Next week football results

Here are some new forecasts for the comming footbal week matches:

You can read the table using the following instructions:
- first column signal games where confidence on prediction is higher with an arrow '=>';
- second and third columns are the home and visitor teams names;
- Fourth column gives the most likely outcomes (1- wins home team, 2- wins visitors team, X- tied game);
- last columns tells you the predicted final score, which should be rounded to integer to make sense, because you will never get 1,5 goals. But a team with 0,8 will have more odds to score than other with only 0.6.

Chelsea - Reading 1 2.4 - 1.1
Werder Bremen - Bochum 1 2.4 - 1.1
Arsenal - Newcastle 1 2.1 - 0.8
Sevilha - Osasuna 1 2.0 - 0.8
Murcia - Levante 1 1.5 - 0.5
Racing - Saragoça 1 1.6 - 0.6
Sampdoria - Siena 1 1.9 - 0.9
Vizela - Estoril 1 1.9 - 1.0
Atalanta - Reggina 1 1.9 - 1.0
Marítimo - Boavista 1 1.4 - 0.5
Catania - Parma 1 1.4 - 0.6
Real Madrid - Villarreal 1 2.2 - 1.3
Schalke 04 - Estugarda 1 1.8 - 1.0
Bolton - Fulham 1 1.7 - 0.8
Espanyol - Betis 1 1.3 - 0.5
Everton - Tottenham 1 1.8 - 1.0
AS Roma - Palermo 1 2.3 - 1.5
Manchester United - Portsmouth 1 1.8 - 1.0
Leixões - P. Ferreira 1 1.5 - 0.8
Aves - Beira-Mar 1 1.6 - 1.0
Karlsruhe - Nuremberga 1 1.6 - 1.1
Udinese - Inter 2 1.1 - 1.7
Lens - Estrasburgo 1 1.5 - 0.9
Marselha - Caen 1 1.2 - 0.7
Portimonense - Rio Ave 2 1.1 - 1.7
Hansa Rostock - Bayern Munique 2 0.9 - 1.4
Sp. Braga - Belenenses 1 1.3 - 0.8
Deportivo - Valladolid 2 1.3 - 1.8
Hamburgo - Hannover 96 1 1.5 - 1.0
Gil Vicente - Trofense 1X 1.2 - 0.8
Santa Clara - Penafiel 1X 1.3 - 0.9
Hertha Berlim - Eintracht Frankfurt 1X 1.5 - 1.1
Metz - Rennes 2X 0.9 - 1.4
Arminia Bielefeld - Wolfsburgo 1X 1.9 - 1.5
Saint Étienne - Lyon 1X 1.4 - 1.0
Middlesbrough - Wigan 1X 1.6 - 1.2
Sunderland - Birmingham 1X 1.4 - 1.0
Recreativo - Getafe 1X 1.3 - 0.9
Derby - Manchester City 2X 1.0 - 1.4
Sporting - FC Porto 1X 1.5 - 1.2
Milan - Génova 1X 1.1 - 0.8
Torino - Lazio 1X 1.3 - 1.0
Duisburgo - Borussia Dortmund 1X 1.6 - 1.4
West Ham - Liverpool 2X 1.0 - 1.2
Valencia - Almería 2X 1.3 - 1.5
Livorno - Juventus 2X 1.3 - 1.5
Naval - E. Amadora 1X 1.1 - 0.9
Auxerre - Nancy 1X 1.0 - 0.9
Athletic - Barcelona 2X 0.9 - 1.1
Cagliari - Nápoles 2X 1.4 - 1.6
Toulouse - Nice 1X 0.8 - 0.7
Fátima - Varzim 1X 1.4 - 1.2
Lorient - Bordéus 1X 1.0 - 0.9
Gondomar - Feirense 1X 0.9 - 0.8
Aston Villa - Blackburn 1X 1.6 - 1.4
Maiorca - Atlético 2X 1.1 - 1.2
Empoli - Fiorentina 2X 0.9 - 1.1
Lille - Paris SG 2X 0.8 - 0.9
Le Mans - Monaco 1X 1.1 - 1.0
Nacional - V. Setúbal 1X 0.9 - 0.9
Sochaux - Valenciennes 1X 1.1 - 1.0
Freamunde - Olhanense 2X 1.1 - 1.1
V. Guimarães - Benfica 2X 0.9 - 1.0
U. Leiria - Académica X 1.0 - 1.0
Energie Cottbus - Bayer Leverkusen X 1.4 - 1.4

I hope you enjoy these results. Off course, you shall remember that these are only predictions and i cannot give any warranty about the results.

