Update 4/15/2008: Zecco has people griping in their own forums now - and they said it better than I ever could have: (reprinted for perpetuity)

I tried logging in Monday morning - and failed; After about and hour, I gave up for the day and went about my business. Something similar happened early in Zecco's life, so I figured It's just a start-up problem.

However, that being said - Zecco should be nearly out of the start-up stage. Zecco has an Official Notification out regarding the website being offline and a offhand reference to misleading default "scheduled maintenance"/404 page - An internal review is needed - and not of the technical dashboard problem.

The Friday update was scheduled and advertised ahead of time - meaning that Zecco should not have been surprised with the consequences.

Picking Friday for updating is a smart move on IT's part. Not having a secondary system in place to rollback production changes is unacceptable for a real-time website. I highly suggest IT or management review system update policies to ensure that a plan is in place to rollback changes instantly.

In IT, updates are a part of life. With that in mind, we know that unanticipated consequences of an update are also part of life. However, for real-time systems, clear oncall/quick chain-of-command, multiple response teams & backup servers running alternate versions are part of life(or should be) - in 2008 it's cheap to use virtual servers as backups running proven older versions with proven older routing configurations.

and also from the same forum thread:

I've called at least once a week, every week complaining about the matter of fact attitude zecco seems to have about keeping it's system up at trading times. It's VERY clear these are server errors and crashes (I'm retired from an IT career) Denying these server failures only fuels my fire that I'm dealing with a bunch of liars that only care about numbers. I trade options which generate revenue for zecco/penson everytime I click the mouse.

Today, I'm making arrangements to transfer my account to anywhere else. I'm done with sloppy management and unprofessional IT people. I suggest all of you follow suit.

Allen Reynolds Jr.

My experience:

So I get up this morning and attempt to get into my two brokers' websites.

Zecco is completely unresponsive and I have not been able to log in for over an hour since the markets opened today!

I thought SogoTrade was fine - until it decided to do this to me while I was watching my NTZ position:

At least I didn't have an open position in Zecco... unfortunately I do have a somewhat precarious position of 300 short shares of NTZ that I'm holding in my SogoTrade account, which is sitting at a minor loss, but if it moves against me even more... I'd like to at least have a stop order in place. If I would have known SogoTrade was so worthless I would have put my stupid protective stop in, jeebus!

I guess with Zecco and SogoTrade you get what you pay for. Maybe one of these days I might be able to get an actually worthwhile broker that I can rely on. These have not been my first connectivity issues with either broker, and Zecco has proven itself to be particularly unreliable.

Is this their way of sticking you for the cost of 'broker-assisted' trades that you can make by calling them up?

At least some brokerages have the integrity to not make you pay more for a phoned-in trade; maybe because they realize that a lot of those phone-ins will be because their web-platform is COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY WORTHLESS?

I was finally able to get to the Zecco homepage without simply being unable to connect - they say the site is down for scheduled maintenance!

SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE ON MONDAY MORNING RIGHT WHEN THE MARKETS OPEN

Scheduled maintenance my butt - what broker would be so dumb as to schedule maintenance at possibly one of the most crucial trading times? Sounds like someone puked all over their servers, or they're using IT slave labor from foreign countries that have no clue about market hours.

Cost for Zecco phone-in trade: $20
Cost for SogoTrade phone-in: $27

For reference:
Zecco Brokerage Account Review - yeah, decent execution if you can actually place any orders.
SogoTrade Brokerage Account review - supposedly NXTM was on their short list on last Friday, but I was unable to short it and received no explanation why I was unable to do so (their customer service has been worthless in responding to this issue).

Long story short - if you're more active than you are completely and utterly dead, you might not want to choose either of these brokers.

I have discovered over time that Zecco seems to have a somewhat limited short inventory, unlike their competitor, SogoTrade.

UPDATE: go here to see some issues I have had with Zecco

If you're having trouble deciding on a broker, this article of things to think about when choosing a discount broker can give you some food for thought.

