And they wonder why people hate them



  • Friday: Blackberry warns investors that they expect abysmal sales numbers and a huge loss. Stock drops from $10 to $8.25.

    Monday: Blackberry announces a deal with Fairfax to go private, with an offer of $9 per share.

    This is not even subtle.



  • hashtag misleading graphs



  • The old 'bad news on a Friday' trick that started with politicians (better yet, it's done over a long holiday weekend or around Christmas). Then when they report the good news of the offer on Monday, it looks they're making out on the deal by selling for above the stock price.



  • @Ben L. said:

    hashtag misleading graphs

    How is that misleading? That's exactly what happened.


  • Considered Harmful

    Wouldn't it be great if the shareholders refused to sell?



  • @Ronald said:

    @Ben L. said:
    hashtag misleading graphs

    How is that misleading? That's exactly what happened.

    Look at the Y-axis...



  • @pnieuwkamp said:

    @Ronald said:
    @Ben L. said:
    hashtag misleading graphs

    How is that misleading? That's exactly what happened.

    Look at the Y-axis...

    And?  Oh, are you complaining that the Y axis doesn't have 0 as the bottom?



  • @locallunatic said:

    And?  Oh, are you complaining that the Y axis doesn't have 0 as the bottom?
    Astute! If only your social skills were in the same league.

     



  • @Ronald said:

    This is not even subtle.
    They probably didn't know about this deal on Friday. Can happen. It's only a couple of billion. Fairfax's CEO probably read the news of the bad results on Saturday morning, and thought: there's a poor chum, let's give 'm a hand and all; it'll be splendid. Gave Blackberry a call around 12, discussed some minor details, and well, golly, by then it was late Saturday afternoon, too late for the press. On Sunday you don't do such things, and so they waited until Monday morning.

    Perfectly reasonable.

     



  • @TGV said:

    @locallunatic said:

    And?  Oh, are you complaining that the Y axis doesn't have 0 as the bottom?
    Astute! If only your social skills were in the same league.

    Sorry, I'm just constantly surprised by how innumerate people seem to be on this board.



  • @TGV said:

    @Ronald said:

    This is not even subtle.
    They probably didn't know about this deal on Friday. Can happen. It's only a couple of billion. Fairfax's CEO probably read the news of the bad results on Saturday morning, and thought: there's a poor chum, let's give 'm a hand and all; it'll be splendid. Gave Blackberry a call around 12, discussed some minor details, and well, golly, by then it was late Saturday afternoon, too late for the press. On Sunday you don't do such things, and so they waited until Monday morning.

    Perfectly reasonable.

     

    "Only a couple of billion"... There is nothing I find more irritating than morons talking casually of huge amounts of money like you just did. Anyways I already covered this idiotic scenario with the "Filed under: That was a busy weekend" on my initial post.

    Now go back to the water cooler to impress interns with your "business acumen" because it does not work here.



  • @pnieuwkamp said:

    @Ronald said:
    @Ben L. said:
    hashtag misleading graphs

    How is that misleading? That's exactly what happened.

    Look at the Y-axis...

    That's a Yahoo! Finance chart. That's how it works, it only shows variation of a share price during trading days. Very often there is a lot of action going on in after-hour trading, that explains why there is sometimes a gap between closing one day and opening the next. There is nothing misleading in the chart, it shows exactly the impact of the two different news on the share price.

    If you look at the Google Finance chart you will see it's the same principle, but it's more interesting as they actually pin news items to the timeline.



  • I agree that the chart's axes are misleading, all that would be needed for clarity are those little squiggles that show the axis is non-continguous.  



  • The axis are not misleading in the slightest, the values are clearly printed on the there, so there is no confusion about when it starts and ends. It is also a continuous graph, any gap in the X-axis is due to how markets work with open and closing times and the fact that values can change after hours.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Sarcarsm said:

    The axis are not misleading in the slightest, the values are clearly printed on the there, so there is no confusion about when it starts and ends.
     

    Now keep in mind Roland can't control,
    when the axis begins and ends.

    He'll have to keep his sanity,
    With the help of his forum friends.



  • @Ronald said:

    @pnieuwkamp said:
    @Ronald said:
    @Ben L. said:
    hashtag misleading graphs

    How is that misleading? That's exactly what happened.

    Look at the Y-axis...

    That's a Yahoo! Finance chart. That's how it works, it only shows variation of a share price during trading days. Very often there is a lot of action going on in after-hour trading, that explains why there is sometimes a gap between closing one day and opening the next. There is nothing misleading in the chart, it shows exactly the impact of the two different news on the share price.

