Sunday, December 02, 2012

Same old, same old...

Where we're at:

Dow: 13025.58
s&p: 1416.18
10 yr:1.606
VIX: 15.87
s&p P/E: 21.64

equity: 33
bond: 33
cash: 34

1yr: 6%

The election is over, but we seem to have the same result.  More arguing, and no compromise.  The 'do-nothing' congress is content to keep the economy in recession.  However, Mr. Market seems to have an agreement priced in.  The chatter on the message boards seems to be subsiding and even turning a bit negative for TXT.  I think they finally realized that a dividend increase is not forthcoming and we're going to continue funding new projects. 

I'm a bit unsure about what to throw new money at.  Equities seem a bit overpriced and due for a drop, especially if no agreement occurs by the end of the year, however I like what we own and I don't want to sell anything.  I think I'll reach a rebalance point for TXT before the end of the year and will sell some of my shares.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

3rd qtr 2012..

Where we're at:

DJIA: 13343.51
s&p: 1433.19
10yr: 1.77%
s&p P/E: 22.48
VIX: 17.06

equity: 33
bond: 33
cash: 35

1 yr: 8.7%

The TXT call was last Wednesday. Mostly positive, but the company did not meet estimates and was slammed hard (-6%).  Fairly easy to predict, the ("elephant in the room" ) jet manufacturer reported lower deliveries.  The CEO was hit hard throughout the call to forecast 4th qtr and 2013 demand but he held back. The pundits seem to think that the entire business community is (still) waiting for Washington to "grow a pair" and work together.  Hopefully that will happen, but who really knows.  On Thursday, a major CSNA competitor, reported that its efforts to become acquired by a China company were not successful and TXT recovered nicely. 

If I worked for Bell, I would be wondering what I have to do to get some respect?  All they have done is exceed forecasts and deliver strong revenue for the company for the last 2 years.  They continue to have an open position that I have created a draft app for, but I can't seem 'to pull the trigger'.  Part of me is nervous abut the whole defense sequestration stuff and I'm concerned that the v-22 will get cut.  The rest of me thinks we're better off here with my spouse's gig.

Good year for us so far, we're pushing the needle to the right, like I hoped.  A few more years like this one and I may be able to call it a career at 60.  Trying to keep a lid on expenses for the remainder of 2012 and fully fund our HSA and roths.

Sunday, October 07, 2012

cruise into the election....

Where we're at:

DJIA 13,610.15
s&p: 1,460.93
10 yr: 1.73%
s&p P/E: 22.91
vix: 14.33

equity: 33%
bond: 33%
cash: 34%

1 yr: 8.7%


I watched the debate on Thursday and became more impressed with Romney.  I don't think it would be the worst thing to happen if he won.  As I have thought, I'll vote for the person that can get Washington to 'work' again.  If it's him, he'll get my vote.  The employment rate surprise on Friday, does seem suspicious, but Welch is an idiot with his tweet.  The guy needs to 'dry up and blow away'. 

The year we're having is a pleasant surprise, up almost 9 for the year.  I like what we own and don't plan on selling anything yet.  But, if TXT hits 30, I'll unload some.   Spouse continues her great year, she is off to headquarters in a couple of weeks.  I actually told her I'll keep an open mind about relocation, if it's ever brought up.  I think I'd have an easier time finding a new job on the East Coast, if the need arises.  We'll see what happens after 10/17 when the 3rd quarter is announced.

Saturday, September 08, 2012

more Fed accomodation?

Where we're at:

s&p: 1437.92
dow: 13306.64
10yr: 1.66%
VIX: 14.38
s&p P/E: 23.10

equity: 33%
bond: 30%
cash: 35%

1yr: 5.2%

After the 2nd qtr beat, not sure how the 3rd qtr will be.  The macro environment is still 'up in the air' (pun).  The public face is positive, CSNA programs our moving along and BH is doing well.  My morale is still shaken from the June layoffs, but I can't worry about what I can't control.  I'm continuing to increase my visibility and learn new skills.  I'm still looking for a work use for Hadoop, but I'm enjoying using it to track the 50 day average of various stocks :)  Spouse continues her great year, she knocked it out of the park again in August.  Glad LOGM lets her fully fund her 401(k).

The market continued to shake off bad news, probably because the ECB is still publicly backing a wide scale bond buy program.  China is expected to ease over the weekend, that may drive the movement early next week.  The US market thinks the Fed will continue its ways because of the poor jobs report.  I still haven't decided who to vote for in Nov.  Whoever will get Congress working again will get my vote and that's probably the repub.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Q2 2012...

