Movie Review - The Kingdom

So, watched "The Kingdom" this afternoon. I needed a break from my Wharton essays and application madness that has gripped me this past week or so. Nothing like a generic Hollywood mindless action movie for a break from the intensive essay writing action yeah?

Ok, now about the movie.

Plot: A team of 4 FBI specialists force their way through diplomatic opposition into Saudi Arabia to investigate the bombing of the American compound that kills more than 100 American citizens. The movie shows what they go through and how they go approach the situation.

Good things:
-Dont be mistaken that this is a cliched movie from the American point of movie. The plot may appear like that when you read it but there are definite subtleties (spelling?) in the movie. Granted there are some cliches but overall the movie was good. I am going to go ahead and actually say it was very good. A Saudi angle is presented as well (a la Syriana) and it probably saves the movie from being average.
-Jammie Fox is very good. Chris Cooper is also very good. I think Chris Cooper is severely under-rated by the way. Jennifer Garner is used very well in her role. As is Jeremy Piven. Although it would be tough to see Piven as a State Department Official. He brings the Artie attitude from Entourage to this role which I am not sure is believable but definitely entertaining.
-The fight scene with Jennifer Garner is cool. Overall the action scenes were great I thought.
-The scenes that showed the Saudi Arabian landscape were good. I am assuming they shot that in Saudi Arabia and if that was the case, man that country is wealthy. And imagine all that from the oil that you are consuming!
-Very gripping. It kept my attention for the entire duration and that is tough to do.
-No love angle. Thankfully. There is no need for a love angle in a serious movie like this. (Sara is probably disappointed!)
-The ending again is well done. There are no more riding into the sunset endings in movies anymore huh? Moral ambiguity is the norm and that's what the end tries to potray.

Not so good things:
-I am tired of American movies showing Saudi Princes to be powerless and wimps in front of ordinary FBI/CIA agents. I am not buying that please! This is done in this movie as well. Not a big fan of it.
-The way a reasonably top FBI agent convinces the Saudi Govt to land a team on their land by threatening to publicize some vital secrets in the press was typical Hollywood and not believable.

I recommend it.

What up?

I have been wanting to post earlier but have been occupied with multiple things since last Thursday. Here is what's up:

B-school Applications
-Columbia
Still no interview call. Honestly I am sceptical about my chances at this point. Have been checking the BW forums and not only are people receiving interview calls but some have already been admitted. One person who applied after me received a Denial notice today. I am expecting mine to arrive shortly. It is tough to swallow but have to move on. I was a bit stressed this past weekend about this. But I have be realistic as well. There are other top tier schools that I stand a good chance at. Gotto analyze my application and fix potential issues for my Wharton and Sloan applications.

-Wharton
With an eye on my Columbia rejection I re-wrote all my Wharton essays. I am also being much more thorough when filling out my application here. Dont want to leave anything for interpretation. Choosing a former work supervisor as my 2nd reference should also help. If everything goes well I will submit this early next week.

-MIT/Sloan
Started on this too. Have a good idea on my essay outlines. Have to start working on the cover letter though. I plan on trying to submit this before I leave for vacation (more on this later) in mid-October.


Red Saaawx
Since my rant, the sox have gone 4-1 and now have a 3 game lead against the spankees with 4 games to go. Safe to say the division has been won. We will be playing the Angels in the first round. Should be good. I have not looked at their rotation closely but safe to say that I am predicting the Sox to win in 4 games. Manny's back as well! yipppieee!

Vacation
Finally! Regardless of my application status I have decided to take a short vacation. I will be in Eastern Europe for about 10 days in mid-October. Hopefully can get to post from there!


Markets
I have not followed closely the past 2 weeks due to my obsession with my applications. Things look ok on the surface. I have to say this though I did not buy the bs quaterly earnings reports that Goldman Sacchs and Bear Stearns came up with last week. Please! Dont believe any of the bs that they actually made money in that quarter or that the losses were not bad. Creative accounting is all that it takes. Oil hit $85 briefly and came back to $82 today. I still expect this to rise in the next 3 months.

