Price Discovery

We've all been working very hard this year and are having a few days off in New York City. Candace did a great job on the seminar in Chicago and I wanted to buy her a present to thank her. It's also my wedding anniversay soon, so Mrs. EL let it be known that a new watch would be especially welcomed. So I headed for 47th Street, THE best place in the world to buy jewellery. The selection is enormous.


The only problem is that prices are not marked on anything. You have the feeling that they make it up as they look at you, charging whatever they think the market will bear. So what does a trader do? Price discovery.


I had two items to buy, earings for Candace and a watch for Mrs. EL, and I had no idea of price. My first stop was Tiffanys to find out what the top retail price was. Armed with that information, I decided to start walking down one side of 47th Street and into shops that sold what I wanted to buy, asking for offers. When I received an offer I placed a bid. As you can imagine, the spread was pretty wide. The offers were all well below Tiffanys, as they didn't give you that magic blue box, but I still didn't know where to trade.


As I went from shop to shop, I let the next shopkeeper know what my previous best offer had been. I then slightly increased my bid. Bit by bit the spread narrowed and I began to see what the real spread should be.


As soon as I had this information I saw what fair value should be. Then it was easy, I just placed my bid a few ticks below fair value so I could be a responsive buyer below value and went to a couple of more shops until someone found my bid attractive enough to hit it.


All markets are the same. The job of any trader is to see what fair value is so we can buy below and sell above. The frequency and profit range we look for determines whether we are scalpers, daytraders, swingtraders or others. The principals are the same.


I've already put a smile on Candace's face and can hardly wait to get home to Mrs. EL.

Going Google across the 50 States: Texas brothers convert 30% more leads by staying on track with Google Apps

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor's note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from David Bullock, CFO of YETI Coolers based in Austin, Texas. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.

YETI Coolers, co-founded in 2005 by brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders, offers durable, super-insulated ice chests for serious outdoor enthusiasts. Roy first recognized the potential of a premium cooler during an early entrepreneurial endeavor and decided to design his own. He recruited his brother to help and the two settled on YETI for the company name – a new brand that consumers could easily associate with frigid toughness. Today, YETI coolers are “certified grizzly-proof” and distributed through over 500 dealers across the country.

When Roy and Ryan started the company, they recognized the value of Google’s free email service, Gmail, and started with one email address – yeticoolers@gmail.com. However, fast forward three years and the company had grown to 10 employees. We hit a tipping point where we needed to expand and create a more professional look with @yeticoolers.com email addresses. The question was how to retain three years of information and still offer the entire office the same easy-to-use interface and access to remotely-stored email history. The solution was Google Apps.

Soon after implementing Google Apps, we hired our first National Sales Director who resides in North Carolina. Despite the geographical barrier, Google Docs has allowed us to collaborate with him and other remote employees in real time, and has became a critical component of our sales process.

Our goal is to increase the number of dealers that sell YETI coolers but for a long time, our volume of dealer inquiries was unmanageable and we missed out on sales opportunities. This is where a Google spreadsheet saved us. We created a “Potential Dealer Tracker” to track, prioritize, and, most importantly follow up with potential YETI dealers. By capitalizing on dealer inquiries in an organized, methodical way, we’ve been able to convert 30% more leads just this year. The profit from the new accounts nearly pays our National Sales Director’s salary!

We also use Google Calendar to track internal and external meetings and even non-work events like Red Raider and Longhorn football games. More recently, we started using Google Sites and launched our company’s first intranet. We look forward to adding even richer content to the site as the company continues to expand.

Given the rapid growth we’ve experienced over the last few years, it has been extremely difficult to stay on top of all areas of the business. Google Apps has changed this, providing the tools we need to succeed. It’s low cost, secure and easy to use – from our standpoint, Google Apps is the perfect solution for any small business.

Posted by David Bullock, YETI Coolers

Google Media Solutions Series, Part 4: Google TV Ads - Tune into success

The Google Media Solutions series has been cross-posted from the Google Agency blog, as the solutions outlined there are fully applicable to small businesses.

Congratulations, you have made it to the final installment of the Google Media Solutions series! We get frequent questions about Google TV Ads; whether it's the right platform, how much it costs, how it works. Here’s your crash course.

Google TV Ads is an online marketing place that allows anyone to launch national TV campaigns and measure their success with timely reporting. Google TV Ads allows you to buy the programs that you want without bundling, pay only for impressions delivered and access viewership data from a sample of millions.

Ready to jump in? Let’s dispel a few myths that you may have heard:

• Does TV advertising fit into my marketing mix? Television advertising allows you to reach a wider audience than any other advertising medium. Generate brand awareness and demand through sight, sound and motion. It’s also a great supplement to any online strategy - read how ooVoo used TV to drive a 500% increase in site traffic.

• We want to get started, but we don’t have a commercial. Can you help? Of course! You can use the Google Ad Creation Marketplace to connect with professional ad production houses for as little as $200. Creating compelling, effective TV ads at relatively low costs has never been easier.

• But is TV Measurable? If you have a website, we recommend tracking and comparing website visits with your TV campaign metrics using Google Analytics. Google Analytics can track TV campaign metrics like TV impressions alongside daily web traffic volume.What does it take to get started? Create a video ad, log into AdWords, choose targets and shows and see your ad on TV within 48 hours! Visit the Getting Started Guide for more tips.

This post concludes our Google Media Solutions series. Over the past four weeks, we have reviewed Google AdWords, the Google Display Network, Remarketing, YouTube and Google TV Ads. Hopefully you have learned some tips and tricks along the way.

Posted by Laura Salzberg, Agency Team

The end game

It had been 16 long months since I opened my morning newspaper and didn't thumb through the want ads. This morning, though, I went directly from the Local News page to the Sports section with nary a thought of finding work.

It's a relief.

I had applied to AOL's Patch.com in August after my aunt told me about the internet company's start-up news websites. I really wasn't sure what the job would entail, but the resume went out in assembly line fashion as it had for months. It wasn't until two weeks ago when a recruiter in Virginia called me to set up a phone interview. A few days later, I sat down with Western Pennsylvania's regional editor for a one-on-one interview at a South Side coffee shop. On Monday, I whizzed through a three-hour writing exam that asked me to use faux police reports to cobble together multiple stories on a fatal fire. I finished the process with another phone interview on Tuesday with a local editor in Illinois.

