Friday, October 12, 2007

The Return of Sci-Fi - Texas Hospital Patients May Soon Be Talking To Robots

Your doctor may soon be a robot, or so the whispers warn. Sound like something out of a bad science-fiction movie? Well, maybe you should ask whichever physician shows up on-screen of the RP-7 Remote Presence Robotic System by InTouch Technologies, a maneuverable robotic system designed to allow physicians to videoconference with their patients from remote locations.

Dr. Alex Gandsas, of Baltimores Sinai Hospital and holder of stock options with InTouch Technologies, introduced the machine to hospital administrators as a way to closely monitor patients after the weight loss surgeries in which he specializes. Since its introduction, the length of his patients stays has been shorter. In Gandsas study published earlier this month in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 92 of 376 patients had additional robotic visits, and all 92 of them were medically cleared to return home faster than those who did not receive check-ins with the teleconferencing system. Shorter patient stays would be a welcome change for hospitals, health insurance companies, and patients alike -- all of which have a vested interested in sending patients home faster.

While further studies should, without a doubt, be performed by physicians who do not hold a financial interest in the technology, these preliminary results do show promise. The robotic visits were not used by Gandsas to replace his personal check-ins with patients -- only to add to them. Neither InTouch Technologies, nor Dr. Gandsas envisions the Bari, or so its nicknamed, as completely replacing personal visits with healthcare professionals. Instead, the joystick-controlled system, which employs cameras, a video screen, and microphone, is intended to supplement physicians traditional visits, and to allow patients and healthcare workers to receive advice from qualified physicians and specialists when it may otherwise be impossible. Doctors may soon be able to provide their patients with additional daily check-ins and answer questions much faster, all while sitting in their own homes or while away from the area.

Sinai Hospital isnt the only one with this technology, however. In fact, robots have been in use for some time to assist with patient care, including guiding stroke patients through therapy, and helping them play video games. Many prosthetic devices are now at least partially robotic, and if it werent for a certain amount of robotic technology, the public would not be able to communicate with such great minds as Steven Hawkins.

Johns Hopkins also has a robotic teleconferencing system to help communicate with patients who need a translator when one is not available at the hospital itself. Use of such technology could have tremendously positive effects on Texas healthcare system -- particularly in Dallas, Houston, and Austin -- which handles a high volume of patients who do not speak English. Lack of adequate communication is a major obstacle to receiving quality healthcare for many immigrants in Texas. Lack of quality healthcare, in turn, can lead to serious public health issues, including the transmission of communicable diseases.

Approximately 120 RP-7 Remote Presence Robotic Systems are currently in use around the world, with plans to implement many more in the coming years. China is already using similar systems to help deal with the lack of medical care in rural, inaccessible areas.

Dr. Louis Kavoussi, chairman of the urology department at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, took a special interest in this new trend and conducted a study monitoring the effect of the technology on patient care. The study showed no decrease in patient satisfaction, and no increase in complications due to teleconferencing visits. The technology, Kavoussi said, is rudimentary, really, in comparison to other developing systems. The need for fear is minimal.

There are relatively few of InTouch Technologies systems available, and further studies have yet to be conducted. If robotic teleconferencing is used as a supplement to personal physicians visits, however, it has the potential of dramatically improving many aspects of healthcare -- from how quickly patients questions are answered, to how many visits, in total, they receive, to whether or not rural residents receive proper care, to how well (or even if) they are provided with a translator to explain their symptoms. States like Texas, in particular, with shortages of doctors and high volumes of patients who do not speak English, stand to benefit. So maybe robots in hospitals arent something one needs to fear. In fact, they may even get your unpleasant stay over with a few days faster.

Being aware of medical technology is an important part of taking care of your health. How you take care of yourself will certainly affect you as you age, and eventually your wallet, as well.

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Avoid Losing On Stock Options Part 3

In this example, you trade exposure on 100 shares of stock for exposure on 300 shares, but you avoid or delay exercise as well. At the same time, you net out additional cash profits, which reduces your overall basis in the stock. This makes exercise more acceptable later on. Of course, you can continue to use rolling techniques to avoid exercise. Another important point worth evaluating is the potential tax advantage or consequence. Options are taxed in the year that positions are closed; so when you roll forward, you recognize a loss in the original call transaction, which can be deducted on your current year's federal income tax return. At the same time, by rolling forward you receive a net payment while deferring profits, perhaps to the following year. However, because the roll forward may involve in-the-money positions, the stock profit may revert to a short-term gain instead of the more favorable long-term gain.

The roll forward maintains the same striking price and buys you time, which makes sense when the stock's value has gone up. However, the plan does not always suit the circumstances. Another rolling method is called the roll down.

Example: Repetitive Profits: You originally bought 100 shares of stock at $31 per share, and later sold a call with a striking price of 35, for a premium of 3. The stock has fallen in value and your call now is worth 1. You cancel (buy) the call and realize a profit of $200, and immediately sell a call with a striking price of 30, receiving a premium of 4.

If the option is exercised at its striking price of 30, the net loss in the stock will be $100; but your net profit in option premium would be $600, so your overall profit would be $500:

Striking price of shares $3,000
Less original price of shares -3,100
Loss on stock-100
Profit on first call sold 200
Profit on second call sold 400
Net profit$500

The roll down is an effective way to offset losses in stock positions in a declining market, as long as the price decline is not severe. Profits in the call premium offset losses to a degree, reducing your basis in the stock. This works as long as the point drop in stock does not exceed the offset level in call premium. You face a different problem in a rising market, where the likelihood of exercise motivates you to take steps to move from in-the-money to out-of-the-money status, or to reduce the degree of in-the-money. In that situation, you may use the roll up.

Example: Trading Losses for Profits: You originally paid $31 per share for 100 shares of stock, and later sold a call with a striking price of 35. The stock's current market value has risen to $39 per share. You cancel (buy) the call and accept a loss, offsetting that loss by selling another call with a striking price of 40 and more time to go until expiration.

With this technique, the loss in the original call can be replaced by the premium in the new call. With more time to go until expiration, the net cash difference is in your favor. This technique depends on time value to make it profitable. In some cases, the net difference will be minimal or may even cost money. However, considering you will be picking up an extra five points in the striking price by avoiding exercise, you can afford a loss in the roll up as long as it does not exceed that five-point difference.

Tip: Rolling techniques can help you to maximize option returns without going through exercise, most of the time. But the wise seller is always prepared to give up shares. That is the nature of selling options.

Get your Momentum Stock Trading System and sign up for my free weekly online trading system newsletter here at: http://www.stressfreetrading.com

The Secret Of Making Money In The Stock Market

You may have wondered if there are people out there who consistently make money from the stock market. And yes, there are people out there who are consistently making money from the stock market because if they were not making money from market they would not be there and the markets would not be there too. These people are no smarter than you. They do not work any harder and neither are they lucky than you.

But, unlike you, they never seem to worry about having money because they know one or two secrets of making money in the stock market. You see most people miss the big idea here. They think it takes a lot of money to make a lot of money. But that is not how it is done. The idea is to make pennies consistently and to use them to build vast personal fortunes. The stock market is a proven wealth builder and can and should benefit all participants. It is only fair that each one of us should be entitled to a piece of the action.

One thing these traders know is that the market is not an issue of trial and error but a fully quantifiable market by any fundamental Mathematics. You see, when we went to school we learn about the Standard Deviation in probability and statistics. This Standard Deviation is Mathematics and is quantifiable in modern science. Standard deviation was introduced by Mathematician Karl Pearson in 1893 although the idea was by then nearly a century old. This is the single most important idea that should explains all those mysteries, myths and legends you hear of in stock market.

Everything on this planet has properties and, or, characteristics. A stock, just like you and me, has properties and these properties are quantified by calculating the Standard Deviation of the stock. It varies from stock to stock. Our brains are lazy and what we can not understand we turn to astrology which gives our brains a rest. Rather than use planets in signs of the zodiac and financial astrology, or imagining of the latest rumors, invest that time in the study of probability and statistics. If its not you to study, who should? Probability and Statistics is that study that has to do with tossing a coin to get a tail or a head. And as simple as it may sound, tossing a coin and getting a head for only two consecutive times is an extremely very difficulty thing contrary to what our lazy brains would want us to believe.

