Mark Cuban made a post on his weblog titled The Stock Market: The New Normal where he discusses that this might not be just another downturn. Times, as he points out, are different. There haven’t always been this many mutual funds, hedge funds, etc. competing for your money. There haven’t always been this much coverage and information available all over the place (tv, internet, etc.). Have we reached a situation where no one wants to go long or short? Is this the new normal?

I’m no expert, but my guess is that, yes, these are different times. But the nature of markets is that there is always going to be a buyer if the price is right. So what is the right price? Fundamentals play a role in finding out the right price. But there’s more to it. Psychology. Psychology is the reason why you can never predict a market. How is the negative spiral going to be broken? My guess is that after a year or so of downsizing we will reach a point where the profits provide the confidence a buyer needs. Then it’s time to ride the trend and bet on a bull market.

I think the American economy is also starting to really get a feel of the effects of China and other emerging markets. Times will get tougher. This is of course adding to the situation.

Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958 in Pittsburgh) ^[1] is an American billionaire entrepreneur ^[2]. He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, an NBA basketball team ^[3], and Chairman of HDNet, an HDTV cable network ^[4]. Source: Wikipedia

Startup Sweden Göteborg 2008

I came back yesterday night from my trip to Göteborg where I enjoyed Startup Sweden #2 and Entreprenörsdagen.

Thank you, Ola, Daniel, Jonas and Pepé who made Startup Sweden Göteborg happen!

The winner of Startup Sweden was the team PMkin, a service that helps you track all the communication on a group project or task through your favorite communication tool (email, live messenger, etc.)

The team, consisting of 7 people, will continue working on the project in their spare time.

Jalbum is a free photo album software that makes it easy to share photo albums with anyone.

You get a free 30 MB Jalbum hosting account for your albums that can be upgraded. The free account gives you 2 GB bandwidth per month. There is also a Premium account for €19 per year that gives you 1 GB storage and 10 GB bandwidth per month. If you want more space and bandwidth you can get a Power account for €95 per year. The Power account gives you 10 GB of storage and 100 GB bandwidth per month. The Premium and Power accounts are ad-free.

They have partnered with Blurb so you can have your album printed. The printing starts at $12.95 for a 40-page softcover album.

Wiretapping Sweden from Wiretapping Sweden on Vimeo.

This is a documentary, produced by Urban Lifestyle, is about the new surveillance law in Sweden. The law allows the FRA to monitor any phone and internet traffic in Sweden without a warrant. So that means the FRA doesn’t need any proof that identifies you as a suspect in order to spy on you.

So what is it and why are people protesting against it? Check it out (above)!

Seth Godin is a contributing writer on Vator.tv and in his article “Is effort a myth?” (see link below) he talks about luck vs. effort and gives some very feasible advice on how to get better at whatever it is you are doing.

While luck may be more appealing than effort, you don’t get to choose luck. Effort, on the other hand, is totally available, all the time.

Check out the article on:
http://www.vator.tv/news/show/2008-10-09-is-effort-a-myth

Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American author of business books and a popular speaker with appearances at Google, TED and a number of charities. His blog is one of the most popular blogs in the world.^{[citation needed]} Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing
Source: Wikipedia

Michael Covel is author of the book Trend Following and The Complete Turtle Trader. I have read his book Trend Following and I’m also subscribing to his podcast where he talks about markets, psychology, trading strategy and about what makes a winner. There are always two sides, the winning side and the losing side. There always has to be a loser on the other side in a zero sum game.

In this podcast episode from July 21, 2008 he talks about how people tend to complain when the market is not going up. It’s an interesting perspective. Check it out:

http://www.turtletrader.com/mp3/complainers.mp3

Spotify – the story from Spotify on Vimeo.

Spotify has made great progress and yesterday announced that they have signed deals with several companies including Universal Music Group, Sony BMG, EMI Music, Warner Music Group, Merlin, The Orchard and Bonnier Amigo.

You can now get Spotify Premium or a Day-pass. At the same time they are starting to give out invites to the free service that is supported by ads.

I’ve had the benefit of using Spotify while it was in beta-testing and it’s really a great service. The premium service is priced at 99 SEK per month and the day-pass (24 hrs) is 9 SEK. Totally worth it!

Joop shared this with me today and it’s about creating a way to stream free internet TV to iPhone and iPod touch. There are more than 10 million users that could benefit from this. Joop is looking for people who would like to help make this a reality.

Go here and check it out:
http://www.joopdorresteijn.com/Archive/stream-free-internet-tv-on-your-iphone-and-ipod-touch/

The Global Election

Ola Rynge of The Rynge Group has started a website where you can have your say in global elections. It is called The Global Election and is 2 days ahead of the actual election the result is sent out to the candidates/parties, the press and those that are subscribed to the newsletter or RSS feed or members of the political forum.

I think it’s a very cool thing!

I’m back from our Live Market work weekend in Linköping where we got a lot of the groundwork done.

Check out our blog on http://www.thelivemarket.com/blog/