After that, I hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. Then I received a phone call yesterday morning from the original recruiter. There was a sadness in her voice that I detected -- or maybe it was my own pessimism -- that quickly turned to delight when she asked me to come aboard.

The position of local editor will be to build and launch a news website for the Chartiers Valley area around Bridgeville. The company expects me to work from my home, and it is sending me an iPhone, Mac laptop, copier/printer/fax machine and police scanner. I will be responsible for all the happenings within my local beat. They also are providing a small budget for me to hire freelance reporters. This is a new concept in journalism, but it is an exciting opportunity that I intend on giving the best chance to succeed.

I have been unemployed for 16 months, but I haven't forgotten how to work. It's time to get out of the bread line and back into the workforce. I can't wait.

Costs and Consequences

Everything we do has a cost and everything we do (or don't do) has a consequence. People seem to live in the "now" rather than looking at the bigger picture. Whether it's "I would rather play a video game than do my homework" or more serious choices, such as only doing the minimum you have to do at work, rather than doing the best job you can. It all has a cost and a consequence. Sometimes the cost and consequence is delayed, but it always comes. People do not seem to be acting in their own best self interest and suffer from what the latest buzzword refers to as "unintended consequences", meaning "Gee, I didn't realise that would happen if I failed to do this or I did that".

When applied to trading, the consequences can be very costly and often the person does not even see that it is a consequence.

The road to becoming a consistently profitable trader requires a roadmap, just like the road to becoming a brain surgeon, an accountant or any other skilled profession. The roadmap to learning these deeper skills is created by people already skilled in the activity, and skilled in the knowledge transfer for acquiring the skill.

With no back testing, the consequence is not knowing whether your strategy is profitable, what profit target to use, what stop to use, what your trader's profile is, and so on. It's trading blind. There is a checklist of things that are required, in my opinion, to get to CP. All of these requirements have been discussed in this blog many times. Trying to take a short cut to CP by leaving out any of these requirements in an attempt to speed up the process even more will almost certainly result in the consequence of failure.

I sincerely believe that it is this failure by traders to apply a structured and proficient training to the process of becoming a trader, encompassing both the training of "muscle memory" and the development of the skills and confidence, which is responsible in great part for the huge failure rate in our business. It is not enough to just show up. A long time ago, Einstein theorised that the shortest distance between two points is not necessarily a straight line.

Candace and I are in NYC and back to London and France on Sunday. Kiki is in France and I'll meet up with her on Monday. It will be back to business as usual on Tuesday.

Being able to watch the Chicago group take on the methodology in person was a blast. By taking on the roadmap, they are now all working their way to CP (or better CP)!

YouTube’s Promoted Videos picks up steam

How do you increase sales and build your brand when you’re on a limited budget? You might consider using YouTube’s Promoted Videos. YouTube reports that it has served its 500,000,000th Promoted Video view this week and has seen a six-fold increase in clicks it has delivered to businesses such as Shopper’s Choice, Dynomighty and Orabrush. This ad product combines the branding capabilities of video with the direct response action of search advertising, allowing advertisers to promote their videos against search results or related videos on YouTube. For more information on this announcement, please visit the YouTube blog for the full story.

Posted by the YouTube Team

It's over

At 10:54 a.m. today, I accepted a position as a Local Editor with AOL's Patch.com to cover the Chartiers Valley area.

I begin Nov. 8 and will offer more details about the job and beat in the coming weeks. Thank you for your support over the past 16 months.

It's the Pits

It was the Gap trade with a difference - we watched it in the S and P pit on the floor of the Board of Trade, where the CME moved the pit after its merger.


Thank you Ben Lichtenstein for taking us onto the floor and showing the EL training group around. Thanks also to Trevor from MarketDelta for arranging it.


We stood in Ben's booth while he squawked the S and P bigs. Ben owns Traders Audio and provides a tick by tick squawk of the action. Lots of traders find it useful to know whether it's paper or locals who are running the action, and which way they are.


I hadn't been down on the floor since 2001 and was amazed at how few people were there now compared to then. The floor is a dinosaur.


The market opened Gap down. It was great seeing the Gap trade live in the pit, not just numbers. Paper came into the pit and the locals took it. After some to-ing and fro-ing for half an hour, price moved well towards the gap. Price was 76.00 just before the 10 am number and the locals got long into the number, hoping for a pop. POP it did and we immediately saw 78.00 as we were walking off the floor.


Candace was on a floor for the first time and I'm glad she got to see it before it disappears.

Chicago, Chicago CBOT

We finished the three day seminar and everyone seemed to have learned a lot and had a good time. We had a second Gap trade today and it went north exceedingly slow. This is my second session of training and I am pleased that there are such a terrific bunch of people reading the blog. I'm looking forward to following all these guys and gals as they take on board some of the things I use in my trading. Most of them had been trading without the structure of the context that the EL methodology provides.

We moved hotels to downtown Chicago after being up in Geneva, Illinois near the MarketDelta offices, as we are paying a visit to the Board of Trade floor early tomorrow morning. It will be Candace's first visit to a floor and possibly her last; the floors are fast disappearing as electronic trading makes them uneconomical. There are lots of locals trying to make the transition to electronic trading.

Heading to New York City on Thursday and will be home on Monday morning. Looking forward to trading the U.S. election results on Wednesday morning.

Google Media Solutions Series, Part 3: Re-engage your customers while they browse with remarketing and the Google Display Network

Welcome to the third installment of the Google Media Solutions series. This series has been cross-posted with the Google Agency blog, since many of them are applicable to the small business owner. In this post, we will review the Google Display Network. The Google Display Network is a large group of websites and blogs that display AdWords ads and allows advertisers to scalably reach their customers at moments of relevance. People are using it for direct response, web engagement as well as driving offline conversions.