Zecco has a pretty good deal; have at least $2500 of equity in your account (cash or securities) at one point during a month, and you get 10 free trades to use until the month is over. Considering the typical commission for a discount broker is about $5-10 this can easily save you $50 a month if you are active or semi-active in the markets. If you are not active in the markets, this is a good deal because you'll never pay anything in commissions - assuming all you do is buy and sell stocks/ETFs.

Zecco also gives you the ability to trade options for a relatively decent price. However, no free option trades.

Zecco Kind of Bites

Zecco is not good for a very active short-term trader. You will not find any sort of data solution with these guys; get ready to pony up for a third-party data service (which you should probably do anyways). The only saving grace is that there are real-time charts with a fair bit of options (various indicators, candlesticks, etc. from BigCharts). However, they will not update in real-time, so be ready to click 'refresh'.

Do not use Mozilla Firefox to access their web-based trading platform. I have had many technical issues while attempting to use Mozilla. I recommend that you use MSIE (ugh).

I have often experienced connectivity issues in the mornings and evenings.

price improvement, execution

One thing that Zecco does seem to be good at that SogoTrade is not (SogoTrade is my other brokerage account) is price improvement on orders. Execution times seem similar, but if I enter a limit order with SogoTrade I have NEVER gotten a price improvement. Not even from like $15.00 to $15.0001. Limit orders with Zecco will frequently feature price improvements, even if it is just a few cents on a share here or there. One of my earliest trades with Zecco was on the super-illiquid CBOU stock, and a limit sell order of $2.90 from the night before was executed in the morning at $2.95 - from my experiences with SogoTrade, I doubt they would have done the same; it makes me wonder if they're keeping those price improvements for themselves.

Zecco has all sorts of orders

Zecco has all the order types you need, specifically the ones SogoTrade lacks - stop, stop limit, and virtual trailing stop. This makes them suitable for the more active trader.

Also, Zecco does not count modified orders and cancelled orders against your free trades. You can sit and modify/cancel trades all day long and not pay a penny, or use up your precious free trades. SogoTrade is not so forgiving with its free trade promotion - a cancelled or modified order uses those puppies up.

if you like penny stocks Zecco is pretty good

Zecco charges no extra fees for stocks with very low share prices, unlike many brokerages which will typically add extra commissions for stocks that are less than $2-$5

Zecco is good for an IRA that trades frequently

Unlike SogoTrade, Zecco offers an IRA option. Currently they only offer traditional and Roth IRAs but they claim they might attempt to add personalized 401ks and SEPs in the future.

Once again, you get 10 free trades with the IRA account each month, and if you have both an IRA account and a taxable account with Zecco, you will receive 10 free trades for each account! Pretty damn good deal for only having to park $5000 with these guys.

However, there is a $30 yearly IRA fee. Thus, I would say that you have make at least 6 trades in a given year to justify this fee. However, if you are like most people, you would probably like to dollar-cost-average into ETFs, and Zecco will allow you to do this very easily without being eaten alive by commissions. You could easily be averaging in on an ETF each month share by share if you wanted to!

That sort of dollar-cost-averaging ability is very rare among discount brokers. The only other broker that I am aware of that could offer similar DCA potential is ThinkorSwim, because they offer 3 free mutual fund trades per month, and they offer no annual fee on IRA accounts. If you want to buy or sell traditional mutual funds with Zecco, you will have to pay $10 each way.

Pros and Cons of investing with Zecco

Pro

• 10 free trades/month

• Options with decent if not cut-throat commission rates
• IRAs
• No account minimum
• Option assignment only $4.50 (Option exercise/assignment at most brokerages is often more costly than a typical trade - ThinkorSwim costs $15 for an exercise/assignment)
• Good-priced regular commissions.
• price improvement
• option for 3 different money market sweet funds (tax-exempt, treasury, and standard money market)

Con

• poor reliability of web-based platform

• very costly if you have to call up a broker to make a trade because the web-based platform sucks...
• annual fee on IRA accounts
• SEC regulatory fee when selling shares seems to get rounded up a lot more than at SogoTrade
• no real-time auto-updated watch-list (the one thing SogoTrade has that I really like)
• barely worthwhile charting
• occasionally obnoxious double-login - especially annoying when you have to go through it because your Zecco session timed out just 30 seconds ago and you need to make a trade RIGHT NOW (they time you out after 10 minutes)
• you cannot short certain stocks under $5 that are not marginable - however I have been able to short BPAX and COT both at under $5
• Zecco has free dividend-reinvestment, but without fractional shares - this seems silly to me, why have DRIP but no fractional shares?

