Danica brings new eyes to NASCAR and Daytona 500

Daytona 500 pole sitter Danica Patrick, right, talks to crew chief Tony Gibson during a practice for the Daytona 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Daytona 500 pole sitter Danica Patrick, right, talks to crew chief Tony Gibson during a practice for the Daytona 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Daytona 500 pole sitter Danica Patrick, right, talks to a crew member after a practice for the Daytona 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Tony Stewart waits in his car in his garage before going out on the track during a practice session for the NASCAR Daytona 500 Sprint Cup Series auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Jeff Gordon laughs with crew members in his garage after a practice session for the NASCAR Daytona 500 Sprint Cup Series auto race at Daytona International Speedway, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? The big boys brought their little girls to see NASCAR's shining star.

Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson all took their daughters to meet Danica Patrick this week at Daytona International Speedway.

It was the ultimate backstage pass.

Patrick dropped to one knee, wrapped her right arm around Ella Gordon's waist and posed for pictures as the 5-year-old flashed an endless smile in Victory Lane last week. Every day since, Patrick's crew has handed out dozens and dozens of lugnuts to little girls clamoring for souvenirs. Annie Edwards wore GoDaddy green shoes for the special occasion. Evie Johnson recognizes only two cars, her Dad said ? his and the green one.

"Carl was saying it's good that she sees me in real life and in person because 'To her, you are like some mythical creature that doesn't exist,' " Patrick said. "Then after qualifying, Jimmie Johnson brought his little girl over. That's three pretty big drivers who have little girls that wanted to meet me."

Danicamania is in full bloom at Daytona ? and with a brand new audience.

The first woman in history to earn the top starting spot in a race at NASCAR's elite Sprint Cup Series, Patrick will bring new eyeballs to Sunday's season-opening Daytona 500. She'll lure in casual sports fans, women who don't know a muffler from a manifold, and little girls in awe of the glamorous driver and her fast green car.

It's an ambassador role Patrick has played since her 2005 debut at the Indianapolis 500, where she became the first woman to lead laps in the biggest race in the world. But it's so much more now.

"You can only lead by example and I don't necessarily want my example to step outside the box and be a girl in a guy's world. That's not what I am trying to say," Patrick said. "But if you have a talent for something, do not be afraid to follow through with it and not feel different. Do not feel like you are less qualified or less competent to be able to do the job because you are different. Ignore that and let it be about what your potential is."

And right now, she believes her potential is to win "The Great American Race."

Patrick starts first on Sunday, next to four-time champion Gordon, and after running 32 laps in Friday's practice and mixing it up with NASCAR's biggest stars, she was more convinced than ever that she can be a player in the race.

"Can I win? Yeah. Absolutely," Patrick said. "I feel comfortable in this kind of race situation. I feel comfortable in the draft. I feel comfortable that the speeds are not a problem. I know I am inexperienced. I know I am rookie out there. I will do the best job I can to win. I do believe I have a chance to win. I do believe experience would help, but that doesn't mean I don't have a chance to win."

Crew chief Tony Gibson was even more convinced he's got a winner for Sunday. He was part of Derrike Cope's improbable 1990 victory, when Cope inherited the win when the late Dale Earnhardt blew a tire on the final lap.

" She has got the talent," Gibson said. "She's already proven in the Nationwide Series, from what I've seen on the speedway stuff, she definitely gets the respect. People know she's fast. She can draft. She knows how the air works. She gets a lot of that from IndyCar. So I have 100 percent confidence she can win the Daytona 500.

"I remember Derrike Cope, nobody gave him a chance, either, but I saw him in Victory Lane. I know it can be done."

But the Daytona 500 is a pressure-packed race unlike anything except the Indy 500. Some of the best drivers never win it ? it took seven-time champion Earnhardt 20 tries to finally get his lone win ? and Tony Stewart, Patrick's teammate and car owner, goes into Sunday's race seeking his first victory in 15 tries.

