Phil Grossfield's Blog

Why must they eat the disgusting things on Survivor?  I’ve been a die-hard Survivor fan forever.  In fact, my wife stopped watching a few years ago but I still watch.  Why you ask?  I’ll tell you why.  Because its an experiment in the human condition and I find it fascinating.  The game requires trust in an non-trusting environment.  That is, it’s a perfect test of the someone’s ability to gain trust in the same individuals he is eventually hoping to defeat.  The formula to win is clear, at least to me it is, but playing the formula is nearly impossible…if you want to talk Survivor strategy, I’m your guy.  But last night’s show was not fun to watch and in fact I had to fast-forward through the eat-this-disgusting-live-worm scene.  And then they had to eat a duck embryo…you know, where it’s still in the egg but almost fully-formed with a beak and feathers and everything.  According to the host, these are delicacies in the Caramoan islands of the Philippines.  But I grew up on matzo ball soup and Brisket, so no thank you.

Yesterday I posted a photo of a young man Passed Out With Tom Hanks.  Many of you asked if the young man was me…no, no it was not.  The story, which I did a poor job of explaining, was that the young man passed out in a bar where Hanks was having a drink.  Hanks took the young man’s phone and took the pictures.  You gotta love Hanks.

My email is working again.  I don’t know if you noticed but I have two email addresses at IB…one is a correspondent address and the other wholesale.  They have been switching back and forth and I suspect this has caused problems.  If you emailed me yesterday and I did not respond, then you should I assume I never received it.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

My Market Watch:

Traders are investing in bonds and not stocks the last couple days for two main reasons.  First, North Korea has the global markets worried because of reports they are planning a missile launch…on this news traders would rather invest in a safer market, like bonds.  Second, this morning the jobless claims report came out and it was not good…more jobless claims is interpreted as a weak economy giving traders another reason to sell stocks and invest in bonds instead.  As a result, our pricing has improved two days in a row…today we’re better by 0.125.  My Disclaimer