I’m still battling the flu. Feeling slightly better as I think the fever is gone. This is the second time I’m sick since arriving here late July which is more or less in line with the pattern I experienced when I first moved here. It reminded me an observation I made when I lived in New Zealand that in the 15 months or so that I lived there I was down with flu just once and even then it was quite mild. Nothing like the rather frequent knock-out flus you get in Asia (with Hong Kong being even worse than Singapore). I guess with all the travelling around here one gets exposed to more strains of flu while in isolated NZ where people hardly travel (in comparison) the flu situations is much better.

P.S. One might wonder why I am still trading and working while being sick, well I hardly ever take sick leave either for day jobs or trading unless I can’t raise myself out of bed. The reason being that had I not been working I’d probably be doing the same thing - spending most of my time in front of the screen.

It’s my last day in NZ. The packers came yesterday and everything is gone. A strong feeling of deja vu sets in. Just me in a big empty house, my laptop, a suitcase and a flight ticket for tomorrow morning. Different house, different laptop, different suitcase, different country but yet it’s all pretty much the same as all the other times I’ve moved (about 6 times).

I spent the day having lunch with a good friend and doing some shopping. I got some gift vouchers for a travel gear chainstore and bookshop. I picked up some extra socks and went back home, unwrapped them and threw a pair in the suitcase. Tried on the other pair. Fuck, too long. I double-checked the size I got - yep, that should be the right size, but it’s too long. Quite an appropriate end to my stay here, simply doesn’t fit.

Having issues with my ISP again. I wasn’t able to connect to IB’s TWS today. Strangely everything else seems to work fine like browsing and QCharts.

I tried trading off the web trader and got short PALM but chickened out and move the stop to BE which was hit later in the day.

Haha this was so funny..

Kiwis are looking for rugby, sheep and porn when they go online, although not necessarily in that order, says web search giant Google.

New Zealand tops the rankings for several searches compiled by the company for its Google Trends page, which tallies the number of web searches for a word by city and country and compares them with the overall number from that city or country. A top ranking means the area has the highest proportion of searchers looking for that word.

Kiwis rank first for searches for “rugby” and “sheep” and second for “porn”, just behind South Africa and ahead of Australia.

Our “She’ll be right” attitude may be just a sham, too, since New Zealanders also take first place for “happiness” and “misery”.

New Zealand beats all other countries, even the United States, in searches for “obesity” and “fat”, but is only sixth in searches for “diet”.

New Zealand punches above its weight in several categories, including first for “lesbian”, second for “ghosts” and third for “shag” and “blokes”.

But if the man drought exists, it is not clear on Google. New Zealand ranks second for “girlfriend” but eighth for “boyfriend”.

The original article.

If you remember, Telecom NZ has been hit with a deregulatory blow a couple of weeks ago. The share price dropped from 5.5 to 5. It was a very popular topic at work on that day and I discovered that a few people were still going to hold on. I don’t normally talk about stocks at work but I couldn’t resist offering people to ‘borrow’ some shares from them - as shorting is not allowed in (socialist) NZ. Unfortunately, no one agreed to. The share price has since lost another 10% or so and trades around the 4.57 mark. You can check out quotes on yahoo.

The Kiwi Dollar is taking a nose dive against a strengthening US Dollar. I was lucky to buy some USD last night (well maybe not just lucky) before it lost amost 2 cents in the past 24 hours. The interesting thing I noticed is that my bank, ASB Bank does not update their exchange rate after 5pm but lets ppl transact at whatever rate was determined at the end of day. Although this sounds like there might be a lucrative opportunity here, the gigantic spread of about 3.5 cents ensures ASB won’t be terribly worried about this.

Finally..

Telecom stock fell 6.9 percent after the government said the company will have to give rivals access to the so-called local loop, the copper wires that link telephone exchanges with homes and businesses. That allows rivals such as Australia’s Telstra Corp. to sell their own Internet and voice services rather than resell Telecom’s.

“This is very, very bad news for Telecom,” Graeme Woodbridge, an analyst at Commonwealth Securities Ltd. in Melbourne.

This is very, very good news for the majority of New Zealanders.

Communications Minister David Cunliffe released the results of a review into high-speed telecommunications at short notice today, saying he brought forward the announcement after learning that Telecom got a leaked copy of the report. He didn’t elaborate.

This, on the other hand, is very, very funny :)

Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand