Stock scream room

[Tyler]

Curious about some things regarding engineers versus accountants. It seems like engineers generally need to seek employment one way or the other through larger organizations?

Definitely not! The concentration of engineering jobs is more about industry than company size. Yes, engineers in smaller cities tend to congregate in larger companies that scoop them up without much competition. But in product development hubs like the Bay Area, every company from monsters like Apple down to the 10 startups on every street corner are full of engineers.

During my last semester in graduate school in getting my MSBA in accounting, I'd built up my own little accounting practice to 20 hours per week. And, when I graduated, it expanded and became full-time by adding other clients. That type of path, in general, does not seem to be available to any type of engineer?

Once they get enough experience, lots of engineers try the independent consulting route. Success depends largely on your specialty and ability to drum up business. Unfortunately most engineers have INTJ personalities that really hate sales. So it takes a special type of outgoing engineer to succeed.

Generally, either you have to work for either a large firm or only a smaller one which has some form of engineering focus?

Not necessarily. When I graduated from engineering school, the largest single recruiter for engineers was a business consulting company. Apparently they preferred the math education and problem solving skills of the engineers to what was coming out of the business school.

being in the engineering field the problem i find is smaller companies who use engineers usually have only one level of growth .... in the company i was with engineers really have no where to grow . they do their design work and that is pretty much it ...

many have left to go on to big engineering firms with many levels to grow to .

A wise engineering manager back in the day once explained to me that an engineer eventually has a choice -- the design track or the management track. People who define "growth" in terms of promotions and authority go the management track. People who define "growth" as making increasingly cool stuff go the design track. And it's virtually impossible to successfully do both. It's true that large companies are the only real place for most people to climb the management ladder, but there are lots of great small companies for growing your personal design portfolio. So it depends on what you care about most.

[Libertarian666]

Once they get enough experience, lots of engineers try the independent consulting route. Success depends largely on your specialty and ability to drum up business. Unfortunately most engineers have INTJ personalities that really hate sales. So it takes a special type of outgoing engineer to succeed.

ENTP engineer here.
Well, software engineer, but I think that's close enough.

[mathjak107]

Curious about some things regarding engineers versus accountants. It seems like engineers generally need to seek employment one way or the other through larger organizations?

Definitely not! The concentration of engineering jobs is more about industry than company size. Yes, engineers in smaller cities tend to congregate in larger companies that scoop them up without much competition. But in product development hubs like the Bay Area, every company from monsters like Apple down to the 10 startups on every street corner are full of engineers.

During my last semester in graduate school in getting my MSBA in accounting, I'd built up my own little accounting practice to 20 hours per week. And, when I graduated, it expanded and became full-time by adding other clients. That type of path, in general, does not seem to be available to any type of engineer?

Once they get enough experience, lots of engineers try the independent consulting route. Success depends largely on your specialty and ability to drum up business. Unfortunately most engineers have INTJ personalities that really hate sales. So it takes a special type of outgoing engineer to succeed.

Generally, either you have to work for either a large firm or only a smaller one which has some form of engineering focus?

Not necessarily. When I graduated from engineering school, the largest single recruiter for engineers was a business consulting company. Apparently they preferred the math education and problem solving skills of the engineers to what was coming out of the business school.

being in the engineering field the problem i find is smaller companies who use engineers usually have only one level of growth .... in the company i was with engineers really have no where to grow . they do their design work and that is pretty much it ...

many have left to go on to big engineering firms with many levels to grow to .

A wise engineering manager back in the day once explained to me that an engineer eventually has a choice -- the design track or the management track. People who define "growth" in terms of promotions and authority go the management track. People who define "growth" as making increasingly cool stuff go the design track. And it's virtually impossible to successfully do both. It's true that large companies are the only real place for most people to climb the management ladder, but there are lots of great small companies for growing your personal design portfolio. So it depends on what you care about most.

Our engineers pretty much do the same level of work daily as they design custom control panels for fans and pumps ....I am not an engineer but I did my own design work for decades which I learned after being in the business for 40 years .....today I teach motor controls and variable frequency drives to engineers one day a week and I enjoy doing it in retirement.

Actual engineering firms have a whole lot more levels of what they do so there are more growth positions.....

