Bosch -- Season One

Added on by C. Maoxian.

I finished watching season one of "Bosch." Watched all ten episodes in a binge over a couple days.  It was ok, not great.  I've read all the books so I was interested in the TV adaptation.  The show seems pretty squarely aimed at Gen-Xers, maybe also late Boomers. The kids (Gen-Ys and Millennials) probably wouldn't care for it.  Here's the main cast:

Titus Welliver as Det. Harry Bosch b. 1961 
Jamie Hector as Det. Jerry Edgar b. 1975 
Amy Aquino as Lieutenant Grace Billets b. 1957 
Lance Reddick as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving b. 1962
Annie Wersching as Officer Julia Brasher b. 1977
Sarah Clarke as Eleanor Wish b. 1972
Jason Gedrick as Raynard Waits b. 1965

There are a couple of Gen Yers on there, Jamie Hector, who plays the token black sidekick (he's not a great actor, I think he was also in the Wire?), and Annie Wersching who plays Bosch's lover (she has a great, voluptuous bod when not in uniform). Aquino plays a Latina Lieutenant, and later a Lesbian Latina Lieutenant, unnecessarily I thought.  Had the stiff police chief Irvin Irving reprising his Wire role. Cast included a craven blogger. Not enough Latinos in this given the LA location, just a few bit parts. Gedrick is pretty sinister as the psycho, he must work very hard to look that good at 50.

Bosch was a Vietnam vet, a "tunnel rat," and they tried to update him as an Iraq/Afghanistan vet, which doesn't really make sense since he'd be 40 when 9/11 happened. And Bosch was a tortured guy in the books, he didn't have a cute teenage daughter whose eyebrows needed plucking ... he was in a very dark place all the time. And he was sharp, a street-smart detective who could read anybody. Welliver can't really pull this off, going harder on the tough guy with a soft spot routine.

The arc wasn't that great, show to show writing and acting wasn't very even.  I guess overall I'm pretty disappointed with it.

My selected screenshots:

Opting Out from Being CONned

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Interesting bit from the Barclays ATS – LX and Equities Electronic Order Handling FAQ:

Opt-out notice: By default, all firm orders sent by Barclays algorithms will be conditional-eligible so that clients’ orders may interact with the maximum amount of potential liquidity. If you have any questions regarding how conditional orders operate, or if you do not want your algorithmic orders to be conditionally eligible, you can opt out of this functionality by contacting your Barclays Equities sales representative

If you don't opt out, they'll sorta kinda protect your interests:

Barclays may revoke or limit a participant’s ability to submit conditional negotiations if the subscriber exhibits a low rate of responding to conditional invitations with firm-up orders.  ... Firm-up rates are monitored across all conditional-supported venues, including Barclays LX.

UBS "expects" traders using their ATS will come through with a firm-up order. But no word from them on monitoring firm-up rates.

Weight Watchers Collapses

Added on by C. Maoxian.

This thing has been going down for ages but really collapsed today (-35%) on earnings.  I looked at the top ten shareholders (as of 12/31/14):

Invus Public Equities Advisors, LLC 51.94%

Fidelity Management & Research Company 10.55%

Capital Research Global Investors 6.23%

First Manhattan Company 4.88%

Millennium Management LLC 3.34%

North Tide Capital, LLC 3%

The Vanguard Group, Inc. 2.97%

BlackRock Institutional Trust Company, N.A. 2.49%

Camber Capital Management LLC 2.02%

Putnam Investment Management, L.L.C. 1.9%

There was a lot of opportunity to short this at around $15 after hours (it looks like) ... surprised it tanked under $12 during the regular session.  Usually 90% of the move happens after hours, and just scraps are left for the normal market hours.


  

Lumber Liquidators Liquidation, 1 Minute View

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Interesting one, got active at 10:32, scanner should have alerted you. Reported earnings but included the paragraph about a possible Department of Justice investigation not in the 8-K but in the 10-K, which people only discovered later? Maybe there was a conference call and something was revealed on it that caused the stock to go into freefall. Anyway, regardless of the news quick witted traders could have shorted this thing for some serious money.

Click to enlarge

Charts of Note, Fri. Feb. 6, 2015

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Six today: EOX, EXPE, HRS, TPX, XLS, YELP.

I'm going on vacation today for Chinese New Year and will be back at the end of the month, so this will be the last post for awhile. I don't know if I'll continue doing Charts of Note since I'm not sure how much value it adds.  Might be better to do an after-hours report?  We'll see.

Bloomberg Most Popular Newsletter Disappears

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Bloomberg.com is blocked in Mainland China so I relied on their daily "Most Popular" email to scan headlines every day. It appears that the newsletter is no longer being sent. The horrific re-design of the Bloomberg website is probably to blame. What a mess. When I had a Bloomberg terminal I found the most read function <READ> incredibly valuable because my fellow terminal subscribers filtered the news for me.  The most read stories on the website aren't the same thing, but still useful.

Glu Mobile Pop, 1 Minute View

Added on by C. Maoxian.

GLUU reported earnings after the bell but began to behave strangely just after 3 PM.  It was possible to get long it at $3.71 with a $3.65 stop.  Once again turned out to be better to carry it through earnings than try to be tricky and trade it and only make a dime.