Wednesday, October 19, 2022

对抗通胀

40多年前美国加息至20%对抗通胀,如今美联储正在复制当年的操作

Here is the link.

2022年3月至今美联储已连续五次提高联邦基金利率,从0-0.25%上升至3%至3.25%,FOMC点阵图显示11月和12月联储还要加两次息,分别加息75和50个基点,到今年年底联邦基金利率大概率突破4%,达到4.25%-4.5%。

美联储疯狂加息是因为美国国内正在经历较为严重的通货膨胀,2022年6月美国CPI达到41年来的巅峰,同比上涨超过了9%,7月和8月的CPI虽有所下降却都在8%以上,尤其是8月,市场原本预测美联储大幅度加息后美国物价数据将下降至8.1%,实际公布的结果高出预期,达到了8.3%。

美国现在的通胀数据和联邦基金利率高吗?从近年来看确实不低,但在历史上还不够看,上个世纪70年代末、80年代初美国经历了超级大通胀,CPI年率一度达到了14%以上,时任美联储主席沃尔克将利率加到20%后才逐步抑制住了美国的通货膨胀。

沃尔克因此一战成名,成为了美联储历史上最成功的主席之一,被视为大英雄,他那应对通胀的手法得到后世反复使用,包括现在的美联储主席鲍威尔实际上用的还是那套东西。

先带大家回顾那段金融史上惊心动魄的往事。

 

“救世主”驾临美联储,把现任总统都搞走了

高通胀严重打击了美国企业与老百姓的士气,卡特总统在1979年7月撤换了不信任的内阁成员并罢免了财政部长,当时的美联储主席米勒深得总统芳心,看着财政部部长的位置空了出来,米勒被调到财政部成为了新部长,美联储主席的位置就此空了出来。

曾担任过财政部副部长的经济专家沃尔克临危受命成为了新的美联储主席,他面临的是前任留下的高通胀烂摊子。

艺高人大胆的沃尔克身高接近2米,看上去威武雄壮,他的内心和外表一样足够强硬,上任后的第一件事就是加息。

随着联邦基金利率的逐步提高,美国的经济出现负增长、失业率上升、出口额下降,紧缩的货币政策遭到多方质疑,甚至连任命沃尔克的卡特总统也表示了不满。

这段期间沃尔克放缓了加息的速度,卡特总统则因既没有搞定通胀又没能让美国经济复苏未能连任,里根成为了美国的新总统,沃尔克迎来了大展拳脚的机会。

大通胀来袭,完全止不住

1973年至1975年美国经济经历了严重衰退,经过一系列措施后在1976年走出泥潭但通胀率开始居高不下。

CPI刚开始还在5%上下,1978年之后开始加速上行,到了1980年达到了历史最高的14.8%,整个70年代美国通胀的平均值为7.1%,远高于60年代的2.4%。

1978年,卡特总统任命米勒为新任美联储主席,指望着他能够平滑美国恐怖的物价上涨,只是结果不尽如人意。

米勒并非经济学科班出身,在美联储内部难以服众,在大部分美联储委员提议采取紧缩货币的情况下他却投出了反对票,米勒认为高通胀是因为私企员工工资太高,和货币超发没有关系,不同意提高利率以减少货币供给量。

到了1978年年底CPI同比涨幅上升到9%,美联储短暂提升了利率,之后因担心影响经济走回了老路,利率水平开始下降。

随着第二次石油危机的爆发,全球油价大幅上涨,CPI在1979年达到了11.8%,美国老百姓的生活成本持续处于高位,大家都顶不住了。

 

通胀得到抑制,为美国经济繁荣打下扎实基础

1980年4月美联储将利率提高至接近20%,美国的PMI指数下滑道29.4(50为荣枯线),二季度GDP环比折年率下降8%,失业率升至7.5%,与此同时,通胀得到了初步控制,为了减轻货币政策对经济的抑制,联邦基金利率开始下降。