[CT-Scott]

I purposely knew I did not want to get into management and wanted to stay in design, after a foray into management at Palm where I had to manage quite a few divas and hated it.

Oh wow, I'd love to know more about what you worked on there. I bought the USRobotics PalmPilot, and later went on to purchase many more Palm and Handspring devices.

I even once ran a Tapwave Zodiac website/forum (which I still have floating around the web because I've been too lazy to take it down: tapland.com). I had been a member of several Palm-related forums for a while and when the Zodiac came out, I moved quickly to set up one of the first websites dedicated to it, hoping that I'd be able to capitalize on advertising revenue, affiliate links, etc., if the device became popular enough. I had several months where I made a little money from ads and affiliate links, but the fun didn't last very long before Tapwave declared bankruptcy. Because they owed me some ad money, they sent me a box with some Zodiacs and accessories as a final "payment", much of which I've also been to lazy to resell, and which is probably mostly worthless now, except to a few collectors out there.

For my personal use, though, I was very excited about the appeal of smartphones, or whatever we were calling them in the early days. I loved my Treo (I went through a few models, and forget what the last one was, and I forget if this was ever a Palm product or remained a Handspring device...I think Palm bought eventually bought it from Handspring?).

When the first iPhone came out I was in awe at Steve Jobs' presentation of it, as the UI looked so gorgeous in comparison to the comparatively low-res/boring UI of the Palm OS devices. But I liked having the physical keyboard on my Treo, so I stuck with it for a while, before finally succumbing to buying an iPhone (the first one I bought may have been the iPhone 3GS...I'm not certain). I was still an IBM Thinkpad / Windows user at the time, but would later switch to MacBooks, and we've been pretty much all-in on Apple products for some time now.

Going back to USRobotics...I was also into BBSes back in the early days (mostly around the time of owning my Commodore Amigas), so I also owned some "high speed" USRobotics dial-up modems (up to the 56K model).

On the subject of stocks...it's 2:32pm Eastern Time and the markets are up about 2-4%. The Fed has really made this into bizarro world.

[Cortopassi]

CT-Scott,

We were Palm's Chicago design group. Maxed out at about 35 engineers. We were "supposed" to come out with Palm's first real cell phone (after the Palm 7 wireless), let me say *many* years before the iPhone.

But internal management struggles with the Seattle (Palm 7) and CA groups kept us from doing that.

Instead we designed the Tungsten T series of PDAs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Tungsten#Tungsten_T) and before that the m500/505 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_m500_series) the first color Palm.

We survived 4 years, 1999-2003. Got to go through the IPO. See my net worth go huge, temporarily, and then drop back to normal.

My original boss and colleague, Peng Lim (at Zenith Data Systems) went on to become VP Engineering at Palm and CEO of Tapwave. (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... y-Veterans)

Palm 100% blew it. They had the ecosystem for apps way before Apple. If they had visionary management, I would not be writing this right now, or would be from my private island.

[CT-Scott]

Instead we designed the Tungsten T series of PDAs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Tungsten#Tungsten_T) and before that the m500/505 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_m500_series) the first color Palm.

Oh yes, I remember those models, though I never personally owned either one. I had several other Palm or Handspring-branded models, and also experimented with some Microsoft Pocket PC devices, but didn't care too much for the UI/experience. Once the first smartphones (like the Treo) came out, I was mostly hooked on those and no longer interested in "standalone" (non-phone) handheld devices.

My original boss and colleague, Peng Lim (at Zenith Data Systems) went on to become VP Engineering at Palm and CEO of Tapwave. (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... y-Veterans)

Oh, cool intersect. I think I only ever dealt with a particular marketing guy, whose name escapes me. I'd have to dig into my old MacBook's archived email to see if I still have some emails to/from him to track down his name.

Palm 100% blew it. They had the ecosystem for apps way before Apple. If they had visionary management, I would not be writing this right now, or would be from my private island.

Agree about the "app store". In fact, if you look at that tapland.com home page that's still alive, I designed it to feature a particular app, and had thoughts of starting up a Palm OS "app store" at the time. I believe there were one or two independent ones around that time, but I had some ideas for ways to improve upon them, and envisioned getting a cut of sales or just having it be more of a polished "directory" where developers would basically pay to advertise their app, but where the app itself would be downloaded from the developer's own hosting site. I remember wondering at the time, also, why Palm was so behind the curve that they weren't already leading the way in having *the* Palm OS app store of their own.