We have rolled out many new features for the Google Display Network. One that we would like to highlight is remarketing. Google remarketing uses custom technology to reach potential customers who have previously visited your website. Implementing the remarketing tag is very easy; you simply add a pixel to your website. After adding the pixel, you can use remarketing to help capture additional sales or leads by re-targeting users who have already visited the site, and generally convert better and at a lower CPA. To learn more about remarketing and other innovative targeting options on the Google Display Network, you can check out this post from the Google Display Network blog series.

We frequently hear some common misconceptions from advertisers about the GDN that we’d like to clarify:

• I’ve tried the GDN before - what has changed?: The Google Display Network has changed a lot in the past few years. Today, the median advertiser gets approximately 20% of their conversions from the GDN at a CPA that is comparable to search.* To drive results like these, we are investing heavily in many new features that make the GDN an effective platform for advertisers with any marketing objective. Examples of features we've introduced over the years include site exclusions, above the fold targeting, frequency capping, and consolidated view-through conversion reporting.

• The Google Display Network only works for branding: Contextual targeting and remarketing are just a few examples of great tools that direct response marketers can use to reach potential customers in the later stages of the buying cycle, like consideration and decision. The Conversion Optimizer can also help you generate additional conversions at an attractive cost-per-acquisition (CPA). With powerful tools like these, you can make sure you are capturing all your potential customers as they spend time across the web.

Thanks for reading the third part of the Google Media Solutions blog series. Next, we will discuss how you can use Google TV to drive results for your clients. 

Posted by Laura Salzberg, Agency Team

*Internal analysis of North America advertisers advertising on both search and content, with conversion tracking enabled, from Dec. 2007 – Nov. 2008

Hi from Chi-town

We've just finished day 2 of the Chicago seminar at MarketDelta, and we have a great group of guys and gals.  MarketDelta have been great hosts.

Today we traded the Gap trade, and again showed what a great picture it is to trade. Today the entry was about 10 points from the previous day's close. By being able to capture one of the extremes of the day, and trade it towards that close, we were able to spend the day scaling out of trades and re-loading where we could. This meant that we could carry the maximum position for most of the trade down. 

The Gap trade is the first Outside in trade I would suggest that you add to your arsenal, due to it's high win rate and profitability.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Advertise your local business with Google Boost

[Cross-posted from the LatLong Blog]

As a local business owner in today’s day and age, you know that it’s important to have an online presence because that’s where your customers are. In fact, research shows that 97% of people conduct research online before buying locally. Hopefully you’ve gone to Google Places to claim your free business listing that appears on Google and Google Maps. That enables you to share accurate information about your business such as your hours of operation, photos and videos - and now you can do even more.

Today, we’re announcing the availability of a new online advertising solution to help local businesses connect with potential customers in their area. Boost enables business owners to easily create online search ads from directly within their Google Places account. No ongoing management is needed after the initial set up, and this beta is currently available to select local businesses in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago.

Boost ads are eligible to appear in the “Sponsored Links” section of Google.com and Google Maps search result pages. For example, if you’re a restaurant owner in San Francisco who has signed up for Boost, your ad may show up when someone does a related search like the one below, indicating a cuisine and location that matches yours. Beyond the basics like your company name, address, phone number and website, your ad may also include the number of reviews you’ve received, an average star rating and a link to your Place page to help potential customers find additional useful information about your business. When a map appears alongside the results, a blue pin will help folks quickly find your location on the map. Businesses using Google Tags will also see their yellow tag appear in the ad.


To create your ad, all that is required is a short business description, a web or Place page, your business categories and a monthly budget. From there, our system automatically sets up your ad campaign - figuring out the relevant keywords that will trigger your ad to appear on Google and Google Maps, and how to get the most out of the budget you allotted. You’ll only pay when a potential customer actually clicks on your ad, and you can also view basic ad performance data from your Google Places dashboard.

Here is an example of the simple sign up page within Google Places, which takes just a few minutes to complete. To make the process even easier, the “description” and “categories” fields may be pre-populated with suggestions based on the information you provided on the Place page for your business.


We hope Boost provides busy local business owners with a quick and easy way to share information about themselves with the people who look for them online. Placement in the “Sponsored Links” section of the page will, as always, depend on factors such as your ad’s relevance and quality. Boost does not affect the ranking of the free, organic business listings in any way.

As we do with all beta features, we’ll carefully review the data and effectiveness of this trial and may make changes before making decisions about any future expansion. In the meantime, business owners can sign in or claim their listing in Google Places, and select businesses in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago will see an invitation to try Boost in the account dashboard. Interested businesses outside these areas can sign up to receive notification when Boost comes to their area by filling out this form.

Posted by Kiley McEvoy, Product Manager

Trade a lot or be very selective?

As discretionary traders, we must decide how we want to trade.

My process requires the identification of a trading "picture" with a high win rate and profitability.  I qualify the picture by first defining it, so I can back test it. Without first defining it, I can't test it. If I don't test it, I can't trade it, because I don't know in advance whether I will make money and whether I will have a high enough win rate - the main requirements for me.

But how restrictive do we make our definition? The answer to this question depends on what we want to achieve. Of course we want to make a profit every day, week or month,  but we have to be more specific.

I want a high win rate, I know that. But do I want many small profits, or do I want to be able to catch a trade that will give me a larger profit and not take lots of smaller trades? My picture definition has to be specific enough to meet my requirements.

How do I do this? Back testing. I know my basic setup, but I have to add context and nuances. The context and nuances will further qualify the picture to catch the type of trade I want to catch. Lots of work involved.

It's not enough to just show up.


Arrived in Chicago and looking forward to the training starting on Sunday.

Obama campaigns at W&J College

(Candidate Barack Obama shakes hands with a supporter. Photo by Celeste Van Kirk)

By Michael Jones
O-R Staff Writer
April 16, 2008

Barack Obama calmly stood behind a blue curtain, his arms crossed and body swaying back and forth, moments before being introduced to the crowd of about 300 people.

It is a routine the Illinois senator has been through hundreds of times on the campaign trail, but just beyond the curtain, anticipation swelled as supporters wearing campaign garb eagerly awaited the Democratic presidential hopeful's entrance.

"It's time to take our country back," Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner said, "and that's why I believe we are here today to support Barack Obama."