However, I still have a Zecco account, those 10 free trades are hard to pass up, especially considering they give you money market sweep. (Denying you money market sweep is what a lot of deep discount brokers will do in order to provide you with super-low commissions, etc.)

For almost a year now, I have been working locally. However, last Friday I rolled off.

This means that I am due to be scheduled for a new project, apparently one in Minnesota.

At this point though, I am simply not willing to travel. Business travelers, my heart goes out to you. Modern airplane travel is a great abomination. Commercial jets are massive energy consumers and they don't even have the common decency to provide a plain-Jane passenger with a modicum of comfort; unlike our friendly buddies Air Conditioner and The Passenger Car.

Also, travel dislocates an individual. Some of the worst excesses of personality I have seen were acted out on the road. The type of person that enjoys this lifestyle for a long period of time is often not a nice person. Often, they tend to drink inordinate amounts of booze, combined with large amounts of heavy grub. More often than not this is at the client's expense.

In the past, I have let my managers know that I do not wish to be staffed on a traveling project. Unfortunately, there are few local projects.

When I heard yesterday that the next project that wanted me was not a local project, I let them know of my refusal to travel.

I'm not sure what reaction I expected, but not the one I received. My manager used a word that almost made me laugh, insubordination! That's such a ridiculously militaristic word.

Yeah, I understand that you think travel is in my job description, and me refusing to do so is 'against the rules' so to speak (interestingly, I never signed any documents of employment with HP that indicated travel is a requisite part of my job), but how is it INSUBORDINATION? I'm sorry buddy, but as far as I'm concerned, I am your equal, and hence insubordination is not possible. Just ask me to leave the company; isn't that the standard practice? Just tell me there are no local projects and ask for a resignation.

This is precisely the sort of thing I was discussing when this website was barely neonatal. (example 1, example 2)

I feel very insulted by this usage. Yeah, I'm some stupid punk kid on the bottom of the totem pole, but that's a little too much. It's almost as if my manager felt the need to shove my face against the hierarchical institution of HP, like I didn't get it or something. He seemed to really struggle with the idea that I could decide to not bend in the wind. I really don't get how being true to yourself can be considered 'insubordination'. We all have our own lines in the sand that we must draw, and their locations might very well change.

It's fine if you tell me that I no longer have a place at HP, but don't tell me that I'm 'insubordinate'. That implies you had the right to give me orders, rather than the ultimately temporary state of me granting you the privilege of doing so in the first place.

You know, after reading the Wikipedia entry on insubordination I think that maybe being insubordinate is a label that's going to work out for me.

It worked for Douglas MacArthur, Hunter S. Thompson, and Howard Zinn apparently. I'm in good company.

If you're interested in this article, also be sure to check out Increase your bench-press with just push-ups

The title of this entry is what someone typed into Google to get to my website approximately eleven minutes ago.

The short answer is: yes.

The long answer is: no more so than any other associated exercise.

All of the truly great weightlifting wisdom is regards to increasing your maximum for a given exercise comes from the power-lifters and strong-men of the world. The articles archives at the Westside-Barbell site offer a wealth of information on this topic. Interestingly, if you read deep into the power-lifter literature, you will find a deep core of Soviet strength training principles - but without the 'roids.

In reality, everything you really need to know about strength training was discovered long ago. If you want a huge power-to-weight ratio, become a male gymnast. Many of those exercises have been around for as long as we have. Past that point, if your goal is to get immensely strong, follow the principles laid down by classic strongmen. Steroid abuse and the marketing of fitness have led to a glut of misinformation surrounding a topic that was clearly understood in earlier 20th century literature.

so what about my bench press?

Well, what do you mean by bench-press? Your form will determine the maximal weight you will carry. There are also two main schools of bench-press form. The power-lifters advocate a whole-body approach that is actually quite complicated to learn. However, it allows for maximal lifts. The other is what you're likely familiar with - a form that focuses mainly on working the shoulder and chest structure.

