Day trading from Monaco?

Here’s the equipment setup you’ll need to effectively day trade from home, supposedly (I didn’t read the whole article because I wouldn’t know if it was accurate or not – you experts may). I mention it only because a reader asked if the transaction tax being cooked up by Congress wouldn’t just drive traders off-shore and this set up might tempt you to pack you bags and find a saner country in which to do business. But Pelosi is onto your wicked intentions, and has pointed out that most trades clear through just a few central locations – her idea is to convince those jurisdictions to join in her taxing scheme, thus finding you wherever you are.

Would  that work, or would the clearing sites also move? Who knows? But we may find out soon.

Rental price down

42 Indian Head

If memory serves (and it has to because MLS records don’t go back that far) this cottage in Riverside used to rent comfortably in the $10,000 per month range. In 2007, it still got $9,000, in 2008 it got $8,250 but this year, after starting at $9,500 in May it sat empty until yesterday when it finally rented for $6,000.

Just saying.

No man’s wife or property are safe while the legislature’s in session

Day traders down in the canyons are getting nervous that Obama/Pelosi et als are actually serious about shutting down day trades by imposing a transaction tax. As well they should be, because such a tax has it all: great political popularity, loads of revenue until the industry shuts down and a chance to extract more tribute from the financial industry while Chris Dodd considers the matter.

I’m torn – destruction of the financial system is probably not a good thing, but half of me wonders whether day trading really does provide the liquidity to the market that it needs, and of course, the idea that all these jerks contributed money to the Democrats is just deserts coming home with a bang. Forget the capitalist selling his rope to the hangman, these folks gave it to him.

Still, I’d miss the income derived from selling houses to them.

For Old School Grump, who wanted a picture of the place

17 Thornhill Road, NoPo

Who says Bernie Yudain’s funny? I do!

A reader of Bernie’s seems to think I was tweaking him recently for writing about times long past but heck, I was just trying to distinguish between two friends who are now columnists for GT, Bernie and Bob Horton. So Friends of Bernie can now disband or at least cease and desist from protecting him against imagined slights. Is he funny? Who else could have said, during one of our recurring town debates on culling the deer herd, “why are we talking about shooting deer when Bud Dealy’s still walking around town?” That’s a line I wish I’d said and now, alas, it’s too late.

Anyway, here are two pictures of Bernie, taken at different times – see if you can figure out which is older.

Current (and past) events Bernie

Disco Bernie (Dealbreaker.com photo)

Arthur Collin’s legacy

The Old Greenwich Gables fire yesterday is now out, with no injuries. That’s good news, but these paragraphs from Greenwich Time sum up what I think of how these units were built:

The fire was reported at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in a second floor apartment and raced through voids in the building fed by the lightweight materials used in the construction. It took firefighters at least five hours to squelch the blaze, Nixon said.

[snip]

A wooden truss system on the second floor collapsed within 15 to 20 minutes of the start of the blaze preventing firefighters from entering the apartment where the fire began, Nixon said.

I’m angered anew every time I visit this complex because Collins had a great location and a nice vision and screwed it all up by using cheap construction materials and techniques so that the place is a rotting, dangerous mess. Bah.

REO sale on River Road

78 River Road

Townhouse units in this complex sold in the high 500′s in 2000, climbed as high as $870,000 by 2007 and then dropped. The owners of this one listed it for $849,000 in 2007 and lost it to their lender before they could sell it themselves. Yesterday CitiBank sold it for $616,900, which probably doesn’t make for a cheerful Christmas for those unit owners who bought after 2001. So it goes.

 

 

 

On a brighter note, 45 Buckfield, a nice older house, is reported under contract. It was asking $4.595 and sold quickly enough to make me think the owners are getting close to their price, so that’s encouraging.

And Old Greenwich continues its strong showing, with a new house at 11 Irvine, priced at $3.7 million, selling yesterday for $3.4. It was a very nice house but that price surprises me. Good for the builder.