I will not accept any responsability about the use of this information, because it's posted here only as a curiosity.

Black Monday or Black Tuesday?

Wow! Today was a bad day to those who are invested in financial markets. 20 years after the 1987 black monday crash, markets crashed again on Monday.

This time the crash started with important losses in asian markets (nikkey dropped about 3%, hang seng 5% ...). Movements like these also occurred last week without such a consequence. But today was different. I believe that technicall signals started this crash. As the main indexes started to enter in the oficial bear market territory (20% bellow previous high) nobody stopped the free fall of ... Our investments value.

From my point of view one of the most interesting detail of this crash is the fact that US markets were closed due to Martin Luther King holiday. This will, in my opinion, be the most important fact. Because US markets didn't fall today, they shall adjust tomorrow. But with everyone knowing that markets will fall, thousands or millions of sell orders will enter in the markets and i can't figure why someone will buy anything. Those investors that wish to buy some stocks will wait that panic start to attract even more sell orders... The few investors with desire to buy are smart, and are few so they will tacit collude to wait for the BIG CRASH OF THIS BLACK TUESDAY 2008.

As i posted in my last message, smart investors should be aware that interesting opportunitties are created in the panic environments. Investors with money to invest, with longer term horizons and risk averse can start looking for pearls in this mess. But don't try to be the first to buy, or to be the one who bought at the lower price of the market. I don't believe in a sharp recovery of the market, so take your time. Even if market recovers 5%, more sells will be sent to the markets and kill any rocket upside of prices.

Off course, all these comments reflect only my opinion and view, and are not any recommendation to buy or sell stocks. I will not accept any responsability for any losses you get by following my view of the markets.

Finance & Business - week 04/2008

This is my first weekly about world finacial markets and business. Is my wish to write some summary about these subjects every week.

In the previous weeks I have been in holidays at grandvalira, spain (http://www.grandvalira.com), playing ski at Paz de la Casa. While I was in the middle of white mountains, markets dived in dark valleys. These have been the worst first weeks of year since i had born in 1977. At the end of this 4th week, markets decreased about 5%, accumulating a decrease of 10% year to date. Even more dangerous is the velocity that main world indices are approaching the 20% fall from previous high level, that signals the beggining of a bear market. All the main world indices had broken most of the more important technical supports and I believe that in the next weeks we will see STOXX 600 and S&P 500 enter in bear market territory.

During this perios large caps are outperforming small caps, that is why STOXX50 and EURO STOXX50 are technically healthier, but in the emergence of the bear market, this indexes shall be affected too.

So, is it time to panic? No! In opposition to others bear markets, this time the starting point is not the end of an huge bull, with stocks priced 40x earnings. At this time, stocks are much cheaper than they were for instance in 2000 bubble. So we shall not assist to a fall of 40% of the markets. At this time, a correction was needed because economy is being affect by the financial crisis, probably US economy will touch recession levels. But we will not assist to a large depression, and the recession effect is mostly discounted by the markets at these levels. I believe that today the financial markets are fairly priced. During the next next 2 weeks we wiil probably see one of the well known inefficiencies of the markets: overreaction.

When we look to the TICK INDEX, a measure of upticks trades subtracted by downtick trades we can have a perception of the panic that is already present in the market. This situation will create good buy opportunities since overstressed investors are not so rational as the efficient market hipotesys assumes. So, when buying stocks during the next 2 weeks people should not be waiting to profit from these trades in the short term, but in a year from now these investment should provide one interesting return risk adjusted reward.

In the short term investors can suffer even more if the chinese financial market bubble burst in consequence of the current panic levels. In the other hand, falling oil prices should be reflected by lower inflation concerns and gold and silver shall fall. Copper shall also fall due to lower economic activity. In order to find nice investment opportunities look in the major loosers for stocks not dependent of US economy, not leveraged and not correlated with oil, metalls and other commoditties prices. Why not some european financials?

These times can also be a great opportunity to increase or take new positions in some emerging markets, with brasil and india being some of the most promisig BRICs.

These are my ideias at the present time. I share it with you in order to test them. I wish you have different view and debate this themes with me. My opinion is not any recomendation to buy or sell stocks and i will not accept any responsability one losses people can get, by using information on this blog!

Next week football results

Here are some new forecasts for the comming footbal week matches:

You can read the table using the following instructions:
- first column signal games where confidence on prediction is higher with an arrow '=>';
- second and third columns are the home and visitor teams names;
- Fourth column gives the most likely outcomes (1- wins home team, 2- wins visitors team, X- tied game);
- last columns tells you the predicted final score, which should be rounded to integer to make sense, because you will never get 1,5 goals. But a team with 0,8 will have more odds to score than other with only 0.6.

Marítimo - Boavista 1 1.4 - 0.5
U. Leiria - Académica X 1.0 - 1.0
Sporting - FC Porto 1X 1.5 - 1.2
Sp. Braga - Belenenses 1 1.3 - 0.8
Naval - E. Amadora 1X 1.1 - 0.9
Nacional - V. Setúbal 1X 0.9 - 0.9
V. Guimarães - Benfica 2X 0.9 - 1.0
Leixões - P. Ferreira 1 1.5 - 0.8
Freamunde - Olhanense 2X 1.1 - 1.1
Aves - Beira-Mar 1 1.6 - 1.0
Vizela - Estoril 1 1.9 - 1.0
Gil Vicente - Trofense 1X 1.2 - 0.8
Fátima - Varzim 1X 1.4 - 1.2
Portimonense - Rio Ave 2 1.1 - 1.7
Gondomar - Feirense 1X 0.9 - 0.8
Santa Clara - Penafiel 1X 1.3 - 0.9
Fulham - Arsenal 2 1.1 - 1.7
Liverpool - Aston Villa 1X 1.7 - 1.4
Newcastle - Bolton 1 1.8 - 1.1
Birmingham - Chelsea 2X 1.0 - 1.2
Portsmouth - Derby 1 1.7 - 0.5
Wigan - Everton 2X 1.2 - 1.3
Reading - Manchester United 2X 1.0 - 1.4
Blackburn - Middlesbrough 1 1.4 - 0.9
Tottenham - Sunderland 1 2.6 - 1.5
Manchester City - West Ham 1X 1.3 - 1.0
Atlético - Real Madrid 1X 1.6 - 1.6
Osasuna - Athletic 1X 1.3 - 1.2
Almería - Deportivo 1X 1.1 - 1.0
Valladolid - Espanyol 2X 1.4 - 1.5
Barcelona - Racing 1 2.1 - 0.7
Getafe - Sevilha 1X 1.4 - 1.0
Villarreal - Valencia 1X 1.5 - 1.4
Levante - Maiorca 2X 1.4 - 1.6
Saragoça - Murcia 1 2.0 - 1.1
Betis - Recreativo 1 1.7 - 1.2
Fiorentina - Torino 1 1.8 - 1.0
Génova - Atalanta 1X 1.3 - 1.2
Inter - Parma 1 2.0 - 0.5
Juventus - Sampdoria 1 2.2 - 0.6
Nápoles - Lazio 1 1.4 - 0.9
Palermo - Siena 1 1.5 - 0.9
Reggina - Cagliari 1 1.7 - 1.0
Udinese - Milan 2 1.4 - 2.0
Livorno - Empoli 1X 1.5 - 1.0
AS Roma - Catania 1 2.0 - 1.2
Schalke 04 - Estugarda 1 1.8 - 1.0
Hansa Rostock - Bayern Munique 2 0.9 - 1.4
Energie Cottbus - Bayer Leverkusen X 1.4 - 1.4
Werder Bremen - Bochum 1 2.4 - 1.1
Hamburgo - Hannover 96 1 1.5 - 1.0
Hertha Berlim - Eintracht Frankfurt 1X 1.5 - 1.1
Arminia Bielefeld - Wolfsburgo 1X 1.9 - 1.5
Karlsruhe - Nuremberga 1 1.6 - 1.1
Duisburgo - Borussia Dortmund 1X 1.6 - 1.4
Toulouse - Caen 1X 0.9 - 0.6
Lens - Lyon 2X 1.1 - 1.4
Le Mans - Bordéus 1X 1.1 - 0.9
Metz - Monaco 2X 0.8 - 1.2
Saint Étienne - Rennes 1 1.3 - 0.6
Marselha - Valenciennes 1 1.3 - 0.6
Auxerre - Estrasburgo 1 1.5 - 0.9
Sochaux - Lille 2X 0.8 - 1.2
Lorient - Paris SG 2X 0.8 - 0.9
Nice - Nancy 1X 1.1 - 0.7

