The Aesthetics of Charting

Although I place very little faith in the predictive abilities of stock-price charts, I can't claim to ignore them entirely.  Quite apart from the simple curiosity of sampling the opinion of other market participants, there is the simple elegance of the chart itself.  The one above is generated by Sharescope, the investment database that I've used for some years now.  It shows the recent decline of the Euro vs. the pound, which seems to have accelerated since sinking below 0.855 on December 12th.

I should point out that the chart is much more detailed on screen, and the package as a whole does a lot more than drawing elegant charts.  If I can claim any aesthetic credit, it would be for customising the chart itself - there are many, many options.


Below is another example, also of EUR/GBP, but over a longer period.  We might conclude that the Euro is merely towards the lower end of the trading range that began in January 2009, but that it might easily sink to 0.8 before finding any support.

Incidentally, I meant what  I said: I really don't take this stuff seriously.  No-one should trade using any of this stuff; I reckon there's about a 50:50 chance that the Euro will follow my interpretation of these charts; as far as I can tell, the EUR/GBP rate is random.

An Odd (Series of) Co-incidence(s)

When I left home at age 18, it was to study at University College London.  Nothing extra special about that, I was at UCL, that's all.

Three years later, degree certificate in hand, I secured a job at International Computers Limited, commonly know as ICL.  Somewhat similar acronym, but there we go.

Five years later I decided to move on from this first job, and ended up at a management consultancy firm called Coopers & Lybrand, often abbreviated - by clients at least - to C&L.  Now that is odd, those two letters keep travelling with me.

Three years on from then - and we're talking early 90's here - I got using this "internet" thing, which was a bit of a nerdy thing to do at the time.  Posting to an early bulletin board, CIX, (which I'm glad to see is still in business) I "met" a guy who offered me a job.  A couple of interviews later and I'm working for CACI Ltd.  It wasn't a commonly-used abbreviation, but I can't help but notice that the two words making up the name begin with C and L.

That's four.  But there's more!  As part of the dot.com mania, my bit of CACI was sold off to a company called Cerillion Ltd.  Once again, it wasn't commonly used, but notice those two first letters....

I didn't stay with Cerillion more than a year or two, moving instead to a London University.  There are several worthy institutions in London, and I didn't end up back at my alma mater, as the Americans say, but instead at ... can you guess?  Its acronym ends, of course, with C and L, and as it happens the first letter matches that of my first employer.

I remain working for Imperial College London.

Crummy Joke about two hydrogen atoms

Two hydrogen atoms are crossing a road. One says to the other, "I think I've lost an electron." The other replies: "are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm positive".