Bannerless

Bannerless

By Carrie Vaughn (excerpt)

Enid requisitioned a solar car from the local committee and was able to take to the Coast Road the next day. The bureaucratic machinery was in motion on all the rest of it. Committeeman Trevor revealed that a couple of the young men from Apricot Hill had preemptively put in household transfer requests. Too little, too late. She’d done her job; it was all in committee hands now.

Bert drove, and Enid sat in the back with Aren, who was bundled in a wool cloak and kept her hands around her belly. They opened windows to the spring sunshine, and the car bumped and swayed over the gravel road. Walking would have been more pleasant, but Aren needed the car. The tension in her shoulders had finally gone away. She looked up, around, and if she didn’t smile, she also didn’t frown. She talked, now, in a voice clear and free of tears.

“I came into the household when I was sixteen, to work prep in the canning house and to help with the garden and grounds and such. They needed the help, and I needed to get started on my life, you know? Frain – he expected more out of me. He expected me to be his.”

She spoke as if being interrogated. Enid hadn’t asked for her story, but listened carefully to the confession. It spilled out like a flood, lie the young woman had been waiting.

“How far did it go, Aren?” Enid asked carefully. In the driver’s seat, Bert frowned, like maybe he wanted to go back and have a word with the man.

“He never did more than hit me.”

So straightforward. Enid made a note. The car rocked on for a ways.

Bannerless Gothic Ball. Photo by Elena

“What will happen to her, without a banner?” Aren asked, glancing at her belly. She’d evidently decided the baby was a girl. She probably had a name picked out. Her baby, her savior.

“There are households who need babies to raise who’ll be happy to take her.”

“Her, but not me?”

“It’s complicated situation,” Enid said. She didn’t want to make Aren any promises until they could line up exactly whicj households they’d be going to.

Aren was smart. Scared, but smart. She must have thought things through, once she realized she wasn’t going to die. “Will it go better, if I agree to give her up? The baby, I mean.”

Enid said, “It would depend on how you define “better.”

“Better for the baby.”

“There’s a stigma on bannerless babies. Worse some places than others. And somehow people know, however you try to hide it. People will always know what you did and hold it against you. But the baby can get a fresh start on her own.”

Can Any Fundamental System Pick Winners?

Can Any Fundamental System Pick Winners?

Research has also been done on whether above-average returns can be earned by employing trading systems based on press announcements of new fundamental information. The answer seems to be a clear no.

Systems have been devised in which a news event such as the announcement of an unexpectedly large increase in earnings or a stock split triggers a buy signal. But the evidence points mainly toward the efficiency of the market in adjusting so rapidly to new information that it is impossible to devise successful trading strategies on the basis of such news announcements (these tests are often referred to as tests to the “semi-strong” form of the random-walk hypothesis. The “weak” form asserts that past price information cannot be exploited to develop successful trading strategies. The “semi-strong” form says that no publicly announced news can be exploited by investors to obtain above-average returns.)

Research indicates that, on average, stock prices react well in advance of unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad earnings reports. In other words, the market is usually sufficiently efficient at anticipating published earnings announcements that investment strategies involving purchases or sales of stocks after the publication of those announcements do not appear to offer any help to the general investor. While it is true that some studies have found that stock price reactions to earnings announcements are not always complete, whatever abnormalities exist do not occur consistently over time and have been small enough that only a professional broker-dealer would have earned abnormal profits.

Frank Stollery Parkette, 1 Davenport Road. Photo by Elena

Similarly, no new information is obtained from announcements of stock splits. While it is true that companies announcing stock splits have generally enjoyed rising stock prices in the period prior to the announcement of the splits, the relative performance of the stocks after the announcement turns out be precisely in line with that of the general market. The research indicates that splits are a consequence, not a cause, of rising stock prices and that no useful investment strategy can be undertaken on the basis of news of impending stock splits. These studies lend support to the old Wall Street maxim, “A pie doesn’t grow through its slicing.”

There has also been a good deal of research on the usefulness of dividend increases as a basis for selecting stocks that will give above-average performance. The argument is that an increase in a stock’s dividend is a signal by management that it anticipates strong future earnings. Dividend increases, inn fact, are usually an accurate indicator of increases in future earnings. There is also some tendency for a strong price performance to follow the dividend announcement. However, any rise in price resulting from the dividend increase, while perhaps not immediately reflected in the price of stock, was reflected reasonably completely by the end of the announcement month.

Burton G. Malkiel. A Random Walk Down Wall Street, including a life-cycle guide to personal investing. First edition, 1973, by W.W. Norton and company, Inc.