He's been quiet all week, except, of course, for the nine-car accident he started in an exhibition race last weekend. He lamented afterward, "That is why I haven't won a Daytona 500 yet. I'm not quite sure exactly which move to make."

Don't be fooled, though, by the three-time NASCAR champion. Stewart might just like being out of the spotlight as he heads into one of the few races missing from his resume, and being the favorite for the 500 has never worked out for him before.

He wrapped up his practice with one final run Friday to test his race engine and wound up on top of the speed chart. It was Stewart's intention to sit out Saturday's final day of practice.

"I'm excited we've made it through the whole week without a scratch on the car," he said. "We are as ready as you can get for the 500. I feel like we've got a car capable of winning the race. It's just a matter of whether the driver does a good job with the steering wheel."

The title of favorite this year goes to Kevin Harvick, who has two wins in two races so far at Speedweeks. The driver has dominated in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, led 63 of a possible 135 laps and didn't even bother to take the cover off his car in Friday's two practice sessions.

Harvick, the 2007 race winner, has come into the year with both focus and some inner peace after a pair of life-changing moments. His first child, son Keelan, was born after last July's race at Daytona. Then, in November, Harvick made the difficult decision to leave RCR after his 13th season with the organization that brought him into NASCAR and gave him his Cup ride the week after Earnhardt was killed in the 2001 Daytona 500.

He'll drive for Stewart next season at Stewart-Haas Racing, but is determined to make this last year with RCR count.

"Everybody is just working toward the same goal, that's winning the races," Harvick said. "We have to be professional anyway, whether it's lame duck or not. You can call it whatever you want. We're going to have a helluva lot of fun racing, having a good time, doing our jobs."

The 500 will be the first with a full 43-car field racing NASCAR's new Gen-6 car, which was designed all last season with input from teams, drivers and the manufacturers.

Part of the intent was to design a car that more closely resembled what the automakers sell in the showrooms, and NASCAR succeeded in that area. But NASCAR also needed a car that produced better on-track racing, and the verdict is not in yet.

There are a lot of unknowns with the Gen-6 heading into Sunday, partly because drivers spent Speedweeks learning as much as they can about how it handles on the track. All three races so far have been largely uneventful, resembling something closer to a long parade rather than a high-speed spectacle.

If not for Kyle Busch's win in a Toyota in the second of Thursday's twin qualifying races, it would so far be a Chevrolet rout with Harvick taking the new SS to Victory Lane twice and Patrick winning the pole in her Chevy.

All bets could be off on Sunday, Busch warned.

"It might be we all ran single file because we were scared to run side-by-side," Busch said after Thursday's win. "I don't know. I was ready to put on a show, but I didn't have enough people around me to make one happen."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-23-NASCAR-Daytona%20500/id-b64aaaf5f78846d9b6ccf2efad766628

2012 ncaa tournament bracket matterhorn chris harrison girl scouts printable bracket game change own

YC?s iCracked Is Blowing Up With A New ?Uber? For iPhone Repairs Service

Yes, you can fix that smashed iPhone on demand now. That means no visits to the Apple store, or intensive DIY efforts. A YC alum called iCracked launched a real-time, iPhone or iPad repair service a little over a month ago. Think of it like an “Exec” or an “Uber” for your broken iPhone that you can order straight to your door. With hardly any publicity at all, the service is blowing up: it boosted iCracked’s number of monthly customers by about 250 percent and the company tells me the business is eyeing “eight figures” in revenue for this year. The changes add iCracked to a growing class of startups like Exec, Uber, Zimride’s Lyft, Instacart and Postmates that are all trying to solve the logistical issues of delivering products and services in real-time in urban cities. “We want to be the ‘AAA’ for your device,” explains AJ Forsythe, the company’s CEO. “We’re doing on-demand repair and buyback for just about every major city in the U.S.” He shared some of the maps above and below with us, showing actual completed repairs in the last 30 days. Above is the San Francisco Bay Area, and just for good measure to show that this isn’t a Silicon Valley-only phenomenon, he showed us a map of South Florida (below). “We’re trying to get to a place where we can get someone to them in the shortest amount of time at the click of a button,” he said. He partnered with a 20-year-old from the U.K. named Martin Amps, who had built a dispatch system just months ago. Amps never implemented it because it was so specialized, but Forsythe found him on a Hacker News posting and thought the system could be of use to iCracked. Up until then, iCracked’s three-prong business model worked similarly. But it didn’t operate in real-time. Customers would have to mail-in their devices or schedule appointments with iTechs. iCracked earns revenue in three ways: it does 1) repairs, 2) buybacks and 3) sells do-it-yourself kits (pictured right) for people who want to fix phones themselves. The company has more than 350 “iTechnicians,” who work as contractors and are trained to quickly fix broken iPhones and iPads. They earn decent salaries of between $70,000 and $100,000 a year. Forsythe says he’s selective and he only ends up hiring about 2 to 3 percent of iTech applicants. While these “iTechs”

