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The savior of the world is a servant. John 12:20-33. Preacher: Pastor Evan. https://firstcovenantlincoln.org/ https://www.facebook.com/FirstCovLincoln/ https://www.youtube.com/@FirstCovLincoln/
I am a firm believer that anytime you go to a party and there are appetizers, it is going to be a good party...
I am a firm believer that anytime you go to a party and there are appetizers, it is going to be a good party...
Come March, and most Paytm soundboxes might fall silent. It is a void which will be difficult to fill. But the RBI has given a decent window, and merchants are slowly porting their accounts to rivals like Phonepay and Google Pay. While Paytm is trying hard to put its house in order, its Wallet and FASTag services will come to a halt after February 29. So what does it mean for you? The market value of Paytm has crashed by over 20,500 crore rupees in three straight market sessions. And its circuit filter has been reduced to 10% to stop the bleeding. On its part, Paytm has denied any wrongdoing. Moving on, the world's largest two-wheeler manufacturer HeroMotoCorp is planning to increase its pace in the electric vehicle market. It is rolling out three new two-wheeler EV models. Clearly, the company is eyeing a big pie in India's growing EV two-wheeler segment. But what are the challenges? The government too is doing its bit to boost EV infrastructure in the country. The interim Budget for 24-25 has placed a special focus on supporting EV manufacturing and charging infrastructure. The budget has also given a fresh momentum to the markets. The NSE Nifty 50 scaled a fresh life-time high a day after the Interim Budget. Experts believe that the government's stance towards fiscal prudence even in an election year was commendable. Given the positive domestic cues in the backdrop of an uncertain geopolitical situation, what should be your investment strategy? The interim budget has also offered a roadmap for empowerment of rural women. The number of ‘Lakhpati Didis' will now be increased to 30 million. But who are they? What is this scheme all about? Listen to this episode of the podcast for answers.
The Mark Titus Show Episode 94 | FULL EPISODE - Bobby Riddell Subscribe to Mostly Sports with Mark Titus and Brandon Walker on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MostlySportsTitusandWalker?sub_confirmation=1 Subscribe to The Mark Titus Show: https://www.youtube.com/@marktitusshow?sub_confirmation=1 On today's episode we are joined by Bobby Riddell aka Bobby Buckets, Purdue radio commentator and basketball alumni to talk the Boilermakers chances of making a run in March. On the back half of the episode we talk the stacked weekend slate, and the potential of an Olympic style event with steroids allowed. Follow Bobby on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bbuckets11?lang=en We'll be back with a new episode Tuesday. Follow the show on all socials: Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkTitusShow Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marktitusshow/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkTitusShow Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@marktituspod?lang=en Listen on Podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2TPzE6Oo17yQ0IbLmo5AvY Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mark-titus-show/id1673616227 Follow Mark Titus: Twitter: https://twitter.com/clubtrillion Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marktheshark34/ TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - intro 4:21 - college basketball updates 13:55 - All Athlete 15:46 - interview starts 16:40 - northwestern / purdue 18:30 - purdue's mindset 19:44 - purdues confidence 21:29 - braden smith 23:43 - zach edey 25:37 - Rhoback 26:48 - mark has upset the purdue fans 38:00 - ethan morton 40:05 - BodyArmor 41:08 - wisconsin / purdue 46:01 - what is success for purdue 52:08 - interview ends 52:09 - visible 53:19 - shoutouts start 1:16:39 - show ends If for some reason you see this, subscribe to mostly sports for a hi five.The Mark Titus Show
Ben Criddle talks BYU sports every weekday from 3 to 7 pm.Today's Co-Hosts: Ben Criddle (@criddlebenjamin)Subscribe to the Cougar Sports with Ben Criddle podcast:Apple Podcastshttps://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/cougar-sports-with-ben-criddle/id99676
PARALEGAL ENTREPRENEUR YEARLY PLANNER & GUIDE PARALEGAL GROWTH YEARLY PLANNER & GUIDE ------- THE PARALEGAL MASTERY LOUNGE WEBSITE Connect With Me: Facebook Group LinkedIn Instagram YouTube There are so many mixed opinions about setting “New Year Resolutions.” Some laugh at the idea, others publicly laugh at the idea and then set them anyway in the privacy of their own minds. There's a chance there's a few people in between, but probably not. What is a resolution? A resolution is a “firm decision to do or not do something.” Read that again: a “FIRM decision to do or not do something.”That's what makes them so intense and downright intimidating. That firmness, leaving a sense of “do it entirely or not at all.”So, people go on diets, restricting all of their favorite foods and living on chicken broccoli and rice. People sign up for gym memberships, and commit two hours per day to use them between the commute, workout and everything in between.Come March, they're burnt out. Maybe even before then.Why? Because they attacked the big picture without breaking it down into achievable, sustainable, bite sized steps. It's a whole YEAR resolution, so why do we attack it with everything we have on day one?PARALEGALS MAKING RESOLUTIONS TO START A FREELANCE BUSINESS OR GROW THEIR CAREERMaybe you've never made a resolution to start a business or grow you career. Maybe the latter is just a given… aren't we all trying to grow?While we might want to abandon the term “resolution,” as paralegals we should recognize the incredible position we are in for financial and personal excellence. As the backbone to any successful law firm, all you desire is certainly waiting for you to find it and align with it.Without some sort of vision for your life, the likelihood of realizing your true potential is low. So, make that goal. Decide: 2024 is the year I am going to start my freelance paralegal business and achieve amazing flexibility and financial success.Decide: 2024 is the year I am going to start specializing in my career and climbing that ladder to six figures.What have you decided for 2024? Whatever it is, here are the reasons why you won't achieve it:
What happens when you take the energy of Beatlemania and mix it with a helping of questionably written and performed Beatles-inspired songs? You get Liverpool Drag. Not the Beatles, but an unincredible simulation! This week, Tony & T.J. examine the early 60's phenomenon of Beatle-inspired cash-in records. Are they good? Awful? Somewhere in between? The answer is, "yes". Along the way, the Drag Duo ask:
Everyone's back home! Summer is coming to a close and school is back in session. But mostly... get ready for a bonkers fall which will be nothing compared to the spring. Come March, right now is what you will be nostalgic for.Yes, there were mugshots but mostly things got weird. Here comes the school bus, get on board.
Kelvin Sampson has his extension AND his son, Kellen, has officially been named the coach-in-waiting. So what can the Houston Cougars do in their Big 12 debut? Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish break down what Houston's Big 12 SEASON will look like, and why this team is still deserving to be in the Final Four conversation. Eye on College Basketball is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our team: @EyeonCBBPodcast @GaryParrishCBS @MattNorlander @Kyle_Boone @DavidWCobb @NataTheScribe You can listen to us on your smart speakers! Simply say, "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast," or "Hey, Google, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast." Email the show for any reason whatsoever: ShoutstoCBS@gmail.com Visit Eye on College Basketball's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeFb_xyBgOekQPZYC7Ijilw For more college hoops coverage, visit https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Come March, a gathering of Missoula-based fishing guides resembles a scene from "Night of the Living Dead". Montana winters can grind a guide down, but Jason Brininstool has managed to keep a smile on his face. Jason flees for the tropics to work as a PADI Scuba Instructor or hosts trip to far flung destinations like Cuba and Columbia. Jason's positive attitude has attracted a cadre of loyal clients who trust him with adventures far beyond the rivers of Western Montana. This has made his off-season all the more interesting and one particular foray to Xcalak, Mexico formed a forever-memory and serves as a reminder to never judge a guide by their boat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Miles Bridges told the Associated Press he "might be back in March" when in attendance at the Indiana/Michigan State game. What can we take from that statement? The guys then discuss the potential run for Kai Jones and James Bouknight in the homestretch. Finally, they spin the wheel for a 2nd time in the NBA Draft Lottery Simulator.Follow & Subscribe to the Locked On Hornets Podcast on these platforms
Miles Bridges told the Associated Press he "might be back in March" when in attendance at the Indiana/Michigan State game. What can we take from that statement? The guys then discuss the potential run for Kai Jones and James Bouknight in the homestretch. Finally, they spin the wheel for a 2nd time in the NBA Draft Lottery Simulator. Follow & Subscribe to the Locked On Hornets Podcast on these platforms
Is it the beginning of the end of diesel cars in India? Indian roads were once dominated by four-wheelers propelled by diesel engines. And for long they have been the preferred choice of Indian consumers. However, with a push for electric vehicles and stricter emission norms, the outlook is looking bleak for diesel-powered cars. As the new BS-VI emission norms kicked in 2020, many carmakers trimmed diesel engine vehicles from their portfolio. India's biggest carmaker Maruti has completely discontinued diesel models. Tata Motors has discontinued smaller-capacity diesel engines. Honda India recently said it would most likely discontinue its diesel-engine cars. At present, Honda offers diesel variants of City, Amaze and its Jazz Premium Hatchback. Other carmakers like Volkswagen, Skoda, Nissan and Renault have also reduced diesel portfolios. Compared with petrol vehicles, carmakers have faced many problems with upgradation to new emission standards and the costs shot up. Come March 2023, a new phase of emission norms will kick-in and this is further making carmakers vary of diesel engine cars. Maruti had earlier said that the second phase of emission norms will further raise costs and impact sales. Under the second phase of BS-VI norms, vehicles must meet emission norms in the real world, as opposed to a laboratory. The focus will be on increasing fuel efficiency and, in turn, reducing emissions as well. Diesel engine vehicles commanded a market share of over 50% in the passenger vehicle segment in 2012-13, but it has reduced drastically over the years. It has come down to 18% in FY22, according to data from Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations. The drop has been sharp particularly since the BS-VI emission norms were introduced in 2020. The market share in the PV segment almost halved from 33% in 2019. However, the rise in sport utility vehicles (SUVs) is giving a lease of life to diesel variant engines. GFX in – please show the rise of SUVs - Graph 2 in excel sheet attached According to industry estimates, the share of SUVs in overall passenger vehicles has risen from just 18% in 2016 to 40% in FY22. According to analysts and automakers, consumers prefer diesel engines in SUVs as due to their relatively higher pulling power at low engine speeds, making it an easier and quicker take off from the go. According to reports, the sales share of diesel-engine variants is 35-40 per cent in compact SUVs, 55-60 per cent in the midsize SUV segment, and even higher in the large SUV segment. But, the overall picture is not good for diesel variant engines. Apart from the stricter emission norms, the surge in electric vehicles sales has also spelled doom for diesel engine cars. NITI Aayog has set a target of EV sales penetration at 70% for all commercial cars, 30% for private cars, 40% for buses and 80% for two and three-wheelers by 2030. The narrowing down of petrol and diesel prices over the last few years has further reduced diesel cars appeal as the government reduced subsidies on the diesel. So is it the beginning of the end of diesel in India? Arun Agarwal, Deputy Vice-President - Fundamental Research, Kotak Securities says entry-level PV segment is dominated by petrol vehicles, but diesel still has presence in compact and mid-size segment. In the last two-three years, the demand for diesel was range bound and more or less stabilised. In the interim, diesel engines will continue in some segments, and eventually, there will be a shift towards cleaner fuel. Some automakers still see a future for diesel engines. Diesel is still a major component of automakers like Mahindra, Toyota, Jeep and KIA due to their SUV/MUV/Crossover product portfolio. A Toyota official even went on to say that diesel demand is stronger than ever in India. Mahindra too echoed the same sentiment recently. Hyundai is still seeing a strong demand for diesel SUVs. The share of diesel variants in the overall sales mix at Hyundai
In Matthew 11:7-15 Christ explains the greatest of John. His greatness comes from his place in redemptive history as the forerunner of the Messiah. His coming means that the end-time kingdom of God has been established. Christ says that those who understand this are desperately seeking to enter the kingdom of God. As great as John is, all of those who enter this kingdom after him, who live after the resurrection of Christ, are even greater than he is. Every Christian is exceedingly blessed to live during this time.