With that introduction, Obama stepped through the curtain and the crowd inside the Rossin Student Center ballroom on Washington & Jefferson College's campus rose to its feet and gave him a raucous reception. It took him several minutes to make his way to the podium as he shook hands with dozens of military veterans seated underneath an American flag draped overhead.

Obama's visit marks the first time one of the three remaining presidential contenders has come to Washington County. His chief rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, will travel to the Mon Valley Saturday.

Philip Fiumara Jr., district commander for the Department of American Veterans, gave Obama an American flag lapel pin to wear before he addressed the crowd. Obama quickly pinned it to his coat and personally thanked him following the event.

"I heard a lot of people say he won't wear a flag pin," Fiumara said. "Well, if he's helping veterans, he needed a pin."

Obama spoke for a mere 15 minutes, highlighting his grandfather's service during World War II and explaining the problems facing many present-day soldiers returning from battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. He then turned the forum over to the audience and took questions for 45 minutes.

Near the end of the forum, Charles "Tootie" Smith, a disabled Vietnam War veteran living in McDonald, took the microphone and addressed Obama for several minutes, never asking a question.

"This is what America is all about," Smith said. "So, Mr. President, thank you."

He then stood and hugged Obama as the crowd cheered.

Jim Trent, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, is a registered Republican and will not be able to vote in the Democratic primary Tuesday. He has not decided for whom he will vote, but said he wanted to see Obama in person to help him choose in the general election.

"I just wanted to hear the man," Trent said after the event. "I like him."

Trent, of South Strabane, dismissed the controversy over Obama's comments at a private fundraiser last week that small-town voters are sometimes "bitter" and that they "cling to guns or religion ... to explain their frustration."

"Yeah, we do hold to our guns and our religion, but that's something we've done for generations in this area," Trent said. "It's part of our background and who we are. I think they're just using comments like that out of context and some people are upset about it. I wasn't at all."

As Obama left, he shook hands with supporters who crammed into a velvet rope near the stage. Heidi Szuminsky of Waynesburg weaved her way to the front and briefly spoke to the candidate.

"I've been waiting to do that for a long time," she said.

As a member of the Young Democrats in Greene County, Szuminsky has supported Obama since he gave a stirring speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

"I think he's the one candidate who can actually unite our country and truly bring about the change he speaks about," Szuminsky said. "There's just so much I like about him."

Obama heads today to Philadelphia, where he will debate Clinton.

Going Google across the 50 States: Investment advisory firm in Illinois turns to technology to get ahead

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor's note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Dustin Bonnema, Portfolio Analyst and IT guru for MainStreet Advisors based in Chicago, Illinois. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.

Founded in 2003 by two veteran investment professionals, MainStreet Advisors is a Chicago-based Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor. We provide investment advisory services, portfolio management, and marketing support for our clients, and are expanding rapidly - we’ve already outgrown our current office space, two years ahead of plan.

Such fast growth prompted us to focus more on technology and find ways to remove communication barriers for all employees. So we switched to Google Apps earlier this year and are already using many of the products in the suite including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Sites. We couldn’t be happier with Google Apps, and the best part is that everything is online and all the products are easy to learn and use. We’re trying to put as much as we can into a Google spreadsheet or document.

Shared Google Calendars are used to track time-off, conferences, committee meetings, and individuals’ travel schedules. This is a critical component of our internal communication strategy since Managing Directors and other executives travel as much as 40 - 50% of the year. This same group is reliant on mobile phones, and use either iPhones or BlackBerry devices to access Gmail and other applications, while they’re on the go.

As the company grows, it has become harder to locate and share updated information and policies across all employees. Google Sites is solving this problem – we built an intranet that includes links to shared calendars, client websites, group email aliases, expense reports, gift matching instructions, and investment policies. A Google form is also embedded in the site so employees can submit vacation requests that are updated directly in our HR manager’s spreadsheet. In time, we plan to add even more to the site – we’re already showing gadgets with intra-day performance of market indexes across the world and we’d like to add a map of client locations and charts outlining our company assets over time.

Aside from helping us create more efficient business processes, Google Apps has become a key part of our business continuity plan. We have the security of knowing that if something goes wrong in the Chicago office, we’ll still be able to access our information from other places. This is critical to protecting our clients’ investments, and the future of our business.”

Posted by Dustin Bonnema, MainStreet Advisors

Choosing a market to trade

Firstly, thank you everyone for all the comments and e-mails regarding Nick. I really do appreciate each and every one.

Tomorrow, we are heading to Chicago for the MarketDelta seminar. We have a nice group, and I am confident that the participants will look at the market in a different way after the seminar.

There are hundreds of futures markets in exchanges all over the world. They all seem to get business, some more than others.

As traders, we somehow choose a market to trade. How do we make that decision? Which market do we trade? Is it an emotional decision? Is it a decision that is made because the trader believes he "knows" something about that particular market? Does "knowing" a market make it more profitable for a trader to trade it?

Lots of questions.

For me "knowing" a market is the least important criteria. The "knowing" does not have a trend. It cannot be easily timed. I want to look at the volatility in the market during the times that I would be trading it. I also want to see the volume during those times. I want to see that the bid v ask spread is tight and that the size of the bid and ask is enough to accommodate my orders without slippage. This is very specific technical information.

The next thing I want to look at is how it trades. Is it smooth or is it always choppy?

Once I have decided that a specific market passes these tests, I need to watch it trade and learn it's "fingerprint". I then have to find the matching range bar value that has the least overlapping bars and shows the vertical movement of the market in its smallest range bar value. This is so I can see changes in activity as soon as possible for both entries and exits.

The next issue is whether the current type of activity will be lasting. Can I trade this market for years, so I don't have to go through the same process again? Is it seasonal?

None of these criteria take into account whether I "like" the underlying of the future I am proposing to trade.

The market I want to trade is the one that I can use to make the most money.

A fine line

Steelers linebacker James Harrison should not have been fined $75,000 by the National Football League for his hit on a Cleveland Brown. There, I said it... along with every other human being not employed by the NFL.

Harrison is a monster on the football field, but a softy off of it. He aims to hurt people, as he plainly said after the game on Sunday. But so does every other defensive player. You want your opponent to feel pain, but you do not want them to suffer an injury.