Depending upon which form you choose to work on, different exercises will yield different performance boosts. Please note that if you choose to focus on the 'body-builder' type of bench press, you will not be able to achieve your true maximum.

Mainly this involves understanding what muscle groups are in play at particular points in the exercise; to what extent they are activated throughout the lift.

Westside barbell advocates a very nuts-and-bolts journaling methodology in order to improve your maximums. If your goal is to increase your maximums this is the only way to guarantee consistent and efficient results. They focus on one to three rep maximums in their bench press routines in order to get your form and nerves ready to handle the requirements.

However, they do not just do bench presses to increase their bench numbers - something implied by our savvy Google searcher - but rather they focus on the idea of General Physical Preparedness (GPP) and auxiliary exercises. I like to think of GPP as making your engine bigger - these are the exercises that will grow big, strong muscles. Think heavy-duty peasant laborer work.

Did you know that your lats are actually a very important muscle for doing bench press if you have good form? Weak triceps are also a frequent reason for missed maximums - have you ever just not been able to push the bar up the last couple inches to lockout? Obviously, doing bench presses over and over again is not going to fix this problem. You need to be doing skull crushers and bent-over rows.

Maybe your issue is that your left arm is weaker - maybe you should do some dumbbell presses. Maybe you just need to have more endurance because your training sessions aren't lasting long enough. Time to pull a couple hundred pound weight sled and work on your GPP. Maybe your forearms are just too weak and you need to use hammers to work on your grip strength.

and maybe push-ups will help you because...

1. your back and abs are too weak to support a good bench and pushups with good form firm you up
2. you do lots of push-up reps and thereby gain GPP
3. you do diamond pushups with elevated feet to work on your triceps
4. it hits your sweet spot for gains

Go forth and prosper.

I happened to read a bit of a bit of Krugman's most recent op-ed piece in the New York Times. Apparently it took an empirical study to affirm some things that any reasonable person that has any depth of experience should know already instinctively.

Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain.

Well, duh.

I am the spawn of a well-educated couple that both received their graduate degrees. I have never personally experienced being 'poor' unless you count living in a travel trailer for a year. However, I was too young and inexperienced then to recognize the experience for what it was. I thought it was sort of an adventure to have to heat up water on the stove to do the dishes because the running water disappeared months ago when the pipes froze.

However, that was also the same year that we moved to a piece of dying post-industrial America that hangs on through its location in the breadbasket. In this small town, those 'in exile' make up a good 15-18% of the population, and among kids my age at the time, well, 27% of those under age 18 are below the poverty line. According to Mr. Krugman's article, 17.4% of those under age 18 nationwide are below the poverty line.

Krugman doesn't know the half of it; 'exile'? This is not the word that I would use. Cut off from the larger society? What Mr. Krugman does not understand is that this segment of the population forms its own parallel society, with its own standards of conduct, rules, and regulations.

brush your teeth

My mother is a school social worker in this small industrial town, and some of my friends have at various points been her 'clients' so to speak. One time we were talking about some of the social issues and so forth, and she brought up a simple act of hygiene that most of us in the middle class take for granted: brushing your teeth.

Frequently, her 'clients' often have trouble with this, and due to their subsequent lack of dental appointments, frequently end up with mouths full of rotten teeth (the occasional crank or crack adddiction doesn't help but that's neither here nor there). She couldn't understand why they couldn't at least take a minute or two every day and just brush their teeth.

Among people in such situations, there's very little conception of the future. Thinking far into the future is not very advantageous when mainly you're just trying to avoid a future indigent quasi-homelessness. Make the rent and hopefully you'll have enough left over for some beer and food that will fill your belly until the next run-round.

Where does brushing your teeth fit in? It doesn't. The value of brushing one's teeth is simply not recognized, and the future negative consequences are ignored in favor of much more pressing issues.