The Semi-strong and Strong Forms of the Random-Walk Theory

The Semi-strong and Strong Forms of the Random-Walk Theory

The academic community had rendered its judgment. Fundamental analysis is not better than technical analysis in enabling investors to capture above average returns. Nevertheless, given its propensity for splitting hairs, the academic community soon fell to quarreling over the precise definition of fundamental information. Some said it was what is knows now; others said it extended to the hereafter. It was at this point that what began as the strong form of the random-walk theory split into two. As we have seen, the “semi-strong” form says that no published information will help the analyst to select undervalued securities. The argument here is that the structure of market prices already takes into account any public information that may be contained in balance sheets, income statements, dividend declarations, etc.: professional analyses of these data will at best be useless. The “strong” form says that absolutely nothing that is known or even knowable about a company will benefit the fundamental analyst. Not only all the news that is public but also all the information that it is possible to know about the company has already been reflected in the price of the stock. According to the strong frm of the theory not even “inside” information can help the investors.

The basic problem, both forms of the theory say, is that security analysts are very good at interpreting whatever new information does become available and acting on it quickly. Information is disseminated rapidly today, and it gets reflected almost immediately in market prices. The fact that they all react so quickly makes it extremely difficult for the analysts to realize a significant profit in the stock market on the basis of fundamental analysis.” (It might actually be very inconvenient for professional analysts if it could be shown that they did get above average returns. This would imply that some other group (presumably the public) was earning below-average returns. Think of the reformers who would press to restrict the pros » activities so as to protect the public).

The 4 Directions Garden. This circular garden's design is based on aboriginal medicine wheels and is arranged around the four cardinal compass points. It contains the food plants known as the Three Sisters, which are corn, beans and squash. As well, there are traditional medicinal plants including Pearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea), Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) and Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). In the east and west, sacred Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata) is planted to mreind us of the sweetness of life and respect for the Earth and all that it provides. Photo by Elena

Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson sums up the situation as follows:

If intelligent people are constantly shopping around for good value, selling those stocks they thing will turn out to be overvalued and buying those they expect are now undervalued, the result of this action by intelligent investors will be to have existing stock prices already have discounted in them an allowance for their future prospects. Hence, to the passive investor, who does not himself search out for under- and over-valued situations, there will be presented a pattern of stock prices that makes one stock about as good or bad a buy as another. To that passive investor, chance alone would be as good a method of selection as anything else.

This is a statement of the random-walk, or efficient-market theory. The “narrow” (weak) form of the theory says that technical analysis – looking at past stock prices – could not help investors. The “broad” (semi-strong and strong) forms state that fundamental analysis is not helpful either: All that is known concerning the expected growth of the company’s earnings and dividends, all of the possible favorable and unfavorable developments affecting the company that might be studied by the fundamental analyst, is already reflected in the price of the company’s stock. Thus throwing darts at the financial page will produce a portfolio that can be expected to do as well as any managed by professional security analysts. In a nutshell, the broad form of the random-walk theory states:

Fundamental analysis cannot produce investment recommendations that will enable an investor consistently to outperform a buy-and-hold strategy in managing a portfolio.

The random-alk theory does not, as some critics have proclaimed. State that stock prices move aimlessly and erratically and are insensitive to changes in fundamental information. On the contrary, the point of the random-alk theory is just the opposite: The market is so efficient – prices move so quickly when new information does arise – that no one can consistently buy or sell quickly enough to benefit.

Even the legendary Benjamin Graham, heralded as the father of fundamental security analysis, reluctantly came to the conclusion that fundamental security analysis could no longer be counted on to produce superior investment returns. Shortly before he died in 1976, he was quoted in an interview in the Financial Analysts Journal as follows:

“… I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities. This was a rewarding activity, say, 40 years ago, when Graham and Dodd as first published; but the situation has changed… I doubt whether such extensive efforts will generate sufficiently superior selections to justify their cost… I’m on the side of the “efficient market” school of thought…”

Burton G. Malkiel. A Random Walk Down Wall Street, including a life-cycle guide to personal investing. First edition, 1973, by W.W. Norton and company, Inc.

The Audience

The Audience

By Sean McMullen (excerpt)

The Javelin expedition had a single point of failure, which is something that disaster recovery people hate. There was enough reaction mass to get us to Abyss and stop with our tanks practically empty. All the gas giants of the solar system had ring systems of ice, so the designers had gambled on Abyss having rings as well. The gamble had paid off, so we could refuel and eventually go home.

Had the designers been wrong, there were two disaster recovery plans. One was for us to go into suspension once our explorations were done, and wait decades, or event centuries, for a follow-up expedition. If the moons of Abyss turned out to be interesting, we had the alternative of living out our lives there.