As for Harrison's fine, it makes no sense. Mohamed "Image Redacted" Mossaquoi turned to catch a pass that slipped through his fingers. The minute he turned to look, he saw Harrison barreling downfield on the verge of a monster hit. So Mossaquoi ducked his body into the fetal position and put his head in line with Harrison's shoulder. How could James Harrison ever pull back or change his direction to miss Mossaquoi's head?

Now Harrison is threatening retirement because the game has changed. Say what you want about that suggestion, but I think "Silverback" should do whatever makes him happy. If playing football and earning $8 million a year doesn't do it for him, then so be it. The boys on ESPN's "Pardon The Interruption" couldn't believe Harrison would trade that money for a job as a bus driver, which he previously said in a news interview would be his profession had he never made it to the pros.

Now, I don't know James Harrison personally, but I do believe he would be happy being a bus driver making pennies. Because that seems to be his personality. He has always scrapped his way into the lineup ever since permanently catching on with the Steelers in 2004 after linebacker Clark Haggans broke his hand while weight lifting. Had Haggans never broken his hand, Harrison would be working full-time for public transit.

And I think he would be satisfied with his life doing just that.

So maybe we should all learn something from James Harrison. Football is fun, but we shouldn't put it on a pedestal. He knows his place in society with or without the NFL, and I commend him for willing to move on to his "life's work" before his contract and body say he should.

Great News

My son, Nick, has completed 8 cycles of chemo for his Hodgkins and has been declared cancer free!!!

Thanks to everyone who has offered their good thoughts and prayers for Nick's recovery. It worked with You Know Who's help.

He was finally diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkins, as he had the disease below the waist too. Doctors got the below the waist spots half way through and the PET scan just now showed that Nick's neck is now cancer free too.

You can imagine that I'm over the moon. Blog readers who responded to my initial post really helped. Thank you all again.

We now have to wait 5 years to see that it doesn't come back, then 10 years to be declared cured. 

Google Media Solutions Series: Part 2, YouTube - Bring Creative Solutions to Your Clients

Over the next four weeks, the Google Agency Blog will be debunking common myths, passing on easy implementation tips, and sharing general how-to of Google advertising. We'll be cross-posting to this blog, since most of the tips are relevant to small businesses. You'll be able to find all the tips in one place under the label 'Google Media Solutions Series'.

Online video represents a huge opportunity to reach potential customers with new, compelling formats. YouTube is the perfect platform to reach these customers, drive sales and enhance branding initiatives.

There are many benefits to advertising on YouTube. It is a unique platform which allow you to reach potential customers who are engaging online. You can set up YouTube campaigns through the AdWords interface. With our new YouTube Video Targeting Tool, you can target specific audiences based on interest, demographic or specific video content. You can create a message and share it with consumers with their videos or display ads. Additionally, after running a campaign, you can use YouTube Insight to learn how potential customers are interacting with your videos.

There might be some confusion around YouTube ad formats, so here’s some clarification:

• I am not sure if my audience is on YouTube?: Your audience is watching YouTube videos. YouTube has users of all ages and 32% of users are between the ages of 35 and 54*. In fact, if the YouTube audience were a country, it would be the 3rd largest country in the world with over 420 million unique visitors every month.

• We don’t have video content. How can we use YouTube?: You don’t need to have video content to advertise on YouTube. You can target your audience on YouTube with display, text or video ads. Our recommendation, since YouTube is a visual medium, is to test out display ads.

• Is there professional content on YouTube?: YouTube has over 3,500 content partners, including CBS, TV Guide, Fred and JuicyStar07. Our partners are actively uploading content and the video landscape is constantly changing. As this is the case, your target audiences are returning to see new, updated content on YouTube!

Check in next week for the third post, which will be on the Google Display Network, Remarketing and great tips for reaching your customers while they browse the web!

Posted by Laura Salzberg, Agency Team
* comScore MediaMetrix, September 2009

My Wife vs.The Mistress

My wife has accused me of having a mistress more than once during our marriage.  My mistress is very alluring, available almost 24/7 in one form or another, is very exciting and can provide lots of money.  Many of you may have the same mistress.  Her name is "The Market".

In the past, my mistress has caused a lot of conflicts with the family. I had to spend a lot of time wooing her before she became mine. The day, the nights, the week-ends learning all her ways were never enough. There always seemed more to learn than time available.


The thing that compounded the problem was that my mistress not only took most of my time, but also most of my money. She took everything I threw in her way. Until I mastered her, that is.


What was difficult for my wife was that she knew I would never give up trading, and although she hoped that eventually the market would support us both, she saw no signs that it was close. It was the lack of signs of hope on her part that made things difficult.


You see, the transition is one from losing trader to breakeven trader to sometimes profitable trader to Consistently Profitable trader. The step to CP happens overnight. One day you are not there and the next day you are. At least that's how it was for me. I can still remember that day and the trade that did it for me. An epiphany! A light being switched on. It required so much work, that unless I was someone who really loved to trade, I would have given up.


But my wife doesn't trade. She only saw the losses and the frustration.


Out of all that came the training methodology I have adopted. I found out what did not work and what was needed. I have posted about this in the blog. It worked, and is still working with the traders I am mentoring.


Becoming a discretionary trader is not for everyone. I believe everyone can learn to trade, but only with the caveats that I have mentioned often in my blog, including, the amount of time and effort spent back testing and SIM trading.

So if your mistress is the market it may be useful to share your progress and explain the time that will be required to train your 'muscle memory'. But be certain that to keep the promise you have made to obtain Consistent Profitability and that you have put in place a structured and measurable training process. And don't forget that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Weekend update...

The stainless motor and test stand are almost ready to test.
Waiting for some more silver screen to arrive so I can make small cat packs rather than wastefully cut up 6" packs.

I worked on putting some more storage and shelving into the garage.
(My son finally gave up on the fantasy that one might someday park a car in there)

Sunday I went out to FAR and worked on getting generator set up for Propellant processing facility. I've never had a gas motor beat me, alas the universe is telling be I'm not a diesel mechanic. Will try again next time on site.

I will be at the SSI.org conference on the 29th 30,31st so if your there say hi.