    If you look at the Google Finance chart you will see it's the same principle, but it's more interesting as they actually pin news items to the timeline.



    He said "Y" not "X". Basically, he's saying that by starting the Y-axis from 8 instead of 0, it makes a moderate 20% dip in stock price appear to be an almost catastrophic loss in value. I mean, 20% is still pretty shitty, but it's not the death-knell that the graph looks like if you don't pay close attention to the number.

     



  • @Snooder said:

    @Ronald said:

    @pnieuwkamp said:
    @Ronald said:
    @Ben L. said:
    hashtag misleading graphs

    How is that misleading? That's exactly what happened.

    Look at the Y-axis...

    That's a Yahoo! Finance chart. That's how it works, it only shows variation of a share price during trading days. Very often there is a lot of action going on in after-hour trading, that explains why there is sometimes a gap between closing one day and opening the next. There is nothing misleading in the chart, it shows exactly the impact of the two different news on the share price.

    If you look at the Google Finance chart you will see it's the same principle, but it's more interesting as they actually pin news items to the timeline.



    He said "Y" not "X". Basically, he's saying that by starting the Y-axis from 8 instead of 0, it makes a moderate 20% dip in stock price appear to be an almost catastrophic loss in value. I mean, 20% is still pretty shitty, but it's not the death-knell that the graph looks like if you don't pay close attention to the number.

     

    The Y axis goes from the lower price to the higher price within the reference period (with a small buffer on each end) and the X axis goes from the earliest time/date to the latest time/date of that period. That's how it works, and there is no way around it; think about expensive shares like BRK-A. If you have to start the axis at zero that chart would take a lot of space... Now is that $3,500 drop a death-knell? Not when the share price is that high, yet the chart conveys the activity on that ticker truthfully, and having a meaningless zero and a meaningless break symbol in the axis would serve no purpose at all as it would not change the shape or numbers.

    Anyone being offended by the missing 0 and/or the missing break symbol should keep this discussion in mind for the next time someone tells them that they can't see the big picture and call them nitpickers.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @Sarcarsm said:

    The axis are not misleading in the slightest, the values are clearly printed on the there, so there is no confusion about when it starts and ends.
     

    Now keep in mind Roland can't control,
    when the axis begins and ends.

    He'll have to keep his sanity,
    With the help of his forum friends.

    I don't have friends, I have fans. Look at the counter in my signature!



  • @pnieuwkamp said:

    Look at the Y-axis...

    @_leonardo_ said:

    I agree that the chart's axes are misleading, all that would be needed for clarity are those little squiggles that show the axis is non-continguous.

    Is this the first time you two have seen a stock price graph? I can't think of a single finance site that doesn't have the price axis start from somewhere close to the min value. It's the norm rather than the exception.



  • @Ronald said:

    @TGV said:

    @Ronald said:

    This is not even subtle.
    They probably didn't know about this deal on Friday. Can happen. It's only a couple of billion. Fairfax's CEO probably read the news of the bad results on Saturday morning, and thought: there's a poor chum, let's give 'm a hand and all; it'll be splendid. Gave Blackberry a call around 12, discussed some minor details, and well, golly, by then it was late Saturday afternoon, too late for the press. On Sunday you don't do such things, and so they waited until Monday morning.

    Perfectly reasonable.

     

    "Only a couple of billion"... There is nothing I find more irritating than morons talking casually of huge amounts of money like you just did. Anyways I already covered this idiotic scenario with the "Filed under: That was a busy weekend" on my initial post.

    Now go back to the water cooler to impress interns with your "business acumen" because it does not work here.

    "only a couple billion", "there's a poor chum", "it'll be splendid", "and well, golly", "Perfectly reasonable"... This is about as obviously sarcastic as it's possible to be without including xml tags.



  • @Stormtalons said:

    @Ronald said:
    @TGV said:

    @Ronald said:

    This is not even subtle.
    They probably didn't know about this deal on Friday. Can happen. It's only a couple of billion. Fairfax's CEO probably read the news of the bad results on Saturday morning, and thought: there's a poor chum, let's give 'm a hand and all; it'll be splendid. Gave Blackberry a call around 12, discussed some minor details, and well, golly, by then it was late Saturday afternoon, too late for the press. On Sunday you don't do such things, and so they waited until Monday morning.

    Perfectly reasonable.