Poverty creates its own culture, one that a person with means will never be able to fully understand. One thing I have noticed though, is that there is a far stronger sense of community among those not-so-well-off that I have never experienced anywhere else. Sharing a ride to who-knows-where, letting someone crash on you or your parent's couch for a few nights before they go find someone else to stay with for a week or so, the mom coming by with a little cash to make sure her son eats more than just Campbell's soup and deli-meat sandwiches because he's too broke to buy anything else.

Poverty doesn't poison the brain any more than wealth does. Our bodies are hard-wired by evolution to survive; any 'poisoning' that occurs is simply our adaptive response adverse conditions. Maybe some of those responses aren't that bad, maybe they're even desirable. Perhaps the 'poisoning of the brain' created by excess wealth is far more detrimental than the adaptive response elicited by poverty. Takes two generations to earn it and ten to spend it right?

However, the detrimental effects of abject poverty are akin to the effects of being born in Poland in 1942. It's good that empirical researchers are finally getting around to documenting that these things have brain-altering effects.

poor people stay poor

Krugman should have already won his Mr. Obvious award, but he continues:

According to one recent estimate, American children born to parents in the bottom fourth of the income distribution have almost a 50 percent chance of staying there — and almost a two-thirds chance of remaining stuck if they’re black.

How does Krugman propose we solve this problem? He doesn't really say. It should 'just be on the future president's plate' so to speak. He mainly seems interested in just throwing money at the problem; predicating their solutions upon governmental money flows.

That's an awfully simplistic answer. What's the role of education in this? Why are those high-scoring kids he mentions not going to school? There are programs out there to help kids like that get into good colleges and graduate. Maybe they need more funding. What about basic shelter needs? Isn't that the first item on the list? Should everyone get a free apartment if they need one? There are programs like that out there. And first of all, does our current welfare system even make sense anymore?

lesson of the day

Don't bother to read Krugman's columns, read his sources. Interpret the data for yourself, in Tim Smeeding’s Poor people in rich countries and the IFS report on Poverty and inequality in the UK: 2007.

A while back, I said that if consulting services contracts in my industry decline, I would expect a recession. Well, it happened.

For a while now (since late November I believe), the entry-level consulting division that I am a part of has had an extra 'bootcamp class' waiting in the wings to help boost our revenues. Consulting is a very simple game - charge more for peoples' services than you pay them. Thus, in order to boost revenues, you either have to charge more per person or hire more people. Typically it's much easier to hire more people and simply generate additional consulting engagements in order to support such a payroll.

That 'bootcamp' class was supposed to enter training this February, but their start date has now been suspended indefinitely. This period of the year is typically slow in terms of new consulting engagements, but it is worrying.

HP is also rolling out a new bonus schedule for my division, which clearly shows to me that they are now focused on generating the maximum revenue from their current workforce as opposed to simply generating more gross revenue. The bonus program is loosely based on a sort of ass-backwards 'overtime-ish' compensation, but now they're throwing an extra few bones to people that focus on maximizing their billable hours.

This focus on maximizing existing infrastructure and avoiding growth is very telling, particularly in the growth industry that datawarehouse consulting represents.

As an aside, there are apparently 150 experienced consultants on the beach. However, they are attempting to hire at a rapid rate. There are rumors they are attempting to replace the higher-paid consultants in the company with ones at much lower salaries. This would fit in quite well with Mark Hurd's focus on the bottom line. In my relatively low-paid entry-level division, there are only about 2 people on the beach.

Does HP cutting costs mean anything?

Well, the signs are very clear that the next nine months will bring us mixed growth. Something that makes me feel more positive in the long term, is this graph of the historical unemployment rate. (source)

The author of the article where I originally saw this Bureau of Labor Statistics' graph points out that recessions of the past few decades have been much worse than it appears this one will be - if this is even the beginning of a true recession.

Perhaps I could argue that these softened peaks represent greater labor market efficiency. It's certainly comforting to think so.

A somewhat different picture emerges after we account for an extra decade or two on the graph.

This graph seems to show a convergence upon a mean unemployment level of about 4.5%. From this perspective, the whole period post-1968 was an employment recession, except for a bit of a blip below 4% right before the crash of 2001.

There's also the fact that these unemployment figures could be totally bogus... go here if you want to know how the US government actually comes up with these unemployment figures.

so recession or what?