[pmward]

Well the S&P closed right at that 2850 level I've been eyeing for the last couple of weeks, on the eve of a whole slew of economic data being released and on the week of options expiration. The next week is going to be very interesting...

[Cortopassi]

Instead we designed the Tungsten T series of PDAs. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Tungsten#Tungsten_T) and before that the m500/505 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_m500_series) the first color Palm.

Oh yes, I remember those models, though I never personally owned either one. I had several other Palm or Handspring-branded models, and also experimented with some Microsoft Pocket PC devices, but didn't care too much for the UI/experience. Once the first smartphones (like the Treo) came out, I was mostly hooked on those and no longer interested in "standalone" (non-phone) handheld devices.

My original boss and colleague, Peng Lim (at Zenith Data Systems) went on to become VP Engineering at Palm and CEO of Tapwave. (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... y-Veterans)

Oh, cool intersect. I think I only ever dealt with a particular marketing guy, whose name escapes me. I'd have to dig into my old MacBook's archived email to see if I still have some emails to/from him to track down his name.

Palm 100% blew it. They had the ecosystem for apps way before Apple. If they had visionary management, I would not be writing this right now, or would be from my private island.

Agree about the "app store". In fact, if you look at that tapland.com home page that's still alive, I designed it to feature a particular app, and had thoughts of starting up a Palm OS "app store" at the time. I believe there were one or two independent ones around that time, but I had some ideas for ways to improve upon them, and envisioned getting a cut of sales or just having it be more of a polished "directory" where developers would basically pay to advertise their app, but where the app itself would be downloaded from the developer's own hosting site. I remember wondering at the time, also, why Palm was so behind the curve that they weren't already leading the way in having *the* Palm OS app store of their own.

Come to remember it, the absolute worst thing Palm management did was to split the hardware and software groups into two companies. We were tied at the hip, then not, all of a sudden. Everything started falling apart after that.

They wanted other companies to make the hardware and run PalmOS on a variety of PDAs and I assume hopefully cell phones. Like a Microsoft Windows model, I guess. It never really took off, and both sides just kind of slowly died off, while Apple, keeping full control of both HW and SW, took over the market.

Still, it was the most fun 4 years I ever had at a company. They were rolling in money for a long time. Many offsites, patent bonus trips to Barcelona and Hawaii (I did not go to either because my kids were being born). Great bonuses, parties, swag, etc.

I was the last guy to turn off the lights in the Chicago group. They offered really amazing stay on bonuses to stay to the end, and I took it. It also just got me over my 4 year mark, so I got paid for another 4 weeks which would have been a sabbatical you got every four years. Sabbatical. Hah. Crazy just thinking about that.

[Cortopassi]

Well the S&P closed right at that 2850 level I've been eyeing for the last couple of weeks, on the eve of a whole slew of economic data being released and on the week of options expiration. The next week is going to be very interesting...

So what do you think will result? Up or down? Biased because you have a pile of money?

[pmward]

Well the S&P closed right at that 2850 level I've been eyeing for the last couple of weeks, on the eve of a whole slew of economic data being released and on the week of options expiration. The next week is going to be very interesting...

So what do you think will result? Up or down? Biased because you have a pile of money?

Haha. Well I trade on the intermediate term. So on the intermediate term signals are mixed. But on the short term, obviously a lot of signals are pointing bullish. But this is the general area where I would expect the next leg down to start *if* we are going to get it. There's just nothing but resistance and past indecision/inflection points between 2850 and 3000. It's also possible that we don't get another leg down, but just pullback of maybe a couple hundred S&P points before the next leg up. I'm trying to keep an open mind at this point and trade the chart I have, not the chart I want.

I'm still hoping to deploy my cash lower, but I also have an intermediate term trend following signal I'm watching for on QQQ, and if that fires I'm going to buy into QQQ. I may get whipsawed in the process, but I have to at least have a plan on where/when to get back into the market if I'm wrong, as well as a way to sell back out if I was right but early (haha) and get whipsawed. Using a well backtested trend following signal seems as reasonable and unbiased of a plan as any if I'm wrong and the market keeps rallying. Also QQQ's chart has looked really strong relatively speaking.