     

    "Only a couple of billion"... There is nothing I find more irritating than morons talking casually of huge amounts of money like you just did. Anyways I already covered this idiotic scenario with the "Filed under: That was a busy weekend" on my initial post.

    Now go back to the water cooler to impress interns with your "business acumen" because it does not work here.

    "only a couple billion", "there's a poor chum", "it'll be splendid", "and well, golly", "Perfectly reasonable"... This is about as obviously sarcastic as it's possible to be without including xml tags.

    If that was sarcastic then it needed the xml tags because that's not at all how I read it. For a sarcasm to hit the sweet spot you need a specific bitter tone otherwise it can be difficult to spot who is sarcastic and who is an idiot, especially if in the same thread some people are getting their panties in bunch because there is no zero on a price chart.

    Edit: I just noticed that this was your first post. Well done!*

    * see the difference, THAT is sarcastic.



  • @Ronald said:

    If that was sarcastic then it needed the xml tags because that's not at all how I read it. For a sarcasm to hit the sweet spot you need a specific bitter tone otherwise it can be difficult to spot who is sarcastic and who is an idiot, especially if in the same thread some people are getting their panties in bunch because there is no zero on a price chart.

    Edit: I just noticed that this was your first post. Well done!*

    * see the difference, THAT is sarcastic.

    Yeah, I signed up just for that. People shouldn't be unfairly blamed for others' stupidity, though. For what it's worth, I was incredulous that so many people had such a hard time reading a stock chart as well, especially after the reasoning for it was pointed out.



  • @Ronald said:

    If that was sarcastic then it needed the xml tags because that's not at all how I read it. For a sarcasm to hit the sweet spot you need a specific bitter tone...

    a) It was ironic.

    b) Sarcasm is acid, not bitter.

    c) I forgot that Ronald was the yard stick of all things human.

     



  • @Stormtalons said:

    For what it's worth, I was incredulous that so many people had such a hard time reading a stock chart as well, especially after the reasoning for it was pointed out.

    I don't think anyone said that they found it hard to read the chart: rather that it was misleading. In fact, chopping off the y-axis is one of the subjects covered in the classic book How to Lie with Statistics.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @pjt33 said:

    @Stormtalons said:
    For what it's worth, I was incredulous that so many people had such a hard time reading a stock chart as well, especially after the reasoning for it was pointed out.

    I don't think anyone said that they found it hard to read the chart: rather that it was misleading. In fact, chopping off the y-axis is one of the subjects covered in the classic book How to Lie with Statistics.

    But OTOH, as already pointed out, including zero would be misleading about the share change, because often you couldn't really see what it was doing, which was actually a critical aspect of this WTF. No one wants to squint at the graph to figure it out, but it tells a nice story that's easy to see. Also, since this is the convention, only pedantic dickweeds think this is misleading. Everyone else uses their amazing powers of reading to look at the bounds of the axes. By the same reasoning, the chart is misleading because the X axis doesn't go all the way back to the stock's IPO.

    Admit it, you guys are envious of mikeTheLiar's status as the worst of the worst. You'll have to do a lot worse than this bush league pedantic dickweedery to take that title.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    Everyone else uses their amazing powers of reading to look at the bounds of the axes.
    On here maybe, but you'd be surprised how many members of the general public don't, and assume the Y origin starts at zero. Hence the chapter in the book.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @PJH said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Everyone else uses their amazing powers of reading to look at the bounds of the axes.
    On here maybe, but you'd be surprised how many members of the general public don't, and assume the Y origin starts at zero. Hence the chapter in the book.

    No, I wouldn't be surprised at all. And the book makes good points, but I'm also not surprised at the people here who don't understand the points made in the book, either. This reminds me of something I read recently. There's a company whose SEC filings are...colorful, and their most recent filing has a gem that applies to the pedantic dickweedery of this thread:

    @Expeditors International 8-K said:

    Many years ago in this forum, we referred obliquely, as part of a very long and detailed response about another matter, to our high school mathematics teacher…the venerable and avuncular Mr. Beck…who taught us a lesson at the time that was most profound. Like most profound lessons, it has found numerous applications in the 40+ years since we were first exposed to it.

    One day in a class on factoring equations, Mr. Beck wrote the following fraction on the board:

    16
    64

    Mr. Beck, in one fell swoop of his chalk, “reduced” this fraction to its lowest fractional equivalent by canceling the 6's in both the numerator and the denominator in the following fashion…something we'd never seen before. We were “uber impressed”…we knew we'd just been taught something new…we really didn't understand it, but it looked cool and it appeared to us to be very unique and would have very powerful potential.

