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Price Bubbles in Laboratory

Overreactions, Momentum, Liquidity, and Price Bubbles in Laboratory and Field Asset Markets
The Journal of Psychology and Financial Markets, 2000, Vol. 1, No. 1, 24–48 by Gunduz Caginalp, David Porter, and Vernon L. Smith.

The authors concluded that

• Futures markets, dividend certainty, and low liquidity tend to dampen the bubble
• Margin buying and limit price change rules tend to exacerbate the bubble
• All other treatments examined (e.g. short-selling, capital gains taxes, brokerage fees, and call markets) were neutral in their effect on the bubble

HKEx Announces Plans to Suspend the Tick Rule in its Securities Market (Aug 3, 2007)
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) announced today (Friday) that its securities market's tick rule will be suspended in the fourth quarter of this year, subject to the approval of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).

The tick rule bars short sales below the best current ask price. It constrains trading activities and thus undermines market efficiency and price discovery. Related short selling restrictions require that a short selling transaction must be automatically struck through the electronic trading system, AMS/3, during the Continuous Trading Session.

How small can you see?

For most people, the closest comfortable viewing distance, termed the near distance for distinct vision is approximately 25cm (10in). A comfortable viewing distance is also one at which the angle of view is approximately 60°; at a distance of 25 cm, this corresponds to about 30cm, approximately the diagonal of an 8×10 inch (25 x 20cm) image.

Circle of confusion diameter limit (“CoC”) is defined as the largest blur circle that will still be perceived by the human eye as a point when viewed at a distance of 25cm. At this distance, a person with good vision can usually distinguish an image resolution of 5 line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm), equivalent to a CoC of 0.2mm in the final image. In this case, a circle is indistinguishable from a point if it is of ~0.03mm (1/850in) diameter or less on the print.
[Note: if an 8x10 inch original image is contact printed, there is no enlargement, and the CoC for the original image is the same as that in the final image. However, if the long dimension of a 35mm image is enlarged to approximately 25 m (10 inches), the enlargement is approximately 7 times. The CoC for the original image is 0.2mm/7, or 0.029mm.]

Resolution lp/mm (1000:1) / Grain RMS
Fuji Reala 100 -- 140 / <4
Fuji Superia 100 -- 125 / 4
Fuji Superia 200 -- 125 / 4
Fuji Pro 400H (NPH) -- 125 / 4
Fuji Astia 100F -- 140 / 7
Fuji Velvia 50 -- 160 / 9
Fuji Velvia 100 -- 160 / 8
Fuji Velvia 100F -- 160 / 8
Fuji Provia 100F -- 140 / 8
Fuji new Sensia 100 -- 140 / 8
Ektachrome 100vs -- 100 / 11
Ektachrome 100 -- 100 / 11
Ektachrome 200 -- 125 / 12
EliteChrome EC 100 -- 100 / 11
EliteChrome 200 -- 125 / 12

Diffraction limit of lenses
At 50% contrast between detail and background, the resolution power is limited by the diffraction limit. The diffraction limit (lp/mm), by approximation, is given by 1000/n where n is the aperture. For example, the value of an f/8 macro lenses is 1000/8 = 125 lp/mm. With the criterion for resolution of 5 lp/mm of above, the largest enlargement factor will be 125/5 = 25.

With modern films and lenses we can enlarge the image 20 - 25x of the original, i.e. in the size of 29 x 19 - 36 x 24 in.

Hyperfocal Distance
The nearest distance of acceptable sharpness = 0.5H; furthest distance = infinity.
The hyperfocal distance of a lens is calculated by

H = F² / (30 x f), where

the value is calculated using a "circle of least confusion" of 0.03mm and
F = focal length (mm), e.g. 28mm wide-angle lenses
f = aperture f/ stop value, e.g. at f/16

Sunny f/16 Rule
Films are designed to give correct exposure with the sun high in the sky (e.g. on a bright day in the northern hemisphere) when the lenses aperture is set to f/16 and the shutter speed at 1/ISO rating. You can fine tune / check the camera's meter by adjusting the offsets of f/16 when the speed is at 1/ISO. For example, for ISO 100 film, f/16 +/- 1/3 at 1/100.


Reference:
Diffuse RMS (root mean square) measures the size of dye clouds, or grain as it was called with black & white film. RMS is simply a measurement of the variability in density using a densitometer trace across an area of even tone. Film with RMS 5 is twice as grainy as film with RMS 4. Resolution is lower in dark (low-contrast) areas than in bright (high-contrast) areas, so is measured at 1.6:1 and 1000:1 contrast levels, specified in line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm); double this number to get dots per millimeter. Sharpness is measured by MTF (modulation transfer function) at different values of lp/mm; numbers show where MTF crosses below 100%.