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/a4BcYJxeB0A/

woolly mammoth belize resorts nikki minaj grammy performance shel silverstein niki minaj grammy performance grammys 2012 deadmau5

Up to 12,000 US, allied troops for Afghanistan

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond lead their delegations during a bilateral meeting at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Defense Ministers Meetings, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Panetta and his NATO counterparts are considering leaving 8,000 to 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but a dispute arose Friday between the U.S. and German defense officials over whether that contingent would be an international force or an American one. (AP Photo/Chip Somodevilla, Pool)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond lead their delegations during a bilateral meeting at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Defense Ministers Meetings, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Panetta and his NATO counterparts are considering leaving 8,000 to 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but a dispute arose Friday between the U.S. and German defense officials over whether that contingent would be an international force or an American one. (AP Photo/Chip Somodevilla, Pool)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, third from right, and U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Ivo Daalder, fifth from right, arrive for the second day of the NATO Defense Ministers Meetings, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Panetta and his NATO counterparts are considering leaving 8,000 to 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but a dispute arose Friday between the U.S. and German defense officials over whether that contingent would be an international force or an American one. (AP Photo/Chip Somodevilla, Pool)

German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere arrives at the airport of Adana, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 22, 2013 after attending a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, Belgium, earlier in the day. De Maiziere told reporters Panetta had informed him at the Brussels meeting that the United States would leave between 8,000 and 10,000 troops in Afghanistan at the end of 2014. But Panetta, speaking to reporters later, called de Maiziere's comments inaccurate. (AP Photo/dpa, Rainer Jensen)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. and its NATO allies revealed Friday they may keep as many as 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after the combat mission ends next year, largely American forces tasked with hunting down remnants of al-Qaida and helping Afghan forces with their own security.

Patience with the 11-year-old war has grown thin in the U.S. and Europe, yet Washington and its allies feel they cannot pick up and leave without risking a repeat of what happened in Afghanistan after Soviet troops withdrew in 1989: Attention turned elsewhere, the Taliban grabbed power and al-Qaida found refuge.

In disclosing that he and his NATO counterparts were discussing a residual force of between 8,000 and 12,000 troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said most allied defense ministers assured him they are committed to remaining part of a U.S.-led coalition.

"I feel very confident that we are going to get a number of nations to make that contribution for the enduring presence," Panetta told a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels at the conclusion of a defense ministers meeting.

The U.S. and its allies have managed to stick together throughout the war, despite differing views. The Europeans have seen the military mission as mainly aimed at promoting stable governance; the Americans have viewed it as mainly combat. Some allies, including France, have already pulled out their combat troops.

The Obama administration has not said how many troops or diplomats it intends to keep in Afghanistan after 2014; it is in the early stages of negotiating a bilateral security agreement with Kabul that would set the legal parameters. There currently are 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, down from a 2010 peak of 100,000.

In addition to targeting terrorists, the post-2014 missions are expected to be defined as training and advising a still-developing Afghan army and police force and providing security for the U.S. and allied civilian and military presence, officials said.