Gotto go run. More later

6 month Finance and Economic Forecasts-kondum style!

Marina asked me about my predictions for the next 6 months or so in the Financial markets and the Economy in general. ok. Here are my predictions for the next 6 months:

-Inflation sneaks up higher. It has to. Take China. The inflation there (6.5%) is the highest in 11 years and all due to food becoming costly. It will trickle down to the rest of the world. It already has. Wheat has gone up significantly already. Lowering interest rates will also aid higher inflation.

-The next report from the Labour dept is definitely going to show job losses. Lower GDP. Possibly a -ve GDP. So I think we will technically be in recession.

-Crude Oil is going to hit $90. More demand in the winter, delay by OPEC to increase production, lower current inventories, and the possibility of a confrontation with Iran. All of these will contribute to this increase. I would also watch out for the trouble brewing in Pakistan. There is potential for that to spread to neighboring Islamic nations and trigger bigger trouble.

-Housing market is going to further slow down. Defaults continue to rise and so do discounts being offered by sellers-indications of a severe deflation in value. If inflation goes further up, there is potential for that to impact mortgage payments of prime mortgage owners as well. All in all this could be the recipe for a significant correction in the housing market. A majority of the ARMs come off in November 2008 so mark that month down for some intense activity.

-Retail sales are going to suffer as well. Dont believe the bs that CNBC is feeding you. I watched a piece on CNBC this week where analysts (in collusion with the industry) were predicting strong holiday retails sales this year. Really? And how Einstein are people supposed to pay for their iPhones and gadgets? More credit? Really?

-I hope Bernanke does not cut rates again in October. Not going to be good for inflation kids! If I were him, I would let the carnage in the markets continue. The bubble that arose due to indiscretionary borrowing has to completely burst, I mean there should not be any indications of frothing when all is said and done. 'cause you know this kids: if froth builds, bubbles are next! Let the housing market correct itself. Let the institutional lending and liquidity matters correct themselves. Let the uber-bulls and financial predators realize that the byproduct of taking high-wire risks is not always a one-way path. It could lead to failures as well.

Enough ok? Suck it up and perform!

ok, I thought about being patient and all that but screw that! I am not upset but really pissed off.....at this Red Sox team! Freakin' unbelievable these bunch of guys! Play exceptionally well for 95% of the year and NOW is when they pick to stink it up. ENOUGH of this guys, time to suck it up and just freakin' win!

The division lead at the end of today stands at 1 1/2 games! Can you believe that? U get swept by the freakin' Blue Jays?!

No freakin' excuses such as:
-Gagne sucks
-Manny's hurt
-Have to rest the pitching staff for the playoffs
-JD Drew is underperforming
-Offense has disappeared
-Papi's hurt
-We will make the playoffs anyway
-No big mid-season trades
-Papelbon is wearing down

No more excuses! This is REAL simple from here on. Just freakin' win every game.
3 vs Tampa Bay
2 vs Oakland
3 vs Minnesota

You CAN win every single game! So do it.

PS:
ha! I had to get that rant out of my system.

Ayn Rand makes a Comeback! (Greenspan's a fan!)

So whatdyaknow. Market turmoil has also led one of the leading newspapers in the US to assign a reporter who would seek opinions from prominent financial stalwarts on what they thought about the Mother of Objectivism. Confused? Dont be.

Mother of Objectivism = Ayn Rand
Leading newspaper = NY Times

NYT had an article this week about how Ayn Rand's famous "Atlas Shrugged" is making a huge comeback on the best book seller list, a good 50 years or so after it was written. For those who have not read "Atlas Shrugged", it essentially bases a story about a railroad but the main theme being conveyed to the readers is the virtues of Capitalism (and objectivism) in the modern world.

Apparently Alan Greenspan is a huge follower of Any Rand. In fact he personally knew her when he was young. He met her when he was 25 and living in NYC. Loved the book and even proofread the first few versions.