不过,油价上涨让通胀重新抬头,美联储再次将联邦基金利率逐步提高至20%,值得注意的是,1980年年底里根击败了一众候选人后成为了美国第40任总统,1981年正式上任,他和卡特不同,面对通胀从不犹豫,强烈支持沃尔克为抑制通胀而采取的各类货币紧缩政策。

 

1981年,联邦基金利率在经历了几次上下波动后最后一次来到了20%的高位,沃尔克吹响了反攻的号角并取得了成果。

在美联储反复打压下美国的CPI从14.8%的历史高位下降至1981年中旬的10.8%,到了1982年年底跌至4.6%,月环比增幅也从1%下降至0.2%,至此通胀得到了控制,沃尔克用了二年多时间彻底打败了通胀。

这段期间内美国经济陷入过两次衰退,但沃尔克没有改变对通胀零容忍的立场,为抑制通胀不惜承担衰退带来的痛苦。

正因为沃尔克的坚持,美国用短痛替代了长通,通胀下降后美国经济迎来大复苏,以股市为例,1981年4月至1982年8月,道琼斯指数从最高点累计下跌了24%,但在之后的一年里迎来反转,上涨超过了60%。

更加重要的是,终结通胀为美国经济90年代的经济腾飞打下了坚实基础,克林顿总统成功“捡漏”,其实沃尔克才是被后世公认为拯救美国经济的英雄。

 

沃尔克成功的秘诀有两点,快准狠加心理引导

沃尔克之所以能在当年搞定通胀主要有以下两个原因。

1.快刀斩乱麻,毫不迟疑

加息必然会导致经济出现一定程度的衰退,沃尔克之前的美联储主席面对经济衰退的局面犹犹豫豫,一会加息、一会降息,希望找到平衡点,但实际情况是通胀根本“不配合”,来势汹汹引发长期衰退。

在加息引发短暂衰退与不加息无法抑制通胀的两难抉择中沃尔克选择了前者,他的成功之处在于其抗通胀的决心异常坚定,愿意承受美国经济的短暂衰退为代价,将联邦基金利率提高至历史高位。

 

2.有效的预期管理

沃尔克上任前民众普遍不相信美国的通胀能够得到有效控制,为了少受通胀影响一有钱就换成商品,需求增加让商品价格上涨,进一步推高物价水平,形成越是担心通胀、越是疯狂购物、物价上涨越快的恶性循环。

沃尔克当上主席后重塑美联储公信力,激进的加息政策让老百姓更加愿意存钱,当大家预期未来物价将会平稳后对于商品的需求量下降,买东西的人、存钱的人多,物价自然开始回落,恶性循环被打破。

其实对通胀的预期管理是一种心理引导,沃尔克改变了全美对通胀的看法。

 

现在的美联储是在复制沃尔克当年的套路

现任美联储主席鲍威尔一定是沃尔克的铁杆粉丝,应对通胀的手法和沃尔克如出一辙。

2022年3月美联储加息25个基点,通胀没有得到抑制;2022年5月加息50个基点,还是没有得到控制;最近的三次加息均将联邦基金利率提高了75个基点,通胀开始有了缓和的迹象。

连续加息75个基点是近年来美联储最激进的货币紧缩政策,鲍威尔还公开发表了对抗通胀没有那么容易,可能会引发经济衰退的言论,将寒气传递了出去。

哪怕面临经济衰退(美国已经连续两个季度GDP环比下滑,这被视为技术性衰退)也在所不惜,长痛不如短痛,沃尔克式操作手法。

 

预期管理方面,美联储早在今年上半年通胀刚刚抬头的时候就反复强调美国的长期通胀率目标为2%,这个观点即使在6月CPI达到9.1%的时候依然没有改变。

这是鲍威尔嘴巴硬还是美联储死要面子的言论呢?

