State Space Models

All state space models are written and estimated in the R programming language. The models are available here with instructions and R procedures for manipulating the models here here.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

E*TRADE Beatdown


The video above is my favorite E*TRADE commercial. For golfers, it is very funny: Skins beatdown, shankapotomus, etc. If you want to keep laughing, follow the other commercials listed at then end of the clip. Before the Super Bowl this year, CNBC interviewed the ad exec from the Grey agency that created the idea (see the credits below). Evidently, the creative approach was to put a bunch of funny people in a room with video editing software and let them improvise. If you want to make your own E*TRADE baby commercial and email it to friends, click here. This is all a lot of fun but how about E*TRADE stock (ETFC)?


ETFC is definitely a business-as-usual (BAU) stock. The BAU designation basically means that the stock is neither a random walk nor is it directly linked to the US or the World economies.
The ETFC bootstrap forecast for 2011 is presented above. The stock went through an awful trough from 2008 to almost the middle of 2010 then rebounded sharply.
The upward jump in the middle of 2010 was actually a return to the dynamic attractor (graphed above). The bootstrap forecast for the attractor shows very tight confidence band between a price of 15 and 17. The analyst opinions of ETFC (here and here) are mixed: Median price target 17, High target 21, Low target 12, and forward P/E 15.6.

I can't think of any reason to be in this highly variable stock except that you either like the commercials or like the E*TRADE trading platform.


Banking Baby was developed at Grey Worldwide, New York, by chief creative officer Tor Myhren, creative director Jonathan Cranin, copywriters Ari Halper and Randy Krallman, art director Steve Krauss, executive producer Bennett McCarroll, and agency producer Alison Horn. Filming was shot by director Randy Krallman via Smuggler, who also provided the voice over. Editorial work was done by Lawrence Young at Cosmo Street. Post production was done at Framestore, New York, by VFX producer Laney Gradus and Flame artists Raul Ortego, Mindy Dubin, Tom Leckie. Audio post production was done at Sound Lounge by Glen Landrum.
View E*Trade Banking Baby in quicktime format at Boards Mag Screening Room.

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