Where we're at:

DJIA: 12,822.57
s&p: 1362.66
10 yr: 1.46%
s&p P/E: 21.89
VIX: 16.27

equity: 31
bonds: 33
cash: 35

1yr: 2.1%

The TXT earnings call was this week (19).  TXT had a good quarter overall, including CSNA.  An increase in jet deliveries bumped up earnings and profits vs 2011.  Still, the call was cautious, the analysts seemed to be baiting the leadership to increase guidance, but there was nothing doing.  It seems prudent given the state of the world economy now.  There was also a lot of discussion towards the end about HBC and whether TXT had in interest.    Some of the TXT message boards seem comical.  The comments complain about the dividend.  It appears that these people aren't paying attention.  HELLO, TXT has a number of R&D and new programs ramping up simultaneously.  The company is not going to raise the dividend AND rollout 3 new airplanes. 

Spouse took two trips this month (Boston and Mexico City), she crushed it in June.  But July will be a down month because she has been gone.  I had my mid-year review, it went ok.  I guess since I didn't get canned in June, does it really matter?  The offshore team seems to be slacking off since 4 of them were cut, not sure they have much interest in our work anymore.  Looking forward to vacation...


Saturday, June 30, 2012

Again!?

Where we're at:
DJIA: 12,880.09
s&p: 1362.16
10 yr: 1.66%
s&p P/E: 21.88
VIX: 17.08

equity: 31
bonds: 33
cash: 35

1yr: .1

Withiut warning, IT had another (4th in 3 years?) reduction, 10 people cut on 06/28.  This one 'feels' different though, not just a cost reduction, but the 'business' saying "you people don't add any value, so you are GONE."  Several long timers and several who were assigned to a particular project that doesn't seem to be going very well.  Also in the month, 4 of the offshore people on my team were cut.  They're fine, I'm sure.  So, the layoff cloud moves back over and stays in place the rest of this year.  I'm not too nervous but I think most people better be looking over their shoulder.

Europe decided to intice people to buy risk assets again on 06/29 by coming up with an agreement to loan money to recapitalize their banks.  I rang the register twice this quarter on TXT, just reallocating within the overall portfolio.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

KeyValueTextInputFormat

After a bit of a lay off, I found some data to try a in a MR job.  My training used TextInputFormat, so I wanted to try a key/value pair for this dataset.  I copied my existing driver, map, and reduce programs and made changes to the driver and map code, then compiled and ran.  BOOM!  First, I didn't have the new input class declared, so I added that:

import org.apache.hadoop.mapred.KeyValueTextInputFormat;

I'm using a pipe ("|") for a separator, so I have this code:

conf.setInputFormat(KeyValueTextInputFormat.class);

conf.set("key.value.separator.in.input.line", "|");


Next, I fought through various type mismatch errors in the mapper.  Eventually, I came up with this code in the driver:
 
conf.setMapOutputKeyClass(Text.class);
conf.setMapOutputValueClass(IntWritable.class);
conf.setOutputKeyClass(Text.class);
conf.setOutputValueClass(IntWritable.class);

And this code in the mapper:
 
MyMapper extends MapReduceBase implements Mapper'<'Text, Text, Text, IntWritable'>'
public void map(Text key, Text value,OutputCollector'<'Text, IntWritable'>'output, Reporter reporter)

My generic mapper used a LongWritable for the key.  It appears that the key in this input format is a Text, which threw me.  The errors were a bit cryptic the first time, but after a few iterations, I caught on to the issue.  I loaded a small test file looking like:

1|this is the text
2|this is more text

The output looked like I wanted, words and counts, cool.

Env: 020.2 pseudo-distributed mode, CentOS on VM

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Ouch...

Where we're at:

DJIA  12,369.38
S&P 500  1,295.22
10-Yr T-Note  1.70%
S&P P/E: 20.80
VIX: 25.10

equity: 30
bond: 34
cash: 36

1yr: 1.9%

It looks like Europe is going to bring the world economy down again for the 3rd year, S&P fell  -4.3% this week. Oh well...I am going to go on a a little shopping spree.  I'll add to our int'ls, high-yield bonds, and REITS, a little here and there as we step down from these levels.  My job is like a 'small cap stock', so I can't go crazy.   TXT came back down to earth as well.  I'll wait for some support and then sell to my desired allocation.  It looks like the "big boys" exercised some options in February.  I think I'll keep an eye on their activity more in the future.

Our group is cutting loose 4 of the off-shore team to trim our 2012 budget.  I'm sad to see them go, but they'll be fine, I'm sure the firm has work for them.  But, this may lead to more interesting work for peer and myself.  We'll have to see.  I'm continuing to gain experience in Hadoop, good for current and future opportunities, I think.  No changes to vacation plans in August.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Finally...

Where we're at:

dow: 12,820.60
s&p: 1,353.39
10yr: 1.84%
s&p P/E: 22.56
VIX: 19.89

equity: 31%
bond: 33%
cash: 36%

1yr: 3.5%

Wow, I finally made it, vested. It feels good, all 401(k) match is mine, plus a pension benefit. The first quarter was better than 2011, but CSNA still lost money. The call sounded better than last year, but who knows. For the third year, Europe decides to rain on the world's parade in April/May. Hiring is still sparse, but stable (so far). This summer, we'll celebrate the fact that we both have jobs by taking a real vacation. Our bathroom remodel is done, so no more home upgrades for awhile.

