This week's many lessons

On Monday, I finished the case. I emailed it to the professor, who made some final editorial tweaks, and formatted it for submission. We were a few hours ahead of the deadline. It was accepted, and it was apparently forwarded to some other finance professors for review.

The problem is that it is not a finance case, but an accounting case. If it gets accepted to the XXXXX conference in Boston, we will all get to go sit around and critique each others work. If it does not, maybe it will help a group of masters degree seeking Chinese students earn a passing grade. The problem I have is that it was submitted as a finance paper. This made no sense to me since the only reason there is any meat to the case is thanks to the accounting rules.

On Wednesday I taught my first college class. The lesson was on the accounting definition of a derivative. My words and sentences and examples were met with mostly blank stares, besides the one female white girl in the class. I handed out my examples and I helped the students understand the lesson. I learned that as a teacher in front of Chinese graduate students, you must assume they retain everything you say, despite not taking notes or providing any feedback whatsoever.

Honestly I find it very troubling that a group of students like this will be awarded degrees at all.

After class, I went for a social burger and beer with the department head, another quirky finance professor who thought that the massive "hedge losses" in the papers are actually "hedges" (they are not hedges; they are alternative-type investments; that are engineered to zig when the market zags. Any true student of finance understands that when a true hedge loses, the company is happy, because the transaction they were hedging, presumably the transaction that is what they are in the business of doing, performed well).

I was offered a large amount of advice from this department head, while the quirky finance professor talked about is "flightseeing" of Alaska's many wonderful national parks. I was not impressed with the quirky professor, but I liked the woman. She racked her brain for ideas for me. She would advise, in no particular order, that I consider U. of Washington, UT Austin, indeed Indiana, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Georgia at Athens, Rochester. I appreciated her enthusiasm and her experience and network. I had two beers and I discussed other areas of my expertise with the professor I'm working with. My work experience has provided me with a valuable perspective on many areas that most in the academic field have no concept of.

This morning I picked up Mark Buerhle for my fantasy team for today's start, despite my own ranking of Edinson Volquez who was also starting. Volquez was going against the lowly Astros. Buehrle wasn't terrible but Volquez was electric. I should have trusted my gut, my rankings, and my knowledge before I truested the Yahoo ownership percentages and opaque ranking of Buehrle over Volquez.

I own an energy stock that has been trending down, down, down for many months and quarters. Each time I think I am picking a bottom, it finds a new low. I'm still sitting on a valuable tax deduction in one account for the $1,300 of losses in this long position. In my tax-free account, though, I did pick a bottom; bought 750 shares at $6.24 on July 10, sold 750 shares today at $7.25. Nifty return, feels good to earn back a little of what this one has taken from me. When I do take that loss at some point it won't sting as bad. No use for the cash today, though, so the higher-basis stock will stay in the cash account for now.