Mikov and I took the shuttle into the edge of the ring system, trailing a hose with a thermal lance and grapple on the end. This I attached to a chunk of ice about the size of an ocean liner during our first spacewalk. In doing so, I made humanity’s first contact with an extra-solar world.

“That’s one small gloverprint for a man,” I begun.

“And about two months of your pay docked if you finish that sentence,” said Landi in my earpiece. “Lucky this is not going live to Earth.”

“Okay, okay, I have touched a star and it is ice,” I said.

The Audience. Photo by Elena

“Once more, this time with a sense of wonder. The taxpayers back home want significant moments, not corny jokes.”

The thermal lance got to work, melting the ice and sucking the water into the half-mile hose leading to the Javelin’s tanks. It would take several weeks and dozens of spacewalks to collect the millions of tons of reaction mass needed to refill our tanks, but propellant to get home had priority over everything else.

“Hard work to make an exciting story out of a good outcome, eh Jander?” said Mikov.

“True, disasters make the best stories,” I replied. “My work is to make sure I have nothing to write about.”

The term science fiction was coined three hundred years ago, but evolved into what the academics call reactivity literature. How do humans react to the unknown? I write about it as a hobby. More to the point, I had been published. Some selection subcommittee decided that having an author in the crew might be a good idea.

Although weak, the gravity of the ring fragment had attracted some ice rubble to its surface, and I selected a fist-sized chunk to take back to the shuttle. With our ticket home now more or less secure, the science could begin. The shuttle made the short hop back to the Javelin, and I handed my insulated sample pack to Saral, the biologist, for analysis.

I was lying on my bunk in the gravity habitat, having a coffee and watching some drama download from Earth when Mikov rushed in.

“Saral’s discovered cells!” he exclaimed. “The ice is full of bacterial cells.”

Botanica Veneris

Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathagan

By Ian McDonald (excerpt)

In the name of the Leader of the Starry Skies and the Ever-Circling Spiritual Family, welcome to my hoondahvi. My apsas speak; my gavanda sing, may the thoo impact their secrets!

I understand completely that you have not come to drink. But the greeting in standard. We pride ourself on being the most traditional hoondahvi in Exxaa Canton.

Is the music annoying? No? Most Terrenes find is aggravating. It’s an essential part of the hoondahvi experience, I am afraid.

Your brother, yes. How could I forget him? I owe him my life.

He fought like a man who hated fighting. Up on the Altiplano, when we smashed open the potteries and set the Porcelain Towns afire up and down the Valley of the Kilms, there were those who blazed with love and joy at the slaughter and those whose faces were so dark it was as if their souls were clogged with soot. Your brother was one of those. Human expressions are hard for us to read – your faces are wood, like masks. But I saw his face and knew that he loathed what he did. That was what made him the best of javrosts. I am an old career soldier; I have seen many more come to our band. The ones in love with violence : unless they can take discipline, we turn them away. But when a mercenary hates what he does for his silver, there must be a greater darkness driving him. There is a thing they hate more than the violence they do.

Are you sure the music is tolerable? Our hormonies and chord patterns apparently create unpleasant electrical resonance in the human brain. Like small seizures. We find it most reassuring. Like the rhythm of the kitting-womb.

Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathagan. Photo by Elena

Your brother came to us in the dawn of Great Day 6817. He could ride a graap, bivouac, cook, and was handy with both bolt and blade. We never ask questions of our javrosts – in time they answer them all themselves – but rumours blow on the wind likd thagoon-down. He was a minor aristocrat, he was a gambler, he was a thief, he was a murderer; he was a seducer; he was a traitor. Nothing to disqualify him. Sufficient to recommend him.

In old days, the Duke of Yoo disputed mighty with her neighbor the Duke of Hetteten over who rightly ruled the altiplano and its profitable potteries. From time immemorial, it had been a place beyond: independently minded and stubborn of spirit, with little respect for gods or dukes. Wars were fought down generations, lying waste to fame and fortunes, and when in the end, the House of Yoo prevailed, the peoples of the plateau had forgotten they ever had lords and mistresses and debts of fealty. It is a law of earth and stars alike that people should be well-governed, obedient, and quite in their ways, so the Duke of Yoo embarked on a campaign of civil discipline. Her house-corps had been decimated in the Porcelain Wars, so House Yoo hired mercenaries. Among them, my former unit, Gellet’s Javrosts.

They speak of us still, up on the plateau. We are the monsters of their Great Nights, the haunters of their children’s dreams. We are legend. We are Gellet’s Javrosts. We are the new demons