As a science geek I enjoyed the 4 part videos from LPP power they are trying to do fusion on a shoestring and are being very open about the process. A long shot but if something like this works it changes the world..... Part 1

Solve the obvious problems, whatever it takes

As part of the July training my students and the additional students who subscribe to the DVDs, are provided with mentoring from me in various forms.

This is not a commercial for mentoring. What happens during a trader's progress through the program is that they get what I call "off piste", off track (I ski). This happens for a couple of reasons but mainly because a student get to a 70% + win rate and then the irresistible happens - the desire to improve the win rate further.

Now, a good picture has a 70%+ win rate. I can increase the win rate in a couple of ways. One is to reduce the target. For example, in the ES, my all in, all out target may be 3 points. If I make the target 2 points instead, my win rate will increase but probably not my profits. Another way to improve the win rate is to discover a nuance that better qualifies the picture. I get improved win rate and improved profitability.

But entering a trade in accordance with my trading plan, not waiting for my target or stopping myself out for an order flow/momentum reason but because I feel that the trade will be a loser, will NOT increase either my win rate or profitability but achieve exactly the opposite.

This is an obvious problem when I see it. There are a number of others such as trading without back testing, not sticking to a trading plan and so on. When this happens, and it will, a trader needs to pull himself back to his trading plan.

How can you see it's happening? What I do is ask each trader to keep a log and report to me on what percentage of his trades he has made in accordance with his trading plan. I also ask for a snapshot of entries and exits of losing trades. Between these two things, it's easy to diagnose. We then have a chat about what is happening. Usually the next week's report shows a dramatic improvement.

If you don't have a mentor who is tracking your trading then you really need to put things in place so you can do it yourself. That's what the week-ends are for. Doing reviews and market replays and replaying your bad days usually fixes the problems. You may get new problems but eradicate the old ones. Finally bit by bit by addressing each area you will end up having what has been the elusive CP in your grasp.

Google Media Solutions Series: Part 1, Back-to-Basics with Google AdWords and Search Marketing

Over the next four weeks, the Google Agency Blog will be debunking common myths, passing on easy implementation tips, and sharing general how-to of Google advertising. We'll be cross-posting to this blog, since most of the tips are relevant to small businesses. You'll be able to find all the tips in one place under the label 'Google Media Solutions Series'.

So, let's get started with Google’s search marketing product, Google AdWords. Using Google AdWords, you can target Google.com and the Google Search Network. This is a great solution to connect with potential customers who are searching for your products and services. It is flexible, measurable, and accountable. With AdWords, you can easily manage the spend of your account and control costs by setting a daily budget and maximum cost-per-click (CPC). Another benefit is that it’s easy to make changes to your ad text, as changes to ads take affect almost instantaneously. Lastly, as an added benefit, you can track the return on investment (ROI) of your account by using Conversion Tracking or Google Analytics.

There are some common myths that your clients may have heard regarding search and we want to make sure that we clarify these misconceptions:

• My website shows organically, so I don’t need to advertise: It is great to have a highly ranked organic listing; however you can’t control the message to your potential customers with organic listings in the same way that you can control it with search marketing campaigns. By advertising on Google.com and the search network, you can control the message that you share with all potential customers and determine the landing page to which you direct your potential customers after they click on the ad. These features can lead to increased sales.

In addition, organic results are likely only capturing a very small portion of the relevant traffic on Google. For example, a consumer electronics advertiser might appear high in the search results for their brand terms, or specific trademarks relevant to their company, but AdWords can expose their message on a wide variety of related terms like 'digital cameras' 'netbooks' and 'HD TVs'.

• Competitors can click on my ads maliciously: We take the security of AdWords accounts very seriously and have many resources in place to prevent your account from accruing invalid clicks. While invalid clicks occur less often than commonly perceived, we have three filters in place to protect your account: detection and filtering techniques, advanced monitoring techniques and manual reviews from our team.

Stay tuned for next week’s post on the Google Display Network, remarketing and great tips for reaching your customers while they browse the web!

Posted by Laura Salzberg, Agency Team

Going Google Across the 50 States: Google Apps strikes a chord with Premier Guitar in Iowa

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor’s note: Over 3 million businesses have adopted Google Apps. Today we’ll hear from Patti Sprague, Managing Director of Premier Guitar in Iowa. To learn more about other organizations that have gone Google and share your story, visit our community map or test drive life in the cloud with the Go Google cloud calculator.

Premier Guitar is for true guitar enthusiasts, a magazine focused on guitar gear and the musicians who use it. All of our employees are passionate about music, and many play guitar or other instruments. Working with a bunch of musicians creates a fun, creative workplace, but not always a very structured environment. We needed an email system that didn’t tie our team to the office, but allowed us to work together and stay connected wherever we may be. Google Apps was the perfect solution.

In our business we have very tight deadlines. We do things a little differently than other traditional magazines. We not only publish a print version of our magazine, we make all of our content, current and archival, freely accessible over 5 different platforms. We’re able to successfully compete with some of the older print centric publications out there because we’re lean and we can get stories up quickly. That requires a lot of team work. Google Docs allows us to work on a story from wherever we are and get it published quickly. It would never be possible to work as efficiently or collectively if we had to wait for a new version of a document to be sent to us before we could publish.

Often our writers and photographers will need to drop everything to hop on a plane for a last minute factory tour, or an interview with an artist. One of the reasons we started using Google Apps is the ability to access our email and calendars on our mobile phones or anywhere with an internet connection. With Google Apps, we know where the team is and what’s due based on our shared calendars. Our company calendar and editorial calendars are kept up to date so we can get our stories out quickly. Plus, we can always just hop on Chat to ask each other questions or find out the status of a shoot or a photo shoot or piece. Being able to just ask a co-worker a quick question instead of sending them an email and waiting for a response has really helped keep projects moving along.

Apps helps us stay connected and work together, while still having fun doing what we love. For a lean team that wants to meet deadlines while writing about their passion, Google Apps was the perfect choice.

Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps Team

Happy Birthday to the Blog

Today is the blog's first birthday!

I can't believe where the blog has gone since that day one year ago when I sat down to chronicle Kiki's progress to CP. 

Then the blog started to take on a life of it's own. Lot's of you interacted through comments and email and told me how the blog had helped you to or towards CP. This gave me the incentive to keep things going way past where I had first intended.