In this episode of Real Talk, KJK Student & Athlete Defense Attorneys Susan Stone and Kristina Supler are joined by Eric Gibbs, President of academic integrity software tool Ouriginal, to discuss the complex nature of detecting plagiarism and promoting academic integrity. They also discuss the impact of the pandemic on cheating, the issue of academic file sharing sites and the opportunities for parents and educators to create teachable moments with their students. TRANSCRIPT: Susan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Supler. We're full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to light with real candid conversations. Today's topic is cheating. Kristina, when we started our practice and dealt with misconduct cases we always had maybe one cheating case a year, but oh my gosh we're getting to the point where it seems like we're flooded with calls and we have to have a podcast talking about this issue because it can't be a coincidence. Kristina Supler: Yeah, it's been so interesting to see the rise of cheating in really plagiarism cases, especially. I mean, I think we've all sort of settled into life in the pandemic and working remotely, students doing distance learning, but wow. I think with students working on computers, it's been really interesting to see a surge in these academic integrity cases. I think schools also appear to be more adept at sort of being wise to what students may or may not be doing with this issue of cheating and plagiarism. Susan Stone: Yeah, I agree and it also seems like there's very little appetite to engage in an open conversation with students because, what's going to lead us to the next guest, once a school uses a plagiarism or cheating detection software, for them, it's a predetermined you're responsible and we want to expel you. So with that in mind, Kristina, why don't you introduce our first guest? Kristina Supler: Yes, we are pleased to be joined today by Eric Gibbs. Eric is president of Ouriginal, which is a software that helps schools detect issues with students in academic integrity. Eric has worked in this, I guess what you call, education technology industry for over 20 years now. He's extremely familiar with the software and the space and we're pleased to have Eric with us today to talk about our Ouriginal. Thanks for joining us, Eric. Eric Gibbs: Thank you very much, Susan and Kristina. Look forward to the conversation. Susan Stone: And there's a lot to talk about here, Eric. First of all, tell us about your company, and we're calling you a plagiarism detection software. Are we right in framing it that way? Give us a little background first. Eric Gibbs: Yeah, so Ouriginal is an academic integrity tool that assists institutions, could be a higher education college, university, or a K-12 district or high school. It really assists them in identifying or utilizing the tool for written work. What we're assisting them in doing is, we've really spent the last 20 years, assisting them with plagiarism prevention efforts. I said academic integrity but really the last 20 years we've spent on the plagiarism prevention effort. I don't say plagiarism detection, because I'm here to kind of demystify that with your listeners. There's no such thing as plagiarism detection. So students today, they get extremely nervous when they submit their artifact, their essay, their personal narrative, their discussion board post. They submit it to an ether, right? Black box. They expect to get a similarity score, this number back. They get that number back and they actually think that's some type of plagiarized score, and that's just not the case. It was something that was created 20 years ago and that's just, unfortunately not the case. So maybe we can kind of flesh out kind what these plagiarism prevention tools or text similarity detection tools do, and how they've evolved to really support institution's academic integrity initiatives. Susan Stone: I agree because I think that just because your answer is similar to someone else's does not necessarily mean you cheated. Don't you agree Kristina? Because we've seen it. Kristina Supler: Yeah. I mean, I would say in our practice, we have a nationwide law practice where we represent students at colleges and universities across the country. Look, I'll be honest, we've had students who just flagrantly cheated, but then we've also had a lot of students who get caught in this gray area, where perhaps it's a collaboration course and software flagged an essay and then before you know it, the student's hopes and dreams of medical school have been dashed because of some problem set in a challenging science class. And so, here we are. But I guess before we sort of talk about the software, I want to back up and. At the beginning we talked about the pandemic and the rise as of these academic integrity cases that Susan and I have seen in our practice. And I'm just curious, Eric, what are your thoughts? Do you think that in today's day and age of technology, the temptation for students to cheat is greater than it used to be? I mean, what would you say about that and how these numbers for cheating cases have risen through the pandemic? Eric Gibbs: Yeah, I mean, I think certainly the pandemic has complicated things. So with respect to education, the global pandemic has challenged the very basic idea of instruction, attendance, testing, funding and certainly the role of technology. And that technology is, if you look at it, it's classrooms and it's also online. So for schools and institutions that were delivering courses online, they were completely ahead of this massive learning and migration curve. For those that were strictly face-to-face, holy cow. Come March and April of last year, welcome to online learning. And this was something that wasn't just an introduction. This was a forced push into remote, online learning. So now you're having to learn not only video lecture. You're having to learn about online pedagogical course design. You're having to learn about new technology. It really was unfair both to two stakeholders: the instructor and also the students. So there's some students just are not equipped to actually learn online. Let's be honest. And so that- Susan Stone: It's not the same. Eric Gibbs: No. Susan Stone: I just want to be very clear. I do not think you're ever going to get the same experiences being in a room, and that energy. Eric Gibbs: So yeah. So Susan, there's a way for us to actually bridge this, and so with good pedagogical course design, good technology and good coaching, you can actually kind of merge the two and get closer. We're just not there yet. But with respect to academic integrity – so this is kind of the underlying theme that we're talking about. If you skim the headlines in any education publication, and it really doesn't even have to be education, it could be a major news source. You could potentially conclude that cheating cases are tipping the scales. Both remote and online learning has opened the floodgates to massive cheating scandals, right? I would argue that really that a magnifying glass has simply been lowered to expose an issue that's been going on for years now, and it's just not its scale. This is something that we see at Ouriginal which we assist individuals, as I said, with academic integrity initiatives with technology. Again, it's kind of that one pillar of the three. So, technology is not going to solve all of your issues. It's good course design, it's that coaching and mentoring and then the technology is a deterrence, let's be honest. Here's the issue. If you're exposing this and it's already been there and now you're pushing every single student in every single course now online, you have this massive issue, right? The massive scale. So you would expect to see more cheating issues and cheating scandals to come to the surface. So I say that you're just now starting to see, at scale, stuff that was already going on prior to the pandemic. Susan Stone: Well, we know that's true. Look, even back when I went to school, there were sororities, fraternities, sports teams that had paper files where you could get an old test and Kristina, we're seeing- Kristina Supler: But Susan, you never looked at those materials, right? Susan Stone: Of course not. You know why I never looked? Because my parents never put pressure on me to get the A. They just thought, “Eh, whatever you get, you get.” And I tell my own kids that. Just do your best. But that begs the question. Now the file shares are in Dropboxes, right? Eric Gibbs: Yeah. We've really kind of crossed the chasm to kind of normalizing behaviors of these temptations to cheat. So it's more now if the rest of the class is doing it, can I risk not doing it? You touched on it, Susan, and this is something that I've been talking about for a while. And I really talk about it kind of as this digital sharing economy. It's these academic file sharing sites. So is it different than the times of the cliff notes or even kind of the, the essays in the sororities or fraternities? I actually think it is, this is more serious and it's at larger scale. Susan Stone: You know what, even in law school, Kristina, did you use nutshells? Kristina Supler: On occasion, but the whole idea of rushing to the law library and finding cases and books and ripping them out and all of that, that didn't happen. But it certainly was the beginning of the whole study support economy, I guess, if you will. Since then, it's just remarkable all these, I don't know, third party sources for students. Let me ask you this, Eric these unauthorized file sharing sites, Susan and I have had countless numbers of these cases and, again, it's not just fraternities and sororities, it's sports teams- Susan Stone: No. Kristina Supler: -it's science club, you name it. Eric Gibbs: Yeah. Kristina Supler: I mean, all the kids, there's various student groups doing it. Susan Stone: Yeah, groups of friends create file share. Kristina Supler: That's right. That's right. What, for our parent listeners, what should parents know about these sites and what conversations should they be having with their students about the danger of accessing these materials? Eric Gibbs: Yeah. I mean, I think this poses a real risk to academic integrity, but it also, this is a personal integrity issue as well. And I think that parents need to know this as, and my wife and I have a junior in high school, and this is a common conversation. Has been a conversation now for several years at our dinner table. I think, unfortunately we find ourselves in a whack-a-mole scenario where many of these websites are out there, and so the International Center for Academic Integrity has identified about 670 of these academic file sharing sites. Susan Stone: Wow. Eric Gibbs: And you said that some of these are unlawful. Some of these are publicly traded companies. Let's be honest here, billion dollar companies that have been funded by some major capital here. Susan Stone: Eric, is that different than like Chegg where you can get homework help? Eric Gibbs: You know, I'd prefer, Susan, not to kind of go into different companies. I think that this is one of those things where individuals will not have a hard time finding findings specific companies or resources in this. Susan Stone: No, but what I'm asking you is a different question and I apologize if I framed it wrong. Companies that assist with homework are different and can be legitimately used versus a file share. Wouldn't you agree? Eric Gibbs: I think that… I don't know, Susan. I think you have to look at this and where I want to go with this is, I think university and school administrators need to be more familiar with the unauthorized use of the professor or teacher's course content. And this is the bigger issue. This gives magnitude of hundreds of millions of artifacts. And these artifacts that I talk about – quizzes, lab manuals, essays, exams – that are in current circulation that are sent to these file sharing sites, right? So this is the Napster of academia. So students actually are solicited or send files to some of these file sharing companies or sites, or however you want to describe them. Then these companies then can then sell this information, right? So they're sending back then the answers from the students that have actually submitted. Students then will get a token for future submissions. Essentially, it's just, I don't want to say a scheme, but you basically get credits to be able to actually create additional solicitations. Susan Stone: What do you mean by credit? Is that money? Eric Gibbs: It's basically you create an account, you then can get two additional submissions, or you can use utilize two papers. I'm going to use the word papers, because it's reflective of what, at Ouriginal, we could actually then deter. You get two credits, I could then say, okay, I'm going to actually take or search for my psychology papers. If I put in my business paper or my business homework, then I'm going to get two more credits, right? So I can then take now two more credits to go back and look for my chemistry work now that I want to look for. And then if I put in then my econ homework, then I'm going to get three more credits. So it's just this continual scheme of the more content that I put in, the more content then I can actually pull