I hope you enjoy these results. Off course, you shall remember that these are only predictions and i cannot give any warranty about the results.

I will not accept any responsability about the use of this information, because it's posted here only as a curiosity.

Happy new year!

Today's day is equal to all other days of the year. It worths about 0.3% of anual GDP as any other day. Althought, there is not mutch to say about it.

Markets were closed. Shops were closed too. Everything was so closed that i didn't receive any e-mail. It seems that even spammers toke this day to rest.

So, why should i disrespect all this peace and calm world with the noise of my words? I will respect the dead of 2007. Let it rest in peace. I must say that 2007 was great to me. I will not forget it, but now we are in 2008 and this is the year we shall live in! Come with me and enjoy this trip along 2008.

HAVE FUN!

inspiration

To get richer work, not harder, but better.

Next week football result forecasts

As I promised, here I'm posting again. My previous posts was produced yesterday, but only posted today due to technicall problems!

(after all these months without posting I forgot my 'secret word' that enable me to post by email. Now I fixed it!)

One of the hobbies I have is trying to predict the future, not by guessing, but using quantitaive data analytics. So, I will use this blog to let you know my predictions. I start today with my quantitative forecasts of next weekend football matches.

You can read the table using the following instructions:
- first column signal games where confidence on prediction is higher with an arrow '=>';
- second and third columns are the home and visitor teams names;
- Fourth column gives the most likely outcomes (1- wins home team, 2- wins visitors team, X- tied game);
- last columns tells you the predicted final score, which should be rounded to integer to make sense, because you will never get 1,5 goals. But a team with 0,8 will have more odds to score than other with only 0.6.