Lot's of you asked for more help - mentoring. I took this on and was rewarded by the progress that the students made.

We have recently launched an ElectronicLocal Google group which we will be moving to an EL forum in the new year. There will also be some other interesting developments in the new year. So stay tuned.

Meanwhile, back at the right side of the chart, today....

It was a DAX afternoon. Just a few hours of trading today as I had a lot of running around to do before I go to France on Sunday, and then to the States. Chicago, Chicago is really my kinda town.

Tips for creating a free business listing in Google Places: Business listing titles

[Cross-posted from the LatLong Blog]

Users search on Google.com and Google Maps because they’re looking for relevant, high-quality content that answers a question or fulfills a need. This useful information often appears in the form of business listings on the search results page, and these free listings are an important way for local business owners to connect with potential customers. We want to help you make the most of your business listing, so this is the first post in three-part blog series about how to set up a clear and effective business listing via Google Places. This first installment delves into the specific topic of business listing titles — also known as your company or organization name — and highlights some of the common issues business owners encounter when creating a listing.

Example of business listings displayed on google.com

Accurately list your basic business information

If you already have a business listing and want to tweak it, or if you haven’t yet claimed your business listing, sign in or visit Google Places here. The “Company/Organization” field will also serve as your business listing title, so you’ll want to enter in the exact name of your business. For example, for a business called “Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd.” the following would be its correct business and contact details:

Company/Organization: Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd.
Street Address: 88 Fish Road
City/Town and Postal Code: Fishtown, CA 90210
Main Phone: (555) 555-5555
Website: www.example_for_flyfishingfrankies.com

A clean, easy-to-read title

The title of your business listing should reflect the exact name of your company or organization as it’s used in the real world. While it’s acceptable to leave off company extensions like Ltd, GmbH or Inc, since those identifiers aren’t helpful to users, be sure to avoid adding any descriptions that aren’t part of the official business name or making any modifications to the official name. Your business listing title must match the business name you use in the real world (e.g. on signage, letterheads or business cards) in order to comply with our Google Places quality guidelines. Listings that are in violation of these guidelines may be suspended and won’t appear in Google search results.

Here are some additional reminders about business titles based on some of the offending listings we see and have to suspend. We also let you know how and where to include specific information you want to provide potential customers, while complying with our quality guidelines.

• Descriptors and keywords — The following are common examples of modified business titles. These are instances in which either descriptive phrases are used in lieu of the correct business name, or additional keywords and phrases have been added to the business name. These examples are not in accordance with our quality guidelines:
• [Example title violation] Professional fishing travels
  
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. - fishing, cutter travels, eating crabs
  
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. entertaining cutter travels
Note: While the “Company/Organization” field may only contain the name of your business, if you’d like to provide more information about your business’s classification or industry, you can do this by selecting the appropriate categories. You can also provide a more detailed description of your business - such as what you do and the the services you provide - in the “Description” field or on your company website.

• Location names — Unless the official name of your business includes the name of your city, town or other geographic indicator, adding superfluous location terms to the business title violates our guidelines:
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. Fishtown
  
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. in Market Place Shopping Mall
Note: To indicate the location of your business, please use the appropriate fields marked “Street Address,” “City/Town” and “Postal Code.” Adding location-specific information in the title of your listing is not necessary since our system automatically uses your address details to determine the search queries for which your listings would be geographically relevant. If you’re concerned that your business is difficult to find or part of a shopping mall or complex, you can provide users with further guidance about where to find you by adding that information in the “Description” field.

• Phone numbers and websites — Phone numbers and website URLs should not appear in your business title. These details should only be entered into their respective fields in your Google Places listing. The following examples of titles violate our quality guidelines:
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. (555) 555-5555
  
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. www.example_for_fishingfreddys.com

• Capitalization and Punctuation — Some users may be tempted to use special characters or excessive capitalization in the business title to draw attention to their listing. However, this practice is not compliant with our quality guidelines:
• [Example title violation] FLY FISHING FRANKIE’S LTD.
  
• [Example title violation] **!!**Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd.**!!**
Note: In order to ensure that the Google Places business listing results are useful and easy to read, please refrain from using visual gimmicks. Business titles, as well as addresses, should always use standard capitalization and punctuation.

The above examples may not cover all cases of business title violations, but we hope we were able to highlight some of the common mistakes we’ve seen. By avoiding these errors when setting up your business listing title, as well as reading through the rest of our Google Places quality guidelines, you should be in good shape to create an optimal and compliant listing.

If you realize that your existing listing is not compliant with our quality guidelines, we encourage you to sign in to your Google Places account to make the required changes and avoid getting temporarily suspended for violating the guidelines.

We hope you find this information helpful, and if you have further questions about business listing titles, visit our Google Places help forum.

Posted by Claudia Pfalzer, Local Search Quality

France and Chicago, and Flo

Candace and I are headed back to our place in France on Sunday to do the final prep for the MarketDelta seminar which we are delivering starting on Sunday 24th October. There's still some work to do. The overall curriculum is set but the detailed charts and other things still need to be completed.

We head for Geneva, Illinois on Friday. One of my oldest friends has a birthday - a pretty big round number - and we are celebrating that on Saturday in Chicago. That was the original reason for the trip when MarketDelta asked me to do a seminar.

The Wednesday morning following the seminar we, meaning all the students, Candace and I, are heading for the Merc floor to watch the S and P bigs open. I haven't been on the floor since 1993 in London but not trading on the floor since 1991. Candace hasn't ever been on the floor which is why I'm really going. While I liked my time as a local, the floor is not really a very nice place. It brought out the worst in all of us. Spitting in people's faces, fights and the urban legend of the local who dropped dead of a heart attack. The other locals  were said to be stuffing his pockets full of trading cards showing the dead local buying the high of the day from them.

Even I lost it once. I actually punched a guy in the face and didn't get fined. He was after my spot in the pit and had someone call me out of the pit by making me think one of my kids had had an accident. I went ape sh*t. The obeservers just calmed me down and that was the end of it. Could have cost me big ££££ in fines.

I've shown what Flo has been up to the last few days. This is the DAX, the German stock index..and the stats for Flo for the least few days.