out. So this- Susan Stone: Oh my gosh. Eric Gibbs: Again, I empathize with both students and instructors. So on the instructors side, if we go back to the three pillars, good course design. For an instructor to create good, high quality content, they have to take hours. I mean, don't create a multiple choice question or assessment. Susan Stone: Exactly. Eric Gibbs: That it's going to take minutes, if not seconds, for students to be able to share. Create something that's going to take very… It's something that's going to take critical thinking skills or something that's non-traditional. Go out and require them to actually video themselves doing a personal narrative, or do something… a vlog, right? As soon as that gets submitted, that question, to one of these academic file sharing sites, that immediately is gone and you can change it around but what happens to that intellectual property of the instructor that now is actually submitted to the academic file sharing site? It immediately is then submitted to all of those students that now are actually sharing this, right? Then I empathize with that instructor that has taken a couple hours, four or five hours, that they're trying to do their best work. Again, to avoid the multiple choice or the easy way out. So, this is where you don't want to normalize the behavior that's trending with that file sharing or that study smarter study quicker. Move away from the model that rewards attainment of degrees that one could identify proves the skills would be highly desirable from the workforce. So here's the issue. The International Center for Academic Integrity said that where are those programs that cheat have integrity issues the most? It's business, it's engineering, it's nursing. Those were the top three. So structurally do I want to drive across a bridge if I know that it's compromised engineering? Nursing, I get into a critical car crash. Do I want to go to the ICU if I… This is where it's not just about my individual class, it's this class that actually then builds upon other classes that also then builds upon skills, that builds upon competencies, that builds upon a degree, that this is a bigger issue for the institution that then also is then granting this degree or granting this badge or granting this certificate. Susan Stone: Right. Eric, I want to just challenge you on something and circle back and loop back at your beginning story of once you put your paper through the software people are scared. And I can tell you from representing some students who, in my soul and heart, I believe, look we're never there, that I believe did not cheat. Kristina and I, we have kids who just tell us their darkest and deepest, but we have kids that will cry and say they did their own work. And we are concerned that once they're labeled and that's on their transcript, those students don't get to go to med school or graduate school. Do you believe in your heart of hearts… Do you agree with us that many innocent students who don't access those files get caught in this web? Eric Gibbs: They could. I think there's a difference also between a plagiarism prevention tool and utilizing a tool that's an academic file sharing tool that we're talking about. So a plagiarism prevention tool, like an Ouriginal, all we're doing is we're matching where the content's coming from. So to give you an example, like with Ouriginal, we're matching, and that's the reason why I don't call it a plagiarism detection tool. That had a misnomer from the very get go from some of these early plagiarism prevention tools, or text similarity detection. So when a student puts in a two page paper, what a tool like Ouriginal does, is it matches archived internet sources. So for us, it's 20 years worth. It might look at Wikipedia, Discovery, so we're constantly crawling and indexing and archiving sources. Academic and scholarly journals, and then student materials as well. So then what we do is then we provide to the evaluator, as well as the student, then the student can see where the citations are, or I'm sorry, the content. Essentially then, the evaluator makes the decision of, is this plagiarized or is this not? So we are only showing where there's similarity within that content. So the evaluator at the end of that actual submission is making the end judgment. So that's very different from somebody actually taking a test, a physical test from one of these academic file sharing sites, and actually from last semester, that's exactly the same within a learning management system and completing it in 8.7 minutes. Knowing that it's going to take you at least 72 minutes to actually complete. There's different metrics that you can actually track upon. I think there's many data points that you have to consider, to make judgment calls. But for us, all we are doing is providing information to an evaluator to make a decision. Kristina Supler: So that makes me think though, I know Eric, preparing for this podcast today, doing some reading and listening on the internet. Susan, Eric said on another podcast, students sometimes match internet information up to 70% and I think that it sort of… It begs the question, thinking about how academic integrity at times is a two-way street. I think it warrants consideration of how professors test students. Susan Stone: I agree, Kristina. Do you think it promotes laziness when they don't change the questions? Eric Gibbs: Susan, that's a loaded question. I'm not going to go down the- [crosstalk 00:21:39]. Susan Stone: I told you! Eric Gibbs: I'm not going the laziness route. Susan Stone: We have to. Our show, Eric, our show. Come on, let's talk about this. Eric Gibbs: I think what I'll do is I'll pivot around the understanding of the tool. Let's use that 70% similarity score. So, if we talk about how the tool works, as a student submits the two page paper, after they submit that two page paper, they get the paper back and they see that the score is 70%. So you can't actually go out, in a professional development or as Ouriginal comes out and trains the faculty, trains the institution, we don't go out and say, “Anything over or 40%, there's room for concern. It could be plagiarized.” It's always about the individual content. If I write a paper on what I did on my holiday last March, and I get a score of 70%, and I wrote about going to Paris on March 10th and we visited the Eiffel Tower and my aunt Mary Lou is the one that went at 3:12 to the Eiffel tower. If it's 70%, we have a serious issue because there's not very many Mary Lou's that went on March 10th at 3:12 to the Eiffel Tower, because there shouldn't be that much similarity and that much… Now we're talking about collusion, right? That much match. But if we're talking about a paper on Romeo, or let me say the War of 1812. We know the battles, we know the individual key facts. You would expect a two page paper on the War of 1812, and if it's even a specific battle, you would expect to see probably a very high similarity score, because there's only so much personal statement that you can actually put in there to make it unique. So you are going to see a high score and if you're putting cite quotes around it or citations in the paper, those citations are going to match and then that's also going to then match other sources. Which would then again, create a higher similarity score. So you would expect to see maybe a higher score than that maybe that's around that 70% score. So, it's based upon the individual content of the actual paper. Susan Stone: So really what you're saying is it's not necessarily the professor, because some coursework and some tests can only be posited a certain way. Eric Gibbs: That's correct. And so that's where there's a misunderstanding. That's the reason why there's not a plagiarism detection tool out there. I can't say that it's been plagiarized if it's been properly cited, right? That's the reason why it's a text similarity detection. It's matching the individual text from a scholarly journal from Cengage Learning or from a specific article. So we're just exposing that to the individual evaluator. And from a teaching and learning perspective, Kristina and Susan, what we're doing is we're now giving the student the ability to go back in there and to make sure it's properly cited. If it's not properly cited, then that's another issue that the student should be able to go back in and actually change that. Kristina Supler: I think this issue of proper citation, I find it interesting to think about citation in the context of collaboration courses. And I know Susan, I mean, we've had countless cases where the professors state in the syllabus, the students can collaborate with one another, but then fast forward, our student submits his or her essay and gets flagged for an academic integrity violation. And those cases really, I know I get so frustrated and I think you feel the same way, Susan. Susan Stone: Yeah, I do. I really appreciate the way Eric is kind of framing things from both sides, but again, when you work with people… I mean, I even know sometimes you and I can complete each other's sentences. Kristina Supler: Sure, that's right. So, I mean, it begs the question, Eric. Is it fair to use this software in courses that allow for collaboration? I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Eric Gibbs: Yeah, I mean, I think there are ways to utilize the tool extremely effective for collaboration. I actually want to backtrack a little bit on the citation as a sign. Again, going back to my son, having him, he's absolutely horrible at citing tools, or citing and referencing. I think part of it, especially given the fact he's a junior in high school, it's frustrating because they just… It's the same type of premor or type of resources that we received back in school. I mean, if we want to talk about good technology, there's ways to actually have technology just cite the tool, cite it for you, right? I mean, we're to a point now that those efficiency tools are already there for you. I'm still just amazed that we're still going back to the days of old where proper citations should be required of the student. That was my soapbox. Moving on to collaboration. I think there are ways… I think it's good to be able to have students, and within specific learning management systems, there are peer feedback and peer reviewed capabilities that allow the students to actually utilize the software, such as an Ouriginal, to utilize it to be able to see… A. How other students have actually cited the content, provide feedback on that as an intermediary step for the instructor. So it actually is almost like a buffer before the final submission. We're big proponents of that. We think that actually is a helpful teaching and learning moment for the individual student. We think it's a good pedagogical tool. It's very time consuming. It works in a 50 student class. How do you actually incorporate that in a 2,000 person class? It's a little bit harder, but there are ways to actually utilize the tool. Again, through technological solutions through the learning management system. Susan Stone: Look, we like collaboration. I know that Kristina and I pride ourselves when we're working on a case, that we deliver what we think is a different strategy for clients because we challenge each other and because we collaborate. So I would hate for collaboration to end in the classroom. Eric Gibbs: Yeah. Kristina Supler: Also, it's interesting to hear you talk about how one of the questions we were actually, when Susan and I were brainstorming on what do we really want to ask him? Something that we were thinking about was… Okay, how does this software… You understand how it promotes academic integrity and helps professors and institutions, but at the end of the day, how does it really facilitate these teachable moments as opposed to the “gotcha” moments? And you've touched on that a little bit, but I'd be curious to hear more because I think so often, for students, again, there's this fear that there's this software now, professors are getting lazy, TAs aren't reading my papers. They just upload it to software, I get flagged, all hope is lost, and what do I do if I'm not in a situation where my parents can hire Susan and Kristina to help me? So, I mean, what could you say about that more so that students don't have this fear? Susan Stone: We're going back to the fear question. Eric Gibbs: Yeah, I know. Susan Stone: And it's asking it three times. Eric Gibbs: I truly empathize with students and this is something that even from a company perspective, our business model is we license our software to the institution. So I want to be very transparent with your listeners that our business model is we do not sell to individual students. We do not license individual faculty members. We sell to the institution. So we're supporting their institutional academic integrity initiatives. My heart is with the students. So I want to be crystal clear here, and maybe to set the stage and to give your listeners a way to understand this. Go to Twitter and type in plagiarism detection tool or similarity report. You can actually see when students actually submit their paper, the fear of God coming into the student's mind when they actually submit that paper. They don't understand that the percentage that they're getting to, and