Liquidity Premium

In equity markets with limited arbitrage, liquidity also matters. Liquidity denotes the ability to trade in large quantities quickly, at low cost and without moving the price. Because the prices of long-term securities are more sensitive to interest rate movements. Therefore investors will be willing to hold them only if compensated with a premium for the lower degree of liquidity.

Stocks, also referred to as equity securities, have no maturity and therefore serve as a long-term source of funds. Equity securities differ from debt securities in that they represent partial ownership. Investors can earn a return from stocks in the form of periodic dividends and a capital gain when they sell the stock.

Interest rate movements have a direct influence on the market values of debt securities, such as money market securities (Treasury bills, CDs, Commercial Paper, Federal funds, Repurchase Agreements), bonds, and mortgages (capital market securities), and have an indirect influence on equity security (stock) values.

Loanable Funds Theory - net demand for funds (ND) is the difference of the aggregate demand for funds (D) and the aggregate supply of funds (S).

ND = D - S > 0, interest rate rise; < 0, interest rate fall.

D = D_h + D_b + D_g + D_f ; S = S_h + S_b + S_g + S_f
where,
h = household demand/supply of for/of loanable funds
b = business demand/supply of for/of loanable funds
g = government demand/supply of for/of loanable funds
f = foreign demand/supply of for/of loanable funds

Money - Water and the Financial Crisis

Below is a very good comment by Buffett on the financial crisis induced by the default of subprime in USA

Marking to Myth
Many institutions that publicly report precise market values for their holdings or CDOs and CMOs are in truth reporting fiction. They are marking to model rather than marking to market. The recent meltdown in much of the debt market, moreover, has transformed this process into marking to myth.

Because many of these institutions are highly leveraged, the difference between "model" and "market" could deliver a huge whack to shareholders' equity. Indeed, for a few institutions, the difference in valuations is the difference between what purports to be robust health and insolvency. For these institutions, pinning down market values would not be difficult: They should simply sell 5% of all the large positions they hold. That kind of sale would establish a true value, though one still higher, no doubt, than would be realized for 100% of an oversized and illiquid holding.

In one way, I'm sympathetic to the institutional reluctance to face the music. I'd give a lot to mark my weight to "model" rather than to "market."

Warren Buffett
Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway
(Aug 17,07)

Financial markets provide liquidity for us who hold financial instruments but are in need of money for making payments for goods and services. In the world, only money in your pocket / wallet is the thing that holds perfect liquidity. In general, money earns the lowest rate of return of all assets traded in the financial markets, and its value can be eroded by inflation easily.

Business firms, banks, and thrifts rarely can perfectly match the maturities of their assets and the maturities of their liabilities. In other words, volume of cash flowing in rarely matches flowing out.

Financial institutions use two methods to meet their liquidity requirement:

1. Asset Conversion - selling selected assets, such as deposits or government securities, that holds to cover a pending cash need.
2. Libability Management - calls for borrowing enough liquidity. The borrowing institution uses interest rates to bid in the financial marketplace for cash it needs. Among the most popular source of borrowing liquidity are selling deposits, borrowing in the money market, or from the central bank.

Nikon New DSLRs 2007

NEW size formats

D3 switches between the FX and DX format automatically depends on the lenses mounting to the body.

It is interesting to note the following differences:

• Both camera do not have ISO 100 or below
• The image size of the FX format is smaller than the DX format
• D3 has dual CF card slots that can function simultaneously in different modes (e.g., one RAW, one JPEG)
  
• Both camera support CF Type I/II, UDMA Mode 2
  
• D300 has self-cleaning senor unit for dust-reduction but D3 does not
• D300 storage system support TIFF (RGB) but D3 does not
• Both camera support HDMI 1.3a output to HDTV
  
• D3 is ~$20,000 cheaper than Canon EOS-ID Mark III
• Canon EOS-1D Mark III support UDMA Mode 3 (note: UltraDMA Mode 2, specified in ATA/ATAPI-4, the max transfer rate is 33.3MB/s. UDMA Mode 3 which is specified in ATA/ATAPI-5, the max transfer rate is 44.4MB/s)

A detailed comparison table has been prepared. However, there is a page gap when the table was formatted by my customized CSS. Please scroll to read the contents.

DSLR

	D3	D300
Effective Pixels	12.1M (4256 x 2832)	12.3M (4288 x 2848)
Size Format (CMOS Image Sensor)	FX (36 x 23.9 mm), new 5:4 (30 x 24), and DX	DX (23.6 x 15.8 mm)
Sensitivity	ISO 200-6400 [Lo], can be set to ISO-equivalent 25,600 [Hi2]	ISO 200-3200
Continuous shooting	9 fps [FX, 5:4], 11 fps DX]	8 fps DX
Response Time	0.12s startup, 37ms shutter-release time lag	0.13s startup, 45ms shutter-release time lag

NEW size formats

Apple in the Dark

If the world is dark, do you know the apple is falling off when there is no sound?
Half falling? Half hanging?

Another question is : Does it exist? ...