Ever feel like you just can’t stand Mondays? That’s a fairly common feeling, but a recent study says that nobody gets any relief from “hump day” on Wednesday – it takes a Friday afternoon to start feeling happier.
We may say we hate Mondays, but research suggests Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are equally loathed.US investigators who looked at a poll of 340,000 people found moods were no worse on Mondays than other working days, bar Friday.People were happier as they approached the weekend, lending support for the concept of “that Friday feeling”.
A new study finds that many Americans die with “virtually no financial assets.” For more than 46% of us, that translates into less than $10,000.The study – put out by a nonpartisan outfit called the National Bureau of Economic Research – finds that many Americans spend their golden years dependent on the government.
Click through on the link below, and be patient….
This article shows the increasing randomness of high-frequency trading:
…what we see here is relatively low levels of high-frequency trading through all of 2007. Then, in 2008, a pattern starts to emerge: a big spike right at the close, at 4pm, which is soon mirrored by another spike at the open. This is the era of traders going off to play golf in the middle of the day, because nothing interesting happens except at the beginning and the end of the trading day. But it doesn’t last long.
You have to consider the fact that, when investing, you are competing against super-intelligent artificial intelligence. That AI is taking millions of news articles, trends, data points and even seemingly unrelated data (weather, time of day, movement of other stocks) and trading on that information. You’ll never compete with that. Your best bet? Join the party…. invest in broad-based mutual funds.
Via “Chart of the Day, High Frequency Trading Edition”, http://reut.rs/NHqjS8
One of the ugly aspects of the smart phone revolution has been the always-connected-to-work phenomenon. Once mobile phones become common in the workplace, you could always be reached. That was bad enough, but smart phones meant you could always be reached by email. Once that idea took hold, people started proactively checking to make sure they DIDN’T have email, just to make sure they weren’t needed.
Some 68% of us check work email before 8 a.m., with half of us doing so before our heads leave the pillow. (The average check-in time of the 1,000 randomly-selected respondents: 7:09 a.m.) At the other end of the day, 69% of us can’t slip into slumber unless we’ve checked that old work email one last time.
But perhaps the most eye-popping part of the survey is how much all that extra time adds up to. Simply by answering work-related calls and emails when we’ve left the office, the average respondent is working an extra seven hours a week. That adds up to 365 hours a year.
Assuming eight-hour days and five-day weeks, that’s around two months per year of unpaid overtime — and you’re putting it in voluntarily.
All of this in the midst of a recession. Try to calculate your average salary based on a 14-month year working 10+ hour days. It’s frightening.
via Why You’re Probably Working an Extra Two Months This Year.
An interesting read for both women and men, primarily because it’s a good examination of what it takes to have a super-high-powered career (hint: it tends to be at the expense of a family life).
It’s time to stop fooling ourselves, says a woman who left a position of power: the women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. If we truly believe in equal opportunity for all women, here’s what has to change.
via Magazine – Why Women Still Can’t Have It All – The Atlantic.
As Intel’s chief futurist, Brian David Johnson spends much of his time ‘living’ in the year 2022, about 10 years ahead of our time. He studies what life will be like, how technology will change, and how people will feel about those changes.
Many people ask him questions about the future, including whether they’ll still have to work. His take? Work isn’t going anywhere. But how, where and with whom we work will undergo some big changes. Here’s a look at the future of work according to Johnson:
This infographic from the sports medicine company KT Tape lays out some of the dangers of a sedentary work life and what you can do defeat desk-bound death.
This is sobering.
Visa polled individuals in five areas of personal finance: budgets, emergency funds, family discussion of money issues, teen financial preparedness, and school-based financial education programs. The rankings are based on a combined score across the five categories. Key findings:
Income and financial fitness are not the same thing In Canada, 39% of those with less than a three-month emergency fund are high earners while just 34% are low earners. This is a common experience across country lines.
Young people are not learning about money In most countries, a majority of those polled said teenagers and young adults do not understand money-management basics. The U.S. posted its lowest score on this question and finished at the bottom of the pack.
Asians are the best savers The Chinese were the best at saving with an average 3.9 months of expenses saved. They were followed by Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. The U.S. averages 2.9 months and came in 6th place.
The family talks about money in Latin America Mexico and Brazil topped the list of places that parents talk with their kids about money. Mexicans talk with their kids about money 42 days a year, on average, and Brazilians 38. American families talk with their kids about finances 26 days a year.
Brazilians get an early start Brazilians believe that schools should start financial education at the age of nine. Vietnam fell on the opposite end of the spectrum, believing schools should start this line of teaching at age 14. In the U.S. the average age that people felt that government should require kids to start learning about money was 12.
via U.S. Trails Brazil, Mexico in Financial Literacy | Moneyland | TIME.com.