this goes back to questions prior, they don't understand the percentage that they're getting, that 72% or 95%, is not a plagiarism score. They have no clue. And what does that mean? It means that there's not been proper expectations set at. Even though, and so this is where it's kind of ironic, and I kind of… I'm going to chuckle a little because plagiarism prevention tools have been used in their high schools, they've been now used in their college courses. They've been exposed to these types of tools forever. So that just tells you how long, kind of the ball's been going downhill and misinformed. It's not a plagiarism detection tool, but they've submitted that and they have the fear of God when they hit that button and they get that 72%. And so you will have some paranoid students that try to remove a couple of words, change a couple of paragraphs to get that 72% down to 58%. Is that a teaching and learning moment? Absolutely not. That is absolutely the worst thing that a student can do to try to game the system. And is it a good use of time? No, it's absolutely horrible. That is the worst thing that you can ever get out of a tool like a plagiarism prevention tool. So how do you actually inform that? It's going back and re-modernizing your academic integrity tool. So for all those Directors of Academic Integrity, we have an annual conference with the International Center for Academic Integrity. We have those conversations. We're having those conversations to try to better inform and put the student voice first. Those conversations are happening. And so we started off this conversation of how do you actually get away from the one strike and out policy? Institutions are using this as a teachable moment. I think we're moving to that. Momentum is changing and one of the individuals that I believe, Dr. Trisha Bertram Gallant from the University of California, San Diego. She's an outspoken, an individual person first and foremost, but she's outspoken to try to move this into… Make it a teachable moment. Why should one plagiarism case when you mis-cited it, be out of the University of Missouri Columbia or out of Ole' Miss? That doesn't make sense. Maybe it made sense 20 years ago. It doesn't make sense today. So, I'll be on record for that. But what it does make sense is make it a teachable moment. Have those conversations and let's revisit and modernize. I'm going to use that word again, modernize our academic integrity. Susan Stone: You know, Eric, I love what you're saying, and I hope institutions move to that model. Sadly, by the time when a student calls us, they're obviously not using that model and our students are looking at their whole academic career being compromised and threatened. It's a difficult place, so we hope that any educational institution that might have Directors of Conduct listening to this podcast might think about your model and reach out to you, Eric. And until then, we're here for you should things go wrong. Eric Gibbs: Well, Susan also let's think about on the magnitude. I mean, plagiarism case versus the academic file sharing sites that we're talking about. It's different as night and day. Now there… I'll also, I do want to preface and there is the caveat. If you're buying a paper or if you're completely copying and pasting, there is a difference. So there are- Susan Stone: We are on the same page. We are not talking about people who go in and copy and paste. Eric Gibbs: Right. Susan Stone: We're not talking about those cases, I think. And that, that is a great clarification. We're trying to deal with the more nuanced issue here. Eric Gibbs: Right. Susan Stone: But thank you for that clarification, because in those cases, students should be put through the process and disciplined appropriately. Which could be anything from suspension or expulsion. Eric Gibbs: And the last thing that I would mention is I think transparency, as we probably all would agree, makes sense, in this conversation. If we know academic file sharing sites are an issue, it should be made… in this whole conversation about modernizing our academic integrity approach, it should be put in the academic integrity policy. So if we know a specific academic file sharing site is a major player, put it in your academic integrity policy. Full disclosure. You can't use this tool. You can't use this website. Therefore, there's no issue. So if you get caught and you, you utilize the tool, it's stated, there's no issue, right? Therefore there should be no confusion on what is right and wrong. Susan Stone: You know, what? What about just having kids sit in a classroom with a pencil and a piece of paper and no computer and take a test? Kristina Supler: Imagine that. Eric Gibbs: I think so too. I think those days might be over Susan, though. Susan Stone: Oh my gosh. Kristina Supler: Well, I thank you for joining us, Eric. I think you've given us a lot to think about and I think you've provided a lot of valuable information for parents, as well, to reflect on. And conversations for parents to have with their students to stay out of trouble and just think about good academic habits as a whole. To our listeners, thank you for joining us today, Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please do subscribe to our show. Never miss an episode and leave a review so that other people can find the content we share here as well. You can also follow us on Instagram, just search our handle @StoneSupler, and for more resources, visit us online at studentdefense.kjk.com. Thank you for being a part of our Real Talk Community today and we will see you next time.
The Three Guys jump right into Spring fever, March Madness, NHL Hockey trade deadline, and some of the exciting interviews to come. One of the guys has unfortunately been placed on injured reserve but like a true athlete shows up for the episode. Follow The Three Guys Podcast on:Instagram: @the_three_guys_podcast_Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the3guyspodcastTwitter: @TheThreeGuysPo1Produced by: @78BrettzkyProductions
The Three Guys jump right into Spring fever, March Madness, NHL Hockey trade deadline, and some of the exciting interviews to come. One of the guys has unfortunately been placed on injured reserve but like a true athlete shows up for the episode. Follow The Three Guys Podcast on:Instagram: @the_three_guys_podcast_Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/the3guyspodcastTwitter: @TheThreeGuysPo1Produced by: @78BrettzkyProductions
Youtube Link: https://tinyurl.com/March11Future Past Podcasts on Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/ShiftTeamPodcast Paradigm Shift Central Team Chat Discord Server: https://tinyurl.com/ShiftTeamChat Join on Patreon to become a Leading Member and join future podcasts on air plus more to support you as a conscious media creator https://patreon.com/BrendonCulliton Instagram: https://instagram.com/MysticSpiderman TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mysticspiderman ___ Meet your tribe! Get your Digital Ticket for the Vibeo Festival for only $1. Daily conscious community events all month long! https://vibeoapp.com/festival Connect to the Vibeoapp Community Discord to connect and for event updates https://tinyurl.com/VibeoChat Follow https://instagram.com/vibeoapp and https://tiktok.com/@vibeoapp
Utah Governor Spencer Cox joins Utah's Morning News to look back at the past year since the WHO declared the coronavirus as a global pandemic. Plus we look ahead at the future as vaccines continue to be rolled out around the state. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Tracy Venturi: Let's talk about forebearance. I want to get to that topic. So that's been a big topic. Tego Venturi: It's a hard topic. Okay. It's funny. I've, I've gone to the chiropractor. I went to the eye doctor in every time I end up just in the last few weeks and every time I end up talking about real estate, right. Oh, tell me about this and tell me once they hear my name. Tracy Venturi: I think it's going to be this big deal. So if somebody is coming out of forbearance Tego, Tego Venturi: I wanna just talk about some stats, if I may I find me well, yeah. Picking up on your sarcasm. Tracy Venturi: No, no, I love it. That you would know stats. Tego Venturi: Well, one of the things that's, that's been, um, going on is, yeah. I mean, back at the beginning of the pandemic, there were over 5 million people that took a forbearance plan. And so what that means is they, they went to their lender and said, Hey, can't make my payment because of COVID. And I need to just put a pause on my mortgage payment. So there was over 5 million. Well now we're down to about 2.7 million. Again, we're talking nationwide obviously. And that's good. The thing is interesting is of those people that have come off of that program over 3 million, 52% of them just basically they're paid up, right? They either started making payments or they refinanced, or they sold their home. Tracy Venturi: Or they continue to make payments while they filed for forbearance, because they weren't sure if they were going to be able to keep paying their payment, but they were able to. Tego Venturi: You know, a lot of those people were probably people that took the forbearance plan thinking, eh, you know, we'll just do it just in case, you know, it's kind of, there was obviously, there was a lot of, um, a lot of mystery back in March and April of last year. And so people just did it. So, and the rest of those, not the rest, but a third of those, um, they basically just said, well, we're going to work something out. So they're actually working out something with the bank, a repayment plan. Yep. Tracy Venturi: That could be that whatever they didn't pay, if they actually did skip some payments that they tacked it onto the end of their loan, or they've done sort of some sort of repayment plan that they can afford temporarily or, you know. So that's upon exiting the forbearance plan. Another 33% have a repayment plan. 52% of them are paid in full. What about the other 15%? Tego Venturi: The other 15% are in, are in trouble. Right. They're in some sort of loss mitigation plan. So either they're basically not making their payments so they could either just sell their home if they got the equity or if they don't have the equity, then you know, the very last thing would be, it would go into foreclosure. Tracy Venturi: Well, they could go to short sale first and sell their home. Right? So we, we negotiate with lenders on behalf of sellers that, ask them if they can't afford to sell their home, because it's not worth enough to pay off the underlying mortgage. We work with the sellers to negotiate, to have the lender take short, what they're owed so that we can get the home sold versus going into foreclosure. Tego Venturi: I kind of erased short-sale from my mind, because back in 2009, 2010, we did a fair amount of them. And they were really difficult back then because the bank, there were so many of those properties, the banks weren't geared up for it. Now it's actually a, it's a much easier process. So that's, again, that's one of those options for people that do find themselves, you know, in that, that group of people. I want to just one more comment I want to make, I think it's important. The narrative out there has been that if you're in all those people, the 2.7 million people that are still in forbearance, those are automatically going to be foreclosures and get dumped on the market. And we're going to have this mass flow of homes coming on the market. And that is just not, what's going to happen. Come March, April we'll know because a lot of those plans will expire. And again, so people could, you know, they could just, if they're financially able, they'll just start making their payments and just move on. They'll work it out with the bank. Tracy Venturi: Can I just add in there that, you know, New Mexico is behind the curve on people getting back to work because our restaurants just opened indoors at 25%. Right. But a lot of the country have gotten back to work compared to New Mexico. So we kind of think about New Mexico and how many people are still out of work because of our climate here. But you know, much of the country is back to work so that 15% will change. But go ahead. Tego Venturi: Well, and I just wanted to bring you into this conversation, but let me just, just follow up on that. So these people that are still going to be coming out, or if you're one of them coming out of this forbearance plan, you're not sure what to do. There's, you know, there's options. And so again, just assuming that just because somebody is in forebearance, it's going to end up in foreclosure and be a bank sale, that's just not true. There's going to be people that have equity and can just sell or take the short sale option or you know, whatever it is. And so Tracy Venturi: I would say really have a private conversation with us to talk about the options, right? Tego Venturi: That's exactly what I was getting to. So Tracy, you know, if somebody is in a forbearance situation, they want to know what their options are outside of what the bank is offering them, Tracy Venturi: Call us, let's sit down, let's have a private conversation, look at your situation and see how we can best help you with whatever direction you need to go.