    As we sat in awe, Mr. Beck then taught the real lesson for the day when he pointed out that this was a very reliable technique that would work EVERYTIME. He continued by instructing us as to the kind of scrutiny to which the word EVERYTIME should be subjected. EVERTIME did not mean anytime you have a fraction with the same number in the numerator and the denominator…EVERYTIME meant EVERYTIME you had a fraction of:

    16
    64

    In other words, be careful of applying techniques universally just because you've had one successful experience that upon honest self-reflection, you probably don't completely understand…even though you completely loved the outcome.



  • @boomzilla said:

    But OTOH, as already pointed out, including zero would be misleading about the share change, because often you couldn't really see what it was doing...
    If the Y-axis starts at 0, the graph is a couple of hundred pixels high, and you can't see what it is doing, then not much has happened. In this case, the drop is 10%, so it would be clearly visible, while not looking like an enormous difference at first glance. However, people that look regularly at such graphs know where the axes start, and it helps them see the speed and rate of change, which would indeed be difficult to see in a full graph.

    So it all depends.

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @TGV said:

    If the Y-axis starts at 0, the graph is a couple of hundred pixels high, and you can't see what it is doing, then not much has happened.

    This is true if you ignored the news portion of the post or were not smart enough to understand it.

    @TGV said:

    So it all depends.

    Exactly. And in this case, TRWTF is people who think the axes are misleading for this story when, in fact, they make it easy to follow and to see the WTF.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Also, since this is the convention, only pedantic dickweeds think this is misleading.
    “Only lieing liars who lie start a Y axis at anything other than 0” sounds like the mathematics equivalent of “never use goto because some guy said it was considered harmful, once.”



  • @boomzilla said:

    @TGV said:
    If the Y-axis starts at 0, the graph is a couple of hundred pixels high, and you can't see what it is doing, then not much has happened.

    This is true if you ignored the news portion of the post or were not smart enough to understand it.

    I think the graph would have been of extremely little interest in the scenario I described, as the drop would have been 1% or less. It still would have been a possibly fraudulous attempt to influence the stock price, but with less actual damage, and Ronald would not have posted the graph.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @TGV said:

    I think the graph would have been of extremely little interest in the scenario I described, as the drop would have been 1% or less. It still would have been a possibly fraudulous attempt to influence the stock price, but with less actual damage, and Ronald would not have posted the graph.

    If you're interested in the 1% vs the play around $9 then you've missed the point. Are you being obtuse on purpose? To draw the graph the way Ben L. suggested would make it misleading in a more important way than what his concern troll tries to say. It's true that Ronald probably wouldn't have posted a retarded graph that didn't show the possible manipulation, and a pure text description would have had less impact.

    It's like you guys are approaching this from a point of view of "How to bore readers and miss the point" more than "How to lie with statistics."


  • Considered Harmful

    FWIW I forwarded this graphic to a couple of my (non-coder, non-pedantic-dickweed) coworkers, and they grasped its meaning instantly.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    FWIW I forwarded this graphic to a couple of my (non-coder, non-pedantic-dickweed) coworkers, and they gasped instantly.

    PDTFY.



  • The important to grasp here is that there is a difference between something that is intentionally misleading, and something that unintentionally misleading. Any graph that starts at 0 is unintentionally misleading to those who aren't versed in the industry or don't regularly view stock market charts. In this case, it's not too bad because a 20% stock price drop is still fairly drastic, but it can get pretty bad when we have a minimum of $125 and a maximum of $127, but the graph takes up the entire page and looks like a horrendous deficit to a casual reader. Nobody is saying that people who make stock market graphs are deliberately trying to bilk anyone. Just that, for the edification of those who aren't so versed, it's a good idea to clearly label such graphs so that they don't misread it and get the wrong idea.



  • @Snooder said:

    Just that, for the edification of those who aren't so versed, it's a good idea to clearly label such graphs so that they don't misread it and get the wrong idea.

    That label would be similar to the "Not for human consumption" warning on poison rat containers. If someone is too narrow-minded to understand a chart that has obvious numbers and periods, then someone should sue their parents for raising a moron.



  • @TGV said:

    @boomzilla said:

    But OTOH, as already pointed out, including zero would be misleading about the share change, because often you couldn't really see what it was doing...
    If the Y-axis starts at 0, the graph is a couple of hundred pixels high, and you can't see what it is doing, then not much has happened. In this case, the drop is 10%, so it would be clearly visible, while not looking like an enormous difference at first glance. However, people that look regularly at such graphs know where the axes start, and it helps them see the speed and rate of change, which would indeed be difficult to see in a full graph.

