Virginia Tech's livestock barns is winning the hearts of Hokie fans.

And not only is Shanna the Hokie Holstein literally the biggest 2-month-old Tech fan in the neighborhood, this calf apparently has quite a knack for numbers.

Shanna, a 210-pound heifer living in Tech's dairy barns, has been accurately calling the winner of Tech football games all season. Of course, the third-ranked Hokies are 8-0, so it's not like she's had to stray far from the Hokie herd.

But according to Shane Brannock, Tech's dairy complex director and arguably Shanna's best non-ruminating friend, this cow has an additional gift: She can usually predict the game's final score -- give or take a few licks.

"Except the Georgia Tech game ... she has been within three or four points of all of the home games," Brannock said Thursday.

Here's how the prediction process reportedly works:

The night before the game, Brannock stops by Shanna's pen for a man-to-calf chat. It's then that Brannock said Shanna makes her first prognostication.

"With her I have a special bond, so I consider myself a cow whisperer," said Brannock, who was so struck by the newborn calf he named her after his daughter.

But the real magic takes place the following morning. Brannock extends his right hand -- symbolizing the Hokies -- to Shanna and counts the times she licks it. That is Tech's score.

He does the same with his left hand to calculate the opposing team's score.

Brannock claims Shanna predicted a 27-10 Tech win over Boston College. She was off by a field goal in the 30-10 game.

Shanna's prediction for the Ohio game was 47-3, or a spread of 44 points. The Hokies trounced Ohio 45-0.

"I do share with her what the line is," Brannock said, referring to the predicted point difference between the two teams. "But she really doesn't go with it."

Shanna is quickly becoming a popular figure on campus. On game days, Tech fans honk and cheer as they drive by her special calf hutch on Southgate Drive.

So is Shanna making any predictions about a title shot?

"She's just like Coach Beamer. She's just taking one game at a time," he said.
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hmmmmmm.... I need to see if one of my spring calves can predict the market. I'll bet it'll work as well as RL's system.... and he's the 2005 POTW champ! Stay Tuned!

[Websman]

The VTP is entering the final stages of development...

[scifos]

One day "VTP" will be a valid ticker.... I'm sure you will want to get in on the IPO....

Watch Webs get sued for using the word "Vulcan" in a business venture!

[Websman]

Watch Webs get sued for using the word "Vulcan" in a business venture!

America loves lawsuits...

Vulcan is not a trademark name... I wouldn't use Leonard Nimoy's image commercially however.

[Lyehopper]

VTP Forever!!!!

Vulcan is not a trademark name... I wouldn't use Leonard Nimoy's image commercially however.

I say we hire him as a spokesman.... We could just give him some stock options.... It worked with Capn' Kirk and PCLN.

Scifos.... If you continue with the "negativism" you might get cut from the IPO offering list.... DUDE!, I don't think that you or your avatar really want that to happen.

[scifos]

Scifos.... If you continue with the "negativism" you might get cut from the IPO offering list.... DUDE!, I don't think that you or your avatar really want that to happen.

DUDE!!!!!, I don't care what you guys do. Frankly, I thought the IPO talk was a joke. BTW, an avatar can't "want" anything. Its a picture, not a person.

[Websman]

DUDE!!!!!, I don't care what you guys do. Frankly, I thought the IPO talk was a joke. BTW, an avatar can't "want" anything. Its a picture, not a person.

Trust me Scifos, this is no joke. We have stumbled upon something that may prove to be revolutionary... Our lawyers are in the process of formalizing the details before we enter the next phase towards the actual launch of the VTP. There is a lot involved in a project of this magnitude. Don't be suprised if Lye and myself don't end up on CNBC...that is if they offer us enough compensation.

I will probably start giving updates on the Vulcantrader website soon.