Determining a recession or the possibility by using unemployment statistics is going to get you in trouble. It's obvious that we cannot use a single variable like this without context. I would like to see these graphs juxtaposed with GDP growth and population growth. I would also like to see consumer price and commodity/wholesale price indexes represented, as well as the prevailing interest rates. However, even if all these items were accounted for, the possibly unique nature of the current state of the financial markets may offer wildly misleading conclusions. Such situations simply may not be represented in the historical data. The subprime crisis is different from the dot-com crash is different from the 1970s recession is different from the... you get the point.

In the financial media I often see these items discussed, but rarely are they ever used in conjunction to tell a story. More often than not the facts are fit to the conclusion of the author rather than the other way around.

Anyone know how I can get/generate the sorts of charts I want to analyze quickly and easily?

Tax laws are often obscenely labyrinthine, and the publications that go along with your income taxes are no less so. For better or worse, the greater your knowledge of the tax code, the better off you'll be in this country.

So when I did my taxes this year, I went and looked for ways to reduce the amount I would have to pay. It turns out that I missed the one real gravy train I had - work that 401k! I contributed to my 401k a decent amount the past year, but I could have put more into it.

Instead of working my 401k harder this year, I elected to start a Roth IRA. Normally you only get the benefit of the Roth IRA when you take the money out, but I noticed an interesting credit that you can get for 'Qualified Retirement Savings Contributions' and Roth IRA contributions count towards this credit! (as well as 401k and traditional IRA contributions)

Unfortunately, as an individual earning over 26000 AGI (line 38 on the 1040) I cannot take this credit.

But my girlfriend could take pretty big advantage of this particular credit - mainly because she skated into the right AGI based on a student loan interest deduction.

It makes perfect sense to use a Roth IRA to take advantage of this credit, particularly if you are a young person that is currently earning a lower income, but a higher tax bracket is almost guaranteed later in life. Also, it's the only way to get an immediate tax benefit from a Roth IRA.

The thing is though, that the way they structure this credit, the only way you can get the maximum benefit (50 cents on the dollar more or less) is if your tax bill comes to at least $1000 and you contributed at least $2000 to your retirement account. However, the way it is structured, there is no way that any one person can achieve the full $1000 credit.

the retirement credit multiplier

I know that no one can achieve the full credit because I went through these forms in an attempt to achieve the full $1000 credit for my girlfriend, who due to various reasons earned a very low income for the year. Namely, after her student loan interest deduction, her income skated in under the $15,500 mark that is needed to get the maximum multiplier (0.5) that this credit uses. If you are over 15,500 in AGI, but under 26,000 the best multiplier you can get is .2! The multiplier is crucial, because this number essentially represents how much on the dollar (in reduced income taxes) the government will give you for each dollar you add to your retirement accounts - up to the first $2000 worth of contributions. So if my girlfriend contributes $2000 to a retirement account, she will be able to claim $1000 worth of retirement saver's credit.

However, her tax bracket means that she only owes $663 in taxes for 2007. Therefore, the maximum retirement saver's credit that she can claim is $663 - if she contributes at least $1326 to a retirement account for the 2007 tax year. This means she will pay no federal income tax for the 2007 tax year!

Not a bad deal! But considering the income levels that this credit is intended for, shouldn't they bump up their assistance a bit more? The only reason my girlfriend will be able to take advantage of this is because I'm willing to float her an interest-free loan (and I was willing to operate as her free tax professional).

our tax laws pay lip service to equality, while squeezing the little guy

What percentage of people eligible for this credit end up using it? Slim to none I imagine. How many people with incomes under 26k a year even have retirement accounts? How many people with these sorts of incomes are even aware of such tax possibilities? Considering that $1326 is about 8.5% of a 15,500 adjusted gross income, how could such a person contribute that much money to a retirement account, even if they knew they would get 100% of their withheld federal taxes returned to them?

I believe people at such income levels should be encouraged to save more money, and our government should be lending its assistance in any way possible. This is clearly not what is happening.

Either way though, if you're a starving-artist young person-type, you should really be looking at this credit with some dollar signs in your eyes! It's the government's form of 401k matching, more or less.