The largely unspoken assumption on which the post-2014 plan is built is that Afghanistan's own forces will be strong enough to hold off the Taliban on their own starting in 2015 and to prevent the country's relapse into civil war. The worry is that if the Taliban regained power they would allow al-Qaida to return in large numbers, defeating the original purpose of the U.S. military action in 2001.

It's a touchy topic at this stage of a still-unfolding war, with Afghans fearful of being abandoned by their foreign partners and Washington and its NATO allies wary of committing too heavily to a corrupt Kabul government facing an uncertain future.

Budget pressures in the U.S. and Europe also complicate the outlook.

"There's no question in the current budget environment, with deep cuts in European defense spending and the kind of political gridlock that we see in the United States now with regards to our own budget, is putting at risk our ability to effectively act together," Panetta said. "As I prepare to step down as secretary of defense, I do fear that the alliance will soon be, if it is not already, stretched too thin."

Panetta is expected to retire as soon as his successor is confirmed. The Senate could vote on the confirmation of former Sen. Chuck Hagel as the next Pentagon chief as early as Wednesday. Panetta is leaving just as Gen. Joseph Dunford is settling in as the successor to Gen. John Allen as commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.

Another source of anxiety among the allies is Afghanistan's 2014 presidential election; President Hamid Karzai, who has run the country since U.S. forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001, is not running and there is no obvious successor.

Just last week President Barack Obama announced in his State of the Union address that by this time next year 34,000 U.S. troops will have left, with the rest of the combat force to depart by the end of 2014, along with their counterparts from NATO and other partner countries. Obama did not say how many troops he was willing to commit to a post-2014 mission in Afghanistan, but he is believed to be weighing options that range from about 3,000 to about 9,000.

At the Brussels meeting, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere caused an initial stir by telling reporters that Panetta had said the U.S. would keep 8,000 to 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014. Panetta denied that, saying he was talking about a combined U.S. and NATO force of 8,000 to 12,000, and de Maiziere later said his own comments to reporters were "misleading."

Panetta said officials are planning to leave troops in all sectors of the country as well as in Kabul. Currently, Italy is leading the allied security presence in western Afghanistan, Germany in the north and the U.S. in the east and the south.

The Obama administration also is considering a plan to underwrite the cost of maintaining an Afghan security force of 352,000 for the next five years as part of an effort to maintain security and help convince Afghans that they will not be abandoned.

Last May, NATO agreed that the Afghan force would be reduced to about 230,000 after 2014. A force of that size would cost about $4.1 billion a year, compared to $6.5 billion this year for the bigger force of 352,000. The U.S. pays about $5.7 billion of that $6.5 billion bill.

___

Associated Press writers Don Melvin and Julie Pace contributed to this report. Baldor reported from Brussels.

___

Robert Burns can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP and Lolita C. Baldor is at http://www.twitter.com/lbaldor

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-22-US-NATO-Afghanistan/id-c68700d85cf6411bbc56f64c4d25b959

lindzi cox bachelor finale courtney robertson ben flajnik hunger games premiere red meat bachelor ben

Coldness triggers northward flight in monarch butterflies: Migration cycle may be vulnerable to global climate change

Feb. 21, 2013 ? Each fall millions of monarch butterflies from across the eastern United States begin a southward migration in order to escape the frigid temperatures of their northern boundaries, traveling up to 2,000 miles to an overwintering site in a specific grove of fir trees in central Mexico. Surprisingly, a new study by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School published in Current Biology, suggests that exposure to coldness found in the microenvironment of the monarch's overwintering site triggers their return north every spring. Without this cold exposure, the monarch butterfly would continue flying south.

These findings help explain why monarch butterflies transverse such long distances to overwinter at a relatively small region roughly 300 square miles in size atop frost-covered mountains. Upon arrival in November, the monarchs begin to congregate in tightly packed clusters in a few isolated locations in the high altitude coniferous forests. Both the clustering and the forest cover provide a microenvironment that protects against environmental extremes -- the temperature remains low enough to keep metabolic demands low but not cold enough to cause freezing -- and ultimately triggers their return north in the spring.