[vnatale]

Once they get enough experience, lots of engineers try the independent consulting route. Success depends largely on your specialty and ability to drum up business. Unfortunately most engineers have INTJ personalities that really hate sales. So it takes a special type of outgoing engineer to succeed.

ENTP engineer here.
Well, software engineer, but I think that's close enough.

Other than the "T' we are complete opposites!

Vinny

[vnatale]

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[Ad Orientem]

Capture.JPG

As long as they don't cut their dividend.

[Vil]

I would expect the next leg down to start *if* we are going to get it

What I will say has nothing to do with technical analysis (and presumably you are way much better than me in recognizing things on charts).
Hate to cite WB, but he has nailed it with saying "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.".
While it's still true that Wall Street and Main street are different kind of things, still the Wall Street inhabitants live on the same planet. So, if and when those same guys recognize the fact that recovery from Covid will take longer than initially anticipated and that quick reopening may bring more issues than positives, the next drop is expected. But as long as many politicians care too much for the economy rather than people lives, I am more leaning towards the scenario of a "hard face punch due to quick reopening". But still that's my personal belief not supported with any stone-written statistics or data i.e. obviously 100% biased opinion.
Personally, I am sitting on my VP cash and waiting. Still you're better than me, as I have to invent ways to make my cash utilized as just keeping it idle at my broker account makes it a subject of 'penalty' due to negative rates (oh yeah) - as with any cash amounts over some limit ...

[pmward]

I would expect the next leg down to start *if* we are going to get it

What I will say has nothing to do with technical analysis (and presumably you are way much better than me in recognizing things on charts).
Hate to cite WB, but he has nailed it with saying "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.".
While it's still true that Wall Street and Main street are different kind of things, still the Wall Street inhabitants live on the same planet. So, if and when those same guys recognize the fact that recovery from Covid will take longer than initially anticipated and that quick reopening may bring more issues than positives, the next drop is expected. But as long as many politicians care too much for the economy rather than people lives, I am more leaning towards the scenario of a "hard face punch due to quick reopening". But still that's my personal belief not supported with any stone-written statistics or data i.e. obviously 100% biased opinion.
Personally, I am sitting on my VP cash and waiting. Still you're better than me, as I have to invent ways to make my cash utilized as just keeping it idle at my broker account makes it a subject of 'penalty' due to negative rates (oh yeah) - as with any cash amounts over some limit ...

Technical analysis is definitely more of an art than a science. There is no fail safe indicator or system. It's all about probabilities. Using charts to find high probability trades with a promising risk/reward, and then using risk management strategies to choose the proper size, stop, hedging, etc to protect your ass in case you're wrong, haha. Anytime I am looking at a trade, I both have to know what I will do both if I'm right and if I'm wrong before I push the button. This is why I, like you, am in cash... but I'm also keeping an open mind and have an unbiased rules based signal of when I will buy back in if I'm wrong (and if I buy back in, when to sell if that in turn proves false). I still think the probabilities favor another leg down, but those probabilities have definitely decreased in the last week, as has the probable bottom if we do get the next leg down. Things always can change with emerging info though.

[Vil]

Technical analysis is definitely more of an art than a science.

Indeed, for me it's even more than art - it's like a fiction . Even though being profitable with my VP, still the market continue to surprise me. Maybe it's partially due to the fact that I tend to be a bit too emotional in some of my decisions.. Certainly its a bit tougher due to my decision to trade only on European markets - there are no decent scanners and the couple of available screeners are far from perfect, too. Last but not least liquidity is times less than the liquidity on US markets. It may sound a bit strange to what I am gonna ask you here (you can reply on PM if you like) - can you recommend me some good (from your perspective) book(s) on technical analysis ? I've read quite some of those, but honestly the vast majority appears to be quite a marketing fluff. Thanks !

[pmward]

Technical analysis is definitely more of an art than a science.