Travel agent Christine Ross speaks to Oliver Peterson about the impending end to JobKeeper. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Let's put 2020 in our rearview mirror, shall we? Before we do, we thought we'd take some time to review the blessings, the fantastic projects, the podcasts, and the people we met along the way! The most exciting thing that happened in 2020 was our rebranding - a labor of love to revamp our entire website and service offerings. Come March, we started to realize that all of our exciting international travel and industry events would be canceled. Luckily, we got loads of new work in January and March that kept us happy and busy working from home. We were also fortunate to complete the one room challenge on our podcast studio in May. Tune in as we review more 2020 highlights and speak about the importance of giving back during the 2020 holidays. Thank You To Our Sponsor: Before we dive into our look back at 2020, we want to let you know that this episode of Inside Design with Kandrac & Kole is sponsored by Currey & Co. Currey is mainly known for their extensive lighting collection and supreme craftsmanship. However, over the last 30 years, they have created an extensive line of furniture, upholstery and accessories. Their customer service and commitment and quality is what makes them one of our go to sources. Check them out at curreyandcompany.com. In This Episode: [03:40] January: working with our multi-family luxury apartment clients [05:05] February: started planning for the Spring Highpoint Insiders Tour [06:45] March: we pulled together a team for Guatemala [08:40] April: everything got canceled, but we were so busy with work [10:05] May: our one room challenge ended up happening [12:15] June: vamping up our online design program [16:05] July: existing clients start calling with big projects [17:05] August: Zoom calls galore. [18:00] September: gearing up to finish our largest project to date – MAA Buckhead [19:05] October: starting a large new build in Cartersville [22:45] November: cool jobs in East Atlanta are underway [23:10] December: we adopted a family for Giving Grace and donated to CRI and other charities Key Takeaways: Gratitude is an effective habit. If you were blessed in 2020, it’s time to give back to someone who really needs it. Sometimes, you have to be forced to pause. If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to reconfigure your business and make lemonade out of lemons. Resources: One Room Challenge: https://www.kandrac-kole.com/podcasts/the-one-room-challenge-spring-2020-renovating-our-podcast-studio-part-2 Currey & Co curreyandcompany.com Highpoint Market https://www.highpointmarket.org/ Design Influencers Conference https://designinfluencersconference.com/ Designers Today Conference https://www.designerstoday.com/event/virtual-designer-experience/ Giving Grace in Atlanta https://remerge.org/giving-grace/ Catalyst Resources International https://www.catalystresources.net/ Check out our website: https://www.kandrac-kole.com Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kandrackole/
The OneGoal guys interview Sebastian Saucedo for the website a few weeks back. In 2019, Sebastian Saucedo (23) surprised many US fans when he left Real Salt Lake, his hometown club, for Liga MX side Club Universidad Nacional, more commonly known as Pumas. Following his move south of the border, Saucedo started scoring goals for his new team as early as January thanks to the scheduling of his new league. Come March, Saucedo was named to the yet-to-be-postponed USMNT Olympic Qualifying roster. With no games coming back in the immediate future, we took some time to catch up with the former RSL Academy stand out turned Liga MX winger. In nearly an hour of complete honesty, Saucedo talks about his early days playing soccer, his success at Pumas so far, why leaving RSL was the right decision, a call from USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter in January and why more American talents out of the ‘97 age group could have made it in Europe.
Brian White | James 1:1-8
Good Things To Come - March 15, 2020 - Pastor John Prettyman by Grace Bible Church of Hollister
It’s easy to forget how bad the fiscal situation of the United States actually is unless we are being constantly bombarded by experts telling us the truth of the matter. A recent article details a coming report from the Comptroller General. Come March 12, the Government Accountability Office is going to put out an assessment of the fiscal health of the federal government and unsustainability is the key takeaway. The Comptroller General put out a similar report in 2019 and not only has nothing changed since then, but the situation has gotten much worse. The debt is now over $23 trillion and it doesn’t seem like the government is heeding its own warnings. Officials can’t continue indefinitely spending more than the government receives in taxes without incurring staggering long term costs to borrow from China and other lenders. Due to the coronavirus, the Federal Reserve has just reduced interest rates .5%. Their speculation is that interest rates will stay low for the foreseeable future. The trouble is the expected interest rate for future debt will likely be higher than historic averages as the US becomes riskier to lend money to as time goes on and the debt to GDP ratio continues to increase. The imbalance between spending and revenue that is built into current law will lead to the continued growth of the deficit. The situation where the debt grows faster than the GDP of the US means the current federal fiscal path is unsustainable. Historically, debt compared to GDP has averaged 46%. We are now at 109%, which is worse than it was in the wake of World War 2. But that doesn’t count the off the books transfers like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as part of the debt that every other country in the world includes in their accounting. The true debt to GDP ratio is close to 1000%. We are going to pay the interest on our debt, which is money that is taken off the table from other programs. Interest payments are non-discretionary spending. If the US defaults on its debt it will have major economic impacts on every country on the planet. The growing interest payments are going to crowd out all the other expenses in the budget, but we have to pay it so ultimately we are painting ourselves into a corner. As the debt continues to grow and other countries start to believe that the US will not be able to pay that money back, the interest rates on the loans will only get higher and higher over time. For the second year in a row, the highlighted word in the Comptroller General’s report is unsustainable. More skeptics are coming over to the Power of Zero way of thinking every day. We are at a period of historically low tax rates. Every year between now and 2026 is a window of opportunity to take advantage of that fact. Every year beyond 2026 is potentially a year will you be forced to pay the highest tax rates you will see in your lifetime. Never in the history of the US has there been a more appropriate time to adopt the Power of Zero paradigm. Mentioned in this episode:https://www.theepochtimes.com/comptroller-general-will-again-tell-congress-governments-financial-situation-is-unsustainable-but-will-anything-change_3257865.html
This week on Triple Threat, preview and recap SEC Tournaments for Mizzou basketball. Also give a few conference champion and sleeper picks for the Big Dance!
This week on Triple Threat, preview and recap SEC Tournaments for Mizzou basketball. Also give a few conference champion and sleeper picks for the Big Dance!
If you’re paying for your YouTube TV subscription through Apple’s App Store, now’s the time to switch your payment method. YouTube recently announced that it’s planning to drop support for billing via Apple in March. Come March 13th, if you have a YouTube TV subscription that uses the App Store as its form of payment then your account will be automatically canceled, and you’ll lose your DVR.
Come March 3, voters will finally weigh in on the proposed room tax hike, which, if approved, would generate nearly $7 billion over more than four decades — enough money, its supporters say, to enlarge the convention center by 50 percent, help get homeless families and individuals off the streets, and repave 150 miles of roads every year.
Wisconsin just had one starter quit the team and another get suspended for a crotch punch. That's how the pod opens. Then Parrish and Norlander get to Coach K going ballistic (22:30) on the Cameron Crazies, and a theory as to why he did -- and then some amusement at Krzyzewski's suggestions for some new chants for the students to use. There is also the Dayton Flyers (40:00) to discuss, as Norlander reported on them for CBSSports.com this week. The Dayton chat leads GP and Norlander to make impromptu predictions on who the four No. 1 seeds will be, and then the mailbag (53:00) comes with both long-overdue Iowa talk and a tremendously tough user-submitted Trivia Time! HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, GARY! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Come March 2020, there will be a new CEO at Capital Area Counseling Service based in Pierre. DRG news and farm director Jody Heemstra chatted with Amy Iversen-Pollreisz to learn more about her and the types of assistance offered at CACS.
