Nosebleedcity: Kids Making Money

Telling you Derek Jeter registered his 3,000th hit yesterday would be like telling you the sky is blue or water is wet. Unless you are living with those GEICO guys under some rocks, you and the rest of America already know Captain Jetes reached the 3,000-hit milestone. Sure, I can talk about how great he is, how much this means, etc. But I think we’ve had enough coverage to last us a lifetime. It was especially nauseating if you were watching the Yankees broadcast on the YES Network. Michael Kay sounded as though he had a bucket underneath his chin to catch all the drool. Apparently, Jeter also created the universe, defends us from super villains like Lex Luthor, and makes Barry Bonds (circa 2001) look like a tee-ball hitter. Or, at least according to Kay.

I want to focus on the fan who caught the ball. In case you missed this part (not sure how that’s possible), Jeter notched his 3,000th hit in style by homering. I must admit, that was cool to see. It was especially funny for me as my roommate, a Yankees fan, was sitting here when they announced that specially marked balls were being used in case he hit one out. Knowing Jeter left his power stroke back in 2009 (he had two HRs this season, which came in the same game), I scoffed and told my roommate, “I don’t think they’ll need those; Ha!” Well, I was wrong. Some lucky fan caught Jeter’s 3k hit and became instantly rich… or wait.

Okay, you need to understand that catching Jeter’s 3,000th hit, which happened to be a home run, is the same as catching a winning lottery ticket. Not a lottery ticket with a chance to win, a WINNING ticket. That fan, Christian Lopez as we found out, could have sold the ball for a couple hundred thousand dollars. Instead, Lopez gave the ball back so Jeter could have it, which is respectable, but also moronic.

Lopez gave away a retirement nest egg, his future kid’s entire college fund, a house, etc. He gave a billion-dollar company and multi-millionaire a money-making souvenir. Sure, the Yankees gave him four Champion suite tickets… for the rest of this season. But the Yankees can’t even give them away – wait, they just did – well, they definitely can’t sell them. You can still select from several seats for purchase right now! If anything, they should have and Lopez should have asked for lifetime season tickets. Then, the value would have been more in line with the ball’s value.

I’m sure people claiming to be “fans of history” or “those who respect the game and the moment” will yell and bash me for saying Lopez should have kept the ball for the money, or at least worked out a better deal… I already have. The fact is 99 out of 100 people would make the same decision I suggest. It’s easy to sit here and say giving the ball back for nothing – and don’t forget, that was his original thought – is respecting the game and the right thing. It’s a whole other story when a winning lottery ticket is sitting in your hands. 99 out a 100 would agree with me in the moment; we just found the one goof who didn’t.

Today's Action

Good Bet (50 chips)

San Francisco Giants - It’s quite possible the Mets could face seven straight All-Star pitchers. They went up against Clayton Kershaw in the last game of the Dodgers series, had Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain (tonight) pitch for San Fran, and if Philly chooses, could face Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels after the All-Star Break. Ouch. The Mets answer to Cain tonight is Mike Pelfrey… wrong answer.

All In (100 chips)

Detroit Tigers - You can never go wrong with the Tigers when Justin Verlander is pitching. Okay, he has four losses, but that doesn’t mean much when facing Jeff Francis and the Royals. Lock it up.

Settling Up

Is this what I get for being cute and trying to include a new team in my picks? I guess so. Not only did the Pirates not beat the Cubs (thank you Kevin Correia), but Germany lost in the Women’s World Cup. Germany was a big shock, as they were one of the favorites, the hosting country and lost in extra time. The Pirates were less surprising, but Ryan Dempster has been struggling, and Pittsburgh is playing well for a change. None of that matters in the end though.

Chip Stack: Up 3,000

Wiffle Ball or Cornhole. Paul Konerko or Kevin Youkilis. What should you decide? I tell you in What’s the Call? over on RotoExperts.com.

Video is cut off — see the full Transcript below

Fri 08 Jul 11 | 06:45 PM ET

all night i’ve been teaching you how to survive rough, even broken markets. i’ve told you about the mistakes you need to avoid making yourself. and i’ve warned you about the powerful forces that big money managers use to push stocks around, like the futures and the ultra etfs of mass destruction. things that can cause the performance of stocks to become rally disconnected from the performance of the underlying companies that theoretically they’re supposed to track. but there’s one more risk you need to know about if you’re going to invest in a dangerous, choppy market. it’s that the life guard is off duty. and when you go swimming in this market, you had better remember that there’s nobody out there making sure the water is safe. the s.e.c., the securities and exchange commission, which should be working to level the playing field in order to protect you, in order to protect the little guy isn’t doing the job. the regulators seem to favor high-frequency traders who turn the portfolio over 11 times in ten seconds over ordinary home gamers like you. they make up about 80% of all trades. this is the market you’re dealing with. what we need is an s.e.c. that protects the unsophisticated from these capitalists. but instead we — well, we got one that’s been captured by the exchanges by the high-frequency traders and at best the most sophisticated nonsense that you and i can’t stand. this is no longer the s.e.c. that chaired the commission. leavitt was one of the greatest chairman because of his mantra, which was to give the little guy a break to level the playing field, to make the market safe for the individual investor because the guy knew how important this market was to your savings. leavitt favored regular retail investor home gamers like you over these big institutions. he knew the big boys didn’t need protection. they’re rich, they’re sophisticated. but under the anything goes bush s.e.c., that all changed. and strangely the obama administration has hardly done anything to roll back the damage. the s.e.c. has approved all kind of innovations that make the market less legitimate, less safe for you, the home gamers, all the changes have made the market faster that allow these machines to ping each other for quick, tiny gains. the etfs of mass destruction allow money managers to evade the rules on the books for 70 years, bring double or triple buying or selling power. how about the repeal of the original uptick rule that we think was a mistake. that was a great regulation, which it protected us from endless short selling, mauling, mauling stocks over. the s.e.c. approved or enacted all of these things to make the market more dangerous and more difficult. more difficult for you to save money for your kids, for you, if you expect the s.e.c. to have your back, think again. if you think the exchanges have any interest in maintaining legitimacy of the stock markets for your purposes, think again. you have to understand, the exchanges aren’t on your side because they want the institutional hedge funds to make lots of money. they’re profitable institutions, that’s what they’re for. they’re fulfilling their mantra to their shareholders. in the old days, they were non-profit. they could police themselves. now they’re for profit public companies and the goal is to make money. nothing wrong with that. but we’re living in a very different investing world than we were a decade ago and the s.e.c. doesn’t seem to have noticed that. until we get someone on the s.e.c. saying all right, that’s it, okay. let’s look at this through the prism of your i.r.a. or 401(k) or 529 plan instead of the prism of giving market manipulators to have double or triple etfs or the right to be able to trade billions of times a second because somebody makes a tenth of a cent. don’t be surprised by any kind of outrage, flash crash, it can happen again. this also means you have to protect yourself from the madoffs of the world who offer too-good-to-be-true performance. maybe examining the minor players instead of the major ones. be sure that you can directly deal with the money managers accountant to get results. that’s what i used to do at my old hedge fund. don’t give money to a money manager where he puts it to work in something without an easily

Nosebleedcity

Monday, August 1, 2011

Kids Making Money

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