Indeed, for me it's even more than art - it's like a fiction . Even though being profitable with my VP, still the market continue to surprise me. Maybe it's partially due to the fact that I tend to be a bit too emotional in some of my decisions.. Certainly its a bit tougher due to my decision to trade only on European markets - there are no decent scanners and the couple of available screeners are far from perfect, too. Last but not least liquidity is times less than the liquidity on US markets. It may sound a bit strange to what I am gonna ask you here (you can reply on PM if you like) - can you recommend me some good (from your perspective) book(s) on technical analysis ? I've read quite some of those, but honestly the vast majority appears to be quite a marketing fluff. Thanks !

Haha, well it's only fiction if you're not trading based on the technicals and instead are trading off of emotions and your own opinions, haha. Technical analysis is basically the study of sentiment. More times than not, the sentiment today is going to be close to the sentiment tomorrow. Trends tend to come in place and play out on different time frames. Technical analysis is not about finding a fool proof indicator or system, it's simply a way of judging sentiment, finding those trends, and getting an idea of probabilities.

Honestly, the best place to get a decent idea of the basics of technical analysis is stockcharts.com. You can sign up for a free account there. The first 30 days you have access to their extra tier. With that free trial of the extra tier you can download all of their curated "chart packs", which give a good well rounded look at the markets. Their "Chart School" with tons of articles and videos on indicators and strategies, as well as their regular YouTube videos give a good understanding of how professional CTA's look at the charts. Most of their authors and streamers are more on the intermediate to longer term timeframe as well, which is the best place to start for most beginners. Most technical analysis books and videos you will find out there are are more tailored for very short term day and swing traders. If you're going to do the short term route or use leverage, you also will need to do a lot of studying in risk management, gambling strategies, etc. Risk management is more important than technical analysis the shorter your time frame and the more levered you are.

[dualstow]

Whether technical analysis actually works is a matter of controversy. Methods vary greatly, and different technical analysts can sometimes make contradictory predictions from the same data. Many investors claim that they experience positive returns, but academic appraisals often find that it has little predictive power.[46]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical ... l_evidence

[shekels]

Whether technical analysis actually works is a matter of controversy. Methods vary greatly, and different technical analysts can sometimes make contradictory predictions from the same data. Many investors claim that they experience positive returns, but academic appraisals often find that it has little predictive power.[46]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical ... l_evidence

I am still Looking for that perfect technical stock/bond indicator that will tell me today, what will be up tomorrow.

Ideas?

[dualstow]

Yeah, stop looking, shekels.
Become a long term investor, even if things look pretty grim right now.

[pmward]

Whether technical analysis actually works is a matter of controversy. Methods vary greatly, and different technical analysts can sometimes make contradictory predictions from the same data. Many investors claim that they experience positive returns, but academic appraisals often find that it has little predictive power.[46]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical ... l_evidence

Precisely why I say it's more of an art than a science. You really cannot do a real academic study on technical analysis. Hell, most people struggle to even define what technical analysis is and is not. How can you study something if you cannot even come up with a static agreed upon definition of what it is? So I put 0 weight in anything academics say on the matter. Academics can do better job studying quantitative analysis than they can technical. Things like market cap weighting, factors, buy and hold, asset correlations, rebalancing, etc that everyone is familiar with here are all examples of quantitative strategies. To muddy the waters a bit though... most technical analysts do use quantitative strategies as well. The line between the two can get murky in some ways.

[dualstow]

pmward, I can’t remember: Do you do technical analysis for work, or is that completely separate and just for your own investing?

[shekels]

Yeah, stop looking, shekels.
Become a long term investor, even if things look pretty grim right now.

I have been "investing" since the early 90"s and have found 1 super secret indicator but was looking for another.

[dualstow]

Ok, tell us yours and we’ll tell you ours. ;-)

[pmward]

pmward, I can’t remember: Do you do technical analysis for work, or is that completely separate and just for your own investing?

Just for my own investing. A lot of very interesting data can be drawn simply by looking at charts, comparing them to each other, and comparing them to past historical times. There is a lot of value in technical analysis. Unfortunately, there are a lot of snake oil salesman that have kind of given it a bad name. Like anything in life, if you split the difference between both extremes, there in the middle is about where the truth lies. There is nothing magical about technical analysis, and it cannot accurately tell you for sure what is going to go up or down tomorrow. But it can give you a lot of information that you otherwise would not have had, so that you can make a better and more informed decision on what to buy, hold, or sell.