Standard Deviation is all about vibrations. Vibrations is like in music, vibrations in a string, water vibrations, earthquake vibrations, light and electromagnetic vibrations. The stock market is like vibrations too. For the price to move it must vibrate. The stock spends a lot of time vibrating in a neutral sideway range which unfortunately we do not like. We want the stock to go to the roof the next day after we have bought it. Vibrations are waves. Waves have crests and troughs and travels from one price to another. One crest is often followed by a second crest which is followed by a third crest and so on and so forth. Every crest is separated by a trough to create an alternating pattern of crest and troughs.

Like a bouncing tennis ball, a lower bounce than the previous bounce means the ball is coming to a halt. In the stock market, strength is quantified by series of crests where each crest exceeds the highest point of the previous crest and weakness by series of troughs where each trough goes lower than the lowest point of the previous trough.

People out there will tell you to trade in the direction of trend and they go further to say getting the trend is easy : do this and that. Contrary to the believe that determining the stock's trend is easy, in real time this is very difficulty and you can not have a probability of 100%, otherwise each one of us would be a winner in the market. Some investment advisers and the media are either oblivious and always bullish or immoral, merely giving the public what it wants. It s only a question of, is it this group of stocks or that group, this sector or that sector?

Back to crests and troughs. Whenever two crests meet up with one another they produce a bigger crest which is constructive, and, whenever a crest and a trough meet one another they tend to cancel each other producing a smaller trough or crest which is destructive. If you have ever wondered why carpenters saw the wood in the directions of the grains rather than up against the grains, wonder no more - these guys find it easier and the bundles they produce are sliced clearly leaving a smooth surface with minimum defects.

A bigger crest or trough is made up of smaller troughs and crests. How many of the smaller ones makes the bigger trough and crest is the puzzle that will make our lazy brains consult astrology. Lets leave that as it is because the market moves yoyo, so we comfort ourselves.

The real forces that move the markets are the moving averages. They are a measure of accumulation of strength and weakness over time due to news, economic growth reports, manipulation, fear and greed. There are many moving averages just as there are different types of traders. It is through the dynamics of the moving averages that there are crests and troughs. The bad thing about these moving averages is that they only tell us about what happened rather than what is happing.

One of the most successful trading tool since time immemorial is multiple moving averages crossover, and the acceleration in all averages is either positive in all averages or negative in all averages that you are using. If the acceleration in averages is positive, you go long, and if the acceleration is negative, you go short. This really is multiple time frame where you trade using the shorter trend but only if the longer trend supports it.

Good trading requires you to have safety measures upfront. Always make sure that every trading position that you open has a corresponding stop loss order, repeat, every position that you open has a corresponding stop loss order. I can repeat this until breakfast tomorrow. Trading without stop loss orders is like driving an automobile with faulty breaking system. Every now and then check to see if your stop loss orders are still active. If your broker's system fails, when it come back it may come without your stop loss orders. These stops are not free. It is among those fees that should keep your broker in business and you should grandly pay him even if your stops are rarely used. And why not? And talking about brokers, get yourself a good and inexpensive broker. There are many out there. A broker who charges more than $1.0 per 100 shares of stock is expensive and if you are paying more than that, then you will develop fear of exiting trades as you contemplates the broker's commission you are to incur. A good broker should embrace modern technology and you should promote them because if its not you, then who? And never get married into certain stocks. A company and its stock are two very different things. A stock that is not making money for you is not a thing. Throw it to the dogs.

The Author's website The Secret of Making Money in the Stock Market is designed to help beginners and average traders make money in the Stock Market. In view of the above I have considered only proven mathematical logics. I now shall invite you to join me here as I attempt to intermarry all these logics and predict profitable market directions with Precision. And if you have been wondering if there are people out there who consistently make money from the stock market, wonder no more.

Selling Uncovered Calls - Part 2

You will need approval in advance from your brokerage firm before you will be allowed to sell calls. Each firm is required to ensure that you understand the risks involved, that you fully understand the options market, and that you have adequate equity and income to undertake those risks.