Marítimo - Leixões 1 1.2 - 0.6
P. Ferreira - U. Leiria 1X 1.2 - 1.0
Boavista - Sporting X 1.1 - 1.1
Académica - Sp. Braga 1X 1.1 - 1.1
=> FC Porto - Naval 1 1.9 - 0.4
Belenenses - Nacional 1X 0.9 - 0.6
E. Amadora - V. Guimarães 1X 1.4 - 1.1
V. Setúbal - Benfica 1X 1.4 - 1.2
Freamunde - Santa Clara 1X 1.8 - 1.5
Penafiel - Aves 1X 1.2 - 1.1
Olhanense - Vizela 2X 0.8 - 1.1
Beira-Mar - Gil Vicente 1X 1.2 - 1.1
Estoril - Fátima 1 1.6 - 0.9
Trofense - Portimonense 1 1.3 - 0.4
Varzim - Gondomar 1 1.2 - 0.4
Rio Ave - Feirense 1 1.2 - 0.6
Arsenal - West Ham 1X 1.5 - 1.1
Fulham - Chelsea 2X 1.1 - 1.4
Aston Villa - Tottenham 1X 1.5 - 1.2
=> Liverpool - Wigan 1 2.3 - 0.7
=> Bolton - Derby 1 2.0 - 0.6
Newcastle - Everton 2X 1.4 - 1.4
=> Manchester United - Birmingham 1 2.1 - 0.7
Reading - Portsmouth 2X 1.3 - 1.6
Middlesbrough - Manchester City 1X 1.4 - 1.3
Blackburn - Sunderland 1 1.9 - 1.1
=> Real Madrid - Saragoça 1 2.3 - 0.9
Deportivo - Atlético 2 0.8 - 1.3
Espanyol - Villarreal 1X 1.3 - 1.3
=> Sevilha - Betis 1 1.9 - 0.8
Getafe - Valladolid 1 1.7 - 1.1
Valencia - Levante 1X 1.7 - 1.3
Maiorca - Barcelona 1X 1.4 - 1.3
Murcia - Osasuna 1X 1.1 - 0.8
Recreativo - Almería 1X 1.2 - 0.9
Racing - Athletic 1X 1.3 - 0.8
Lazio - Génova 1X 1.2 - 1.0
Parma - Fiorentina 1X 1.2 - 1.2
Siena - Inter 2 0.9 - 1.4
Empoli - Reggina 1 1.6 - 0.8
Milan - Nápoles 2X 1.2 - 1.2
Torino - Livorno 1X 1.4 - 1.0
Cagliari - Udinese 2X 0.8 - 1.2
Catania - Juventus 1X 1.4 - 1.1
Atalanta - AS Roma 2X 1.3 - 1.4
Sampdoria - Palermo 1 2.0 - 1.3
Schalke 04 - Estugarda 1 1.8 - 1.0
Hansa Rostock - Bayern Munique 2 0.9 - 1.4
Energie Cottbus - Bayer Leverkusen X 1.4 - 1.4
=> Werder Bremen - Bochum 1 2.4 - 1.1
Hamburgo - Hannover 96 1 1.5 - 1.0
Hertha Berlim - Eintracht Frankfurt 1X 1.5 - 1.1
Arminia Bielefeld - Wolfsburgo 1X 1.9 - 1.5
Karlsruhe - Nuremberga 1 1.6 - 1.1
Duisburgo - Borussia Dortmund 1X 1.6 - 1.4
=> Valenciennes - Saint Étienne 1 1.9 - 0.6
Bordéus - Auxerre 1 2.1 - 1.1
Le Mans - Sochaux 1X 1.2 - 0.9
Monaco - Lorient 1X 1.4 - 0.9
Estrasburgo - Nice 1 1.1 - 0.5
Lyon - Toulouse 1 1.8 - 1.0
Paris SG - Lens 2X 1.1 - 1.1
Lille - Metz 1 1.4 - 0.6
Caen - Nancy 1X 1.3 - 1.0
Rennes - Marselha 1X 1.2 - 1.1

I hope you enjoy these results. Off course, you shall remember that these are only predictions and i cannot give any warranty about the results.

I will not accept any responsability about the use of this information, because it's posted here only as a curiosity.

I'm back!

Hello world!
In this time of the year everybody looks backward and evalute what gone well or wrong. Then, its time to look forward and plan the next year.
I'm in the middle of the process. So, i'm respecting the schedulle, as today is the 30th of december 2007. But i already have some ideias about what I wish to perform during the next 12 months.
My first iniciative will be to revigorate this blog, i created in the beggining of 2007, but only updated it 2 or 3 times.
So, during 2008 you shall find here my thoughts about everything, updated daily.
Of course, most os the topics i shall cover will be mainly related to the fields I like more, like economics, financial markets, gadgets, books and arts. All these will be updated daily, in english (or some language similar to english) :)
I expect to produce one interesting blog. I will feel successful if I start have some regular visitors, specially if i get some feedback. My main motivation is to try to exchange ideas with people with similar interests (but with different views/opinions). I will be happy also to get some corrections on my grammar!
The countdown is almost starting! I wish you a happy and successful 2008! With somw luck, it will be the year we start exchange some thoughts about ... Life!
Tomorrow, if not earlier, i' ll be back!

O que se diz hoje de Portugal na Bloomberg.(12/Fev/2007)

 

Portugal's Math Problem: Failing Grades Equal Slower Growth

By Jim Silver

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Chipidea Microelectronica SA, a Lisbon-based semiconductor designer, is hiring most of its engineers in Belgium, Poland and China.

``The reason we opened engineering centers in other countries was to have access to trained personnel we couldn't find in this country,'' Chairman Jose Franca said last month in a speech at an awards ceremony for young scientists and engineers.