Spouse is doing well, the LOGM acquisition seems to suit her and her work style. The market seems to find a floor around 12,900 (dow). While EUR is down, I'm taking this opportunity to pick up some more int'l stocks to get back to our target allocation. I'd like to exchange some corp bonds for some high yield, but they seem a bit pricey, so I'll wait.

More Hive fun...

I have been spending time learning Hive using the VM (CentOS) on my laptop. I have loaded a few hundred job logs and begun querying for analysis. I am continuing to meet with the Linux server team to install the Hadoop framework on RHEL. I think they'll have it for me by the end of May. Next, I'm going to demo Hive to my EDW team and write a M/R wordcount app processing long text we extract from SAP. I'm still trying to build some momentum around the tool.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Using Hive ...

This weekend, I started working on my pilot and I contemplated map reduce vs hive. Since my background includes extensive SQL use, I opted to give hive a try. I loaded 100 log files from our ETL server into hdfs, loaded them using hive, and began running queries to process the data, looking for the longest operation in our transformation operations. While I'll probably need MR for better text parsing, hive is very cool for high level processing.

Next week, I'll discuss installing hadoop on a linux server for a pilot.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

met with EU team ....

This week I met with the consultant and the EU team to learn about their app and possible uses for Hadoop. I also met with our infrastructure team about installing CDH on a single node Linux server in pseudo-distributed mode for an application idea I have.

The EU team is very excited and thinks they have a use case for the platform. I'm not sure if I'll have the opportunity to participate or if the project will get funded, but I do think I'll get to "show off" Hadoop with my smaller app. I'll update the blog in early April after I meet again with the infrastructure team.

Saturday, March 03, 2012

Stranger in a strange land .....

I'm starting a new series on my experiences with the Hadoop stack. I attended training and passed the developer cert test in February. The technology is very cool and could potentially extend this gen-X person's IT career by a few years.

My background is RDBMS and various programming languages. I'm not going to write about what Hadoop is, there are already plenty of articles about that. This will be my experiences in trying to learn and stand-up an environment and complete a project with business value.

In our DW, we're starting to collect a large amount of text data from various SAP tables. I'm not sure if any of it is used currently, but this looks like a good place to start. I'll see if I can carve out some space and cycles on one of our servers and create a pseudo-distributed environment.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

What a start....

Where we're at:

Dow 12,801.23
s&p: 1,342.64
10yr: 1.97
s&p P/E: 22.43
vix: 20.79

equity: 31
bond: 33
cash: 36

1 yr: 2.9%

The market has gone (almost) straight up, probably because the mood is improving in the US and there is optimism that a Greece "kick-the-can" decision is coming. But, the nasty Greeks decided to take the market down a bit on 2/9. TXT reported a small loss due to one-time items for 2011, but guided higher for 2012, so the stock has gone straight up. I rang the register in early January to get below my 10% mark, but I'll probably be selling more before spring if it continues to rise.

Work has been crazy, unfortunately, all support. But, it looks like my training class will happen (surprise). Peer continues to suffer through his neck and back problems, he makes me hurt when I watch him get up and move around. I don't how he'll work to 65. We submitted our goals for the year, hopefully we'll get to work on the stuff we have planned. It seems like people are all of a sudden using the warehouse reports more than they used to, not sure why. We have had a lot of support because of incorrect results and we have shot ourselves in the foot twice during major process runs.

The mood seems to be positive, so far. Projects are being planned and I see and hear contract labor moving in and doing work. So, I'm optimistic for 2012, but we'll see what happens later this spring.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

January 2012....

Where we're at:

DJIA: 12422.06
s&p: 1289.09
10 yr: 1.853
s&p P/E: 21.21
VIX: 20.91

equity: 30
bond: 33
cash: 37

1 yr: 0.91%

The market made a bit of a comeback this week (dow up ~60 points). The s&p is staying above its moving average (~1250). I've done some trades lately, TXT at 19.10 and JNK at 38.60. JNK to exchange into V high yld corp. TXT because I was approaching 10% in 401k. This week TXT made a move on rumors the company may explore spinning off businesses to increase value. Who knows, there may be a comment during the January call. Goals for this year include: decreasing cash in spouse's IRA. max out HSA, increase 401k contributions, and staying employed (as usual).

Work is starting off ok, spouse's company's acquisition to LOGM closed this week. I think she'll be fine for the next year or two. CSNA will continue to muddle along, hopefully we'll deliver enough planes to keep employment stable. I'm still optimistic this will be a good year for me, but we'll see. 4 months to go.....