So, I had a Securities Analysis final this week and it really took over my life.  Summer classes wear me out.  Cramming a semester’s worth of work into 8 weeks is tough.  I said it last year, and I am going to say it again this year…I will never take another summer class .  With an anticipated graduation date of spring of 2009, hopefully, I can stick to it this time.

I definitely had some problems on the final.  I completely forgot that when a portfolio is efficient, it has a correlation with the market of 1.  This really set the stage for some problems on the test.  I think I tried to put too much into my head three days before the test, and that little knol slipped.  Overall though, I am not disappointed.  With any luck, I will still slip by with an A or B in the class.

Regardless of the grade, I learned a lot from the class.  I interviewed a financial analyst concerning a stock that I was researching.  I was completely amazed at how much he knew about the company.  It really impressed upon me the amount of time and energy that goes into setting the prices for securities in our financial markets. We also spent a lot of time covering portfolio theory and capital market theory.  These are two somewhat related theories on how to manage risk in your portfolio.  I took a number of ideas from these lessons that I can use with my own portfolio.

So, overall it was a successful semester.  I look forward to reading and learning some more about finance.  And, I feel like I have a somewhat better understanding of the subject matter.  So, that is about it.  I am on to the next semester of my MBA…this time featuring a course on IT business processes and one on supply chain management.

A couple months back I was in the market for a Nintendo Wii.  Being that they are short on stock , I turned to the Wii Tracker for some help.  After a couple weeks, I started to notice a pattern.  The Wii would come in stock at retailers, but only in expensive bundles.  This was frustrating because I really only wanted to spend $250, not $400-600 on a bundle.  To me, it appears that retailers are taking advantage of the Wii shortage to boost sales.  While the practice of bundling is sometimes illegal, it does not appear to be so in this case because the products are related.  However, I find the practice troubling, at best.

According to Wii Tracker, here are the list of retailers that are taking part in this practice:  Circuit City, Costco, Toys R Us, Buy, Comp USA, Dell, EB Games, eToys, Frys, GameStop, Sam’s Club, and WalMart.

This morning, I read the editorial entitled Clayton Caves. At the end of the article, the author says:

The only real solution to this city-vs.-city fleecing would be regional, and that seems unlikely. Still, it would be great if companies located where it made the most business sense, not where they found the most freebies.

I think the author missed the point. In St. Louis, the location that makes the most business sense is often the location that offers the most incentives. St. Louis has become so decentralized that quality human capital is available throughout the region. Clayton did not “cave”, it simply made a sound economic decision to bring more development into the area.

It might seem a little strange to think that an MBA student (and really any business professional) should spend time learning a software package targeted at the graphic design and photography industry. But, for me, knowing how to use Photoshop has provided a significant advantage in both my professional career and in my MBA courses. Let me explain.

As an MBA student, you spend a significant amount of time working on presentations. For me, it has been a regular course requirement to give 1-2 presentations per semester. As a result, I have prepared anywhere from 5-10 presentations since I have started school. And, I probably have seen more than 50 presentations. This amount of exposure has really made me somewhat of a connoisseur of the medium.

Now, I do not plan on going into all aspects of what makes a good presentation, but I will tell you that one of the major aspects is visual interest. I could be listening to a great orator (think Al Gore or Steve Jobs) and if they do not provide compelling visuals to go along with the speech, my mind starts to wander. For me the charts, graphs, and pictures really pull me into the speech and hold my attention.

That is why I think learning Photoshop is important. It provides you with the basic tools necessary to provide visual interest in your presentations. It allows you to edit images (cropping, resizing, distortion) and also create new visual elements (charts, graphs, layouts, etc). I use Photoshop for a number of things—to stylize text, to cut out pictures of people to put next to quotes, to create custom layouts, etc. You can see a lot of these effects in my blogging presentation.

I am far from a graphic designer, but, I have used Photoshop for a number of years. In my experience, it is not too hard to learn the basics. There are a number of courses at local colleges and universities to help get you started. In the St. Louis area, UMSL offers Photoshop courses as part of their Micro-computer program and St. Charles Community college offers courses, as well. You can also start learning online. Adobe’s Video Workshop and Lynda are a good place to start.

While Photoshop skills are not common curriculum for MBA students and other business professionals, I think the skill itself will pay dividends in your course work and future career.

According to James Kunstler in his interview in Newsweek, my little suburban town of St. Charles could be in trouble. We are the picture of Suburbia—lots of cars and no mass transit. Does this mean the rise in oil costs will wipe us out?

Probably not. I believe the Kunstler may have conveniently ignored a few problems with his hypothesis. The first being that the Internet has made it possible for companies to spread out and create satellite offices where their employees live. In St. Louis, we have as many large companies in the county as there are in the city. In addition, Kunstler seems to ignore changes in technology that will allow for cheaper, clean power, as well as, more fuel efficient vehicles. This combination would make the oil argument irrelevant.

In fact, the growth in technology and renewable energy may have the exact opposite effect of what Kunstler predicts. It is possible that increased telecommunications technology and smarter, cheaper power could allow employees to work from just about anywhere. But I am guessing that this point-of-view would probably not sell too many books.