You will not be allowed to write an unlimited number of naked calls. The potential losses, both to you and to the brokerage firm, place natural limits on this activity. Everyone who wants to sell calls is required to sign a document acknowledging the risks and stating that they understand those risks. In part, this statement includes the following:

Special Statement for Uncovered Option Writers

There are special risks associated with uncovered option writing which expose the investor to potentially significant loss. Therefore, this type of strategy may not be suitable for all customers approved for options transactions.

1. The potential loss of uncovered call writing is unlimited. The writer of an uncovered call is in an extremely risky position, and may incur large losses if the value of the underlying instrument increases above the exercise price.

2. As with writing uncovered calls, the risk of writing uncovered put options is substantial. The writer of an uncovered put option bears a risk of loss if the value of the underlying instrument declines below the exercise price. Such loss could be substantial if there is a significant decline in the value of the underlying instrument.

3. Uncovered option writing is thus suitable only for the knowledgeable investor who understands the risks, has the financial capacity and willingness to incur potentially substantial losses, and has sufficient liquid assets to meet applicable margin requirements. In this regard, if the value of the underlying instrument moves against an uncovered writer's options position, the investor's broker may request significant additional margin payments. If an investor does not make such margin payments, the broker may liquidate stock or options positions in the investor's account, with little or no prior notice in accordance with the investor's margin agreement.

Get your Momentum Stock Trading System and sign up for my free weekly online trading system newsletter here at: http://www.stressfreetrading.com

Day Trading the Emini - Training Ground For Big Contracts

In 1997 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange created a new financial instrument known as the emini futures contract. It started off small but now is a fully mature market with excellent liquidity.

Now in 2005, the emini futures contract is an investment vehicle of choice, for beginning and experienced futures traders the world over.

In this introductory article, I just want to have a look at why that is. You see for an investment vehicle to gain wide appeal it has to have a few characteristics.

It needs to be accessible to a wide public. The emini is such a vehicle. The minimum you need is around $500 to get started, instead of $5000 or more with regular futures.

It needs to be liquid, in other words there must be enough buyers to buy when you want to sell and sellers to sell when you want to buy.

The emini is very liquid.

There needs to be a significant profit. The structure of a well traded account is such that with a small amount of start-up capital very significant profits can be made, enough actually to trade for a living.

The taxation situation is very advantageous, in many jurisdictions only being capital gains tax - you should always check with a professional before making an investment decision.

The lifestyle of a successful emini futures trader can be very comfortable, an hour or so of trading in the morning and that's it for the day. It's possible to make $500 or $1000 in an hour or so depending upon how many contracts you trade. It's also possible to lose just as much, which is my obligatory sobering statement to any gamblers out there.

It's this lifestyle that gives it such appeal to people like you and me.

  • Freedom from the man
  • Working from home
  • Spending more time with the family

But that is the positive. On the dark side, with futures and emini futures there is financial risk, so this is not something that one goes into untrained.

That would merely be gambling. Successful investing, is not so much about being right or wrong or the roll of the dice, but about money management, patience and discipline to following a system. If you are a gambler then stay away from futures, for you will surely lose and can lose big.

If you are willing to learn and trade a system, and utilise money management principles then you can join the ranks of an group of successful traders are making significant profits from home.

Graeme Sprigge is the webmaster of emini-courses.com, a site which presents and reviews more than ten quality emini day trading courses and systems. Graeme has a keen interest in investing in options, shares and futures trading. Visit emini-courses.com to get an eye-opening free ebook, The Truth about Day Trading

Gann His Trading Method's Made Millions Learn Them For a Profit Edge

W D Gann is one of the most famous traders of all time and his unique methods helped him make a fortune of around $50.00 million and best of all he wrote and recorded the way he did it, so anyone can have access to his trading strategy and aplly it for profit.

Trading is one of the ways that small traders can start with small stakes and build real wealth quickly.

The good news is everything about trading can be specifically learned and Gann outlined all his methods in writing for traders to profit from and enjoy today.

His methods are applicable to any financial market from forex to stocks to bonds so you can choose where to apply them, depending on the risk you wish to take.

Lets look at why you should study Gann and his methods of making money.

1. He Had a Track Record

Many e-book sellers or traders sell information but its worthless they dont trade it themselves and simply make up a track record.

