Fall Fun and Corn Mazes

The leaves are turning, the air is cool and crisp, and the sun is still out. It is the best time of the year. We celebrated last weekend by taking Jude through his first corn maze. He did well and only got turned around a few times. He also learned a little bit about finance along the way... (sound odd? It's true, we found a corn maze that focused on financial education - Rutledge Corn Maze).

Jude getting ready for the maze - fueling up.

Rob and Jude at the maze entrance

Rachel needed a coffee break after the first half of the maze

Rob asks Jude about FDIC insured deposits (this was a trick question because they just raised the limit from $100k to $250k)

Smiling Jude

Jude has been smiling since we brought him home from the hospital, but usually he is either asleep or experiencing some gas... Yesterday Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Chris came by for a visit. After Jude was fed, Aunt Jeanne held him for a while and he looked into her eyes and started a smiling session that lasted for a good ten minutes. I captured a few of them once I came to my senses and grabbed our camera.

How Far will the NYSE Drop?

To 6,900 points (6500 - 7000 range). I'm going out on a limb, I know. Call it overly-simple technical analysis or just the law of averages, but if you draw a straight line over the very long term of Dow Jones returns (starting from the 1930s), the expected return for the stock market today should be around 6,970. That also means that all things being equal, the Dow should be at 7,318 on October 10, 2011. That's a little under 2% growth annually. Granted, that's not likely to happen, but if you think it might, then you're better off opening an E-Trade checking account and letting your interest growth with FDIC insurance.

A special shout-out to my sister Angela, who's really smart but thinks math is boring: you can predict the future with math! The equation I used above is a regression, here's the equation it gives you: y=.3185x-5682.85. x=the day you want to predict what the stock return will be (I think 1=1/1/1900, today is 39733).

Then again, if you start the line at June 29, 1959, then the market should drop no lower than 8,451, so you never really know...