The article also mentions that other stalwarts in the financial sector were big fans of the book. Most of them read it when the socio-political atmosphere in the US was not too supportive of Capitalism.

I read "Atlas Shrugged" when I was 21 and did not think too much about it. Although, I have to say Ayn Rand's other two publications "The FountainHead" and "We the Living" did affect a lot of my fundamental thought processes.

I thought that was an interesting thing to write about.

Columbia MBA - Getting antsy!

I could not wait, so sent an email to the lady in the admissions office at the Columbia Business School today asking her if they have started issuing interview invitations yet. Here is what she said in her email:

"Interviews happen on a rolling basis and could happen at any time up to your decision deadline

Thanks"

Not sure how that makes me feel. I guess I'll have to wait it out. oh well!

Movie Review - "Eastern Promises"

Went to see "Eastern Promises" last nite at the Ritz 5. It was packed for a 8:40pm show. I mean there was not even an inch of elbow room and elbow room is important people! Not sure why so many people showed up. Usually the crowd is pretty thin for indie flicks. Well, I guess people had heard that this was made by the same guys who made "A History of Violence" and "Dirty Pretty Things".

Ok, the review now:

Good things:
-Vigo Mortensen was very good in his role as a driver for the Russian mob in London. He had the accent down and his acting style suited the role.
-Armin Stahl (the mob leader) I thought stole the show. He looks pretty harmless in appearance and speech in the movie and I guess that brings out the contrast in his reputation as a ruthless savage in the movie.
-The movie showed the Russian mob world at its ruthless worst. You gotto turn your eyes away if you can't watch throats being slit and fingers being cut and eyes being gouged. It was not easy to watch but the brutality was presented as if it would be in real life. There were quite a few people squirming and oh-ahhing in the movie multiple times.
-References to London and how it affects people in negative ways was well potrayed.
-Ending.

Not so good things:
-The plot was not too strong.
-Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassell were both under-utilized in their roles.
-Too much focus on Vigo's role. The whole seemed to be about him.
-The voilence and sex scenes were a bit too graphic for my taste.

Overall:
Watchable. I thought "Dirty Pretty Things" was much better than this.

Nervous!

3 weeks since I submitted the application to Columbia. 2 more weeks and I will start to get nervous.

I need to concentrate on getting the Wharton application out of the way in the next 10 days. Time to hunker down and get serious with the essays.

Visit to NYU/Stern

So, early this week I made the trek to the NYU campus in NYC. I attended an info session at Stern. What did I think you ask? Well:

-The info session was a bit different from the ones I have attended so far. We started with brief introductions and proceeding for a brisk walk onto the 3 main floors in the Kauffman Center. Towards the end of the walking/talking tour the lady sat us down in a room and showed a few slides about the school and application requirements.

-Three current students tagged along with us and they were pretty helpful in answering questions on the side. 2 of them seemed nervous though!

-The class size is about half that of Wharton and Columbia (about 400 kids every year).

-I was specifically told that Stern welcomes applicants with PhDs. That was good to hear.

-Fall session seemed to have started, it was quite loud as walked around on the three floors.

-One interesting thing was that there was a Bloomberg terminal on one of the floors where students can hook up and get streaming quotes directly. That seemed neat.

-Clubs and student activities seemed similar to other schools.

-The lady specifically addressed all application issues clearly. One thing that I took away from that was to not leave anything in doubt for the ad com. If you need to explain something, do it.

-I spent about 2h on campus and the feeling I got was that the average age was lower than other schools. Or I could have been seeing students from other programs?

Overall, it was good. I will apply here. The deadline is in November so I still have time.

"Who needs the Ivies?"

This is an interesting article from BusinessWeek from a few weeks back. The author debates that going to a Ivy league school may in fact NOT be good for a career in entrepreneurship (atleast in technology). He goes make good points but there are valid counter points that are presented by others in the article as well. Overall it is a balanced article I thought.