    So it all depends.

     

    Totally ignoring the fact that most money is mad on "penny changes" (or even smaller) of stocks with prices that can be well in excess of $100.... A %0.01 change can make or break most people total net worth.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @TheCPUWizard said:

    Totally ignoring the fact that most money is mad on "penny changes" (or even smaller) of stocks with prices that can be well in excess of $100.... A %0.01 change can make or break most people total net worth.

    Yeah, but they read a BOOK.

    Though I doubt that sort of change is going to make or many people's net worth, the changes are important. Especially when you're talking about something like, say, the offer price of a deal to go private. Well, it's important, unless you've read that BOOK.



  • Actually fuck, I take what I said back. Ben L. is an idiot.

    I thought the graphic was from a news source, not that Ronald made it personally just to illustrate the point. It works well enough for that purpose.

     



  • @Snooder said:


    He said "Y" not "X". Basically, he's saying that by starting the Y-axis from 8 instead of 0, it makes a moderate 20% dip in stock price appear to be an almost catastrophic loss in value. I mean, 20% is still pretty shitty, but it's not the death-knell that the graph looks like if you don't pay close attention to the number.

     

     

    exactly this is the issue with this graph. Images are very good for manipulation and this is a prime example as it seems to make what is written in the ext much worse than it actually is.

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @beginner_ said:

    @Snooder said:

    He said "Y" not "X". Basically, he's saying that by starting the Y-axis from 8 instead of 0, it makes a moderate 20% dip in stock price appear to be an almost catastrophic loss in value. I mean, 20% is still pretty shitty, but it's not the death-knell that the graph looks like if you don't pay close attention to the number.

    exactly this is the issue with this graph. Images are very good for manipulation and this is a prime example as it seems to make what is written in the ext much worse than it actually is.

    What graph and what text are you guys looking at? Do you people know anything about stocks? What do you think TRWTF is here?



  • @boomzilla said:

    What graph and what text are you guys looking at? Do you people know anything about stocks? What do you think TRWTF is here?

    Hell, my worst grade in college was for the economics course, I don't do any stock trading or investment, and even I know that stock proce charts start from about the minimum value instead of zero simply by virtue of having seen them everywhere. You'd have to be damned illiterate to never have come across any before seeing one on a TDWTF thread.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Arnavion said:

    @boomzilla said:
    What graph and what text are you guys looking at? Do you people know anything about stocks? What do you think TRWTF is here?

    Hell, my worst grade in college was for the economics course, I don't do any stock trading or investment, and even I know that stock proce charts start from about the minimum value instead of zero simply by virtue of having seen them everywhere. You'd have to be damned illiterate to never have come across any before seeing one on a TDWTF thread.

    Right. But the point of the post was that they may have manipulated the price based on the knowledge of an offer of $9 per share (I suspect the reality of the situation is much more complex, but it makes for an amusing post).

    So simpletons who want to see the full magnitude of the price are arguing for a chart that makes it more difficult to see the point of the story. Some people would call that misleading. People who read a book about lying about statistics but didn't really understand it call it clarifying.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Though I doubt that sort of change is going to make or many people's net worth, the changes are important. Especially when you're talking about something like, say, the offer price of a deal to go private. Well, it's important, unless you've read that BOOK.

     

    Consider that "Day traders" will use leverage and trade tens of millions of shares per day, often is 1/8 cent changes; hopefully making tens of thousands of dollars on a single trade. Now consider that many people have a net worth (their assets minus their debts) that can be negative [how many people CANT sell their house, pay off their mortgages and walk away?] I will stand by my original point.



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    @boomzilla said:

    Though I doubt that sort of change is going to make or many people's net worth, the changes are important. Especially when you're talking about something like, say, the offer price of a deal to go private. Well, it's important, unless you've read that BOOK.

     

    Consider that "Day traders" will use leverage and trade tens of millions of shares per day, often is 1/8 cent changes; hopefully making tens of thousands of dollars on a single trade. Now consider that many people have a net worth (their assets minus their debts) that can be negative [how many people CANT sell their house, pay off their mortgages and walk away?] I will stand by my original point.



    Anyone who needs to use "Day Traders" to make a point about investment that isn't "boy are there a lot of gullible people out there" is automatically wrong. It's one thing to talk about quants and computerized trading systems. Day trading on the other hand is glorified gambling. At least in Vegas you'll get a free meal from the casino.