This Sunday, Pastor Don Shilts spoke about the best being yet to come. For more information, you can find us online at www.biblectr.org or connect with us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/biblectr
This Week in the Big East - Weekly Overview of NCAA College Basketball's Top Conference
John Rooke and Kevin McNamara shine this week’s #TWITBE BIG EAST Spotlight on Xavier first-year head coach Travis Steele as he continues the momentum of the Musketeer program. At 36 and a 10-year former XU assistant, he is very familiar with the winning culture at Xavier. Coming into the BIG EAST Focus this week is the familiar voice of FOX Sports college basketball analyst Tarik Turner. Turner, a former St. John’s men’s basketball captain and NCAA tournament competitor, he brings knowledge on the league from player, coach and in-studio insight. NCAA Vice President of Men’s Basketball Dan Gavitt brings the national perspective this week as he helps break down the new NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, and what it means for teams and fans. Come March, the NET will become very top of mind. With 25 BIG EAST games in the books, John and Kevin will wrap up the week that was in the league and what is coming up.
Michael: Hello everyone. This is Michael Gross of OptionSellers.com. I’m here with head trader James Cordier. Welcome to your first OptionSellers.com Podcast of 2018. You’ll notice we are doing this in video format this year and we’re hoping we can use some video accompaniments to help you understand some of the concepts we’re talking about. We still will be doing some audios throughout the year, but we hope you’ll like the new format. Here we are in 2018. Stock markets are raging. Global economies are doing pretty well right now. So, we have a lot of global growth going on right now. We’re going to talk about, starting off, what that might mean for commodities. James, maybe you want to lead into that a little bit. What do you see for commodities going on this year? James: Michael, it’s interesting. Over the last several years, quantitative easing, here in the United States and across all of Europe, was thought to eventually make economies stronger. A lot of people were kind of not so hot on that idea, but certainly that has turned the corner. European economies are doing extremely well. China is bolstering once again. Here in the United States, along with some tax implications, the sky is the limit right now on economies worldwide. Of course, the stock market is doing great. Demand now for raw commodities look like it has finally turned the corner. There has always been too much supply. Needless to say, we had the Chinese economic boom of infrastructure spending several years ago. Basically, the market just came down from that and it has been waiting for real demand to finally develop and now we’re here. Copper prices, crude oil prices, some of the energies are making 2-3 year highs based on stronger economic growth throughout the globe right now. Chances for a weaker dollar look pretty special right now for 2018. All systems go right now for commodity prices, probably trending higher maybe throughout the year. Michael: Okay. So, you see this as, at least partially, a demand-led type strength possibly into commodities as a whole in possibly 2018. I know you’ve been talking recently about inflation creeping back in to the conversation here. Let’s talk a little bit about that. What role do you see that playing in 2018 and how might that affect commodities? James: Michael, 2% inflation has been the unachievable mark for several years now. Janet Yellen was trying to produce that. We’re finally there. A lot of some of the most brilliant people who do the bean counting for us for inflation are looking now at 2-½% inflation for 2018. The price of crude oil is such a dramatic input for different price costs throughout the world. A barrel of oil goes into grains and clothing and manufacturing. The price of crude oil has increased some 35-40% recently. That is going to start showing up in the inflation rate. We expect to see that probably the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2018, but investors are getting ahead of that right now. They’re not necessarily waiting for this 2.5, 2.75 inflation number to come out. They see it already and investors and traders want to get involved with it before the “white of their eyes”, they used to say. Michael: Okay. So, many of the people watching this show are interested in option selling or selling options on commodities. Obviously, inflation doesn’t necessarily mean every single commodity is going to be rising in price in 2018, the core fundamentals are really going to be the determinative of that, but it is a supportive factor and something to keep in mind. As an option seller, as somebody that sells commodity options, or you’re thinking about selling commodity options, how does inflation, the possibility of maybe the index as a whole being a little stronger, what affect does that have for commodities option sellers? James: Commodity option sellers can get into a market that has already taken off. For example, the price of oil was recently at 50 and it’s up at 65. A lot of investors are going to say, “Well, how do I get involved with oil? It has already made quite a move.” That’s the beauty of option selling. A person or an investor can still sell a $50 crude oil put just as though their break even was $50 where this bull market in oil started. That is one way an option seller can take advantage of a market that’s already moving… already left the station. With $50 oil right now, everyone would love to have that back. The writing was on the wall with OPEC production cuts… the more demand here in the United States and abroad. Basically, as an option seller, you can get in on that ground floor price that so many people missed out on. The price of gold recently has rallied $100. Do you want to buy gold here at $1,375 an ounce? Maybe, maybe not. We just rallied $100. By being involved with option selling, you can sell puts at the $1,100 mark, so you have nearly a $300 cushion for the market to do a variance. As the market goes higher, if in fact it does, option selling allows people to get in on what was the ground floor, but you get to wait to find out and see if it actually develops or not. The gold market has been trending higher, the crude oil market has been trending higher, a lot of the foods have, and some of these markets you can sell options 30-40% below the current price… A great way to still participate in inflation hedge for investors the rest of the year. Michael: Then you have the other side of the market, too, where often times when markets are rallying they get in the news crude. Perfect example. The general public wants to get in on it and what’s their favorite strategy? They want to buy the calls. So, all of a sudden demand for the calls goes up and people start rushing in and those premiums start going up, and there can be opportunities on both sides of the market. James: Exactly right. So often, the market will overshoot because of hedge funds that are pushing the market up. Then, of course, the public wants to get in and they don’t’ want to trade futures contracts so they want to buy call options. What that winds up doing is pushing call prices way about the fair value of where the market is likely going to reach. Basically, it sets up the perfect strangle, something that we’ve talked about often in our books and some of our material that our readers enjoy so much, I think. Michael: So, overall for 2018, what’s your take on commodities? Do you see this as a favorable environment for selling options? James: Michael, over the last 3 or 4 years, we’ve been involved with option selling on commodities without the volatility, without the public’s participation, without hedge funds participation, so the premiums on both the call and put sides have been slightly tight over the last 2-3 years. That’s about to change. We’re going to see inflated premiums on both sides. Explaining why put premiums inflated in a market heading higher is a little difficult for the laymen, but basically it is blowing up the volatility. It allows you to sell puts at a much greater value than normally you would, but the thing is, as the public comes into commodities, as investors come into commodities, often they want to be involved with the options, and often they want to be involved with the call options. So, while we do see an up market in oil this year and in gold and silver this year, the levels that the public and investors are willing to pay, we’d be happy to take the other side. We’re probably going to see options on commodities inflate to the tune of 30-40% this year, so not only are you picking levels that the market is likely not going to reach, but now we’re going to add just that much frosting to this cake as far as being able to sell options, I think. Michael: If any of you are interested in reading some of our research on some of the markets James is talking about, you’ll want to catch our upcoming edition of the Option Seller Newsletter. That will come out on February 1st. If you’re not already a subscriber, you can get a sample edition at OptionSellers.com/newsletter. James, we’re going to go ahead and move into our next section now and talk to you about some of the markets James is referring to right now and show you some strikes we are looking at. Michael: We are back with the markets segment of the podcast this month, and what we’re going to do is talk about a couple markets that you can follow at home. These are real markets we are looking at for our managed portfolios right now and we are going to talk about some things you can possibly do if you want to try some of these on your own or just maybe get an idea of how we do it when we’re looking at a possible trade. The first market we’re going to look at this month is the wheat market. This is really just a straight-ahead play here this month. It’s a bread and butter market. We’re looking at a market with clear cut fundamentals, discernable seasonal tendencies, we’re not looking for any big moves in the market, we’re just looking for the market to keep doing what it’s doing. Let’s take a look at the fundamentals first. When we look at it right now we are looking at World Wheat Ending Stocks. If you don’t know the importance of ending stocks or stocks to usage ratio in grains, I encourage you to go on our blog and look at our seminar on this… it is OptionSellers.com/agriculture. Ending stocks really measure the supply at the end of the crop year after all the demand has been taken out. It has a really big influence on price. 2017-2018 is expected to be an all-time high in World Wheat Ending Stocks. We’re also at a record level on stocks/usage ratio from a global basis. So, what this tells you is supplies for 2018 look to be very burdensome for wheat for the major part of the year, so that’s a key fundamental you need to keep in mind because what you want to look at is supply and demand and this is telling you that this is going to be weighing on the market all year long. James, you follow this quite a bit. What do you think about the supply this year? James: Michael, it really seems difficult to fathom a really large rally in the wheat market. What’s so interesting about different commodities is copper is produced in Chili, and oranges are produced in Florida, and coffee is produced in Vietnam. Wheat is produced in so many regions of the world and, generally speaking, when they’re all doing extremely well for production it’s very difficult for one crop in a certain country to really shape that idea. Wheat is grown practically in so many different nations around the world. Very large producers are Russia right now is just doing extremely well with their wheat production, here in the United States a lot of production here is winter wheat. Quite often, there’s a lot of grain movements in spring and summer with hot dry weather in Iowa or Illinois. Here in the United States, a big portion of the wheat is produced throughout the entire year. Basically, it is winter wheat. If you look at the other countries around the world that are big producers, another bumper crop again coming up chances are with World Ending Stocks at the level that they are, a little rally in wheat certainly could happen, but the 25-30% increase in prices does not look like it’s in the cards for this year. Michael: Especially with what we’re going to look at next here, which is the seasonal tendency for wheat prices. Now, anyone who follows us knows we do follow the seasonal tendencies closely. These are not guaranteed. What this really is is just a historical snapshot of what prices have tended to do over different parts of the year. It’s not guaranteed it’s going to do it this year; however, in looking at this, what this chart tells us is prices tend to start