Here is the link:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2007/tc20070830_254262.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index

Random thoughts-Obama/No-hitter/South Philly

Barack on The Daily Show
-Caught Barack Obama's appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this evening (it was a re-run apparently). Man, there is absolutely no doubt about it, this guy has a rock star like aura around him. And he is really smooth when he speaks. Populism aside he does sound so NOT like a politician. Now, I am not sure what his stand on various policies is but he does sound convincing in whatever he says. One interesting point he made is that in the current atmosphere a majority of the people already know that when politicians speak they dont really mean what they say. Politicians know it and people who listen them know it. His point was that he would try to bring a non-political atmosphere to the people. Wonder how plans to do it but I liked the way he said it. To be fair though I thought Jon Stewart did not ask him too many tough questions. I did not expect him to but it would have been nice to have put Barack on the spot a couple of times. Although I remember when Jon McCain was on the show a few months ago, he did not ask too many tough questions either. Overall, I thought Barack looked good. Now if only he can somehow cut into Hillary's lead.

A no-hitter! yeah a no-hitter by a Red Saaawk rookie!
-How can I not bring up the no-hitter that Red Saaawwwx rookie Clay Buccholz threw against the Baltimore Orioles last week. Not only was it eventful, you know being a no-hitter and all, it made all Red Saaawx fans forget about the 3 game sweep against the Spankees a few games prior to that. I have to say, there are a few moments in sports that are a definite "can't miss". Watching a perfect game or a no-hitter live has to rank very high up on that "can't miss" list. Although I did not watch this live, I accidently stumbled upon the 9th inning being shown live on ESPN. I love it when the commentators shut up right after the final out has happened. You could see that this kid was just blown away by the moment. He could not say anything intelligcent on live TV! He maybe 23 but when this woman was interviewing him after the no-hitter he sounded and acted like a 10 year old kid! Was good to see. It was also cool to see Theo Epstein jumping up and down like a kid in his private box after the last out. Gotto give it to Theo he stuck to his policy of not trading young studs from the farm system (well, he did let Anabel Sanchez and Hanley Ramirez go but you can't always be right in baseball much like the stock market). I hope Clay pumps weights in the off-season, puts on some mass, and starts pumping those nasty off-speed pitches along with his mid-90s fastballs. And people should quit comparing him to Pedro. For one thing Clay does not have a high 90s fastball or the intimidating presence that Pedro had. I hope he turns out to be atleast 70% of what Pedro was.

South Philly! very under-rated!
-well, now I feel like a Center City snob dont I? In the 2+ years since I have been in Philly I hardly ever ventured out to South Philly to get a brew or visit a nice restaurant. I did not understand what the fuss was all about. I mean, between Center City, University City, Fairmount, and Old City we've got the city's best establishments covered right? Wrong! Upon Robert's recommendation we went to this place called "Cantina" on Passyyunk Avenue (close to Geno's) for a quick drink and some snacks last Friday. Robert has been raving about this place for a while, so we went there. I have to say, that whole area was refreshingly different from Center City. Passyyunk Ave had that retro- 60s and 70s feel to it. It could almost pass for a street in old Europe. And this place "Cantina" was painted all yellow outside and could easily have passed for an eatery in Mexico. And the snacks were great too. We had the Empanadas which were fantastic. And my fav part, they had a beer called "Rogue Chipotle Ale" which had a touch of peppers in it. It was really good. I am going back there with some friends for a weekend brunch thing soon. Thanks to Robert and Marina for bringing me to the wonderful South Philly area.

Day 7 @ The US Open 2007

When my friend Sara had talked about going to the US Open in mid July, I told her that the best day to go would be the Sunday of the labor day weekend. That way we could see a lot more players still left in the draw (3rd and 4th) and hopefully catch a great match or two. So off I went and bought 2 tkts to Louis Armstrong Stadium that included a grounds pass as well. The only stadium we could NOT get into with those tkts would be Arthur Ashe-big deal I told myself and Sara was cool with it too.

