monadnocks

Just now, Hoth said:

I was just about to ask, what are we drinking tonight gentlemen? I'm making my opening salvo with some Japanese whiskey. Depending on which personality of the NAM shows up in a few hours, I'll either break out Glenmorangie or Dewer's...or maybe just acetone.

I'm still in an online meeting. Drinking sounds like a good option.

6 hours ago, LSC97wxnut said:

From a school / business standpoint for the NE Corridor, it's good this is a Friday afternoon to Saturday night deal.

Imagine the headache it would cause if the snow was starting now on a Tuesday afternoon?

There are still events that will be re-scheduled: school games, for instance.

34 minutes ago, radarman said:

RIP Thich Nhat Hanh

Truly a giant

I hadn't realized that he had passed away until I read your post. I don't know much of what he's taught but the little I do resonates.

1 hour ago, WxWatcher007 said:

My father passed away a few hours ago. Thank you all for your kind words and support the last few weeks.

I'm so sorry. It's unbelievably difficult to go through. If you can try to take care of yourself too.

59 minutes ago, dryslot said:

86/68 here, Cant wait for this crap to end, Miserable.

Yes! I am looking forward to fall, even though it's going to bring a lot more work and stress.

I can safely say that we got torrential rain tonight. It’ll be interesting tomorrow to see the extent of the erosion, etc.

3 minutes ago, DavisStraight said:

Just ran some errands, couple stores, grocery and over half at least are still wearing.

I was at Costco today along with what felt like half of New England. I'd say about 90% of the people were wearing masks. And given the wide range of people  - elderly man slowly making his way through the bakery all the way down to the couple with their two very young children - I'd hazard a guess that at least some people there either were ineligible for vaccines or had immune systems that weren't in the best of shape. (Or had family members with the same constraints and were trying not to bring home something besides beer and burgers.)

Remember going to large conferences and expecting to get Con Crud? Either from the plane, the dry air, the crazy hours and bad food or just being mashed in with 25K people? Maybe it won't be so prevalent if there's some basic hygiene like hand washing and limiting the number of people completely mashed into a space. I'm looking at you DefCon in 2019 - minimum of ten minute waits to ride the freight elevator because the regular elevators were so overloaded. Or my last robotics conference where one of the ballroom talks was so full that people were literally sitting on the floor so that they could hear it. 

4 hours ago, CT Valley Snowman said:

I will never forget that day.  Incredible excitement tracking the synoptic setup turning to sheer dread after seeing the city I spent 20 years of my life directly in the path of a EF-3 tornado. Initially unable to get ahold of my parents, who missed the tornado by 1 mile in Forest Park Springfield, but relieved to find out they were out and unable to find a path home but were safe.  It took longer to hear from by brother in law's parents, who missed it by about .3 miles in Sixteen Acres Springfield.  My Mom's cousin's house lost a roof  near Plumtree Road.  My wife was so pissed that I left her at 9 months pregnant to go run to Springfield while there was still severe weather and tornado warnings even after the initial tornado, but I had to see the damage and try to find out more.  I still drive through the tornado scarred areas somewhat regularly.  Never ceases to amaze me.  

Small world! My parents used to live on Plumtree Road in Springfield. Their neighbors called to tell them about the tornado coming; they had seen it from their attic windows. My old high school got hit that day. That neighborhood (north side of Plumtree Rd.) definitely took some damage. Luckily my folks were OK and stayed with my sister for a while. I think their power was out? The house was fine, thank goodness.

Unlike many of you.. I never met James in person. And in one of those strange Internet ways, I do feel like I knew him in some ways. As so many said, his energy and positivity for so many things was such a hallmark. Even though many of James' blockbuster storms never came to pass, I did read his posts, cheering him on, hoping that he'd get the snowbanks he wished for.

Rest is peace, James.

2 hours ago, weathafella said:

Warm in the Midwest.  I get to avoid the worst of the Monday chill and hopefully next weekend as well.  Gloriously summery now!

On Friday I was driving through upstate New York and it was pretty toasty. The car thermometer read 91-94 for pretty much until we got close to Albany. 

As a northern New Englander, I'm completely OK with the Memorial Day weekend forecast. It'll be terrific for doing hours of work in the garden.

3 hours ago, Ginx snewx said:

Say wut?

