Obsolete...

This blog is no longer maintained regularly. I will be posting new material and articles on my new site, http://thelittleendian.com/

Please follow me on to my new site. I appreciate the visit.

The year that was - in Google's eyes - 2005 year end Google Zeitgeist

Google demonstrates its awesome power to harvest information and reap knowledge - sometimes arcane and sometimes interesting - but always mercurial.

Happy New Year!

For the times when there's just nothing else to do...

Warning - its pretty addictive!

http://fun.from.hell.pl/2003-11-24/bubblewrap.swf

CHK - Chesapeake Energy

I havent done a recommendation in quite a while and discovered its actually fun to do one. Here's a recommendation to consider.

Chesapeake Energy (CHK) has pulled back from its recent highs. The run up for the year has been over 70% (the stock doubling at one point). While this may seem like astronomical performance, my opinion is that this is an opportunity to buy. Natural gas stocks are currently under pressure due to unexpectedly warm Fall weather in the cold regions, thus lowering expectations on natural gas usage in the winter. First of all, the weather is as predictable as the markets direction.

Chesapeake in particular has come under pressure primarily because of profit taking. Insiders in the meanwhile have purchased in large quantities in September. The company has strong fundamentals and the long term technical trend remains bullish, with stock price still riding barely above 100 day and 200 day moving averages. The price did flirt with the 100 day trendline and dipped below it slightly during the recent pullback, but as mentioned earlier, insiders have been buying on these dips. Options based sentiment (contrarian indicator) suggests bullish action, the volume put-call ratio seems to be making a turn off a recent high indicating a bullish move. The Open interest put-call ratio is showing similar short-term high.





I would suggest adding this to your watch list and looking for opening a position on the first positive sign on natural gas. Compared to other stocks in the sector, CHK has a stronger growth potential with proven earnings, at an affordable price.

The real loser in the NFL - no its not TO

The coverage of Terell Owens' debacle has been rife in the sports media all of last week. While T.O. may have really come across as a loser in the whole ordeal, there is a bigger loser in the NFL. His name is Tom Benson.

Mr Benson is the owner of the New Orleans Saints. After the pummelling of New Orleans and the Saints Super Dome by hurricane Katrina, the city has not witnessed a game by the Saints. While the team struggles losing its "foster home games", revenues from ticket sales have dried up for Mr. Benson. But before we all feel, oh so sorry, for this multi-millionaire septagenerian, we must all remember that Mr Benson has long enjoyed the benefits of a super sweet deal in which the state of Louisiana, upon Mr Bensons whining, built the Super Dome using tax dollars, and let Benson reap the benefits. While the city limps up and tries to stand on its feet, this southern gentleman chooses to kick it in the shins by demanding for a more state of the art super dome and threatening to take the team outside the state otherwise. The Saints have been in New Orleans and in Louisiana since 1967.

The success of sports leagues and teams could be attributed to the process of capitalistic enterprise, but in this endeavour, somewhere somehow, hearts and minds of fans get captured and the beauty of a team's identity can only be attributed to a sense of belonging - belonging to a people. It is a sad state of affairs when the owner of a franchise forgets that the franchise is also a team, with fans. Fans who paid for the stadium which generated income for him, fans who have lost everything in the wake of the biggest hurricane to hit their city, and who are at risk of losing whats remains as a shard of their identity. As one fan succinctly put it "we lost everything in the hurricane, the Saints, they're all we have left".

Inveneo

I read about Inveneo in an IP telephony magazine and on the web. I was delighted to find out that a simple and familiar technology like VoIP is being applied in an unusual way to make communications a reality where it is needed most. I work as a Sr Network Architect for Vonage Networks and have considerable technology and industry experience in this field.

However, something that’s even closer to my heart is the dream to bring access to communications capabilities at the fingertips of rural populations. Their Uganda deployment is a shining example and a proof in a sense that this can indeed be done. As an engineer I have believed that technology can be applied for the benefit of rural communities if the right economic model is put in place. In this context, I have proposed a model for Rural Enterpreneurship and offered myself and my time as a volunteer in such organizations' continuing efforts to bring VoIP to the 3rd world. Being born and brought up in India, my affiliations and inclinations naturally belong to that country more than others. Does anyone know if there are any plans of bringing a similar solution such as the one deployed in Uganda, to Indian villages also? It would be a privilege to get an opportunity to be involved in such a project. As for the Rural Enterpreneurship economic model for bringing communications accessible to rural populations, I would be glad to expound upon it if you send me a message or leave a comment on this blog.

Hearty Congratulations and Warm Regards to Inveneo.

The Parable of Jesus and the Rubber Chicken - What if Christ spoke at a Republican Party fund-raiser? By Tom�Peyer