It also suggests that these delicate creatures may be influenced by and vulnerable to global climate changes, say researchers. "The temperature of the microenvironment at the overwintering sites is a critical component for the completion of the migration cycle," said Steven M. Reppert, MD, professor of neurobiology and senior author of the study. "Without this thermal stimulus, the annual migration cycle would be broken, and we could have lost one of the most intriguing biological phenomena in the world."

Though accomplished in a single calendar year, it takes at least three generations of monarch butterflies to complete a single migratory journey. The monarchs that return to Mexico each year have never been to the overwintering sites before, and have no relatives to follow on their way. The biological and genetic mechanisms underlying their incredible journey have intrigued scientists for generations.

Earlier work by Reppert's group found that monarchs rely on a time-compensated sun compass to direct their navigation south. Their new research shows that those same systems are responsible for guiding them north each spring.

This alone, however, didn't explain what was triggering the change in direction each spring. To find out, Patrick Guerra, a postdoctoral fellow in Reppert's lab at UMass Medical School and first author on the Current Biology study, collected wild monarchs at the start of their migration in the fall and subjected the monarchs to the same temperature and light levels they would experience in their overwintering ground in Mexico. When the monarchs were studied in a flight simulator 24 days later, instead of resuming their southward journey, the butterflies headed north.

Further study confirmed that changes in temperature alone altered the flight direction of the monarch butterflies. Those subjected to cold oriented north; monarchs who were protected from the cold would continue to orient south.

These findings, coupled with newly available genetic and genomic tools for monarchs, will lead to new insights about the biological processes underlying their remarkable migratory journey.

"The more we learn, the clearer it becomes that the monarch migration is a uniquely fragile biological process," said Reppert. "Understanding how it works means we'll be better able to protect this iconic system from external threats such as global warming."

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Massachusetts Medical School, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Patrick A. Guerra, Steven M. Reppert. Coldness Triggers Northward Flight in Remigrant Monarch Butterflies. Current Biology, 2013 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.01.052

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/ssBvMK4FLKg/130221141259.htm

fat tuesday ash wednesday nbc news kate upton kate middleton marco rubio marco rubio

Bayern president rules out big money move for Neymar

After having broken the German transfer record last summer, the Bayern Munich president says it?s improbable that they will be forking out for the Brazilian starlet

Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has ruled out the signing of Brazilian starlet Neymar.

The Santos forward will be out of contract after the 2014 World Cup but is expected to pen a new deal with the club before departing, and Hoeness says it is unlikely the Bavarian club will spash the cash to capture the 21-year-old.

"I do not think that in the next few years we will buy a player that is more expensive than [Javi] Martinez," he told tz-online.de.

The Bundesliga leaders broke the German transfer fee record last summer when they triggered a buy-out clause of??40 million in Martinez's?Athletic Bilbao contract and have no plans to spend big again.Amid a deluge of transfer speculation surrounding the Brazilian international, sources close to Neymar seem to write off Bayern's chances of pulling off the coup, with the player's agent responding to questions from Le10Sport about a potential move to Germany by saying, "I do not think so, no, this is a complicated topic."

Source: http://www.goal.com/en-au/news/4155/bundesliga/2013/02/22/3771427/bayern-president-rules-out-big-money-move-for-neymar

ben roethlisberger Diwali elmo Kevin Clash Walmart Black Friday 2012 Paula Broadwell Tilted Kilt

CRIME - Bullet News Niagara

JOHN ROBBINS/Bullet News

FORT ERIE ? The full scope of a debit-card skimming scam that affected countless Fort Erie residents is still not known.

Niagara Regional Police say about a half dozen people filed complaints with them after noticing unauthorized transactions appear on their bank account statements during the past weekend.