So whatdyaknow Saturday rolls around and I happen to glance at Sunday morning's schedule. Serana, Nadal, and Venus are scheduled to play at Arthur Ashe on Sunday morning! Aaaaaarrrggh! Of course to rub it in, a bunch of no names were playing at Louis Armstrong. So I quickly checked for tkts on StubHub and lo and behold tkts were available for Arthur Ashe for Sunday. Of course we would have to pay 5 times the actual price to sit in the highest 5 rows or pay 10 times the actual price to sit courtside. I called Sara to discuss this and she of course was willing to give an arm and a leg to watch Nadal play live! So we decided to pay for the 5x tkt. Within 5 minutes after that phone call I get a txt message from Sara asking me if she was crazy (or was it her anti-biotics speaking) to suggest that we should get the uber-overpriced courtside seats? So a discussion ensued and we decided to stay reasonable with 5x tkts.

Of course this meant we had to get rid of the two tks we had which I thought would be easy at the stadium. So off we went for the session starting at 11 AM. Woke up at 6 AM!

Highlights from Day 7:

Food items consumed(together):
-1 Chicken/Spinach/Cheese and 1 ham/cheese crepe. (yes! they had crepes at the US Open)
-1 cheesy Panini Ham sandwich (half of which Sara wolfed down like it was her last day on earth!).
-2 Cashew LARA bars (our only healthy dietary constituent for the day)
-1 bag of Cape Cod chips.
-3 pints of Heineken lager.
-1 large hot coffee (cold water added to cool it down-Canadian trick apparently!)
-1 bottle of "Yellow" Gatorade
-3 bottles of water
-atleast 1 ounce of SPF 55 sunscreen lotion. There is no way Sara did not eat atleast a little of the lotion. She used atleast 1/2 litre of it in 2 hrs and it was everywhere her top, her shorts, her shades.

Players Seen:
-Serena Williams and Bartoli. Serena seemed a bit sluggish in the first 4 games but she recovered quickly to handle the pudgy French girl. Did you guys notice that Bartoli does not even bounce the ball before serving, this is even more strange live. I mean no bounces or tosses! Sara seemed pretty irritated by that.
-Nadal and Tsonga. This was a great match in the first set. Nadal is impressive live. The Tsonga kid was playing pretty well but Nadal was at a different level. In the last set, Tsonga seemed to be pleading the heavens for some help. He did not get any.
-Venus and Ivanovic. I stay put with my pre-tournament prediction after seeing Venus destroy Ivanovic. She is playing at a different level and it will be tough to beat her.
-Radwonka. She is the Polish kid who upset Sharapova on Saturday. We saw her on the practice courts getting ready for Monday. Man, these kids practice hard. Some dude was her practice partner and they were going at it.
-Random Spanish player dude with no shirt on. Of course Sara spent a good 30 minutes staring at this guy and taking pictures on the practice courts. Her excuse, "I needed some shade".
-Blake. We saw him from far away practicing in the courts not available for spectators to see.
-Random mens doubles match. Can't remember their names.

Comfort Level:
-We were getting roasted in the Sun in the first 2 hours. Yeah, the weather was good but it was HOT sitting directly in the Sun.
-After the start of the Nadal match we walked over to the side of the stadium which was in the shade and sat there for the rest of the day. It was MUCH MUCH more comfortable there.
-Next year, definitely courtside seats!

Memorabilia purchased:
-One brown US Open 2007 Womens Hat (for Sara)-this was more for her protection from the Sun.
-One black US Open 2007 Mens Hat (for Sara's dad)

Cool free gadgets at the US Open:
-Portable radio for all AMEX cardholders (both of us had corporate cards of course!)
-This was cool as we could listen to John McEnroe and the rest of the CBS crew while watching the game live. I did not use it much but Sara occasionally gave me interesting tidbits that she heard on the tiny radio.

Trips to the Restroom:
-Four (or was it five?)