One of our local towns is having town meeting outside, Saturday at 9 AM. Want to bet it goes quickly?

18 hours ago, Supernovice said:

Try: https://finviz.com

go to the groups tab, then select: industry (basic materials). That should get you started. Pm me with any questions.

 

Thanks! I’ll take a look in the morning.

Thinking about industrial metals tonight. I don't know much about that sector so just learning. Brief Google search for ETFs doesn't seem to have a lot of promise. DBB holds a lot of an Invesco mutual fund - AGPXX - and a fair amount of treasuries. JJT did well but the structure isn't one that I feel like I have a good handle on predicting its future success plus its focusing on just tin.

What's a good way to get some exposure to this sector? Any ideas?

We've got thunder now.

We have a light coating of snow with a mix of rain and flakes at 33.5.

18 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

 

Winter 2022

Thinking about a June road trip to the mountains of Wyoming. Maybe there will be snow there...

I also got the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday. Like others, my arm hurt but not too much. I did have two days of less than 100% but I also didn't slow down either. I felt worse with the shingles vaccine.

2 hours ago, Hoth said:

Cool. As long as you've done your research. I just have a lot of skepticism about the way Cathy runs things. She gives me vibes of some of the momentary celebrity tech fund managers of the late '90s that blew up in the recession. Recently she tends to sell down her higher quality liquid positions and double down on lower quality illiquid stuff, which could be trouble if they face a period of sustained redemption pressure. She also recently suspended concentration limits in her funds, which from a risk management perspective is a bit of a red flag. Her research notes usually don't have any real analytical underpinnings, just a bunch of GIGO models with silly assumptions.  And I should point out that one of the biggest weightings of that space ETF you mentioned is another Ark ETF. That sort of double-dipping raises an eyebrow as well. 

Agreeing the response by @Whineminster here. It does seem like this is a trend to make money capitalizing on publicity. A brief search of "reddit.com ARKX" yields a fair amount of interest there. I wonder if this will effectively be a meme ETF? I'm not interested in playing the momentum game now so I'll bail on it. I do believe that there's room for space-focused active management funds to do well. 

And thanks for the information. 

4 hours ago, Hoth said:

I won't make a recommendation either way, but I would strongly strongly urge you to do your due diligence before putting money at risk.

I've got a small amount of underperformers that need to go and have been looking for something interesting. This would fill the "let's see how it goes" portion of the portfolio. Any investing I do for the 1, 2, 5 or 20+ time frame meets with all the research.

1 hour ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

Interesting. It seems like a great deal, in MA especially. Basically, if you can afford your electric bill, you should be able to pay for solar lol.

Can anyone here comment on the Tesla system itself? Size of the panels etc etc? There is a solar company right down the street from me, Vivint solar, but some of the reviews are pretty meh.

I found this page: https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/solar-panels/going-solar/sizing-and-design which gives you the size of the panels, etc. The warranty info is here: https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/solar-panels/learn/solar-service-warranty

ARKX is going to launch on 3/30 ( https://seekingalpha.com/article/4416500-emerge-ark-space-exploration-etf-ready-for-launch ) I've never bought an ETF on opening day. Will it be easily available? 

6 hours ago, Supernovice said:

For those that care about such things... the Asian opening tonight is the most exciting one in awhile given what took place on Friday. It will probably open with a whimper but for those that want to see things unravel- tonight/ Tomm has a chance to make some noise.

I was reading about this earlier and came here to see what people were thinking and ended up researching solar / EV rebates / tax incentives.

Those incentives in MA are much better than what I can find for NH too. I'm not a NHEC customer so all I can find is the federal credit for a level 2 EV charger. Any ideas for other tax incentives or rebates?

As far as mortgage escrows go, take a look at the T&C you have for getting out of it. In general, even though savings accounts are paying next to nothing, the escrows are paying substantially less. If you can, just get out of it, just make an automatic deposit to a designated savings account so you'll have the money come tax time. And set up auto pay for the insurance and you're good to go. At least Ally and Marcus are paying 0.5% on savings accounts.

Happy spring everyone. No robins on the lawn here but I did see a turkey vulture the other day.

I've still go some perma-pack in the shaded areas but sunny areas are bare. It happens that that the grass is in the shady areas so it'll be a while still before any lawn care is needed.