---

---

But that?s likely just the tip of the iceberg, say investigators, as most people reported the incidents directly to their financial institutions.

Det. Sgt. Paul Spiridi, of the NRP?s central fraud unit, say they are still waiting for the financial institutions to complete their own investigations, after which they will bring send a package of information about the incidents to the police agency best suited to conduct the investigation.

What?s known at this point, said Spiridi, is that the incidents involve unauthorized transactions made possible by use of stolen debit card information, as opposed to customers? online accounts being hacked.

?This is clearly a skim,? said Spiridi.

The information used to access the accounts was likely gained by way of a skimming-device attached to a debit or ATM machine somewhere in Fort Erie.

Just when this happened is not known, but the information needed to skim accounts could have been gathered weeks or months ago.

Such activities are most often the work of sophisticated organized crime groups outside of Niagara.

Information used to siphon money from accounts is sometimes sold to other groups.

There?s likely nothing the cardholders could have done to prevent their information from being compromised as it?s difficult if not impossible for someone using a machine to know if it has been compromised, he said.

?You can?t tell by looking,? said Spiridi.

Spiridi said he?s not yet certain how many accounts were affected or the total dollar loss.

The financial institutions are covering the losses and reimbursing the accounts of their customers, he said.

The cases he knows of involve only Fort Erie residents, but there could be others ? people who used a compromised machine while visiting the area or passing through on the way to the United States.

Spiridi said it?s important for people to regularly monitor their account transactions and immediately report any suspicious activity to their bank or credit union, which is exactly what many of the people in this case did.

Over the weekend and through Tuesday, Bullet News was contracted by numerous readers, who say their bank accounts were compromised.

One victim who contacted Bullet News said he was robbed of $1,000 out of two of his accounts.

?If I hadn?t checked my account online, I wouldn?t have known,? he said.

Others who spoke with Bullet News reported a similar pattern, with withdrawals in the amount of $500, which appears to coincide with the daily cash withdrawal limit of the victims.

Debits on accounts were posted from overseas locations, such as Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Source: http://www.bulletnewsniagara.ca/2013/02/21/crime-full-extent-of-debit-card-skimming-scam-in-fort-erie-still-not-known/

toure patti smith lottery winners lottery winners april fools day pranks ohio state vs kansas daniel von bargen

Guest Post: Visualizing Bob Farrell's 10 Investing Rules | Zero Hedge

Via Lance Roberts of Street Talk Live blog,

As the markets once again approach historic highs - the overly exuberant tone, extreme complacency and weakness in the economic data, bring to mind Bob Farrell's 10 investment rules.? These rules should be a staple for any long term successful investor.? These rules are often quoted yet rarely heeded - just as they are now.? Bob Farrell is a Wall Street veteran with over 50 years of experience in crafting his investing rules.? Farrell obtained his masters degree from Columbia Business School and started as a technical analyst at Merrill Lynch in 1957. Even though Farrell studied fundamental analysis under Gramm and Dodd, he turned to technical analysis after realizing there was more to stock prices than balance sheets and income statements. Farrell became a pioneer in sentiment studies and market psychology. His 10 rules on investing stem from personal experience with dull markets, bull markets, bear markets, crashes and bubbles. In short, Farrell has seen it all and lived to tell about it.

The 10 Rules Of Investing

1. Markets tend to return to the mean (average price) over time.

Like a rubber band that has been stretched too far ? it must be relaxed in order to be stretched again. This is exactly the same for stock prices which are anchored to their moving averages.? Trends that get overextended in one direction, or another, always return to their long-term average. Even during a strong uptrend or strong downtrend, prices often move back (revert) to a long-term moving average. The chart below shows the S&P 500 with a 52-week simple moving average.

The bottom chart shows the percentage deviation of the current price of the market from the 52-week moving average.? During bullish trending markets there are regular reversions to the mean which create buying opportunities.? However, what is often not stated is that in order to take advantage of such buying opportunities profits should have been taken out of portfolios as deviations from the mean reached historical extremes.? Conversely, in bearish trending markets, such reversions from extreme deviations should be used to sell stocks, raise cash and reduce portfolio risk rather than "panic sell" at market bottoms.

