Salary - Ounces of gold per year

I was looking over my social security statement and thought it would be interesting to see how many oz of gold I earned. (I changed the salary #'s around because I do not want to post how much I am making)

In 1999, I was a bagger/clerk at a grocery store working part-time during my senior year of high school. That year, before taxes I could have bought 10 oz of gold.

I started working full time at a real IT job in 2003. That salary could by 76 oz. of gold that year.

Using $1300 of USD's for 1 oz of gold in 2010, the salary could by 47 oz. of gold.

Here is the staggering point. The salary has nearly doubled from 2003 to 2010. 76 – 47 = 29. How can a salary nearly double, but buy 29 oz of less gold than 2003?!?! You mean to tell me a 4k bagger in 1999, today only can buy 1/5^th of gold compares to someone making ~15 times that salary in 2010?

What upsets me is how can you get excited about 5-10% raise when the cost of food and energy continues to increase? Who wants to work when more and more of your paycheck is goings towards the basics like food, utilities and gasoline? I am not looking to break even. I am look to save a percentage of my paycheck to afford nice leisure time.

 

Rare Earths Update

This article was posted by the WSJ on Thursday "China Denies Halting Rare-Earth Exports to Japan". Remember China hold ~97% of the world's rare earths production.

The rare earth sector has already been on fire, but this just dumped a barrel of gasoline. Here are 2 traded on the US exchanges:

Rare Element Resources Ltd. – Up 32% since the Thursday's announcement. Up 114% in 1 month.

Molycorp, Inc. - Up 13% since the Thursday's announcement. Up 86% in 1 month.

The masses are far away from this sector. Once would think a 100%+ gain is time to get out and celebrate, nope, I am looking for 5-15 times gains in the years to come.

FACTBOX-What are rare earth elements?

HFT in Action?

I was playing around with a new volume study and for grins ran it for the most active stock - Citigroup. A half of a billions shares were traded on Friday. Click on this chart for the full screen view. This is a 1 minutes chart and you can see the price trade between $3.96 - $3.99 after the open. Look at the price action and volume. People talk about HTF and looking at this chart, it makes we wonder how many humans are buying or selling this stock as a swing trade or accumulating. Is it the HFT bots just scalping for tenth a of penny profits between each other to make up this top volume stock?

Headline Nonsense - Amid

I continue to notice headlines with the preposition "amid". Yahoo is notorious for this. Google search: "amid" site:finance.yahoo.com

I think average people read the headline only and think amid is the reason why. Like an equals sign. I think this is a foolish mistake.

Here an example of the price of oil. Headline – My interpretation

Oil falls to near $75 amid high US crude supplies – Oil will drop when there is high supply.

Oil jumps above $77 in Asia amid US pipeline leak – Oil will increase when there is a pipeline leak.

Oil hovers above $77 amid US pipeline leaks - No, wait, Oil remains flat when there is a pipeline leak.

Oil hovers below $75 amid mixed US economic data - Oil remains flat when there is mixed econ data.

Toronto stock market heads for lower open amid falling oil prices – A drop in oil price will cause the TSE to open lower?

Oil hovers near $74 amid growth uncertainty – Someone was expecting growth, not they are not sure of the growth and that causes oil to remain flat?

Oil rises near $73 amid light 4th of July trading – I do not understand the point of this headline. It is giving the price of oil and letting you know the trading volume is light.

 

Stocks fall amid uncertainty over the economy – Who determined this uncertainly? I would like to know so I can put on a day trade short to profit.

Stocks mixed amid swine flu concerns, better than expected consumer data – So, stock would have been up because of the consumer data, but were not due to the swine flu concern? If there was no positive consumer data, the stock would have close down due the flu?

 

Overall, I think it is a bunch of nonsense. Prices always gyrate and there is a waterfall of news every day.
I can say Blizzard in Vermont amid a foggy morning in San Diego.
Or a foggy morning in San Diego amid a Blizzard in Vermont.
So, anytime Vermont gets hit with a blizzard, SD will experience a foggy morning? Or anytime SD experiences a foggy morning, VT will get hit with a blizzard? Of course not. All you are doing is stating 2 facts in 1 headline. I just worry than non-critical thinkers make the wrong assumption about a pair of events being the cause and effect. Amid is not "due to".