     



  • @Snooder said:

    @TheCPUWizard said:

    @boomzilla said:

    Though I doubt that sort of change is going to make or many people's net worth, the changes are important. Especially when you're talking about something like, say, the offer price of a deal to go private. Well, it's important, unless you've read that BOOK.

     

    Consider that "Day traders" will use leverage and trade tens of millions of shares per day, often is 1/8 cent changes; hopefully making tens of thousands of dollars on a single trade. Now consider that many people have a net worth (their assets minus their debts) that can be negative [how many people CANT sell their house, pay off their mortgages and walk away?] I will stand by my original point.



    Anyone who needs to use "Day Traders" to make a point about investment that isn't "boy are there a lot of gullible people out there" is automatically wrong. It's one thing to talk about quants and computerized trading systems. Day trading on the other hand is glorified gambling. At least in Vegas you'll get a free meal from the casino.

    I was not responding to "a lot of gullible people out there"...that should be self evident. I was responding specifically to the impact a very small change in stock prices could have for certain types of investors (Day Traders were one of the simplest - and I agree on Gambling, thought my percentages in the market are better than in Vegas, but not as good as other Casino venues).


  • Considered Harmful

    @TheCPUWizard said:

    Now consider that many people have a net worth (their assets minus their debts) that can be negative [how many people CANT sell their house, pay off their mortgages and walk away?]

    So, to be clear, when you said "most people['s] total net worth" you were referring to a value ≈ $0.00.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @TheCPUWizard said:
    Now consider that many people have a net worth (their assets minus their debts) that can be negative [how many people CANT sell their house, pay off their mortgages and walk away?]
    So, to be clear, when you said "most people['s] total net worth" you were referring to a value ≈ $0.00.

    Not quite, though there are plenty of them and they do impact the numbers. I am traveling (posting from airport), and dont have the numbers, but IIRC for the USA (circa 2011) the median net worth per houshold was under $50K with a median size of 3.something people - so that would (very roughly) be about $15K per capita.



  • @Snooder said:

    Day trading on the other hand is glorified gambling. At least in Vegas you'll get a free meal from the casino.

     

    Casinos don't give out free meals to gamblers, unless you win *a lot* of money. Depending on what section you play you will get free drinks (coffee or watered-down cocktails in slots, anything you want in high-limit blackjack tables) but you usually tip the girl a lot more than what you would pay for the same drink at the bar.

    Players rewards is not like stuff you see in movies. It's a sad and disgusting trade that is very similar to using coupons at the grocery store. Gamblers use their card when they gamble (on machines or at the tables), then go to an ATM-like kiosk, scan the card to see how many points they have, and printout whatever reward they are entitled to. And it's not that impressive. To give you an idea: for every $1 you gamble you typically get 3 points, and for every 1000 points you accumulate you get a $1 reward (cash back, voucher, gift card, etc). So to get a $25 free meal you need to gamble more than $8000. (You usually use your gains to gamble some more so it's not $8000 that comes out of your pockets, but still).

    High rollers are burning a lot more money than people expect. Go to any mid-range blackjack tables, you will get $50 minimum bets; this means that if you are not lucky you can easily blow $1000 in 15 minutes or less. And $50 bets are not high-limit tables; while you can usually get in the nice section if you play $100 per hand you will be the small fish in the pond. You have to go to the $200 or $500 tables to get any kind of attention from decent hookers (or a friendly nod from the pit boss).



  • @TGV said:

    @Ronald said:

    This is not even subtle.
    They probably didn't know about this deal on Friday. Can happen. It's only a couple of billion. Fairfax's CEO probably read the news of the bad results on Saturday morning, and thought: there's a poor chum, let's give 'm a hand and all; it'll be splendid. Gave Blackberry a call around 12, discussed some minor details, and well, golly, by then it was late Saturday afternoon, too late for the press. On Sunday you don't do such things, and so they waited until Monday morning.

    Perfectly reasonable.

     

    Sure, that may sound reasonable... but it is unlikely as hell. obviously you don't own a company; nor ever had.

    A deal like that isn't put together over a weekend. It takes a few months and a LOT of sniffing around before an offer is made.

    A more "reasonable" view of things is that sometime prior to the Friday in question (could be anywhere from a week to a month?) Fairfax made an offer to the board. The board thought it was the best thing to do and wasn't sure how to get this announced in a way to make people actually want to sell. A few hand ringing and soul searching days later and they decide to throw a bomb: "results will be poor". The usual sell off ensues and the chart shows the rest.


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