The dashed RED lines denote when the markets changed trends from positive to negative. This is the very essence of portfolio "risk" management.

2. Excesses in one direction will lead to an opposite excess in the other direction.

Markets that overshoot on the upside will also overshoot on the downside, kind of like a pendulum. The further it swings to one side, the further it rebounds to the other side. This is the extension of Rule #1 as it applies to longer term market cycles (cyclical markets).?

While the chart above showed prices behave on a short term basis - on a longer term basis markets also respond to Newton's 3rd law of motion:? "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."?? The first chart shows that cyclical markets reach extremes when more than 3-standard deviations above the 50-week moving average.? For the first time since the lows of the market in 2009 this has now occurred.? Notice that these excesses ARE NEVER worked off by just going sideways.

The second chart shows the price reversions of the S&P 500 on a long term basis and adjusted for inflation. Notice that when prices have historically reached extremes ? the reversion in price is just as extreme. It is clear that the current reversion in the stock market is still underway from the 2000 peak.

3. There are no new eras ? excesses are never permanent.

There will always be some "new thing" that elicits speculative interest.? These "new things" throughout history, like the "Siren's Song," has led many investor to their demise. In fact, over the last 500 years we have seen speculative bubbles involving everything from Tulip Bulbs to Railways, Real Estate to Technology, Emerging Markets (5 times) to Automobiles and Commodities.?? It is always starts the same and ends with the utterings of "This time it is different"??

[The chart below is from my March 2008 seminar discussing that the next recessionary bear market was about to occur.]

As legendary investor Jesse Livermore once stated:?

"A lesson I learned early is that there is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again."

4. Exponential rapidly rising or falling markets usually go further than you think, but they do not correct by going sideways

The reality is that excesses, such as we are seeing in the market now, can indeed go much further than logic would dictate. However, these excesses, as stated above, are never worked off simply by trading sideways. Corrections are always just as brutal as the advances were exhilarating. As the chart below shows when the markets broke out of their directional trends ? the corrections came soon thereafter.

5. The public buys the most at the top and the least at the bottom.

The average individual investor is most bullish at market tops and most bearish at market bottoms.? This is due to investor's emotional biases of "greed" when markets are rising and "fear" when markets are falling.? Logic would dictate that the best time to invest is after a massive selloff - unfortunately this is exactly the opposite of what investors do.

The chart below shows the flow of money into equity based mutual funds.

6. Fear and greed are stronger than long-term resolve.

As stated in Rule $5 it is emotions that cloud your decisions and affect your long-term plan.

"Gains make us exuberant; they enhance well-being and promote optimism," says Santa Clara University finance professor Meir Statman.? His studies of investor behavior show that "Losses bring sadness, disgust, fear, regret. Fear increases the sense of risk and some react by shunning stocks."

The composite index of bullish sentiment (an average of AAII and Investor's Intelligence surveys) shows that "greed" is beginning to reach levels where markets have generally reached intermediate term peaks.?

In the words of Warren Buffett:?

"Buy when people are fearful and sell when they are greedy."

Currently, those "people" are getting extremely greedy.

7. Markets are strongest when they are broad and weakest when they narrow to a handful of blue-chip names.

Breadth is important. A rally on narrow breadth indicates limited participation and the chances of failure are above average. The market cannot continue to rally with just a few large-caps (generals) leading the way. Small and mid-caps (troops) must also be on board to give the rally credibility. A rally that "lifts all boats" indicates far-reaching strength and increases the chances of further gains.?

The chart above shows the ARMS Index which is a volume-based indicator that determines market strength and breadth by analyzing the relationship between advancing and declining issues and their respective volume.? It is normally used as a short term trading measure of market strength.? However, for longer term periods the chart shows a weekly index smoothed with a 34-week average.? Spikes in the index has generally coincided with near-term market peaks.