declining at the beginning of the year and decline through the fall. James, do you want to talk a little bit about why that has tended to happen historically? James: Generally speaking, Michael, the wheat market might have some favorable ideas. People might be looking at possible weather conditions or something like that. Generally, that’s in the winter of the year. It is winter wheat here in the United States, so based on how cold it might be or how much snow they might get, there’s worries about that. So, that does build in a slight premium in the months of January and February. As we go through the winter season where they’re not going to have an incredible amount of harsh cold, the conditions for winter wheat production starts abating. As we see how much wheat we’re going to produce, as we see us getting through this critical of time, the premium comes out for insurance buyers that are making sure that we’re going to have a big enough wheat crop will come March, April, and May. We know what the wheat crop is going to be. Here in the United States, we know that come March, April, and May the crop is basically made, there’s not going to be any weather conditions like there are with some of the other grains, like soybeans and corn. Come March, April, and May, we know how big the crop is and this year it’s probably going to be one of the record crops here in the United States, in addition to what we’re looking at as far as global supplies. As we get into the summer and fall of the year, basically wheat is looking for a home. It has a lot of competition around the world, and that’s generally when prices are at the low in the 3rd and 4th quarter of the year, and I think this chart on seasonalities diagrams it extremely well. The seasonality is extremely bearish as we go throughout the rest of the year. Michael: So, what you’re saying is a majority of the crop is coming in in the spring because it’s winter wheat and in the summer time when corn and soybeans sometimes rally, most of the wheat is already in the barn. James: Right. Whether it’s in the barn or whether we know it’s going to be harvested in a very large crop, we know that in April and May and at that time, then we’re looking for competition from many different areas. The bidders for wheat come July, August, and September few and far between because there is so much of it. In 2018, once again, we’re going to have much more wheat than the world needs and as we get later into the year, as harvest is full blown here in the United States, of course the prices are at their lowest when the crop is the biggest, and at harvest time is when it really has the pressure. It looks like we might get that again in 2018. Michael: Let’s take a look at a strategy here. We’re looking at December 2018 Wheat. James, these are strikes you’ve been looking at, but do you want to talk a little bit about this strike or why you like that strike? James: We do. The wheat market trading just north or south of $5 right now, we’re looking at a slight rally, possibly, in either February or March. If we get a small rally in wheat, we’re going to be looking at selling the $6 calls for December wheat. The chances of a 20-25% rally under these conditions seem quite slim to us. Of course, there’s a large variance. We’re not trying to pick these small moves in the market. Here’s where the current price is. If we do get a small rally, we like selling the calls at $6 and $6.20. It just gives us a huge variance of space for us to be right. Even if the market rallies a little bit, it’s just a far cry from the $6 call strike price. We’re looking at putting this on, possibly, in the month of February or March on a slight rally in the market. We always get gyrations in the market. As you can see, the $6 strike price is very attractive is we get an opportunity to sell those, and I think we will. Michael: If you’re at home and you’re trying to figure out this trade, you still have a $6 call. Prices can do a whole lot of things as long as they stay below that $6 mark. That option is going to expire and you keep the premium as the seller. That’s what we want. Prices don’t necessarily have to go down; in fact, we don’t necessarily think they will. We’re looking at fundamentals right now. We think prices are low and they’ll probably stay low. It can fluctuate a little bit either way, but we think they’ll probably stay low. The right strategy for that is selling deep out-of-the-money calls. A lot of people talk about volatility. Volatility in wheat isn’t extremely high right now, but, at the same time, if you can sell calls up there that’s a fundamentally based trade. You don’t need that volatility. You can still sell the call way above the last summer highs. That was kind of an aberration last year when we saw that rally, but it can still happen. Nonetheless, still below that strike, even in a weather scare. It’s something to keep in mind. Let’s go ahead and move on to our next market, which is the crude oil market. Our next market is one of our favorite markets: The crude oil market. It’s a great market for selling option premium. It’s one we like to trade all year long. The story this year, at least in 2017, was OPEC production cuts. James, those have been having quite an impact on the market here the last several months. James: Michael, it’s interesting… OPEC was really losing a lot of its great reputation that it had back in the 70’s and 80’s. When OPEC spoke, the market moved. When they cut production, the prices went up. They really lost that savvy in the early 2000’s. Here in 2017, this past year, and 2018, someone sat the group down, locked the door, and said, “Listen, guys. If we cut production 2-3%, we can have a 40% increase in prices.” Someone got their calculator out and said, “That makes sense.” We actually have a great deal of compliance right now with OPEC nations. The compliance is thought to be as high as 95-96% going into 2018. That has taken 2 million barrels out of the market recently. The fact that right now we have a great deal of demand for oil because of the stronger economies, that small decrease in production has really ramped up prices. A lot of people are looking at the domestic production here in the United States as likely going to keep up with and then balance the market and take care of those 2 million barrels that OPEC has stopped producing; however, that hasn’t taken hold yet. It does appear that the oil market is on very firm footing. It has increased some $15 a barrel recently for the spot price. It’s up practically $20 a barrel recently. That is setting up opportunities in selling options right now on crude oil, both puts and calls, as well as volatility, which has been missing in the crude oil market for years, is back and back in a big way right now. Michael: When you’re talking about the Sheikhs vs. Shale debate when it comes down to ebb and flow of the crude market, U.S. producers aren’t replacing all of that yet. As you said, they’re not quite there yet, but they are making a dent in it. When we look at U.S. crude oil experts, we had a big surge here at the end of the year, James. That has been a major new development in crude. James: The missing piece to oil rallying, especially here in the United States, has been the fact that the U.S. has not been an exporter of oil for years. Practically a half a century, the U.S. was allowed to sell 50,000 barrels a year and export them outside the country. In 2017, that was lifted. Now, the United States is able to export as much oil as they care to. With the $6 discount to world oil, or the Brent grade, everyone wants U.S. oil. They get a $6 discount, it costs about $1-$1.50 to ship it, that’s a $5 savings for a country that want to import U.S. oil. What always used to happen was the oil market in the United States would increase in summer. Fall and winter, as demand peak takes off to the downside in October, November, and December, this past year in 2017 and possibly again now in 2018, that’s no longer a problem. Driving season, big demand here in the United States. October, November, and December, when demand is less here in the United States, we just export the oil. The seasonality in other countries does not line up with the seasonality here in the United States. There’s a chance now, with oil supplies here in the United States at a 2-year low, we now have that balanced market that so many people have been talking about recently. Something OPEC has been trying to achieve for years, we’re now there. As long as oil doesn’t get too high over the next several months, right now we’re in the mid 60’s for the spot price, demand can keep up as long as prices don’t spike. We don’t’ see that happening mainly because the United States will be producing almost 11 million barrels a day coming up here in the United States. That should keep a lid on prices. Volatility coming in the market right now is tremendous, both on the puts and the calls. We see crude oil, probably, blending in to kind of a sideways market here with about a $5 trading range, probably in the low to mid 60’s. Volatility blowing out on both puts and calls, setting up a great opportunity for strangles, selling puts $20 below the market, selling calls $25 above the market. We’ll see how that plays out, but in March and April that looks like it’s going to be an extremely good position to take on. Michael: Yeah, you’re talking about the crude oil stocks. This is really starting to take a bite out of where we were just last year with the supplies at burdensome levels. Now, we have OPEC shutting the faucet, that’s taking supplies back down towards 5-year averages, which is what James is talking about… bringing that market back to equilibrium. We’re looking at U.S. production here. We’re up over 1 million barrels in just a year. We could be up another million barrels this year. Like you were saying, James, between possibly 10 and 11 million barrels a year. So, it’s not there yet, it’s starting to catch up, it is bringing he market back into some form of equilibrium, we think. James was talking about the seasonal and let’s go back just a second, James, because we were talking about that export ban being lifted. Do you think that may have altered the seasonal for crude oil? Do you want to talk about that? James: Michael, it definitely has. Prior to 2017, crude oil prices would often have a peek in June and July as we enter driving season. The market usually has this large fall-off as we get into shoulder season… November, December, January. That has changed the landscape of seasonality trading for oil for us and for anyone else watching the market. We’re going to now have more of a balanced market throughout the year as far as a seasonality goes. The large drop-off in the 4th quarter is probably going to be lessened now, but the fact that the United States is able to export oil, we probably still will have the highest prices in June and July, but the steep sell-off in the 4th quarter may be history for a while… at least for the next few years as far as we can see. Of course, we’ll look at fundamentals and how they shape up after that. Right now, the large decline in our prices for oil in the 4th quarter, that’s going to take a back seat to the fact that the U.S. is now able to export oil. As long as there’s a $5 discount to Brent, a lot of countries around the world are going to want our oil for sure. Michael: Let’s talk about a strategy here. James, we mentioned the strategy he was considering. James just kind of puts it into graphical format. Do you want to explain your thinking here and what the trader is going to be looking for in a trade like this? James: Certainly. Here has been the sideways pattern that oil has been in for quite some time. It’s about a $10 difference between summer demand and winter slacking in demand. That’s really changed as the U.S. has started exporting oil. The supply here in the United States isn’t that great. OPEC has bit off a big chunk of the additional barrels by reducing production, and that’s what this move is right here. We expect this trading channel to now develop here. With the U.S. now about to produce somewhere between 10.5-11 million barrels a day, why is that important that the U.S. produces that much? Well, we’re the 1st largest consumer in the world. We’re about to go 2nd to China, but regardless of that, the barrels are needed here, we’re going to have them here, and that should prevent oil from taking off to $75 or $80. Being short that level and being long from this level, we think, is going to be an ideal window for the market to stay in. Less oil out of OPEC, better demand. We’re basically going to take this sideways trading pattern and put it here, and then we really enjoy being long the market from this level, we’re really going to enjoy being short in this price. A strangle right now in crude oil looks ideal in 2018 going forward. We’ll have to wait