The Crowd and The Atmosphere:
-Interestingly there were more people milling around in the general area than at the matches. Seriously, almost the whole of the top rows which were directly in the Sun at Arthur Ashe were almost empty. Sara kept mumbling as to how they can claim it was soldout and there were so many seats still available. "Probably at Sunday mass" she told herself!
-When we went to our assigned seats at 11 AM, there were probably about 15 people within 30 rows of us. All the areas in the shade seemed full though.
-There was this French guy by himself seated directly behind Sara. With 2 French athletes in action that morning (Bartoli and Tsonga) I knew he would break out into French name-calling eventually. I took the over on 5 games during the Serena-Bartoli match while Sara took the under. Unfortunately we were not treated to any colorful French epithets. This guy turned out to be well-behaved. If only if they sold cheap wine at the US Open!
-I heard a lot of "Let's go Raffa" chants when Nadal was playing. Good to see him getting more popular in the US.
-The crowd did get a bit loud during the Nadal match. Actually both players got standing ovations as Nadal began to serve for the match. It was good to see.
-Other than that it was not raucous at any point. The one-sided nature of all three matches had something to do with it probably.
-Unfortunately, there was no sightings of people who were drunk or people flashing or streaking either. We could have used some of that entertainment!

Talents Discovered:
-Turns out Sara is a natural at sales! As soon as we got off the 7 train, she immediately attracted one seedy looking scalper dude and one suspecting German tourist looking for tkts. Not sure how they figured out how she had extra tkts? Of course, she disappeared into the dark when the cash was being exchanged! Something about just being a dealmaker but not wanting to be seen with cash being exchanged-shall we say that Canada should get ready for a new woman politician?

Overall:
-It was entertaining and I had a good time. Next year, I would get night tkts or day tkts courtside in the shade.

Energy and Metals Portfolio - UPDATE

% change in portfolio from July 17-September 2, 2007:
COP: down 9.18%
E: down 11.37%
CHK: down 11.18%
CCJ: down 20.28% (ouch!)
PAL: down 29.19% (double ouch!)

Value of $10,000 portfolio: $8,372 - down 16.64%
S&P in the same period: down 5.16%

Needless to say, my picks are performing miserably. My speculation that picking alternate energy equities (CCJ and PAL) would be a good hedge against oil equities is not working out at all. Why? Well:

-Turns out the Uranium price and by association firms dealing with Uranium were already overpriced when I got in. So with that and the ugliness of the credit crunch spreading to all sectors, I got caught on the wrong side of the curve with CCJ.
-As for PAL I am not sure why that is not doing so well. One thing that could explain it is that they started earning revenue only in this year, so any outside market volatility may cause nervous investors to quickly back away.

Now for my traditional energy (read oil) picks.
COP: I think this is still is a good one to hold onto. Despite losing ~10% in the past month the fundamentals are still pointing to it being undervalued today compared to others in the sector. Yes, they still have to deal with the Chavez regime in 'Zuela and there appear to be some more legal issues cropping up. But their operations are very balanced in exploration, refining, and natural gas. I still like these dudes. Holding on.

CHK: I have to say I have not read one good piece of writing on CHK this past 2 weeks. Analysts at reputed publications and firms provide their recommendations but their basis is not entirely clear. I will still hold onto this as I still think any company that is #3 in natural gas holdings in the US with large reserves will ultimately do well when the energy prices soar. And soar they will with the upcoming hurricane schedule promising to deliver this year.

E: Well, this was my non-US pick and it is looking shaky so far. Not because of performance in the equity market but they are taking a beating at Kashagan. Borat's home country is not being friendly to these Italians. I read a very comprehensive article in WSJ last week about Kashagan and its history. Looks like the Kazak govt will make Eni sweat this one out. I know that the control will be given back to Eni at some point but Eni would end up paying some part of their share to the Kazakh govt.
Interesting facts I picked up from that WSJ article:
-Kashagan has the highest amount of H2S being emitted every by an oil field
-working conditions are the worst anyone has seen in a while since it is offshore and biting cold
- bottlenecks are building materials what will not only withstand cold temperatures but also the high pressures since the field is ~4.2 KM deep into the water
-heavy shortage of geologists and mechanical engineers

well, despite the abysmal performance of my picks so far, I will hold onto them for now. Maybe next month will be a different story.