8. Bear markets have three stages ? sharp down, reflexive rebound and a drawn-out fundamental downtrend

Bear markets often start with a sharp and swift decline. After this decline, there is an oversold bounce that retraces a portion of that decline. The longer term decline then continues, at a slower and more grinding pace, as the fundamentals deteriorate. Dow Theory suggests that bear markets consists of three down legs with reflexive rebounds in between.

The chart above shows the stages of the last two primary cyclical bear markets.? There were plenty of opportunities to sell into counter-trend rallies during the decline and reduce risk exposure.???

9. When all the experts and forecasts agree ? something else is going to happen.

This rule fits within Bob Farrell's contrarian nature.? As Sam Stovall, the investment strategist for Standard & Poor's once stated:

"If everybody's optimistic, who is left to buy? If everybody's pessimistic, who's left to sell?"

The point here is that as a contrarian investor, and along with several of the points already made within Farrell's rule set, excesses are built by everyone being on the same side of the trade.? Ultimately, when the shift in sentiment occurs ? the reversion is exacerbated by the stampede going in the opposite direction

Being a contrarian can be quite difficult at times as bullishness abounds.? However, it is also the secret to limiting losses and achieving long term investment success. As Howard Marks once stated:

"Resisting ? and thereby achieving success as a contrarian ? isn't easy. Things combine to make it difficult; including natural herd tendencies and the pain imposed by being out of step, since momentum invariably makes pro-cyclical actions look correct for a while. (That's why it's essential to remember that "being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.")

Given the uncertain nature of the future, and thus the difficulty of being confident your position is the right one ? especially as price moves against you ? it's challenging to be a lonely contrarian."

10. Bull markets are more fun than bear markets

As stated above in Rule #5 ? investors are primarily driven by emotions. As the overall markets rise ? up to 90% of any individual stock?s price movement is dictated by the overall direction of the market hence the saying ?a rising tide lifts all boats.?

Psychologically, as the markets rise, investors begin to believe that they are ?smart? because their portfolio is going up. In reality, it is primarily more a function of ?luck? rather than ?intelligence? that is driving their portfolio.

Investors behave much the same way as individuals who addicted to gambling. When they are winning they believe that their success is based on their skill. However, when they began to lose, they keep gambling thinking the next ?hand? will be the one that gets them back on track.? Eventually - they leave the table broke.

It is true that bull markets are more fun than bear markets. Bull markets elicit euphoria and feelings of psychological superiority. Bear markets bring fear, panic and depression.

What is interesting is that no matter how many times we continually repeat these ?cycles? ? as emotional human beings we always ?hope? that somehow this ?time will be different.? Unfortunately, it never is and this time won?t be either. The only questions are: when will the next bear market begin and will you be prepared for it?

Conclusions

Like all rules on Wall Street, Bob Farrell's rules are not meant has hard and fast rules. There are always exceptions to every rule and while history never repeats exactly it does often "rhyme" very closely.

Nevertheless, these rules will benefit investors by helping them to look beyond the emotions and the headlines.? Being aware of sentiment can prevent selling near the bottom and buying near the top, which often goes against our instincts.

Regardless of how many times I discuss these issues, quote successful investors, or warn of the dangers ? the response from both individuals and investment professionals is always the same.

??I am a long term, fundamental value, investor.? So these rules don?t really apply to me.?

No you?re not. Yes, they do.

Individuals are long term investors only as long as the markets are rising.? Despite endless warnings, repeated suggestions and outright recommendations - getting investors to sell, take profits and manage your portfolio risks is nearly a lost cause as long as the markets are rising.? Unfortunately, by the time the fear, desperation or panic stages are reached it is far too late to act and I will only be able to say that I warned you.

Average:

Your rating: None Average: 4.9 (14 votes)

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-20/guest-post-visualizing-vince-farrells-10-investing-rules

yu darvish mad cow pennsylvania primary jerome simpson hand sanitizer obama on jimmy fallon google drive