and see. We’re going to adjust these strikes slightly going forward; however, a $35-40 strangle around oil, I think, is going to capture the majority of price swings over the next year or two. With the volatility just coming into the market, premiums are very large on both puts and calls. I think we’ll be able to take advantage of that for the next several months. Michael: So, it doesn’t really matter when you’re in a strangle which way prices are moving on a net basis, as long as they’re staying in that range. The balancing affect, too, of the strangle, where if it’s moving down, maybe your put is moving against you but your call is making up most of that in profits and vice versa if it’s moving up. Strangles are a very versatile strategy, and for a market you expect to be range bound, it is pretty much ideal. What kind of premiums are traders expecting if you sell something like that? James: Both puts and calls right now are trading around $600-$700 each. Prior to the spike in prices, a lot of the options were $400-$500. They’ve increased some 25% on this new volatility in the market. Volatility is kind of a 2-edge sword. You enjoy volatility when you’re selling options, that’s what we got recently, and I think the new 25%-30% increase in options is going to be a boom for us and anyone who is logically selling options on oil over the next probably 12-18 months. Michael: If you want more information on our managed portfolios where we are doing trades exactly like this, similar to this, and in a variety of markets, feel free to go on our website and request our free Discovery Kit. That’s OptionSellers.com/Discovery. You’ll get all the information about our accounts, how you can invest, and that sort of thing. Let’s go ahead and move into our final segment this month and that will be our Q and A with the trader. Michael: We’re going to do our Q and A section this month. This is where we take letters from you, our readers and viewers, if you’ve read our book we get a lot of emails and letters here in the office, so we’d like to take some time and answer them here. The first one starts, “Dear James, I’m looking 6 months out, as you suggest, but can’t find the premiums you are suggesting. What do you recommend when there are no commodities to trade? Jim Oakes, Bakersfield, California.” James, how would you answer Jim’s question? James: Well, Jim, basically there is so many parameters that we follow when trying to identify the best possible opportunities for selling options. Generally speaking, seasonalities will have a shorter duration. In other words, if it is coming up on a weather market in summer or cold conditions in the winter, generally that trade or that opportunity will last maybe from 3-6 months. The fact that it’s going to be a shorter duration means that something’s going on in the market, which causes premiums to build up dramatically because of possible weather in June and July for grains, something along those lines, and investors are willing to pay up large premiums for a relatively short period of time. So, generally speaking, a 3-6 month investment on opportunities in short options will develop from a weather market. For example, a seasonal opportunity is normally going to be about a 6 month sell in premium on options. Generally, when you’re strictly trading on fundamentals, in oil or gold or coffee or sugar, we’ll often go out as far as 9-12 months, which gives us much further out-of-the-money, if you will. We are willing to and more than happy to look at options much further out in time and much further out in price. The fundamentals of the market really don’t change very often. Sometimes they’ll change just slightly. The market will often get a 5% rally or a 5% fall in oil or gold or silver or coffee, and some of the experts will come on the talking shows in the financial community and say, “This market’s going to the moon. This market’s falling out of bed”, and generally they’re really not. That is the reason why we’re willing to go further out in time and further out in price. Usually that’s just noise, usually the market isn’t going to the moon and usually it’s not going to zero. Generally speaking, if you’re too short in time, the market will make a sharp abrupt move, knock you out of your position, and, of course, 30 days later the market is doing exactly what your fundamental analysis thought it would do, except now you don’t have your option and you don’t have your cash. We don’t mind going 9-12 months out. A lot of investors will say, “James, that gives you a long time for us to be wrong.” I look at it as it gives us a long time to be right. Fundamentally the markets move very slowly, technically they move very fast and we don’t want to be involved with those large technical moves up and down that investors get all excited about. Michael: I’m not sure if Jim’s question was that he can’t find options at all or he just can’t find the premiums he’s looking for. If he’s trading in the commodities that we’re talking about, the 10 or 12 we’ve mentioned, there’s tons of open interest. Maybe Jim wasn’t happy with the premium 6 months out, but what you’re saying is sometimes there’s 3-6 month premiums that only come about as a result of a weather market and that’s why we’re often going further out in time to get those bigger premiums. So, Jim, that’s one thing you could look to do if you’re not getting the premiums where if you’re looking 3-6 months out. The other thing is, that I would answer to this question, is it could be the platform you’re using, too, because I’ve heard a lot of complaints about, I don’t want to mention any by name because they’re all good platforms, Think or Swim, Interactive Brokers, they’re good platforms, but some of those, TD Ameritrade, I don’t even know if they do commodities, but some of them don’t go all the way. They only offer you a few months. So, if you really want to see where these things are trading and see the contract months that go all the way out, you should probably be working with a dedicated futures platform. We use CQG, which is outstanding. That’s something you may want to look into. James: Michael, great point. To follow up and expand on that slightly, the fact that we are selling options in so much large volume, we’re selling for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equity that we manage, we are able to actually contact market makers. The market makers are going to give us bid-asks on options and strikes that might not be available on some of the platforms that you’re referring to. I think that’s the big difference. If you’re trying to sell 10 contracts of a particular strike, it may not appear to be available, but if you’re selling 10,000 contracts in that strike, banks around the world want to do business with us. That might be the difference, as well. We’ll have to see. Michael: That’s one benefit of going managed. If you don’t want to do it yourself anymore, you want someone else to handle it for you, it is one of the benefits you do get if you go with a managed program. We’re managing a large amount of money and some benefits come with that. Let’s move to our next question here. This comes from Paul McDonald of Hempstead, Texas. I believe that’s down in the Houston area. “Most of your examples, you base your trade on being held to expiration. With stock options, I can buy out of them early if they are showing profit. Can you do this with commodities?” James: That’s a great question. Often, we discuss options expire worthless this percentage of the time or that percentage of the time. As money managers, on selling option premium portfolios, we look at a 90% gain as a great time to buy back out of an option. We were just discussing selling option premium further out in time. The sweet spot of decay, after selling probably a million options on commodities, I have found to be further out in time than a lot of the books write about. So, if we’re targeting an option value of $600-$700 each, possibly as far as 12 months out, as we’ve been discussing, when that option has reached a 90% decay factor, in other words, it’s trading at 10% of the value that we originally sold it at, it doesn’t matter if there’s 3 months left on that option, 4 months left on that option, and so on… we will then buy it back. We think that’s a great strategy that you’re utilizing and we do the same thing when managing portfolios. We do buy back out early, we do close out, get rid of the risk, free up the margin, and move on to probably selling the same option and the same strike 6 months further out and do it all over again. Michael: The buy backs are just as easy in commodities as they are in stocks. In fact, that can be a favorable strategy, one James uses often and recommends. There’s no reason not to do that. It eliminates risk, and once you get to a certain point with an option there is very little to gain but you’re still holding that risk. You doing those early buy backs eliminates the risk, you re-deploy your capital, just an efficient way to manage your capital. Good question, Paul. I hope we gave you a good answer. If you’re looking for more answers on strategies and ways you can apply option selling, we do recommend our book, the latest edition of The Complete Guide to Option Selling. That is available on our website at OptionSellers.com/Book. You will get it at a discount there, than where you’ll get it at Amazon or bookstores. Michael: Everyone, we hope you enjoyed the podcast this month and hope you got some valuable tips out of it for making yourself either a better option seller or learning if managed option selling might be a right fit for you. Going into February, we have the Super Bowl coming up. James, do you have a pick for the Super Bowl? James: Michael, as a quarterback in high school, all I ever wanted to go up and down the side line and yell at my linemen for not blocking and not tackling. The fact that we were like 1 in 8, I really didn’t want to yell at them too much. Watching Tom Brady go up and down the sideline and yell at his players and get them pumped up, that just gets me excited about football. Next year, if they start selling options on football games, I’m going to sell puts on New England each time next year. So, I’m a Tom Brady fan. I’m from Green Bay, but I appreciate great football and he’s my guy for the Super Bowl game, so I’m rooting for definitely the New England Patriots. Michael: You better be careful. A lot of people out there aren’t big Patriots fans. I think if there’s any team out there that can give them a run for their money it’s Philadelphia Eagles. They surprised everyone. I’m sorry, if I have to make a pick I have to go with the past, too. We’ll see what happens. James: Michael, I’m a real football enthusiast and during the Super Bowl I just root for a great game and hopefully that’s what we’ll have. I hope the Eagles can bring that. Michael: Me too. I hope so. If you are considering talking to us about an account this month, the announcement this month is we are now booked out into March for consultations for new accounts. If you are interested in talking about a new account, you’ll want to call Rosemary here at the office. 800-346-1949. She will schedule you for our first available consultations that we have. If you’re calling from overseas, the number is 813-472-5760. Also, in this month’s newsletter, we have a major announcement regarding our new accounts. If you do get the newsletter, whether online or a hard copy, you’ll want to take a look at that. This will affect you if you are considering opening an account over the next several months. James, thanks for your great insights this month. James: My pleasure, Michael. It’s always great and fun to do. Michael: Everyone, we appreciate you watching our podcast. If you liked what you saw here, be sure to subscribe to us on YouTube or iTunes. We will see you again in 30 days. Thank you. James: Thank you.
A lot of people in the Southern Appalachians take their fly fishing seriously. Come March, anglers will get an opportunity to test their skills head to head against anglers from across the region as the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Davidson River Outfitters host the fourth annual Pisgah Fly Masters fly-fishing tournament.
This week’s episode is one that we probably should be airing closer to the New Year. See, most people start off the new year with lofty goals for the future – the infamous new years resolution. However, we all know the problems with these. Come March, that beer gut is still highly visible, those cigarettes...
A lot of people in the Southern Appalachians take their fly fishing seriously. Come March, anglers will get an opportunity to test their skills head to head against anglers from across the region as the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Davidson River Outfitters host the fourth annual Pisgah Fly Masters fly-fishing tournament.