其实都不是,是美联储在做通胀预期管理,反复强调2%的长期通胀率向市场传递了物价不会失控,CPI未来会下降到合理数值的信号,美联储不希望预期失控导致美国物价上涨进入恶性循环。

当下的通胀比40多年前好一些,但俄乌冲突、新冠疫情叠加后让美国的物价问题变得更加复杂,鲍威尔想要成为21世纪的沃尔克,除了复制前辈的操作外还得多想想其它办法。

 


Understanding JavaScript Execution Context like never before

Here is the article. 

JavaScript's Execution Context is the base of understanding many other fundamental concepts correctly. Often we find lots of misunderstanding in each of the following concepts just because we misunderstood the fact behind Execution Context. 

  • Hoisting
  • Scope
  • Scope Chain
  • Closure
  • Event loop
Benefits to understand execution context:

  • Introduce lesser bugs into the Source Code. 
  • Become a boss in doing great code reviews
  • Great eyes for Debugging
  • Easier ways to tackle production issues






The JavaScript `this` Keyword + 5 Key Binding Rules Explained for JS Beginners

 JavaScript's this keyword is one of the hardest aspects of the language to grasp. But it is critically important for writing more advanced JavaScript code.

In JavaScript, the this keyword allows us to:

  • Reuse functions in different execution contexts. It means, a function once defined can be invoked for different objects using the this keyword.
  • Identifying the object in the current execution context when we invoke a method.

The this keyword is very closely associated with JavaScript functions. When it comes to this, the fundamental thing is to understand where a function is invoked. Because we don't know what is in the this keyword until the function is invoked.

The usage of this can be categorized into five different binding aspects. In this article, we will learn about all five aspects with examples.

  1. There are three very special methods, call(), apply() and bind() that help us achieve explicit binding.

In Summary

To summarize,

  • In the case of implicit binding, this binds to the object adjacent to the dot(.) operator while invoking the method.
  • In the case of explicit binding, we can call a function with an object when the function is outside of the execution context of the object. The methods call(), apply(), and bind() play a big role here.
  • When a function is invoked with the new keyword, the this keyword inside the function binds to the new object being constructed.
  • When the this keyword is not resolved with any of the bindings, implicit, explicit or new, then this is bound to the window(global) object. In JavaScript's strict mode, this will be undefined.
  • In HTML event handlers, this binds to the HTML elements that receive the event.

There is one more case where this behaves differently, such as with ES6 arrow functions. We will take a look at that in a future article.


Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Meta | SeekingAlpha article

 

Meta Down -62.56% YTD, Teaming Up With Microsoft Could Be A Major Future Catalyst

Here is the link.

Monday, October 17, 2022

Mona Mahajan

 As the Senior Investment Strategist and a member of the Investment Strategy team, I'm responsible for providing market advice and guidance across asset classes, in addition to supporting our financial advisors and clients with differentiated investment thought leadership. I also serve as a key spokesperson, communicating – both internally and externally – the firm’s investment ideas and asset allocation views. I appear regularly on broadcast media, such as CNBC and Bloomberg TV, as well as print media, to express the firm's market and economic views.


Follow me at Twitter @MonaMahajanView

Edward Jones, a Fortune 500 company headquartered in St. Louis, provides financial services in the U.S. and, through its affiliate, in Canada. Every aspect of the firm's business, from the investments offered to the location of branch offices, caters to individual investors. The firm's nearly 19,000 financial advisors serve more than 7 million clients with a total of $1.6 trillion in client assets under care. Visit edwardjones.com or the recruiting website at careers.edwardjones.com. Member SIPC.

A Strong U.S. Dollar Buoys Small-Cap Companies’ Stocks

 

The S&P 600 small-cap index is on pace to outperform the S&P 500 this year for the first time since 2016



Small-cap stocks are bouncing back. A strong U.S. dollar is boosting their run.

After suffering bruising losses earlier this year, shares of many small, domestic-focused companies are outshining the large-capitalization stocks that dominate the U.S. equity markets. In October, the S&P 600 small-cap index has risen 5.3%, beating the large-cap S&P 500’s 2.6% increase. For the year, the S&P 600 is on pace to outperform the S&P 500 for the first time since 2016.

