Duality

I drank the kool-aid. Now let me tell you why you should all stop hating Wii.

The beauty of Wii lies in its logo and its connection to Nintendo’s current strategy. Looking at the logo, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to see dotted i’s as people and the use of “ii” to mean inclusion. That’s where Nintendo’s use of ii differs from other companies’ use (such as Intel’s Viiv, where ii clearly doesn’t mean anything). In fact, I like to think that Nintendo started with the ii logo first and then slapped on the W later to reinforce the idea of inclusion.

While Wii certainly doesn’t sound as cool as Revolution, Wii fits Nintendo’s current strategy much better. Wii—and the ii that it contains—is inclusive. Revolution is exclusive: you are either with us or against us. That’s not the attitude that the Nintendo of today wants to put forth. After all, Nintendo is no longer led by the iron-fisted Hiroshi Yamauchi (a man who told Bill Gates to suck it), but by the kinder, gentler Satoru Iwata. Nintendo doesn’t care if you own a PS2, XBOX, and/or XBOX360. Nintendo doesn’t care if the PS3 is at the top of your wish list. Nintendo just wants you to have fun. And that’s what Wii is all about.

Indigestion unexpectedly dropping by on Sunday. Insomnia joining the party that night. Crazy thoughts racing through my head. When I finally kicked them out today, fever hits me at work.

Man, if only I were still in school… take the whole week off without a second thought.

… and this time I’m having trouble sleeping as well.

I didn’t sleep well last night. I kept waking up. At 6:30 AM, I just forced myself to stay up. I got to see the stock market open—Yahoo! Finance’s quotes going from yesterday’s closing price to the first prices of the day. And I watched from the sidelines as the market jumped because of the Fed’s report (we’ll talk about why I didn’t get in yesterday another time). I watched some anime eps off YouTube (seriously, how long before lawsuits shut that place down?) while forcing down breakfast (stomach not feeling too well).

All in all, not the best way to start the day, but I manage. Work time rolls around and it looks like I’ll be getting to work earlier than usual. Slip on my jacket, don my cap, get my bag, put on my shoes, grab the door knob, twist, pull, and…

*snap!* The door knob breaks off! I stare at it in disbelief; the door knob in my hand and the door still closed. My thoughts turn to dread: what if I’m locked in? “Sorry boss, I can’t come to work today. I can’t even get out of my apartment.” Slowly, I regain my composure. Using a pair of pliers, I’m able to open the door and finally get to work.

You know what worries me though? What if the door knob on the outside breaks off too? Shit, knock on wood.

(btw, anyone have the Ichigo 100% OP single? =))

Let me know if anything doesn’t work.

Btw, Xero, spell checker plug-in is disabled right now. Don’t have time to test it out. (Safari 1.0.3 doesn’t support whatever tech the plug-in uses. It’s already late, so I don’t want to launch Firefox; it’s such a dog anyway)

… I really need to tweak the WP UI. Or replace it with the Tiger one (supposed to be really good?).

—aka What I’ve Learned From Trading Stocks for Two Months.

(Note: what I am about to say applies to trading stocks only. That’s all I’ve been doing and all I can do until E*Trade gets off its lazy ass and processes my account upgrade. With the ability to trade options, I’m sure some of this will change.)

Buy & hold is NOT a safe strategy in today’s market. Holding stocks for long periods of time is incredibly risky because it’s impossible to predict how the market will move—especially in these post-boom years. One bad quarterly report is all it takes to piss away months of gain, e.g. Intel’s fall from $26 to $21 in a couple days in January. I have no idea how such a flawed strategy as “buy & hold” became the mantra for middle-class, wannabe investors.

A much safer strategy is to buy with the intention of selling within a short period of time. The goal of these quick, surgical strikes is to make money off the market’s natural, short-term volatility. Take Novellus (NVLS), for example. Over the past 2 years, it has had its ups and downs, but the overall trend is flat. If you bought and held it, you wouldn’t have made any money. On the other hand, if you repeatedly bought and sold it, you would’ve been able to make a decent sum. Of course, there were some companies whose stock consistently went up over the past couple years, but the beauty of this strategy is that you don’t have to find companies like that. Just pick a mid-sized company (very large companies tend to have stock prices which don’t vary much, e.g. Intel) that isn’t in danger of going under and go at it.

The big caveat here is that this strategy requires you to check the stock market at least once a day. It’s easy to miss good buy/sell opportunities if you check less than that.