The shortage has Portugal hurrying to correct one of the root causes: the disastrous state of math education. Sixty-four percent of ninth-graders failed a standardized math test last year. In 2003, Portugal's math scores ranked ahead of only Greece, Turkey and Mexico in the 30-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

That's bad news for Portugal as it attempts to transform its economy from one that relies on low wages to attract employers to one in which educated workers increase productivity. The Bank of Portugal estimates that the economy grew 1.2 percent last year, the slowest in the EU.

``The generation of new firms is very slim in Portugal,'' said Nuno Crato, president of the Portuguese Mathematics Society and a professor at Lisbon's Higher Institute for Economy and Management. ``We don't have enough people trained, enough people knowledgeable in new technologies.''

Math proficiency dropped even as the government almost doubled spending on education to 6.1 billion euros ($7.9 billion) over the past decade. During that period Portugal installed computers in classrooms and reduced the average class size by more than 20 percent.

Training Teachers

The Education Ministry in 2005 increased training for primary-school math teachers and tightened job requirements to prevent those who failed math from teaching it.

In a country where the ministry traditionally keeps tight control over instruction, schools are being allowed to experiment with math curricula to find out what works best. The goal is to force schools to take responsibility for student performance, said Valter Lemos, secretary of state for education.

``We hope this year there will already be some results,'' he said. ``Our goal of getting to the average of the OECD results will take a few years.''

The results from the national test reinforced concerns that Portugal won't be able to catch up with the rest of Europe, after five years in which economic growth lagged behind.

Slowing Growth

Portugal's economy expanded less than 1 percent annually from 2002 through 2005, leaving it the poorest of the 15 countries that made up the EU before its 2005 expansion. In 2002, Portugal ranked 23rd among the 27 countries that are now EU member states in the number of patents granted per person.

``Math provides models of thinking and working that are important in professional life,'' said Joao Pedro da Ponte, chairman of the education department at Lisbon University's Science Faculty. ``It's an area that's important for the economy.''

Chipidea was founded in 1997 by three professors at the Technical University of Lisbon, providing jobs for their students. Now many of its workers come from abroad, Franca said.

Giving workers a better grounding in math would help them become more efficient, Ponte said. Productivity in Portugal was 59 percent of the average for the 15 EU members in 2003, ranking it last, behind Greece, the second-worst, at 75 percent.

Years of failure have had a snowball effect, so that many students now avoid math because they think it is too tough, said Jose da Silva Lopes, chairman of Montepio Geral, Portugal's sixth-biggest bank.

``There are many who go into easier specializations, such as psychology or sociology,'' he said.

`Tough Nut'

Companies are trying to stimulate interest in math.

Banco Espirito Santo SA, Portugal's third-biggest bank, teaches elementary-school students basic concepts about math and money. It also sponsors an annual 10,000-euro prize for an outstanding math teacher, and a national math competition for primary and secondary school students.

Caixa Geral de Depositos SA, Portugal's biggest bank, visited 68 schools last year with a traveling classroom -- a van equipped with Internet-access computers with math-related games.

``Math isn't such a tough nut to crack,'' said Susana Ferreira, a Caixa Geral spokeswoman. ``We want to get young people to think of math as something we deal with in everyday life.''

School Dropouts

Portugal is also battling a tradition in which most people didn't finish high school.

In 2002, only 10 percent of the country's 55- to 64-year- olds had a high school education, the lowest proportion in the OECD. Among 25- to-34-year-olds, the rate was almost 40 percent, still third-worst.

Augusto Pascoal, vice president of the Greater Lisbon Teachers Union and a retired math teacher, said the standard curriculum skips over some of the basics. He said many students can't handle algebra questions with a single unknown, because ``they haven't been prepared with simple questions such as `what times two is six?'''

Teresa Caissotti, a high school math teacher in the Lisbon suburb of Sintra, says media coverage of the test results has focused attention on the issue.

``I think something's changing,'' she said. ``Now it's not just education experts thinking about this issue.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Silver in Lisbon at jsilver@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 11, 2007 19:00 EST