Here is the article. 

Best small-cap funds

 

Best small-cap funds

If you don't want to choose individual small-cap stocks for your portfolio, you can instead gain exposure to small-cap companies by investing in a small cap-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF) or mutual fund. Here are a couple of options:

  • iShares Russell 2000 ETF (NYSEMKT:IWM): This ETF tracks the performance of the Russell 2000, which is considered the leading index of small-cap stocks. The fund's managers charge an annual management fee of 0.19%, which works out to $1.90 for every $1,000 invested.
  • Fidelity Small Cap Growth Fund (NASDAQMUTFUND:FCPGX): This mutual fund invests in small-cap stocks that have high growth potential. It's actively managed, with the objective of outperforming the Russell 2000, so the fund's fees -- 0.94% annually -- are somewhat high compared to most ETFs.

Friday, October 14, 2022

AJAX with PHP: Load dynamic content to websites

 Add dynamic, asynchronously loading content to websites to make them more modern, professional, and user friendly with Ajax and PHP. Learn how to use Ajax to send and receive data in the background and how to use PHP to assemble and return text, HTML, or JSON responses. Kevin Skoglund walks viewers through sample projects for the most common Ajax use cases: buttons to allow users to mark or favorite items, forms that validate and submit data in the background, infinite scrolling of paginated content, and autosuggestions beneath a text field.

Learning objectives

  • What is Ajax?
  • Creating Ajax requests and responses
  • Monitoring Ajax request state and events
  • Responding to Ajax requests with HTML and JSON
  • Building Ajax buttons
  • Submitting forms with Ajax
  • Implementing infinite scrolling
  • Adding autosuggestions to text fields

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Time to push hard on learning

Oct. 13, 2022

I like to go back to work on web programming daily and master PHP programming with mySQL, WordPress. If I commit 100% to my coding skills, I definitely can see big difference every month or three months. 

7 things to learn 

I finally figure out that best learning is to work on a project, and then work hard on the goal to complete the project. I like to choose to be a software programmer to devote my heart on the project I am working on. 

  1. Always work on a project with some coding requirements; 
  2. Take small breaks to look up internet, Linkedin courses and other resources like youtube.com videos;
  3. Keep hands on coding project 70% of time at work. It is better to code and learn, learn and then code;
  4. It is important to learn to work with others. 
一个程序员上班投入100%时间, 争取做最好最有效工作;需要不停挑战自己。 光看书, 看课程,没有压力, 时间浪费了。做好一个程序,需要付出辛苦劳动。 

利用上班时间,锻炼自己。多做几个项目,提高自己能力。提高工作效率。

做好编程工作,需要花很多时间。 自己管理好自己,需要付出辛苦劳动。 




PHP - AJAX and MySQL

Here is the article.

AJAX can be used for interactive communication with a database.

AJAX Database Example

The following example will demonstrate how a web page can fetch information from a database with AJAX:

Example Explained - The MySQL Database

The database table we use in the example above looks like this:

Example Explained

In the example above, when a user selects a person in the dropdown list above, a function called "showUser()" is executed.

The function is triggered by the onchange event.

Here is the HTML code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<script>
function showUser(str) {
  if (str=="") {
    document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML="";
    return;
  }
  var xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
    if (this.readyState==4 && this.status==200) {
      document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML=this.responseText;
    }
  }
  xmlhttp.open("GET","getuser.php?q="+str,true);
  xmlhttp.send();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>

<form>
<select name="users" onchange="showUser(this.value)">
<option value="">Select a person:</option>
<option value="1">Peter Griffin</option>
<option value="2">Lois Griffin</option>
<option value="3">Joseph Swanson</option>
<option value="4">Glenn Quagmire</option>
</select>
</form>
<br>
<div id="txtHint"><b>Person info will be listed here.</b></div>

</body>
</html>

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

Web programming courses on Linkedin learning

  1.  JavaScript: Enhancing the DOM
  2. The DOM in JavaScript, jQuery, AngularJS, and React
  3. Succeeding in Web Development: Full stack and Front end
  4. UX foundations: Accessibility
  5. Responsive layout

Web programming foundations | 2 hours course

Here is the link. 

