Movies Watched -- The Big Red One (1980)

163 minute running time so at least an hour too long … Sam Fuller made one great movie (Pickup On South Street) and a lot of bad movies, including this one. I like Lee Marvin in almost anything, but…. Luke Skywalker is also in this … it just goes on and on and on … give it a miss. Farr got it wrong.

I can understand you being horny, Fritz….

Movies Watched -- Days of Heaven (1978)

93 minute running time so the right length but it still feels like an epic … a W.D. By movie … he threw out the script and thankfully cut cut cut as much as he could … an unusual one, created a mood, a sense of time and place (turn of the 20th century), however romanticized … sparse dialogue, mainly voice-over from a child’s perspective*, it’s all about creating a feeling, a mythical or fairy tale world … with a Biblical plague of locusts and hellfire no less! … but it does give you a sense of a country unformed and people untamed … pretty boy Richard Gere and young Sam Shepard (too young to be a wealthy farmer? I guess he inherited it) … and Linda Manz can dance (that was my favorite scene) … with an Ennio Morricone score and lush cinematography … I can see why this movie is widely loved … it’s a green-go.

(*”It was a last-minute decision by Mr. Malick to have Ms. Manz do the voice-over narration, without a script.”)

He must think we’re awful people

Savage Geese: Cars to Keep

Big fan of Dr. Goose… these are his cars to keep, mentioned in this video: Cars and Trucks Are Changing Forever

• Highest horsepower Corvettes and Camaros

• Dodge Hellcat Demon / Redeye

• Ford GT500 / GT350

• Honda S2000

• Lexus LC500

• Mazda Miata (ND2)

• Nissan 400Z, 370Z

• Nissan GT-R

• Porsche GT3 (992, 991, 997)

Movies Watched -- Brick (2005)

110 minute running time … a W.D. By movie, this had a strong Trust Fund Kid Project feel … an incomprehensible story that puts Chandler-esque dialogue in the mouths of attractive, rich-kid, California high schoolers … I didn’t last long before tiring of the gimmick … give it a miss (waste of a borrow).

I'm not heeling you to hook you. [Line after line like this!]

May Be The One To Change My Ways

I featured another song off this album earlier, but the Spotify algo was smart enough to also suggest “Change My Ways” sung by Pip Millett, whom I’ve featured before. She has a great voice… love this:

Movies Watched -- Suture (1993)

96 minute running time… this was terrible, had the feel of a Trust Fund Kid project … in black and white, about identity … just bad, pretentious. tiresome, poorly done … Roger Ebert, of all people, could even get it right when he panned it. Give it a miss.

How is it that we know who we are?

Linda Raschke on Who Succeeds in Trading

Nice connection to my Matt Marino post:

“All the people who I have observed who have made it over the years found one thing, and it might have taken them five years of doing their own journey, it might have taken them ten years, but eventually they will wind down and find one thing that really works for them.”

Who Pays for Robinhood Order Flow, Part II

Original post.

There are more details on Robinhood’s payment for order flow arrangements in the Prospectus. I wonder who is behind Jump Trading, er, Tai Mo Shan … sounds like Chynar money. Let me dig around. Bill Disomma and Paul Gurinas don’t sound like Chinese names, hmmm.

“A majority of our revenue is transaction-based, in that we receive consideration in exchange for routing our users’ equity, option and cryptocurrency trade orders to market makers for execution. With respect to equities and options trading, such fees are known as payment for order flow ‘PFOF.’ With respect to cryptocurrency trading, we receive ‘Transaction Rebates.’ In the case of equities, the fees we receive are typically based on the size of the publicly quoted bid-ask spread for the security being traded; that is, we receive a fixed percentage of the difference between the publicly quoted bid and ask at the time the trade is executed. For options, our fee is on a per contract basis based on the underlying security. In the case of cryptocurrencies, our rebate is a fixed percentage of the notional order value. Within each asset class, whether equities, options or cryptocurrencies, the transaction-based revenue we earn is calculated in an identical manner among all participating market makers. We route equity and option orders in priority to participating market makers that we believe are most likely to give our customers the best execution, based on historical performance, and we do not consider transaction fees when routing orders. For cryptocurrency orders, we route to various market makers that we believe offer competitive pricing, and we do not consider Transaction Rebates when routing cryptocurrency orders.

For the year ended December 31, 2020, revenue derived from PFOF and Transaction Rebates represented 75% of our total revenues, and for the three months ended March 31, 2021, represented 81% of our total revenues. Computer-generated buy/sell programs and other technological advances and regulatory changes in the marketplace may continue to tighten spreads on transactions, which could lead to a decrease in our PFOF earned from market makers.”

“… on June 23, 2021, FINRA issued a regulatory notice reminding member firms of the requirement that customer order flow be directed to markets providing the ‘most beneficial terms for their customers’ and indicated that member firms may not negotiate the terms of order routing arrangements in a manner that reduces price improvement opportunities that would otherwise be available to those customers in the absence of PFOF. The impact that this notice may have on the ability of market participants to enter into PFOF arrangements, if any, has not been determined.”

Linda Raschke on Trading Cryptocurrencies

From this recent video:

“The requirements for me are liquidity number one, so you know the old saying, which is in my Trading Sardines book, it’s never a problem getting into a market, it’s always a problem getting out when you want to get out. You want to have the liquidity there.

For that very reason, I have really refrained from getting involved with the crypto markets, even though they lend themselves at times to being technically nice. They’re new markets, we’ve seen Chinese servers go down, we’ve seen pockets of illiquidity and it’s not worth it to me to trade a market where it’s not scale-able.

If I’m putting in the time and effort to do something, I don’t necessarily want to do it on one lots, I want to know that I could do it on size if I chose to do it on size, so it has to have liquidity to get out and it has to be scale-able and I don’t find crypto to have either of those requirements.

There is so much opportunity in lovely trading markets out there, why do I want to deal with a can of worms?”

Chairman Recommended: Deodorant (Update)

This is an update to my deodorant recommendation post of five years ago.

I now use Alaffia’s Everyday Coconut Charcoal Deodorant - Purely Coconut … it smells good, I think it works, and it has this pleasing gray color. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.