Gann made money and his track record and invited newspapers and journalists to track his trades such was his confidence in how to make money.

2. Gann and the Law of the Market Movement

Gann pointed out quite rightly, that market prices depended on humans and that their psychology was constant Because human nature was constant this nature would show up in repetitive price patterns that could be traded for profit

Gann was a technical trader and like all charts believed that what happened in the past would happen again and the key to making profits was to look for recurring price patterns to put the odds in his favor

3. Ganns method
The method was based upon several concepts and one revolutionary which was his concept of price and time.

Gann believed that important price movements occurred when price and time converged.

If price and time however were in synch or did not converge, then time was more important than price.

Time for Gann was the ultimate indicator for seeking clues to price direction.

As he once said:

"Just remember one thing, whatever has happened in the past in the stock market and Wall Street will happen again."

Advances in bull markets will come in the future, and panics will come in the future, just as they have in the past. This is the working out of a natural law"

Gann had many components of his trading plan and his work with the Fibonacci number sequence and Gann angles were legendary.

5. Learning Ganns Methods

If you have never traded before you will have to make yourself familiar with the concepts of technical analysis and there is plenty of free material on the net.

Then simply buy is books and study them They take a little while to get to grips with and you will need to practice the method, but it will be time well spent.

When you have finished your study you will have a method that you can understand and apply with confidence which is the key to trading with discipline and you know it is based on sound logic as it made real dollars in real trading.

Gann has been dead for over half a century, yet savvy traders all around the world are still building wealth applying his unique and proven methods.

GRAB 3 X FREE TRADER & FREE TRADER PROFITS NEWSLETTER

On all aspects of becoming a profitable trader including features, downloads and some critical FREE Trader PDF's and more FREE Forex Education visit our website at http://www.net-planet.org/index.html

Forex Strategies

Forex strategies are essential for a forex trader to profit from the market. Forex trading strategies make a trader more sophisticated and confident by helping him in making right calculations about the market. In a market with always changing exchange rates it is foolishness to trade hysterically by just following the emotions or advices from unreliable sources.

There are lots of forex trading strategies followed by forex traders. They can be broadly classified in to two type of strategies are profit maximizing strategies and risk minimizing strategies. The strategy differs with individuals as each trader has unique needs and has unique trading abilities. A trader must design a forex trading strategy according to many factors such as his or her initial investment, account size, trading ability, risk tolerance, currency pairs trading, geographical limitations/advantages, the broker to which he is affiliated, the trading system he/she uses, the profit goal (short-term profit or long-term profit), etc.

The most followed forex profit maximizing strategy is the leverage. Leverage allows forex traders to trade with more funds than in his or her account. The leverages are provided by the forex brokers to their clients. The usual leverage is 100:1 i.e., for $1 in account the trader can borrow $100 from his broker. Day traders get much more leverage than other traders and the ratio leverage differ with brokers and also with the account minimum, type of contract trading etc.

The most popular forex risk minimizing strategy is the stop loss order. Stop loss orders help traders to limit their loss by stopping a trade at a preset price. Forex trading systems allows traders to set their stop loss order prices. One related strategy is the trailing stop losses, which are proportional stop loss prices that come into play only when the prices are falling. There are also many other types of stop loss orders available which mainly depends on the broker to which the trader is affiliated to.

One another related strategy is the automated order entry. Automated order entry enables a trader to enter into a trade at a preset price rate automatically. The trader can set the price at his trading platform. Automated order entry methods help traders to enter the market at most favorable time. Apart from these strategies forex traders can use forex futures and forex options to cover the loss and well as to cover the profit. These contracts help forex traders to buy or sell currencies at a predetermined rate at a point of time in future.

Apart from these trading strategies, forex trader follow many other strategies for choosing currency pairs, trading hours, entrance and exit prices etc. Irrespective of the type of the strategy, all forex strategies involve risks. The success of a forex strategy depends on many factors like the market condition and the discipline of the trader.

Praveen Ortec works for NobleTrading.com, an Online Forex Trading Broker offering free advanced Forex Trading System and forex trading information through Stock and Forex Market Trading Blogs.