To be an effective web programmer, you have to understand what happens when you enter a URL or click on a link. Under every webpage lies the markup—JavaScript, HTML, and CSS—and the hierarchy that controls display—the Document Object Model (DOM). Then there is the server that hosts the files, the browser that renders them, the metadata, and the mobile experience to consider. Explore what happens below the surface, and learn how to write better code. This course provides a deep dive into the world wide web, and the underlying structures you need to understand to build robust applications and websites that are efficient and easy to maintain. Learn how HTML documents provide the foundation for CSS and JavaScript, and see how to layer presentation and interactions on top. Learn how different code editors and browsers interact with web content, enabling editing, programming, and display. Discover why accessibility is so important to keeping the web open and available to all users, and what workflow works best for web programming. Instructor Morten Rand-Hendriksen keeps the lessons fun and fast-paced, so it's easy for almost anyone—web programmers, web designers, and even web publishers—to follow along.


PHP Select Option

 Here is the article. 

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the <select> element to create a drop-down list and a list box and how to get the selected values from the <select> element in PHP.

A quick introduction to the <select> element

The <select> is an HTML element that provides a list of options. The following shows how to define a <select> element in HTML:

Friday, October 7, 2022

Node js vs. PHP: An In-depth Comparison Guide for Web Development

Here is the article. 

Both PHP and Node.js are effective options for back-end development. And just like with other technologies, there’s a debate in the dev community when it comes to defining which of these is the best. 

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform runtime environment that executes JavaScript for backend and frontend development. While PHP is an open-source server-side script language. Currently, one of the most popular and used technologies of all time. 

So which of them is better? And how do you choose whether to use PHP or Node.js for your next project’s server-side development? Let’s find out!

In this comparison article, we will look at the two of them in-depth understanding their advantages and disadvantages and comparing their:

  • Performance
  • Development
  • Database
  • Hosting
  • Execution speed
  • Practical application


Wednesday, October 5, 2022

PHP: Object-Oriented Programming with Databases

 Learn how to interact with databases using object-oriented PHP code. In this intermediate course, Kevin Skoglund teaches powerful PHP techniques that streamline interactions with MySQL databases. PHP developers will benefit from the efficient, well-organized, reusable, and easy-to-understand code that object-oriented programming (OOP) offers. Kevin shows how OOP techniques can optimize database queries, help manage sessions, and simplify user logins. He provides practical examples and tips to create objects that interact seamlessly with database rows, to build a content management system with HTML forms, to authenticate users, and to break up long lists of database data into smaller pages.


Note: This is an intermediate-level training course that assumes you have existing knowledge of PHP. To refresh your skills, check out PHP Essential Training and PHP: Object-Oriented Programming.

Learning objectives

  • Creating a project database and tables
  • Connecting to the database
  • Database queries with OOP
  • The active record design pattern
  • Defining a database-driven class
  • Performing common database tasks with OOP
  • Creating inheritable and reusable code
  • Object-oriented user authentication
  • Object-oriented pagination

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

PHP Array | Time to go over all functions

Here is the link. 

  1. array()
  2. array_change_key_case
  3. array_chunk()
  4. array_column()

Strictly typed | PHP

 

Creating Strictly Typed Arrays and Collections in PHP

Here is the article. 

Problems with this kind of typed arrays

One of the downsides of using this feature as typed arrays is that we can only define one such array per method. Let’s say we wanted to have a Movie class that expects a list of air dates together with a list of ratings in the constructor, instead of setting them later via optional methods. This would be impossible with the method used above.

Another problem is that when using PHP 7, the return types of our get() methods would still have to be “array”, which is often too generic.