The forgotten game

Fifty years ago today, the smoky industrial town of Pittsburgh upset a baseball juggernaut.

It's hard nowadays to imagine the Pittsburgh Pirates as a championship caliber team, but the 1960 roster shocked the world at 3:36 p.m. on this date. It still is amazing that this team, which won Game 7 against the feared New York Yankees, doesn't get the historical credit it deserves. Outside the Lines on ESPN conducted an online poll this afternoon and just 8 percent thought it was the most memorable home run in a World Series. It finished last out of six total nominees. That's hard to believe considering it's the ONLY home run to decide the championship in a Game 7.

Although the Yankees had outscored the Pirates by a score of 46-17 during the first six games, the series was tied heading back to Pittsburgh for Game 7. The Pirates blew a 9-7 lead in the ninth, but they had final ups in the bottom half of the inning. And there was scrawny Bill Mazeroski standing at the plate - a player known more for his glove than his bat - cracking the winning run over the center field wall.

While most of the country doesn't even remember this game, a group of Buccos fans and former players still gather at the Forbes Field outfield wall in Oakland to listen to the radio call and commemorate this amazing feat. In a city that has seen 18 consecutive years of abysmal baseball, Oct. 13 is recognized as a local holiday for a city starving for meaningful baseball

Gapping Again

I traded the DAX in the London morning and switched to the ES after I walked the dog at noon. That fast run up that hit my resistance line on the MP chart enticed me to hold the short for the Gap trade. Front running the RTH open is something I have written about a few times. The sale at around 1174.00 as the upward momentum died and the order flow changed direction was easy with the MP resistance.

But the gap close was not a normal open to yesterday's close gap close, but an open to RTH high close, which is how we used to trade it 10 years or more ago. Identifying the bounce was easy - look at the CCIs.

Again, the vision was important. I was looking for a firmer market and that's what I got, after it did it's necessary housekeeping.

Getting the most out of Gmail

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Last week we posted some tips to help you move from Microsoft Outlook® and other client-based software to Google Apps. Today we’d like to share some more thoughts on making the most of Gmail.

Save time with Priority Inbox

A busy day often affords few email breaks. When you do get a chance to scan your mail, Priority Inbox helps you prioritize by identifying the messages that require your immediate attention. Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict which messages are important, including the people you email most and which messages you open and reply to. The best part is it gets better the more you use it. Turn on and manage Priority Inbox in your mail Settings – and read our tips to become a real Priority Inbox whiz!

Seamless chat, video and calling

We work with people in multiple ways, and Gmail makes it easy for you to choose the most effective means to communicate: email, chat, text messaging, video chats and phone calls are all available from your inbox. For example, voice and video chat lets you have an actual conversation with someone or meet face-to-face in brilliant resolution. And for those early adopters transitioned to our new infrastructure, we recently added the ability to call phones in Gmail, so you can place phone calls from your computer to any landline or mobile phone number and receive calls as well. For phone calls and video chat, download this plugin to get started.

Get more attached to your email

Attachments in other email systems can be cumbersome; they take up space, can be hard to find and you have to open another program to take action, which slows you down. Gmail has some helpful features that let you quickly view attachments without the need to open or download them on client-side software. The Google Docs Viewer allows you to view .doc, .pdf, .ppt and other attachments in a new browser tab simply by clicking the "View" link at the bottom of a Gmail message. If you decide you want to edit the file, click "Edit online" to open it in Google Docs, or download it to your desktop.

Gmail also includes a Google Docs preview lab that lets you read the entire contents of a Google document, spreadsheet or presentation right in Gmail. Note that your administrator needs to have enabled Labs for you to access them.

Put email in context

Wouldn’t it be great if you could update a sales lead without leaving your inbox? With contextual gadgets, you can. They display information from social networks, business services, web applications and other systems, and let you interact with that data right within Gmail. Your administrator or any third-party developer can build and distribute Gmail contextual gadgets to the domain with just a few clicks via the Google Apps Marketplace, which we launched in March. To learn more, browse for apps in the Marketplace that have ‘Mail Integration’.

The keys to productivity

With Gmail, we built in keyboard shortcuts to help you get through your mail quickly and efficiently. Once you enable this feature in Settings, you can archive (e), reply (r), compose (c), delete (#) or take just about any other action with one key or a short combo. For a handy guide, type “?” while you’re in Gmail – for maximum efficiency, print it out and post it at your desk.

Experiment in our Labs

Gmail Labs give users experimental – sometimes whimsical – features to customize Gmail in a way that works best for them. Some Labs accommodate preferences, such as adding a “Send & Archive” button, while others help you communicate, such as the Google Voice player and SMS in Chat. Still others help you stay organized, like the Google Docs and Calendar gadgets. If your administrator has enabled Labs for your domain, check them out for yourself.

What’s your favorite feature in Gmail? Feel free to let us know in the comments below. Happy (productive) emailing!

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Google Apps Product Manager

Half Gap

I have written about my concept of envisioning. I start my daily prep and envision where the market will move for the day from what I see in the Profile, as well as from what action took place "overnight". This gives me a starting point for my trading. As the day unfolds, I may adjust my vision if the market tells me to.

I was trading the DAX from the open today in Germany. I traded the market's swings, both from the short and the long. I was looking for a downward bias. Weakness came in again before RTH and set me up for the ES Gap trade.

It was very interesting. There was a buying tail on the ES RTH Profile and the ES was to open half way on that zipper. Overlapping it it was the VAH of the previous split Profile.

The market opened very weak. As I was short from earlier at 1158.00, it was easy to hold my position into the RTH open and watch what happened at the area I spoke of above. As you can see, the market did not retrace back to close the gap or even to the VAL. It bounced off the VAL of the Profile of the 11th and traded down to the VAL at 1151.75 of the 7th. It bounced from there and retraced, still trying to close the gap.

Each of these points was a clearly identifiable and tradable opportunity. Those of you who have been studying the course will recognise the trading pictures. It was the range bars and the context of the Profile that gave you these trades. Without the context, it would, at least for me, have been difficult to make these trades. Trade #1 was identifiable as overbought, Trade #2 was a reversal point.